ITALIAN VILLAS 
trade, and the more famous Villa Carlotta at Cade- 
nabbia, where the fine gateways and the architectural 
treatment of the terraces bear witness to the former 
beauty of the grounds. But almost everywhere the 
old garden-magic has been driven out by a fury of 
modern horticulture. The pleached alleys have made 
way for lawns dotted with palms and bananas, the box- 
parterres have been replaced by star-shaped beds of 
begonias and cinerarias, and the groves of laurel and 
myrtle by thickets of pampas-grass and bamboo. This 
description applies to all the principal gardens between 
Como and Bellagio. Here and there, indeed, in almost 
all of them, some undisturbed corner remains — a flight 
of steps wreathed in Banksian roses and descending to 
a shady water-gate ; a fern-lined grotto with a stucco 
Pan or Syrinx ; a clipped laurel-walk set with marble 
benches, or a classic summer-house above the lake — 
but these old bits are so scattered and submerged under 
the new order of gardening that it requires an effort of 
the imagination to reconstruct from them an image of 
what the old lake-gardens must have been before every 
rich proprietor tried to convert his marble terraces into 
an English park. 
Almost to be included among lake-villas is the beau- 
tiful Villa Cicogna at Bisuschio. This charming old 
place lies in the lovely but little-known hill-country be- 
tween the Lake of Varese and the southern end of 
Lugano. The house, of which the history appears to 
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