l\TRODl'CTORY. 



Above the upper floor, the piano nobile, the vast roof is the granary of the farm, and no 

 one heeds the wild skirmishes of the rats. When the Great Lady, ruler of the entire district, 

 goes forth a trumpet blast announces the fact. She regulates the lives of her dependants in 

 every detail, including their marriages. It is an intimate union of the life of the countryside 

 in its lowest as well as its more developed form. We understand how from Roman days the 

 I'alax/o of the family in the Citta had its wine shop on the ground floor, where the produce 

 of the family vineyard was openly sold. 



Thanks to this union of villa and farm, we get the delightful foregrounds of vines and 

 olive trees. The low, horizontal lines of the casa are contrasted by the aspiring poplar, whose 

 vertical lines express so much energy, controlled always within the graceful outline of the mass. 

 In the larger villas a massive campanile, or tower belvedere, centres the group of related 

 though divergent buildings. In 

 the early morning the wide eaves 

 cast shadows reaching to the 

 very foot of the walls, a shadow 

 screen which rises slowly till at 

 noon its depth is that of their 

 projection. The wide-spaced 

 windows afford an adequate 

 area of wall for true dignity, and 

 the closed Venetians preserve 

 the surface of the wall in a 

 broad mass of brilliant, spark- 

 ling sunshine. Creamy white 

 buildings, with brown, golden- 

 spotted roofs set in olive green 

 tones and contrasted against 

 dark poplar masses, and, over- 

 head, brilliant, unfathomable 

 depths of blue sky -such is 

 the unfading mental picture 

 of the villas of the heart of 

 Italy. 



Still there remains another, 

 and yet different, group of 

 impressions the clustered hill- 

 sides of the sea coasts and of 

 the inland lakes where terraced 

 masses of white dots are strewn 

 profusely over green slopes that 

 are well-nigh obliterated. An 

 impatient desire to restore the 

 solitude of nature is checked 

 by the thought of the per- 

 vading interest of human life 



and effort concentrated in areas of such continuing habitation. Such must have been the aspect 

 of the shores of Baiae when the ire of the Roman satirist was provoked by the artificial 

 peninsulas on which the wealthy erected their villas in the very sea itself. It is human life 

 unwinding the same scroll with some slight variation only of the lettering within. 



Too much can be made of the absence of flowers, destined by brilliancy of colouring and 

 shortness of life in such a climate to the wise restraint of some special enclosure. Here, 

 in walled or balustraded surroundings, the orange, magnolia, myrtle and rose tree 

 flourish with a surpassing effect due to their very scarcity of use. Italy has had little use 

 for grass banks ; the masonic tradition is, fortunately, too strong, and no embanked terrace 



8. BELVEDERE. 



