terrace, surrounded by balustrades, beneath which was an extensive 

 colonnaded hall open on three sides, and approached either from the 

 garden or the shore by stairways. This, which must have been a most 

 delightful adjunct to the garden, has unfortunately been enclosed and 

 converted into merchants' offices. 



A feature of this garden in Evelyn's time was an aviary on an 

 unusually grand scale, which appears to have still existed in the year 

 1780, as it figures in a print of that date. Evelyn writes : " One of the 

 greatest (gardens) here ... is that of the Prince d'Orias, which reaches 

 from the sea to the sum'it of the mountaines. The house is most 

 magnificently built without, nor less gloriously furnish'd within, having 

 whole tables and bedsteads of massy silver, many of them sett with 

 achates, onyxes, cornelians, lazulis, pearls, turquizes, and other precious 

 stones. The pictures and statues are innumerable. To this Palace 

 belong three gardens, the first whereof is beautified with a terrace, 

 supported by pillars of marble : there is a fountaine of eagles, and one of 

 Neptune with other Sea-gods, all of the purest white marble ; they 

 stand in a most ample basine of the same stone. At the side of this 

 garden is such an aviary as S' Fra. Bacon describes in his Sermones 

 Jidelium, or Essays, wherein grow trees of more than two foote diameter, 

 besides cypresse, myrtils, lentiscs, and other rare shrubs, which serve to 

 nestle and pearch all sorts of birds, who have ayre and place enough 

 under their ayrie canopy, supported with huge iron worke, stupendious 

 for its fabrick and the charge. The other two gardens are full of 

 orange-trees, citrons, and pomegranads, fountaines, grotts, and statues ; 

 one of the latter is a Colossal Jupiter. . . . The reservoir of water here 

 is a most admirable piece of art ; and so is the grotto over 

 against it." 



The balustraded reservoir and its accompanying grotto still existed 

 as recently as 1905, though the former was dry and in use as a bowling 

 alley, but of the fountains and statues on these higher terraces there has 

 been no sign for many a long year. This part of the gardens was 

 formerly connected with the piano nobile of the palace by a bridge over 

 the road which passes between them. High up on the verge of the 

 second terrace are two delightful garden-houses commanding a view of 



