ITALIAN VILLAS 
In these dwarf trees blinded thrushes are tied as decoys 
to their wild kin, who are shot at from the circular 
clearing or the side paths. This elaborate plantation is 
a perfectly preserved specimen of a species of bird-trap 
once, alas ! very common in this part of Italy, and in 
which one may picture the young gallants of Folgore 
da San Gimignano’s Sienese sonnets “Of the Months” 
taking their cruel pleasure on an autumn day. 
Another antique alley of pleached ilexes, as densely 
shaded but not quite as long, runs from the end of the 
terrace to a small open-air theatre which is the greatest 
curiosity of the Villa de’ Gori. The pit of this theatre is 
a semicircular opening, bounded by a low wall or seat, 
which is backed by a high ilex-hedge. The parterre is 
laid out in an elaborate broderie of turf and gravel, above 
which the stage is raised about three feet. The pit and 
the stage are enclosed in a double hedge of ilex, so that 
the actors may reach the wings without being seen by 
the audience ; but the stage-setting consists of rows of 
clipped cypresses, each advancing a few feet beyond the 
one before it, so that they form a perspective running 
up to the back of the stage, and terminated by the tall 
shaft of a single cypress which towers high into the 
blue in the exact centre of the background. No mere 
description of its plan can convey the charm of this ex- 
quisite little theatre, approached through the mysterious 
dusk of the long pleached alley, and lying in sunshine 
and silence under its roof of blue sky, in its walls of 
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