LOMBARD VILLAS 
be unknown to the present owners, is an early Renais- 
sance building of great beauty, with a touch of Tuscan 
austerity in its design. The plain front, with deep pro- 
jecting eaves and widely spaced windows, might stand 
on some village square above the Arno ; and the interior 
court, with its two-storied arcade, recalls, in purity and 
lightness of design, the inheritors of Brunelleschi’s tradi- 
tion. So few country houses of the early sixteenth cen- 
tury are to be found in the Milanese that it would be 
instructive to learn whether the Villa Cicogna is in fact 
due to a Tuscan hand, or whether this mid-Italian style 
was at that time also prevalent in Lombardy. 
The villa is built against a hillside, and the interior 
court forms an oblong, enclosed on three sides by the 
house, and continued on the fourth by a beautiful 
sunken garden, above which runs a balustraded walk 
on a level with the upper story. On the other side of 
the house is another garden, consisting of a long terrace 
bounded by a high retaining-wall, which is tunnelled 
down its whole length to form a shady arcaded walk 
lined with ferns and dripping with runnels of water. At 
the back of the house the ground continues to rise, and 
a chateau d' eau is built against the hillside; while be- 
yond the terrace-garden already described, a gate leads 
to a hanging woodland, with shady walks from which, 
at every turn, there are enchanting views across the 
southern bay of Lake Lugano. 
The house itself is as interesting as the garden. The 
