pleasant colour. A broad walk leads direct from this gateway to the 

 portico of the casino. 



Even as far back as the fourteenth century the Popes were in the 

 habit of making Frascati an occasional residence, especially during the 

 warm summer months, but it was not until the sixteenth century that 

 there sprang up the great princely villas of which the Villa Falconieri 

 claims to have been the first. It was erected before 1550 by Monsignor 

 Rufini, but his earlier building, if it still exists, is masked by later 

 additions. In the following century the villa passed to the Falconieri 

 family, and the casino was restored and much enlarged for them by 

 Francesco Borromini, who also built the Falconieri Palace in Rome. 

 Borromini is one of those architects of whom it may be said that, though 

 he broke every law laid down by the older architects, he nevertheless 

 fails to make his buildings either impressive or picturesque. 



According to Matteo Greuter, the parterre occupied the space between 

 the entrance gate and the casino, and was laid out with box or myrtle 

 hedges set in geometrical pattern, with various fountains and other 

 centre-pieces. One among these was a circle of seats overshadowed by a 

 great tree, whose spreading branches are trained to form an arbour with 

 a huge boss over the centre. At a farm in Tuscany the writer came 

 across just such a tree as this, which the peasants had amused themselves 

 by training into the form of an umbrella, the constant clipping having 

 created a perfect network of twiggery. Besides the arbour Greuter 

 shows indications of other topiary work about this parterre. It is, how- 

 ever, needless to say that this garden has entirely disappeared, though 

 half hidden among the thickets may be found some seats and rude circles 

 of stone which may possibly be the remains of it, though they prob- 

 ably belong to a much later date. 



At the rear, the casino looks out upon another terrace on a lower level. 

 There is little left to indicate what was the nature of the garden on this 

 terrace. Was it another parterre, with arbours and fountains, or a formal 

 bosco intersected by long shady alleys ? Shade was such an essential 

 matter in connection with these summer retreats that the bosco seems to 

 our northern minds to attain almost undue importance. To-day it is a 

 pleasing mixture of orchard and kitchen-garden, with just a sprinkling of 



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