THE VILLA CHIGI, ROME 



PLATES 86, 87, 88 



BOUT four miles beyond the Porta Salaria, on the Campagna, is the Villa 

 Chigl, one of the very few of the smaller Roman villas that still remain 

 untouched by modern improvements and the speculative builder. We pass 

 on our way many remains of villas that even as late as the first half of the 

 nineteenth century retained their old-world charm. Here and there some 

 quaint courtyard or parterre garden, or fine entrance gateways erected in the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries— as that for example belonging to the 



Villa Porta. One looks forward to the day — perhaps not very far distant— when a restoration 



of some of these villas might be made, and 



instead of the houses that to-day arise, in all 



the glory of the ' new art,' outside the walls 



of Rome, we may see a return made to the 



quiet stately villa of the seventeenth century. 



It is interesting, therefore, to put on 



record a plan of the Villa Chigi (Plate 86), 



which, although surveyed in 1806, is in 



exactly the same condition to-day. It is a 



combination of farm and villa, and has a 



pleasing air of comfort about its simple 

 architecture. 



The casino is a low oblong house, quite 

 Tuscan in appearance, with broad overhang- 

 ing eaves. From the entrance gateway a 

 long vista is obtained right through the 

 house, across the parterre, and down a long 

 shady alley. North and south of the casino 

 is the garden, laid out in regular plots sur- 

 rounded by low hedges of box, forming a series of delightful little flower gardens. At either end 

 is a little bosco, with here and there a statue or term. Long alleys extend upon either side 



GATE\C^^* VILLA PORTA^ROME 



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( 105 ) 



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