ITALIAN VILLAS 
the highroad, and is an unpretentious structure of the 
seventeenth century, not unlike the Villa de’ Gori at 
Siena, though the Palladian grouping of its central win- 
dows shows the nearness of Venice. It looks on a ter- 
race enclosed by a balustrade, whence a broad flight of 
steps descends to the gently sloping gardens. They 
are remarkable for their long pleached alleys of beech, 
their wide tapis verts , fountains, marble benches and 
statues charmingly placed in niches of clipped verdure. 
In one direction is a little lake, in another a “mount” 
crowned by a statue, while a long alley leads to a well- 
preserved maze with a raised platform in its centre. 
These labyrinths are now rarely found in Italian gar- 
dens, and were probably never as popular south of the 
Alps as in Holland and England. The long chateau 
d'eati, with its couchant Nereids and conch-blowing 
Tritons, descends a gentle slope instead of a steep hill, 
and on each side high beech-hedges enclose tall groves 
of deciduous trees. These hedges are characteristic of 
the north Italian gardens, where the plane, beech and 
elm replace the “perennial greens” of the south; and 
there is one specially charming point at Val San Zibio, 
where four grass-alleys walled with clipped beeches 
converge on a stone basin sunk in the turf, -with four 
marble putti seated on the curb, dangling their feet in 
the water. An added touch of quaintness is given to 
the gardens by the fact that the old water-works are 
still in action, so that the unwary visitor, assailed by 
