ITALY 



The Villa d'Este, Rome 



BUILDING of country houses at 

 * Tivoli began in the last years of the 

 Republic. Roman citizens tried to escape the 

 heat on these wooded and well-watered slopes, 

 where the air is so pure that it is commonly 

 believed to whiten ivory.* 



Humanism and the Renaissance brought a 

 return to classical habits, princes and prelates 

 vying with one another in the sumptuousness of 

 their villas. 



It was the second Cardinal Hippolytus of Este, 

 son of the Grand Duke Alfonzo I, and friend of 

 Francis I, who decided to build a villa at Tivoli 

 and chose the present site. Where the villa now 

 stands were squalid streets, which had to be 

 thrown down, and where the gardens were to lie 

 stood great rocks, boulders and spurs of travertine, 



* Martial, lib. 7, epis. 12. 

 232 



