66 



THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



For a hundred years the history of the villa has been bound up with that of the French 

 Academy. A fine bronze bust beneath the gallery commemorates M. Suvee, the Director at 

 whose suggestion the villa was bought. The Act is dated May i8th, 1803, and is signed for 

 France in the name of the First Consul of the Republic. M. Suvee writes at the end of the 

 year : "I have just transferred the establishment to the new palace ; nothing is ready for us, 

 but the impatience of the students, as well as my own, made it impossible to put it off longer." 



The French Academy was founded by Louis XIV in 1648 at the instigation of the great 

 Minister Colbert. Its annals show a long list of famous names, among them Gaspard and 

 Nicolas Poussin, Horace Vernet, Boucher, Fragonard, David, Ingres, Corot. To-day it 

 maintains twenty-four students who have gained the Prix de Rome, and who live here for four 

 years, with a studio and an ample allowance, besides extra sums for materials and travelling. 

 All the students dine together in a large hall hung with portraits of the former members for a 

 hundred years past. The splendid library is hung with exquisite Gobelins tapestry, the gift 

 of Louis XIV, whose statue, together with that of Louis XVIII, stands in one of the salons. The 

 tapestries, which are from designs by Raphael and his pupils, had long lain in some obscure 

 corner, but were unearthed by the painter Ingres. Ingres placed upon the walls many classic 

 fragments, and. set up plaster models of the old statues upon the pedestals. Copies of the lions 

 and of Gian Bologna's Mercury have also been placed where their originals formerly stood. 



During the last few years a special interest has been reawakened in some of the bas-reliefs 

 which are built into the facade of the villa. Three of these are fragments from the Ara Pacis, 

 the celebrated altar of Augustus, which has been excavated from beneath a palace in the Corso. 



A short stair leads up to the roof of the garden gallery, where a fine view is obtained 

 of the villa, with its stone pines, and in the distance the heights of Monte Mario and the dome of 

 St. Peter's. Behind this terrace lies a deep, dark ilex wood, a haunt for fauns and dryads, and 

 through its shades you mount up to where the Temple of the Sun once stood, and where now 

 all Rome goes sooner or later to watch the glorious sunsets. All round the little belvedere the 

 ilexes are clipped into a marvellous bocage, which stretches away in a perspective of smooth green 

 convexity. The sky grows golden and scarlet and fades into a hue of clearest green, and 

 before you can descend the first lights have begun to twinkle amidst the purple depths of the 

 city spread out far beneath your feet. E. M. P. 



78. NORTH WALK. 



