248 



THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



As years passed the magnificence of Cardinals became less liable to reproof, and no one 

 thought of objecting when Cardinal Montalto, succeeding to the bishopric at length carried out 

 Vignola's plan and added the second villa. This, uniform outwardly with the first, consists 

 inside mainly of reception and guest chambers ; the original villa being reserved for the owner's 

 own use. Neither is of more than one storey in height, and the chief part of the second villa is 

 occupied by a fine hall, which has a very beautiful ceiling by Zuccaro, in stucco, gilding and 

 fresco. It is in perfect preservation and recalls the famous one by the Carracci in the Farnese 

 palace in Rome. The framework is composed of large female figures in high relief, white and 

 gold, with outstretched arms, joining hands, between which are set mythological scenes. The 

 frieze introduces the armorial bearings of Montalto ; a lion, together with the pear tree of his 

 maternal house of the name of Peretti. 



The delightful formal garden below the twin villas had already been laid out by Cardinal 

 Gambara, but it was reserved for Montalto to erect its crowning ornament in the magnificent 



258. TWO WAYS TO THE FIRST TERRACE, VILLA LANTE, BAGNAIA. 



central fountain which for beauty and originality of design and setting has hardly its equal in 

 Italy (Fig. 246). Four huge tanks are enclosed by stone parapets on which stand vases, and in 

 the middle rises a group of splendid young athletes, who hold aloft the high mount, the" Monte 

 Alto," of the Cardinal. Against the blue distance the powerful figures are grandly relieved, 

 black and gleaming. " Bronze," you say at once, but they are not bronze at all, but the finest, 

 hardest travertine, which the sun and the water have transmuted into a material as hard as iron, 

 so that it is difficult to believe that it is not really metal. Already in Canova's day the group 

 had taken its present colour, and the sculptor marvelled at it, saying, as he tapped it with his 

 hammer, " It will outlast marble." At the Villa Lante one Prince of the Church succeeded 

 another and the ilexes grew taller and richer, till in 1656 Duke Ippolito of Lante laid a request 

 before Pope Urban VIII that he would grant him its use for three generations to compensate 

 him for the loss of Villa Lante on the Janiculum, which the Pope had confiscated in order to 

 build fortifications on the site. Neither Urban nor his successor, Innocent X, would agree, 



