VILLA D’ESTE, 
TIVOLI 
ERHAPS in its ruin the garden of Villa 
d’Este is even more imposing than when 
it was exquisitely ordered and gay with 
flowers. Falda’s old prints show us 
formally-arranged parterres and newly-planted trees 
and shrubs ; now, the cypresses, the ilexes, and the 
plane trees have attained a colossal growth, yet we 
still recognise that the effect as a whole was 
planned from the outset. Those old gardeners 
managed that their scheme should unfold con- 
sistently with each succeeding year. The garden 
is a wonderful specimen of symmetrical arrange- 
ment, and must have been beautiful from the first. 
On a first survey the impression is one of 
romantic and bewildering beauty. Everywhere 
we are met by noble terraces, by old grey-stone 
stairways and balustrades, by half-ruined fountains, 
by shady groves and alleys, which breathe the very 
spirit of romance, and are fit to be the haunt of 
faun and dryad. Roses—pink, white, and red— 
hang in sheets over the grey stonework, and Judas 
trees flush purple in the spring, while in late 
autumn every corner is aglow with chrysanthemums, 
Then we try to distinguish the scheme, and we 
ask who they were who wrought here, and what 
vas the life they led ? 
The story of the fallen condition of Tivoli, 
the ancient Tibur, and its revival in the sixteenth 
century, are proclaimed in a Latin oration of the 
poet Mureto, which runs almost literally : 
“Years came and went, that joy of other days, 
Tibur, lay ruined, lost her old-world praise. 
Gone were her streams and orchards, gone the last, 
The stately footprints of her buried past. 
Those scenes so oft the theme of classic lay, 
Mouldered, unkempt, unsightly in decay, 
Weeping their vanish’d joys, her sylvan daughters, 
Wandered by mourning Anio’s fainting waters. 
A wayfarer in Tibur’s heart might stand, 
And, ‘where is Tibur?’ cry; so marr’d the land. 
That godlike soul, the sacred choir’s delight, 
Hypolytus brooked not so sad a sight. 
He bade the woodlands dress once more in green, 
With far-flung leafage, wandering o’er the scene. 
He bade fresh well-springs ooze from out the hills, 
And in a breath, forth leapt the new-born rills. 
Saved from the wreck of Time, hail the escape 
Of marbles fair, to Phidias owing shape. 
Brow-bound with olive wan, joyful once more, 
Anio pours wealth into the common store. 
Well may those hallowed rills, these woodlands vie, 
In wafting one great name into the sky— 
List to the breezes, murmuring along, 
‘Hypolytus’ is still their tuneful song.’ 
» 
The classics are full of the fame and prosperity 
of Tivoli in the days when Augustus held summer 
court in the mountains and Horace entertained at 
his villa; but all these glories disappeared with the 
glory of Rome. The town, though still possessing 
some importance, was squalid and poverty-stricken, 
though, from time to time, the reigning Pope or 
some Roman noble fled to the mouldering old 
Castello to avoid the heat of the plains. It was in 
the spring of 1549 that the courtly and accomplished 
young Cardinal of Ferrara, Ippolito d’Este, was 
named Governour of Tivoli by Paul III. The son 
of Alfonso I., Duke of Ferrara, and Lucrezia Borgia, 
he must not be confused with his warlike and 
unscrupulous uncle of the same name, the brother of 
Isabella d’Este. This Ippolito was her nephew, and 
had already shown all the diplomatic qualities of his 
famous house. He had had a distinguished career 
as Ambassador to the Court of France, he was 
Bishop of Siena, Abbot of Jervaulx, held half-a- 
dozen other French dignities, was deep in the 
confidence of the Pope and the leading Italian 
statesmen, and a renowned patron of art and letters. 
Popular, magnificent, beloved and admired, the 
Cardinal, according to the fashion of the day, was 
accompanied by a splendid cortege of more than 250 
nobles and distinguished /i/terat? as, on a beautiful. 
spring day, he rode across that historic plain to take 
possession of his appointment. The Tiburtines 
mustered all their resources to give him a welcome : 
a band of horsemen and footmen met him outside 
the gates (he entered just where the tram-line now 
ends), the elders and magistrates proffered the keys 
within, a hundred children in white waved palm 
branches, trumpets pealed, and salvoes of artillery 
were fired. “‘ He was so gratified and pleased that 
his eyes were full of tears.” Almost at once he 
must have formed the plan of living here, and 
decided to pull down the old Castello in which he 
was lodged. He consulted with Pirro Ligorio, a 
follower of the great Vignola, and they produced 
an outline for a villa which should rival those at 
Lante and Caprarola. For a large sum of money 
