ITALIAN VILLAS 
walls of the court are frescoed in charming cinque-cento 
designs, and the vaulted ceiling of the loggia is painted 
in delicate trellis-work, somewhat in the manner of the 
semicircular arcade at the Villa di Papa Giulio. Sev- 
eral of the rooms also preserve their wall-frescoes and 
much of their Renaissance furniture, while a series of 
smaller apartments on the ground floor are exquisitely 
decorated with stucco ornament in the light style of the 
eighteenth century; so that the Villa Cicogna still gives 
a vivid idea of what an old Italian country house must 
have been in its original state. 
From the hill- villas of the lakes to the country places 
of the Milanese rice-fields the descent is somewhat ab- 
rupt; but the student of garden-architecture may mitigate 
the transition by carrying on his researches from the 
southern end of Como through the smiling landscape of 
the Brianza. Here there are many old villas, in a lovely 
setting of vineyard and woodland, with distant views of 
the Alps and of the sunny Lombard plain; but of old 
gardens few are to be found. There is one of great beauty, 
belonging to the Villa Crivelli, near the village of Inve- 
rigo ; but as it is inaccessible to visitors, only tantalizing 
glimpses may be obtained of its statues and terraces, its 
cypress-walks and towering “ Gigante.” Not far from 
Inverigo is the Rotonda Cagnola, now the property of 
the Marchese d’Adda, and built in 1813 by the Marchese 
Luigi Cagnola in imitation of the Propylaea of the 
Acropolis. The house is beautifully placed on a hilltop^ 
21 8 
