A GROUP OF GARDENS. 
N the heart of the Corso you turn into the 
courtyard of the Doria palace, most magnifi- 
cent of private palaces. It used to be said 
that a thousand persons lived under the roof, 
exclusive of the gallery and private apartments, 
which alone surpassed in extent the majority of 
Royal residences. Here, in the corti/e, built by 
Valvasor1 and Pietro da Cortona, there is a garden 
with tall palm trees, stiff and stately, as befits the 
surrounding architecture. Near Porta Pia are the 
beautiful gardens of the English Embassy, rich in 
tall cypresses and dark ilexes, and gay with the 
flowers which a succession of English chdte/aines have 
encouraged there. In one part we come upon 
a vista, wild with red poppies or purple 
foxgloves, rising round a broken column, in 
another a formal garden spreads its gay pattern. 
The garden is bounded by the walls of old Rome, 
and on the top of them a walk has been made, 
from which there is an exquisite view over the 
campagna and the Sabine and Alban _ hills 
through the interstices of rose-covered pergolas. 
Every visitor to Rome knows the imposing 
entrance to the Barberini palace, but few penetrate 
beyond Bernini’s splendid gates and palace, and 
mount the circular stair that leads to the old garden 
lying on the slopes beyond. It has been encroached 
on, upon either hand, by streets, but there still 
remains a considerable stretch, a fine retaining wall 
with balustrades decorated with rococo figures, and 
where a gateway formerly opened, is a noble 
umbrella pine. 
No visitor is ever admitted into the precincts 
of the Aldobrandini palace, but its wealth of 
greenery and the flush of its Judas trees in the 
springtime, can be — descried from the Via 
Nazionale. The Brancaccio palace has the largest 
gardens in Rome, with a beautiful show of palms. 
They enclose several old ruins, remnants of the 
Nero, and the reservoir which 
seen 
Golden House of 
served the baths of Titus and of Trajan. From 
these slopes a fine view is obtained of the 
Colosseum, with the campagna beyond, The old 
vineyards of the Esquiline have been turned into 
shady walks, orange trees have been planted, and 
lawn-tennis grounds laid out for gay young Romans 
and Americans. 
One of the comparatively little-visited villas is 
that belonging to the Barberini family at Castel 
Gandolfo, the grounds of which take up the whole 
side of the hill reaching to Albano. The villa 
garden is full of vestiges of antiquity, and is an 
example of the way in which the buildings of the 
modern world were superimposed upon the decaying 
sites of the classic era. This is believed in the later 
times of the Republic to have been part of the 
possessions of Claudius and of Pompey. Certainly 
the Emperor Domitian had a magnificent country 
house here, where he passed much of his time and 
held assemblies of men of letters. The Amphi- 
theatre where he used to behold the destruction 
of a hundred wild beasts in a day, joined his gardens, 
and the ruins of it can still be traced in an adjacent 
vineyard, The upper part of the Barberini gardens 
consists of three long walks, between which are 
square hedges—at one end a flower garden. The 
wall to the right is continued along a terrace, 
raised over an immense gallery, which, no doubt, 
is part of that of Domitian, that gallery described 
by ancient authors, where he used to dispute with 
his courtiers on political and historical subjects. 
Some scraps of ornament still remain, fragments 
of stucco and gilding. The general style is that 
of the Temple of Peace in Rome, built by his 
father, Vespasian. It is easy to make out, by 
following the vestiges of a wall which evidently 
bounded the gallery, that it must have been at 
least a mile in extent. The avenues of the great 
Cardinal, who revived the traditions of this villa, 
are, in their way, nearly as striking. They are 
shaded by noble ilexes, open to the west winds 
and the setting sun, and it is impossible to imagine 
more delightful walks. Fragments of cornices, 
columns, antique marbles, and porphyry are found 
in all directions, and small square pieces of glass, 
or rather of paste, abound, and are remains of the 
numberless mosaic pavements of the villa. At the 
extremity of the walk is an antique statue of a river 
god, and below is a grand old avenue of stone pines. 
The picturesque stairway illustrated here is in 
the garden of the Villa Borghese at Frascati. The 
villa lies immediately below Mondragone, and is the 
one which Ferdinando Taverna, Governor of Rome, 
presented to Paul V. It was built for Cardinal 
Borghese by the Roman architect, Girolamo Rai- 
naldi, and a grand avenue of cypresses leads from 
it to Mondragone. It has passed into the 
possession of a family named Parisi, who now call 
it by their name. 
Villa Sciarra, on the Janiculum, which for 
generations belonged to the Sciarra branch of the 
great Colonna family, has lately been bought by 
