ITALIAN VILLAS 
effects they were skilled in creating : effects due to such 
a fine sense of proportion, to so exquisite a perception 
of the relation between architecture and landscape, be- 
tween verdure and marble, that while a trace of their 
plan remains one feels the spell of the whole. 
When Rubens came to Genoa in 1607 he was so 
impressed by the magnificence of its great street of 
palaces — the lately built Strada Nuova — that he re- 
corded his admiration in a series of etchings, published 
in Antwerp in 1622 under the title “ Palazzi di Genova,” 
a priceless document for the student of Renaissance 
architecture in Italy, since the Flemish master did not con- 
tent himself with mere impressionist sketches, like Cana- 
letto’s fanciful Venetian etchings, but made careful archi- 
tectural drawings and bird’s-eye views of all the principal 
Genoese palaces. As many of these buildings have since 
been altered, Rubens’s volume has the additional value 
of preserving a number of interesting details which might 
never have been recovered by subsequent study. 
The Strada Nuova of Genoa, planned by Galeazzo 
Alessi between 1550 and 1560, is the earliest example 
in Europe of a street laid out by an architect with delib- 
erate artistic intent, and designed to display the palaces 
with which he subsequently lined it. Hitherto, streets 
had formed themselves on the natural lines of traffic, and 
individual houses had sprung up along them without 
much regard to the site or style of their nearest neigh- 
bors. The Strada Nuova, on the contrary, was planned 
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