are at present the most carefully kept up have suffered 

 the most severely from the changing fashion of the 

 time. However, in almost all of them there is some- 

 thing of their best time which, either by reason of the 

 great difficulty of alteration or from some other cause, 

 has been allowed to remain. It has been attempted 

 in the illustrations here given to reproduce these traits 

 and such others as seem good in themselves. 



It should be said here that the word " villa " is used 

 in the Italian sense, implying all the formal parts of 

 the grounds arranged in direct relation to the house, 

 the house itself being as much a part of it as the gar- 

 den or the grove. 



The evident harmony of arrangement between the 

 house and surrounding landscape is what first strikes 

 one in Italian landscape architecture the design as a 

 whole, including gardens, terraces, groves, and their 

 necessary surroundings and embellishments, it being 

 clear that no one of these component parts was ever 

 considered independently, the architect of the house 

 being also the architect of the garden and the rest of 

 the villa. The problem being to take a piece of land 

 and make it habitable, the architect proceeded with 

 the idea that not only was the house to be lived in, 



but that one still wished to be at home while out-of- 



6 



