120 



THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



There is a story that a fiery horse galloped through these gardens on April nth, 1655, 

 heralding the death of Innocent X. In 1760 the last heir male of the house of Pamphilj died, 

 and the property passed to that of the Borghese, into which family he had married, and by 

 them it descended to the Dorias. 



In the last century, Silvagni, in his Corte Romana, recounts a love tragedy, in which a son 

 of the house of Pamphilj Doria was one of the principal actors. The delightful gossip and 

 historian describes a funeral that he witnessed while still a child, when the body of a beautiful young 

 girl, dressed in white, with her long hair streaming round her, and her head crowned with roses, 

 was borne on an open bier through the streets of Rome. The flaming torches in the evening 

 twilight, the suppressed emotion of the crowds, and the waxen pallor of the face upon the bier 

 had made an impression which the child never forgot. The cortege stopped under the walls 

 of Doria palace, the murmur of the crowd grew loud and deep, as threats and imprecations 

 were uttered. The lovely maiden was Vittoria Savorelli, who had died for love of Don 

 Domenico, the second son of Prince Pamphilj Doria, and all Rome was alight with indignation. 



130. TERRACE OF THE CASCADES. 



The story was a sad and simple one. Vittoria was a lovely and accomplished girl, of a 

 romantic, excitable temperament, full of strong religious enthusiasm, and entitled to a large 

 fortune. Suitors were not lacking, but she showed no inclination towards any of them until, 

 in the winter of 1836, at the age of nineteen, she met at a ball Don Domenico Doria, who was 

 just twenty-one. He was a good-looking young fellow, a fine shot and rider, a beautiful dancer, 

 but already dissipated and frivolous. He was much attracted by Donna Vittoria, sought her 

 out, and distinguished her in every way, and her letters show very innocently how irresistible 

 she found him, and how she gradually gave to him her whole heart. The son of the Pamphilj 

 Doria was an excellent match, and no obstacles were thrown in the \vay of his suit. Vittoria 

 tells how she celebrated a Triduo to the Virgin, and on returning home was rewarded by finding 

 that the young man had sent his ambassador to her mother. ' I had no doubt they were 

 speaking about me," she writes. " Never did I find the society of my young cousins so 



