ITALIAN VILLAS 
pupil of Michelangelo. At the back of the house 
there is (as at the Villa Bombicci) a fine upper loggia, 
and the wide spacing of the windows on the ground 
floor, and the massiveness and simplicity of all the 
architectural details, inevitably recall the Tuscan style. 
Little is left of the old gardens save a tapis vert flanked 
by clipped hedges, which descends to an iron grille on 
a lower road ; but the broad grassy space about the 
house has a boundary-wall with a continuous marble 
bench, like that at the Villa Pia in the Vatican gardens. 
In the valley between San Francesco d’Albaro and 
the Bisagno lies the dismal suburb of San Fruttuoso. 
Here one must seek, through a waste of dusty streets 
lined with half-finished tenements, for what must once 
have been the most beautiful of Genoese pleasure- 
houses — the Villa Imperiali, probably built by Fra Mon- 
torsoli. It stands high above broad terraced grounds 
of unusual extent, backed by a hanging wood ; but 
all the old gardens have been destroyed, save the 
beautiful upper terrace, and even the house has suffered 
some injury, though not enough to detract greatly from 
its general effect. Here at last one finds that union 
of lightness and majesty which characterizes the Villa 
Medici and other Roman houses of its kind. The long 
elevation, with wings set back, has a rusticated base- 
ment, surmounted by two stories and an attic above 
the cornice. There is no order, but the whole fagade 
.is richly frescoed in a severe architectural style, with 
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