7 o 



THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



ill-treated by her husband, appeals to him in heartrending distress, another lays before him all 

 the details of a lawsuit. Poets hasten to dedicate their works to him, while ambassadors come 

 to see his latest acquisitions. He was one of the earliest and most generous patrons of Bernini, 

 who has left us two splendid portrait busts of him, which are now in the Accademia in Venice. 

 The eyes are small and piercing, yet good-tempered, the nose coarse, the mouth large and 

 genial, while, as a whole, the countenance has a look of power and kindliness. 



The Cardinal's first idea in making the villa seems to have been that of having a place of his 

 own outside the city to which he could invite Court personages and distinguished foreigners. He 

 had already acquired an estate at Frascati, and had there built a superb villa ; but as Secretary 

 of State, he found it difficult to go there frequently, much more so to transport thither the 

 ecclesiastics of the Sacred College, the Roman nobility, the foreign ambassadors and the Court 



82. FOUNTAIN IN THE CROSSWAYS. 



ladies who made up the society in which he delighted. He designed the villa Borghese, more- 

 over, in a measure for the benefit of the Roman people, to whom it was often opened. 



Scipione Borghese died in 1633, leaving all his possessions to his brother, Marc Antonio, 

 who had been created Prince of Sulmona. In succeeding years there are continual records of 

 vineyards and pieces of land being bought and thrown into the grounds of the villa. The Borghese 

 princes always reserved the right to close it on certain days, but by about 1828 it had come to be 

 looked upon almost as a place of public resort. In that year its owner complains of damage done to 

 the fountains, and it was closed fora time, but was again opened at the urgent request of Cardinal 

 Aldobrandini. In 1832 permission was given to open a restaurant, splendid public fetes were 

 held there, and by 1865 it was thrown open on six days of the week. When an attempt was 

 made to close it in 1884 the public rebelled, and the journals declared that the populace, citizens, 

 artists, strangers, the Court, and the King and Queen, were all alike mortified and inconvenienced. 

 For some time it was subject to capricious regulations, and it is a matter for congratulation that 

 the largest and most splendid garden of Rome, which bounds the whole of one side of the city, 

 is now at length freely thrown open as the property of the nation. 



