132 Old Gardens of Italy 



in possession of the Este family, and now belongs 

 to Archduke Francis Ferdinand Este, of Austria. 

 Open daily to the public. 



The gardens of Villa d'Este have retained their 

 ancient design perhaps more completely than any 

 others in Italy. Their chief feature is the treatment 

 of the bountiful water supply, brought at huge cost 

 from the Anio. The fountains, etc., were planned 

 by Orazio Olivieri, and are totally different to any- 

 thing of the kind elsewhere. One of the lower 

 terraces is fringed with jets, and fountains rise one 

 above another at the middle of each stage of the 

 central ascent. Four great, oblong pools, with 

 enclosing balustrades, stretch from side to side of 

 the lower portion of the garden, with an immense 

 cascade at one end, and rising from a terrace above 

 it is a water organ. A tiny giardino secreto is close 

 by. The whole plan of the grounds on the face of 

 a steep hillside has been carried out in a fascinating 

 manner and regardless of cost. 



VILLA LANTE, VITERBO.* 



DESIGNED, it is believed, by Julio Romano and 

 Vignola. One of the Casinos was begun in the 

 fourteenth century by Raphael Riario as a hunting 

 lodge. Cardinal Ridolfi and Gianfrancesco Gambara, 

 then Bishop of Viterbo, carried on the work, the 

 latter laying out the garden, and on his death in 



* There is an unusually full description of this garden in Montaigne's 

 Travels. He visited it in 1581. 



