VILLAS NEAR ROME 
overgrown by shrubs and creepers, with busts and 
other fragments of antique sculpture set here and there 
on its projecting ledges. This natural cliff sustains an 
upper plateau, where there is an oblong artificial water 
(called “the lake”) enclosed in rock-work and sur- 
rounded by a grove of mighty cypresses. From this 
shady solitude the wooded slopes of the lower park are 
reached by a double staircase so simple and majestic in 
design that it harmonizes perfectly with the sylvan wild- 
ness which characterizes the landscape. This staircase 
should be studied as an example of the way in which 
the Italian garden-architects could lay aside exuberance 
and whimsicality when their work was intended to blend 
with some broad or solemn effect of nature. 
The grounds of the Villa Falconieri were laid out by 
Cardinal Ruffini in the first half of the sixteenth century, 
but the villa was not built till 1648. It is one of the 
most charming creations of Borromini, that brilliant 
artist in whom baroque architecture found its happiest 
expression ; and the Villa Falconieri makes one regret 
that he did not oftener exercise his fancy in the con- 
struction of such pleasure-houses. The elevation 
follows the tradition of the Roman villa suburbana. 
The centre of the ground floor is an arcaded loggia, 
the roof of which forms a terrace to the recessed story 
above ; while the central motive of this first story is 
another semicircular recess, adorned with stucco orna- 
ment and surmounted by a broken pediment. The 
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