THE GARDENS OF PAPAL ROME 



meet him, and troops of children waving olive boughs 

 in their hands. To-day there will be a very different 

 kind of procession. ... So the glories of this world 

 pass away and our Lord God shatters the plans of poor 

 mortals as He sees fit." ] 



After Leo the Tenth's death La Magliana was prac- 

 tically deserted by the Papal Court. To-day it is a 

 farmhouse and the walls are crumbling to pieces. The 

 ceilings are blackened with smoke, and the banquet- 

 halls where cardinals and princes feasted have been 

 turned into barns and stables. Lo Spagna's frescoes 

 were removed many years ago to the Louvre and the 

 Capitol, and little remains to recall the time when these 

 empty halls were crowded with a gay throng of cour- 

 tiers and servants, and the clatter of horses' hoofs and 

 the joyous sound of the horn rang through the court- 

 yard. 



Popes and cardinals, princes and scholars, each had 

 his country-house which he built and decorated after 

 his fashion. But the grandest of all the villas that 

 rose into being in the age of Leo was the pleasure- 

 house which Raphael built on the slopes of Monte 

 Mario for the Pope's nephew, Cardinal Giulio de' 

 Medici, afterwards Pope Clement the Seventh. Not 

 only was Cardinal Giulio his uncle's most influential 

 counsellor, but popular report already marked him out 

 1 Contin, Lettere Diplomatiche, p. 19. 



83 



