ITALIAN VILLAS 
ably no grounds of equal grandeur and extent have less 
of that peculiar magic which one associates with the old 
Italian garden — -a fact doubtless due less to defects of 
composition than to later changes in the details of plant- 
ing and decoration. Still, the main outline remains and 
is full of instruction to the garden-lover. 
The palace is built against the steep hillside, which 
is dug out to receive it, a high retaining-wall being built 
far enough back from the central body of the house to 
allow the latter to stand free. The ground floor of the 
palace is so far below ground that its windows look 
across a paved court at the face of the retaining-wall, 
which Ammanati decorated with an architectural com- 
position representing a grotto, from which water was 
meant to gush as though issuing from the hillside. This 
grotto he surmounted with a magnificent fountain, stand- 
ing on a level with the first-floor windows of the palace 
and with the surrounding gardens. The arrangement 
shows ingenuity in overcoming a technical difficulty, 
and the effect, from the garden, is very successful, 
though the well-like court makes an unfortunate gap 
between the house and its grounds. 
Behind the fountain, and in a line with it, a horseshoe- 
shaped amphitheatre has been cut out of the hillside, 
surrounded by tiers of stone seats adorned with statues 
in niches and backed by clipped laurel hedges, behind 
which rise the ilex-clad slopes of the upper gardens. 
This amphitheatre is one of the triumphs of Italian 
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