ITALIAN VILLAS 
with which the Genoese nobles surrounded even their 
few weeks of villeggiatura . To match such magnifi- 
cence, one must look to one of the great villas of the 
Roman cardinals ; and, with the exception of the Villa 
Doria Pamphily (which is smaller) and of the Villa 
Albani, it would be difficult to cite an elevation where 
palatial size is combined with such lavish richness of 
ornament 
Alessi was once thought to have studied in Rome 
under Michelangelo ; but Herr Gurlitt shows that the 
latter was absent from Rome from 1516 to 1535 — that 
is, precisely during what must have been the formative 
period of Alessi’s talent. The Perugian architect 
certainly shows little trace of Michelangelesque influ- 
ences, but seems to derive rather from the school of his 
own great contemporary, Palladio. 
The Villa Scassi, with its Tuscan order below and 
fluted Corinthian pilasters above, its richly carved frieze 
and cornice, and its beautiful roof-balustrade, is perhaps 
more familiar to students than any other example of 
Genoese suburban architecture. Almost alone among 
Genoese villas, it stands at the foot of a hill, with gar- 
dens rising behind it instead of descending below it to 
the sea. Herr Gurlitt thinks these grounds are among 
the earliest in Italy in which the narrow mediaeval hortus 
inclusus was blent with the wider lines of the landscape ; 
indeed, he makes the somewhat surprising statement that 
“ all the later garden-craft has its source in Alessi, who, 
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