hedges, which open out midway for the introduction of a quite simple 

 fountain. This has a round cistern built of thin red Roman brick ; above 

 it is a plain moulded tazza pierced with a dozen holes, from which as 

 many spouts discharge the overflow from the great central jet. 



Prato, or meadow, is the name appropriately enough given to the rough 

 grass lawns that in so many instances have usurped the place once occupied 

 by the parterre in Italian gardens. In this lower section of the villa the 

 gardener has made some attempt to introduce beds of roses among the 

 grass, but it is an unequal fight, and Nature seems destined to be the con- 

 queror. In spring time these prati are bespangled with wild flowers of 

 every hue. Here and on the rough terrace beside the belvedere were 

 violets and anemones, poppies, ox-eye daisies and love-in-a-mist, campanula 

 and marigold, scabious and mallow, campion and the scentless mignonette, 

 together with a hundred other lovely weeds forming a veritable " wild- 

 garden " in themselves. 



Amongst other things besides flowers to be met with in the long grass 

 were the large emerald-green lizards, as well as the smaller sorts ; great 

 horned beetles ; and not a few snakes of the larger black, as well as of the 

 striped kind, which basked in the warm sun and seemed at times almost 

 loath to move ; yet the contadini walk fearlessly, and as often as not bare- 

 foot, among them. 



Beneath the belvedere is a vaulted grotto or salle fraiche, with a wall- 

 fountain that spouts into a marble sarcophagus. On each side of this, 

 stairways wind upward to the much more desirable open-air chamber 

 above, where marble benches invite you to sit in the cool shadow thrown 

 by the great stone pines which encircle it. From this point pleached 

 arbours formerly led, parallel to those on the other side of the little 

 valley ; probably they even joined hands across the vineyard, but only 

 traces of them now exist. 



The casino is an unpretentious cream-coloured building, with green 

 persiennes and low-tiled roof flanked by two dove-cotes. An interesting 

 and unusual feature of the house is the arched gateway which pierces it 

 from front to back, and creates one of those vistas so beloved by our 

 ancestors. 



All about the villa, and forming an integral part of the " lay out," 



42 



