VILLA LANCELLOTTI 



Adjoining the Villa Aldobrandini, and sharing with it the same well 

 wooded hill-side, is the Villa Lancellotti. The dividing line between 

 the two villas is the rough mule track which passes by the Capuchin 

 Convent and climbs up the shady road to ancient Tusculum. 



What little we can learn of its history is not specially interesting, 

 nor does it help us to arrive at the date when first the villa was laid out. 



About the year 1590 the property was acquired by Monsignor 

 Alfonso Visconti ; it was again sold in 1609 to Mario Mattel ; in 16 17 

 it passed to Roberto Primo, a Pisan noble whose daughter carried it to 

 her husband, Silvio Piccolomini, and in his family it remained until 

 about the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was acquired by 

 Principe Massimo-Lancellotti. Which of its earlier owners laid out the 

 villa and built the casino^ I have been unable to learn. Over an entrance 

 to the villa are inscribed the words, " petr : piccolomens : 1730," which 

 help but little to a solution of the question. The casino^ with its 

 grey-tiled roof and overhanging eaves, is almost severe in its simplicity. 

 The windows are few and wide apart, as is to be expected in a house 

 built purely for the villegiatura. The garden fafade is almost level, only 

 a slight break occurring in the centre, where a loggia of three arches, 

 entered from the piano nobile^ is introduced above the entrance doorway. 

 This section of the front is carried above the roof and is finished with a 

 balustrade and statues. 



From each end of this front project avenues of evergreen-oak, 

 clipped into compact hedges. These, lying parallel to each other, 

 enclose the pleasure garden, which they shelter and over which they 



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