VILLA 
dress of velvet, with a lace tucker and her hair 
in bunches of classic curls, sitting with her two 
little girls, who wear high-waisted, scanty frocks, 
and their hair @ /a Chinoise. Among the family 
papers are some of the old “bretti which were 
used by the talented amateur company. Donna 
Margherita was a devoted friend of the Countess 
of Albany, and there is some tradition, though no 
actual record, of visits paid to the villa by the wife 
of the unfortunate James Stuart. 
Nothing can be more attractive or more 
deftly planned than the garden, which develops 
from the formal and well-kept centre, with its 
artistic fountain nucleus, which is gay with flowers, 
to the sweep upwards and backwards, following the 
rise of the mountain, and spreading out on either 
hand by broad stairways, set with vases and bounded 
by stately balustrades, up to terraces and fountains 
and reservoirs, from which fantastic spiral canals of 
stone carry off the dashing water. It is all beneath 
the shadow of noble plane trees and giant ilexes. 
At the summit a delightful pleasaunce is reached, 
where a grand fountain “of the horses” is 
surrounded by circular seats of stone, mossy and 
crumbling, rich with the tints of time. Slender 
columns stand round, and on either hand is a 
frescoed pavilion. We can picture vividly the gay 
gatherings here in bygone days—the songs, the 
gaiety, the artificial manners, the real enjoyment, 
of all that light-hearted, frivolous Court life which 
grew up in Italy in the seventeenth, and lasted to 
the nineteenth, century. This pleasaunce is the 
culminating point of the garden proper, and above 
and beyond, it merges into deep ilex woods, with 
long alleys and woodland walks, and spaces where 
here and there, a lovely fountain covered with green 
moss, flings its slender silver shaft aloft into the cool 
shade, and where blue and white anemones and 
rose red cyclamen carpet the ground in spring. 
Still further beyond, the wide and shadowy woods 
lie all round Bagnaia, and stretch up the spurs of 
Monte Cimerio. These woods are full of game, and 
the Duke of Lante enjoys excellent sport in them. 
The fountains have all names: there is the 
fountain of the Dolphin and of the Ducks, the 
fountain of the Chase and that of the Giants, the 
Chain Fountain and the Octagon; here, you see 
LANTE. 
the insignia of the crab, and there that of the 
mountain, and again the three eagles of Lante. 
In 1772 Cardinal Marcello Lante made the grand 
entrance and erected a wrought-iron gate. 
The grounds here are kept up carefully 
according to English ideas, with the taste which 
makes the formal part a blaze of flowers, and yet 
gives full value to the romantic and timeworn 
aspect of the whole. The present Duke is an 
artist of no small distinction, a fact which it is 
not difficult to discover in noting the way in which 
restorations and improvements are carried out. 
An enclosure called the Duchess’s Garden is, 
indeed, given up to the ravages of some wild boar, 
brought from the Pontine marshes; but as it is 
within high walls, and has no view, it is not to 
be regretted. The water was at one time diverted 
from the fountains by an earthquake, but has now 
been brought from the hills at great expense, 
and flows freely in every part. Some of the old 
rooms, which were formerly used for service, have 
been decorated in keeping with the rest of the 
villa, and the whole presents a wonderfully complete 
example of an Italian country house, still lived in 
for the greater part of the year by its owners, 
those owners who are the descendants of men 
who were among the great powers before the 
days of the Renaissance. 
Those who gratefully acknowledge the generous 
kindness which throws these beautiful grounds 
open to visitors from many lands, in whose 
memory their loveliness must linger long, will 
not enjoy them less because they know that 
Villa Lante is still a home in the fullest sense 
of the word, that its owners love it devotedly, 
that little children, than whom none can _ have 
been more dear and winning, play where their 
ancestors played of old, and that (in this, happily, 
unlike those selfish days) the poor of the town below 
are no longer forgotten, but that the present Duke 
has well earned the title of Pater Patria, is Mayor 
of the town, enters into its joys and difficulties, and 
is well known and loved of his people. The 
thanks of the writer are due to the kind and 
learned chaplain of the household, the Rev. Don 
Bernardino Rezzi, to whom much of the information 
regarding the history of the villa is owing. 
