LOMBARD VILLAS 
to the modern garden-architect in search of effects of 
coolness. 
To show how little the gardens of the Isola Bella 
have been changed since they were first laid out, it is 
worth while to quote the description of Bishop Burnet, 
that delightful artist in orthography and punctuation, 
who descended into Italy in the year 1685, with his 
“ portmangles ” laden upon “mullets/’ 
“ From Lugane ,” the bishop’s breathless periods 
begin, “ I went to the Lago Maggiore , which is a great 
and noble Lake, it is six and fifty Miles long, and in 
most places six Miles broad, and a hundred Fathoms 
deep about the middle of it, it makes a great Bay to the 
Westward, and there lies here two Islands called the Bor- 
romean Islands, that are certainly the loveliest spots of 
ground in the World, there is nothing in all Italy that 
can be compared to them, they have the full view of the 
Lake, and the ground rises so sweetly in them that 
nothing can be imagined like the Terraces here, they 
belong to two Counts of the Borromean family. I was 
only in one of them, which belongs to the head of the 
Family, who is Nephew to the famous Cardinal known 
by the name of St Carlo . . . The whole Island is a 
garden . . . and because the figure of the Island was 
not made regular by Nature, they have built great 
Vaults and Portica’s along the Rock, which are all 
made Grotesque, and so they have brought it into a 
regular form by laying earth over those Vaults. There 
17 
201 
