ROMAN VILLAS 
declares himself unable to pronounce on the date of this 
“creation already touched with the feeling of sentimen- 
tality”; but Burckhardt, who is always accurate, says 
that the hippodrome and the temple of Aesculapius are 
of late date, and that the park was remodelled in the 
style of Poussin’s landscapes in 1849. 
About thirty years later than the Villa Borghese there 
arose its rival among the great Roman country-seats, the 
Villa Belrespiro or Pamphily, on the Janiculan. The 
Villa Pamphily, designed by Alessandro Algardi of 
Bologna, is probably the best known and most admired 
of Roman maisons de plaisance , and its incomparable 
ilex avenues and pine-woods, its rolling meadows and 
wide views over the Campagna, have enchanted many 
to whom its architectural beauties would not appeal 
The house, with its incrustations of antique bas-reliefs, 
cleverly adapted in the style of the Villa Medici, but 
with far greater richness and license of ornament, is a 
perfect example of the seventeenth-century villa, or 
rather casino ; for it was really intended, not for a resi- 
dence, but for a suburban lodge. It is flanked by lateral 
terraces, and the garden-front is a story lower than the 
other, so that the balcony of the first floor looks down 
on a great sunken garden, enclosed in the retaining- walls 
of the terraces, and richly adorned with statues in niches, 
fountains and parterres de broderie . Thence a double 
stairway descends to what was once the central portion 
of the gardens, a great amphitheatre bounded by ilex- 
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