THE GARDENS OF PAPAL ROME 



" Dimmi ch'io potro aver ozio talora 

 Di riveder le Muse, e con lor, sotto 

 Le sacre frondi ir poetando ancora . . . 

 Pei Sette Colli." ARIOSTO. 



IMPERIAL Rome, we are often told, was a city of 

 gardens. The sumptuous pleasure-grounds of the 

 Emperors and the gardens of wealthy patricians, such 

 as Lucullus and Sallust, extended over a large portion 

 of the Seven Hills. On the terraced slopes at the 

 foot of the Janiculum were the public gardens be- 

 queathed by Julius Caesar to the people ; on the 

 opposite heights of the Esquiline was the villa of 

 Maecenas, where Horace and his friends enjoyed the 

 hospitality of their august patron. Even the Suburra 

 was not without flowers, and Pliny speaks of the 

 window-gardens of the poorer citizens. The sites of 

 these old gardens and the names of their owners still 

 lingered in the mind of the mediaeval Roman, from 

 whose memory the vision of ancient Rome and its 

 departed splendours had never wholly faded. But 

 the revival of gardening that formed so marked a 

 feature of the Renaissance did not reach Papal 

 Rome until the first years of the sixteenth century. 



