240 



THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



learned society engaged in the study of the tenet of Vitruvius. This slight notice of the man 

 is justified in view of his great influence on the villa and garden architecture of Italy. At 

 Rome in the Villa Giulio, at Frascati, and here at the Villa Lante we find him concerned in 

 the most sober and best detailed examples. Pirro Ligorio alone probably could excel or 

 compare with him in this garden architecture. Daniel Barbaro, whom we shall meet 

 with at Maser, visited, and greatly admired, Caprarola. He says, " Non minuit, immo 



magnopere vicit prasen- 

 tia famam." A. T. B. 



From an old deed in 

 the archives of Viterbo we 

 learn that Bagnaia in the 

 twelfth century was the 

 property of the Lombard 

 Counts of Castellardo, by 

 whom it was given to the 

 Commune of Viterbo. 

 This deed was deposited 

 by Christian, Archbishop 

 of Mayence, Chamber- 

 lain to the Emperor 

 Frederick I, in 1173. It 

 was, in fact, restored by 

 him to Viterbo, which 

 had forfeited it as a 

 punishment for having 

 destroyed the city of 

 Ferento. 



In the fourteenth 

 century Ranieri, Bishop 

 of Viterbo, was a mighty 

 hunter. He used to hunt 

 and hawk in the moun- 

 tains round Bagnaia, and 

 built himself there a little 

 hunting lodge, to which 

 he could escape in the 

 intervals of administering 

 his see. That little lodge 

 still stands, stout and 

 solid, and forms the stable 

 of the present villa. 

 Through the stucco and 

 whitewash with which it is covered struggle the dim traces of a coat of arms, the heraldic device 

 of Bishop Ranieri. The bishopric was a poor one, and the municipality of Viterbo, wishing 

 its bishop to have an income more worthy of it, presently made over to the see the whole of 

 the lands and township of Bagnaia, which became the country seat of its bishops, who one 

 after another laid out and embellished the grounds. 



In 1566 Cardinal di Gambara was elected to the bishopric. The craze for building villas 

 was just reviving in Italy, and no villas were more beautiful than those which rose round 

 Rome the stupendous pile of Caprarola, the romantic scheme of Este, and the lovely and 

 lovable Lante. 



Cardinal di Gambara employed the great Vignola, who was already at work a few miles 

 off at Caprarola, and it is interesting, as illustrating the variety of which this famous architect 



250. THE FOUNTAIN OF PEGASUS, VILLA LANTE. 



