ITALIAN VILLAS 
Italian country house. On the other side of the villa 
are two long terraces, one beneath the other, corre- 
sponding in dimensions with the court, and flanked on 
each hand by walled terrace-gardens, descending on 
one side from the grove, on the other from the upper 
garden adjoining the court. The plan, which is as 
elaborate and minutely divided as that of Cetinale is 
spacious and simple, shows an equally sure appreciation 
of natural conditions, and of the distinction between a 
villa suburbana and a country estate. The walls of the 
upper garden are espaliered with fruit-trees, and the 
box-edged flower-plots are probably laid out much as 
they were in the eighteenth century. All the architec- 
tural details are beautiful, especially a well in the court, 
set in the wall between Ionic columns, and a charming 
garden-house at the end of the upper garden, in the 
form of an open archway faced with Doric pilasters, 
before a semicircular recess with a marble seat. The 
descending walled gardens, with their different levels, 
give opportunity for many charming architectural effects 
— busts in niches, curving steps, and well-placed vases 
and statues ; and the whole treatment of Vicobello is 
remarkable for the discretion and sureness of taste with 
which these ornamental touches are added. There is 
no excess of decoration, no crowding of effects, and the 
garden-plan is in perfect keeping with the simple state- 
liness of the house. 
About a mile from Vicobello, on an olive-clad hillside 
7 ° 
