THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



369 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

 GENOESE GARDENS AND VILLAS: INTRODUCTORY. 



TIIH architecture of ( Jenoa, owing to its special character, is of great interest to the 

 modern world. As an outcome of successful commerce and prompted by a love of 

 display, it possesses many of the drawbacks that are apt to accompany the rapid 

 growth of wealth in a community where art is liable to be under a relaxed control in 

 the element of selective taste. The redeeming element in Genoa may, perhaps, be found to 

 reside in an adequate scale that quality of monumental dignity which counteracts the destruc- 

 tive poison of meanness and vulgarity. The streets of old Genoa may thus have a lesson for 

 the great modern cities. Alike in lay-out and in individual mass there is ample evidence of strong 

 character. The merchant princes of Genoa carried the same feeling that leavened their 

 palace architecture into 

 the design of the great 

 villas that lay outside, 

 or just within, the ring 

 of fortifications. These 

 latter, now obsolete, have 

 been superseded by iso- 

 lated forts that crown 

 the lofty hills surrounding 

 the town, and the old 

 villas are either absorbed 

 into the city or are now 

 surrounded by growing 

 residential or industrial 

 suburbs. This change 

 in their setting must be 

 constantly borne in mind. 

 The Villa Cambiaso 

 is, probably, one hundred 

 feet square, while the 

 Villa Paradiso is a great 

 oblong whose least 

 dimension is perhaps 

 about the same. With 

 three storeys and a half- 

 basement these palaces 

 have adequate size to 

 produce a striking effect 

 bv reason of their mass. 



J 



When we add to this all 



the advantages derived 



from their position on the 



hillsides, with successive 388. FOUNTAIN IN THE CORTILE OF THE PALAZZO PODESTA 



terraces nobly embanked AT GENOA. 



