ITALIAN GARDENS. 



143 



ITALIAN GARDENS.— There are 

 few more apt examples of the distinction 

 between reality and poor imitation than 

 that of the true Italian garden with its 

 variety of form and life, its light and 

 shade, its pergolas and trees in their 

 abandoned grace, and the stiff and hard 

 plateau often called an " Italian "garden 

 in Britain. The modern Italian garden, 



gardens to any one style, either of design 

 or planting, is against us in all ways. 

 The Villa Albani was celebrated for its 

 relics of antique statuary, among which 

 are several well-known masterpieces of 

 antiquity. It was laid out with its trea- 

 sures of statuary, and adorned by Car- 

 dinal Alessandro Albani, whose dilet- 

 tanteism found a congenial outlet in the 



ITALIAN GARDENS, VILLA ALBANI. 



like our own, is infested with mosaicul- 

 ture, often in its worst phase, but that 

 was never seen in the old Italian garden 

 — it is, indeed, a ' 1 decorative " invention 

 of our own inartistic days. So in con- 

 nection with this we may give a few en- 

 gravings of real Italian gardens : these 

 may serve to show that it is in variety 

 not in conformity that we must seek 

 beauty, and that all attempts to conform 



decoration of the gardens of his noble 

 suburban residence with the rarest ob- 

 jects of antique art. The accomplished 

 Cardinal also distinguished himself dip- 

 lomatically during his embassy to the 

 Emperor of Germany and as a biogra- 

 pher. He sought to realise a kind of 

 Ciceronian elegance in his abode and 

 its surroundings, desiring to emulate, as 

 he added feature after feature of classic 



