THE GARDENS OF -ITALY. 
school. It is difficult to say which facade of the 
palace is the more imposing. Passing behind it, we 
find that it confronts a sort of theatre of waterworks, 
where nymphs and water-gods recline in grottoes, 
and fountains rush from above, though with some- 
thing less than the volume of other times. A 
good many of the fountains have, indeed, disap- 
peared, but what has been lost is more than retrieved 
by the beauties which three centuries of time have 
added—the mellow tints given to the stonework of 
palace and balustrade, the luxuriance of the ilex 
wocds, and the stately plane trees, which are worthy 
descendants of those described by Pliny when he 
ascribes their size to their being nourished with 
wine. 
President de Brosse, in the delightful and witty 
letters which describe Rome in the middle of the 
eighteenth century, gives an entertaining account of 
the rather puerile forms of amusement then in 
vogue. After an enthusiastic description of the 
Belvedere, as Villa Aldobrandini was then called, he 
describes groups of statues, some of which have now 
disappeared, a faun and centaur, the nine Muses, 
and Apollo, all joining in a concert on musical 
instruments played by water. He calls it ‘deplorable 
music.” ‘ What can be more chilling than to see 
these stone creatures, daubed with colour, making 
melancholy music without piping or moving?” 
He and his friends spent an afternoon at Frascati 
in getting thoroughly drenched. The fun began at 
Mondragone, round the “basin of the polypus,” 
so called from leather pipes set round it, which 
looked dry and innocent, but on a secret tap being 
turned the water swelled into them, and_ they 
gradually turned their showers upon all within 
reach. De Brosse and his grave companions 
abandoned themselves to the sport of turning them 
against one another, with such gusto that they 
were soon soaked from head to foot. Having 
changed their wet clothes at the inn, they were 
presently, after sitting quietly at Villa Aldobrandini, 
listening to the doleful strains of the centaur, 
without having suspected a hundred little jets of 
water concealed in the stonework, which suddenly 
spurted upon them. Being thoroughly wet through 
again, he says, they gave themselves up to these 
games for the rest of the evening, and he particularly 
commends ‘‘ one excellent little staircase, which as 
soon as you go up it, sends out jets of water which 
cross from right to left and from top to bottom, 
so that there is no escape.” At the top of the 
stairs they were revenged on the mischievous 
comrade who had turned the tap. He tried to 
turn a fresh one, but this was constructed expressly 
pour tromper les trompeurs, Tt turned upon 
the farceur, by name Legouz, with astonishing 
force, a torrent as thick as his arm, which caught 
him full in the middle. ‘He fled with his 
breeches full of water, running out into his shoes.” 
After this they had to eat their supper in dressing- 
gowns, having no more dry clothes; and having 
eaten two or three pounds of nougat, in addition 
( 
to a bad supper, it is not surprising to hear that 
they had a violent nightmare, and we only marvel 
that apparently no one died of rheumatism or 
inflammation of the lungs. 
The fine rooms of the palace were at one time 
hung with paintings by Domenichino, executed at 
the time he was painting the famous frescoes at 
Grotta Ferrata, but as they were suffering from 
damp, they were carried off to the Borghese 
palace, the Borghese being at that time proprietors 
of the villa. The gallery has paintings of the 
temptation and fall, the expulsion from the Garden 
of Eden, and other Old Testament scenes, by 
Cavaliere d’Arpino, a fashionable and mediocre 
painter of the day. 
When Goethe was staying at Frascati, he was 
invited to see Prince Aldobrandini. A German 
artist named Kaisermann was just then engaged in 
painting the views of Frascati which are still to be 
seen on the walls of the grand saloon. Goethe 
gave the artist a commission to paint the town and 
the panorama beyond, from the terrace, and the 
picture still hangs in the room in which the poet 
died, at Weimar. 
The estates of the Aldobrandini were left to 
the Borghese on condition that they should belong 
to the second brother, who was to assume the 
name. A hundred years ago Don Paolo Borghese, 
Prince Aldobrandini, being afraid of the damp, 
fitted up a casino in the town of Frascati, which 
was furnished with every comfort that his taste 
could devise, and here he entertained parties of 
friends, including many English travellers of the 
day. He did the honours of Tusculum to the Duke 
of Gloucester among others, and was very proud 
of an English carpet which was the Duke’s gift. 
Georges Sand wrote with true insight into 
the charm of these delicious haunts, with their 
fascinating combination of art and nature, aided, 
as it already was in her day, by the hand of Time. 
The over-artificial air had already vanished. The 
water no longer moved the musical instruments 
which roused the ire of De Brosse. ‘They still 
bound into marble shells, but the music is that 
of Nature, the stucco grottoes are hung with a 
ferny tapestry, the moss has laid its velvet upon 
staring mosaics, Nature has rebelled, has taken a 
forsaken look, we hear a note of ruin and a song 
of solitude.’ Nothing can adequately convey the 
charm of the deep woods which le all around, where 
the sacred grove of Diana is believed once to have 
flung its shade. Here we come upon a tiny 
antique altar, there in the green dusk is a moss- 
grown stone seat, the lizards bask in the shafts 
of sunlight, the never-ceasing plash of fountains 
fills the air, and beyond is the wide sunny terrace, 
with its rows of huge vases and one or two giant 
pines standing out against the far campagna, 
which changes in beauty all through the day, till 
the sun sinks in rose and gold into that shining 
line of sea beyond Ostia, and a wonderful luminous 
pink haze bathes the whole vast plain. 
154) 
