ITALIAN VILLAS 
good fortune to pass into the hands of the French gov- 
ernment, and its “facciata incrusted with antique and 
rare basso-relievos and statues ” still looks out over the 
statued arcade, the terrace “ balustraded with white 
marble” and planted with “perennial greens,” and the 
“mount planted with cypresses,” which Evelyn so justly 
admired. 
The villa, built in the middle of the sixteenth century 
by Annibale Lippi, was begun for one cardinal and 
completed for another. It stands in true Italian fashion 
against the hillside above the Spanish Steps, its airy 
upper stories planted on one of the mighty bastion-like 
basements so characteristic of the Roman villa. A 
villa above, a fortress below, it shows that, even in the 
polished cinque-cento, life in the Papal States needed 
the protection of stout walls and heavily barred win- 
dows. The garden-facade, raised a story above the 
entrance, has all the smiling openness of the Renaissance 
pleasure-house, and is interesting as being probably the 
earliest example of the systematic use of fragments of 
antique sculpture in an architectural elevation. But this 
facade, with its charming central loggia, is sufficiently 
well known to make a detailed description superfluous, 
and it need be studied here only in relation to its sur- 
roundings. 
Falda’s plan of the grounds, and that of Percier and 
Fontaine, made over a hundred and fifty years later, 
show how little succeeding fashions have been allowed 
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