VILLAS NEAR ROME 
many other devices for wetting the unwary spectators. 
. . . In one of these theatres of water is an Atlas 
spouting, . . . and another monster makes a terrible 
roaring with a horn ; but, above all, the representation 
of a storm is most natural, with such fury of rain, wind 
and thunder as one would imagine oneself in some 
extreme tempest. 1 ’ 
Atlas and the monster are silent, and the tempest has 
ceased to roar ; but the architecture of the great water- 
theatre remains intact. It has been much extolled by so 
good a critic as Herr Gurlitt, yet compared with Vi- 
gnola’s loggia at Mondragone or the terrace of the Orti 
Farnesiani, it is a heavy and uninspired production. It 
suffers also from too great proximity to the villa, and 
from being out of scale with the latter’s modest eleva- 
tion : there is a distinct lack of harmony between the 
two facades. But even Evelyn could not say too much 
in praise of the glorious descent of the cascade from the 
hilltop. It was in the guidance of rushing water that 
the Roman garden-architects of the seventeenth century 
showed their poetic feeling and endless versatility ; and 
the architecture of the upper garden at the Aldobrandini 
merits all the admiration which has been wasted on its 
pompous theatre. 
Another example of a theatre d'eau, less showy but 
far more beautiful, is to be seen at the neighbouring Villa 
Conti (now Torlonia). Of the formal gardens of this 
villa there remain only the vast terraced stairways which 
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