ITALIAN VILLAS 
larger scale they would be oppressive ; but as mere 
garden-houses, with their leafy background, and the 
picturesque adjuncts of high walls, wrought-iron gates, 
vases and statues, they have an undeniable charm. 
The plan of the Borghese park has been the subject 
of much discussion. Falda’s print shows only the 
vicinity of the villa, and 
it has never been decid- 
ed when the outlying 
grounds were laid out 
and how much they have 
been modified. At pres- 
ent the park, with its 
romantic groves of um- 
brella-pine, its ilex ave- 
nues, lake and amphitheatre, its sham ruins and little 
buildings scattered on irregular grassy knolls, has the 
appearance of a jardin anglais laid out at the end of the 
eighteenth century. Herr Tuckermann, persuaded that 
this park is the work of Giovanni Fontana, sees in him 
the originator of the “sentimental” English and Ger- 
man landscape-gardens, with their hermitages, mauso- 
leums and temples of Friendship ; butPercier and Fon- 
taine, from whose plan of the park his inference is 
avowedly drawn, state that the grounds were much 
modified in 1789 by Jacob Moore, an English landscape- 
gardener, and by Pietro Camporesi of Rome. Herr 
Gurlitt, who seems to have overlooked this statement, 
GATEWAY OF THE VILLA BORGHESE 
108 
