1 66 



THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



by water. He calls it " deplorable music." " What can be more chilling than to see these 

 stone creatures, daubed with colour, making melancholy music without piping or moving ? ' 

 He and his friends spent an afternoon at Frascati in getting thoroughly drenched. The fun 

 began at Mondragone, round the " basin of the polypus," so called from leather pipes set round 

 it. It looked dry and innocent, but, on a secret tap being turned, the water swelled into the 

 pipes and they gradually turned their showers upon all within reach. De Brosse and his grave 

 companions abandoned themselves to the sport of turning them against one another, with such 

 gusto that they were soon soaked from head to foot. Having changed their wet clothes at the 

 inn, they were presently, after sitting quietly at Villa Aldobrandini, listening to the doleful strains 

 of the centaur, unsuspicious of a hundred little jets of water concealed in the stonework, which 

 suddenly spurted upon them. Being thoroughly wet through again, he says, they gave them- 

 selves up to these games for the rest of the evening, and he particularly commends " one 



173. VIEW OF THE GREAT HEMICYCLE AT THE BACK OF THE VILLA ALDOBRANDINI AT FRASCATI. 



excellent little staircase, which, as soon as you go up it, sends out jets of water which cross from 

 right to left and from top to bottom, so that there is no escape." At the top of the stairs they 

 were revenged on the mischievous comrade who had turned the tap. He tried to turn a fresh 

 one, but this was constructed expressly pour tromper les trompeurs. It turned upon the farceur, 

 by name Legouz, with astonishing force, a torrent as thick as his arm, which caught him full 

 in the middle. " He fled with his breeches full of water, running out into his shoes." After 

 this they had to eat their supper in dressing gowns, having no more dry clothes ; and, having 

 eaten two or three pounds of nougat, in addition to a bad supper, it is not surprising to hear 

 that they had a violent nightmare, and we only marvel that apparently no one died of rheumatism 

 or inflammation of the lungs. 



The fine rooms of the palace were at one time hung with paintings by Domenichino, 

 executed at the time when he was painting the famous frescoes at Grotta Ferrata, but, as they were 



