THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
the land was acquired from the municipality; there 
were not wanting irreconcilables who protested 
against the destruction entailed of the humble homes 
which clustered down the mountain-side, but any 
individual hardship must have been counterbalanced 
by the employment and prosperity which the 
Cardinal brought. It was a gigantic task imposed 
upon the old builder, the fashioning of that stretch 
of rough ground and crowded buildings into beauty 
and symmetry. It was above all a summer palace 
which Ligorio was to create, and surely never was a 
construction which kept its purpose more closely in 
view or of which the resources were handled in 
more masterly fashion. 
The river Anio flowed into Tivoli from the 
mountain heights, and a part of the waters, at vast 
expense, were turned to flow with great force 
through the grounds. The natural descent of the 
mountain was carved into huge terraces, the whole 
laid out in a grandiose scheme of fountains, grouped 
with planting, and connected by paths and_ stone 
stairways. The villa, which is entered from a 
piazza of the little town, is built round a court with 
offices and chapel. The grand staircase leads down- 
wards to the main apartments, and the facade of 
three stories stretches the whole width of the 
garden, which falls away in front of it. 
The villa is a simple structure of a good period 
of the Renaissance, with rooms opening one into the 
other, and a long gallery at the back of each storey. 
They are spacious and airy, every one looks to the 
sunshine and the view. The two first stories have 
delightful loggie faced with travertine, and deep- 
seated windows, temptingly adapted for conversation 
or for reading and basking. The long gallery at the 
back of the principal suite is set at intervals with 
fountains, and must have afforded a deliciously cool 
promenade in the hottest weather. A double flight 
of steps leads down to the ample terrace, at one end 
of which rises a stately archway leading to little 
loggie, and a belvedere from which to enjoy the 
enchanting prospect. 
“A view,” writes Fulvio Testi to the Duke of 
Modena in 1620, ‘which perhaps has not its equal 
in the world.” It is not only that from far below 
there rises up the ‘silver smoke” of the olives, and 
that far beyond stretches the vast campagna, its gold 
and purple lights and shadows melting into the hues 
of the Sabine Mountains, while faint upon the 
distant horizon may be descried the pearly bubble 
of the great Dome which broods over the Eternal 
City ; it is not only the exquisite beauty, but the 
whole plain teems with memories “ half as old as 
Time.” Here have marched Roman legions, here 
Brutus and Cassius have fled, red with Cesar’s blood, 
here Zenobia passed to her long captivity in Tivoli, 
here Federigo of Urbino rode at a later day. 
Yonder stood the villa of Mecenas, and blue Soracte 
watches unchanged as in the days when it saw the 
revels of the Antonines or the delights of Hadrian’s 
Villa. 
From below, tower aloft the rich, dark velvet 
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columns of the cypresses ; on all sides even now, 
though their supply is much diminished, is heard 
the splash and tinkle of the fountains. ‘There are 
said to be 360 in the grounds, divided into great 
groups. Below the main terrace stretches the 
g : z ' ate ; 
Gallery of a Hundred Fountains ; it is 3oo/t. long, 
and on the upper side is a wall of waterworks, 
headed with a long range of armorial bearings— 
“‘the eagle white, the lily of gold” of Este. ; The 
base was adorned with stucco reliefs of the 
metamorphoses of Ovid. In summer the whole is 
clothed in a luxuriant curtain of maidenhair fern. 
On a raised plateau at the end of the gallery, 
looking towards Rome, can still be distinguished 
models of the Pantheon, Temple of Vesta, and 
other buildings, which went by the name of 
Roma Vecchia, and sent out a thousand jets of 
water. At the other end is the Ovato, which 
Michael Angelo, when he visited here, called the 
Queen of Fountains. Through an archway a 
green enclosure is reached, where river gods and 
goddesses of heroic size still recline above the 
foaming cascade. Some fragments mark where 
Pegasus once rode as on Mount Helicon, above 
these cool arcades, where a few of the naiads who 
poured water from urns and played with dolphins 
are still lingering. The deep green shade, the 
cool air, damp with spray, the sound of falling 
water, make this an ideal spot on a hot Southern 
afternoon. 
Below the gallery, enclosed in a graceful, 
curving stairway, down the balustrades of which 
cascades once dashed to the basin below, are the 
remains of the Fountain of the Dragon. This 
was designed to celebrate the visit of Pope 
Gregory XIII., whose crest was a dragon. It 
burst forth by torchlight on the closing evening 
of his stay, and we are told that he was “ surprised 
and delighted” at the compliment. At the foot 
of the steep descent the garden spreads out broad 
and level, and is crossed by a succession of deep 
fish-ponds set in massive stonework, on which stand 
huge vases. The rush of water from the upper 
end comes from the elaborate wall-fountain of 
the Organ, a splendid construction which played 
“madrigals and other music.’ Round one were 
trees made of brass and stucco, in which were 
perched mechanical birds, which sang “each in 
his natural voice”? till a c/vetta or owl appeared, 
when they became silent; the owl withdrew, and 
they sang again. In the cypress groves are traces 
of other grand fountains, a beautiful triumphal 
arch, the Girandola, from which water escaped 
by such fine channels that it resembled dust, and 
traces of a group dedicated to the Goddess of 
Nature. 
The Cardinal employed Ligorio to excavate 
in Hadrian’s Villa, and in Tivoli itself, and the 
gardens were adorned with numbers of statues, 
many of them superb works of antiquity. In 1664, 
Archbishop Fabio Croce gives a list of over sixty 
groups, figures, and busts ‘still remaining ” ; and 
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