ITALIAN VILLAS 
dom, improvisation, individual expression, while France 
was fundamentally classical and instinctively temperate. 
Just as the French cabinet-makers and bronze-chisellers 
and modellers in stucco produced more delicate and fin- 
ished, but less personal, work than the Italian craftsmen, 
so the French architects designed with greater precision 
and restraint, and less play of personal invention. To 
establish a rough distinction, it might be said that French 
art has always been intellectual and Italian art emotional; 
and this distinction is felt even in the treatment of the 
pleasure-house and its garden. In Italy the architectural 
detail remained baroque till the end of the eighteenth 
century, and the architect permitted himself far greater 
license in the choice of forms and the combination of 
materials. The old villas of the Milanese have a very 
strong individuality, and it is to be regretted that so few 
remain intact to show what a personal style they pre- 
served even under the most obvious French influences. 
The Naviglio, the canal which flows through Milan 
and sends various branches to the Ticino and the Adda, 
was formerly lined for miles beyond the city with sub- 
urban villas. Few remain unaltered, and even of these 
few the old gardens have disappeared. One of the most 
interesting houses in Del Re’s collection, the Villa Alario 
(now Visconti di Saliceto), on the Naviglio near Cernusco, 
is still in perfect preservation without and within ; and 
though its old gardens were replaced by an English park 
early in the nineteenth century, their general outline is 
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