LA BADIA 



At an early date we find the shores of the Lacus Larius, or Lake of 

 Como, occupied by the villas of the wealthy Romans, who were not 

 slow to recognise the advantages it offered for their pleasure houses. In 

 the Georgics, Virgil refers lightly to both this lake and the Lago di 

 Garda (Benacus), as though they were too well known to need a longer 

 dissertation. 



Pliny makes frequent reference in his letters to his own villas, and 

 those of his friends, situate upon the Lacus Larius. At, or near, the 

 town of Como Pliny was born, and though he would naturally feel some 

 partiality for the place of his birth, he yet shows how strongly the beauty 

 of the lake and its surroundings appeal to him, for he constantly refers to 

 it in the warmest terms. Writing to his friend Caninus Rufus, he 

 expresses regret that he is debarred from the pleasures of " our favourite 

 Larius . . . which I as eagerly long for, as a man in a fever pants for 

 drink to allay his thirst or baths and fountains to assuage his heat." And 

 again he says : " Tell me what are you doing at Comum ? Comum, 

 equally the object of our delight ! Tell me some news of that enchanting 

 villa ; of the green gallery, where it is always spring ; of the plane-trees, 

 which spread themselves most diffusively ; of the green enamelled banks 

 of your canal ; of your lake, situated for pleasure and for use ; of your 

 place for exercise, the ground of which is soft and yet solid ; of your 

 bath, open to the sun on every side ; " . . . In a letter to Voconius 

 Romanus he gives some account of his own villas on this lake. 



" I am pleased," he writes, " to find by your letter that you have 

 begun to build. I have from thence an excuse for my works of that 



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