ITALIAN VILLAS 
panying plan, though roughly sketched from memory, 
will give some idea of its arrangement. Outside is a 
grove of exotic trees, which surrounds a large circular 
space enclosed in a beautiful old brick wall surmounted 
by a marble balustrade and adorned alternately with 
busts and statues. The wall is broken by four gate- 
ways, one forming the principal entrance from the 
grove, the other three opening on semicircles in which 
statues are set against a background of foliage. In the 
garden itself the beds for “ simples ” are enclosed in low 
iron railings, within which they are again subdivided by 
stone edgings, each subdivision containing a different 
species of plant. 
Padua, in spite of its flat surroundings, is one of the 
most picturesque cities of upper Italy ; and the seeker 
after gardens will find many charming bits along the 
narrow canals, or by the sluggish river skirting the city 
walls. Indeed, one might almost include in a study of 
gardens the beautiful Prato della Valle, the public 
square before the church of Sant’ Antonio, with its en- 
circling canal crossed by marble bridges, its range of 
baroque statues of “ worthies,’ ’ and its central expanse 
of turf and trees. There is no other example in Italy 
of a square laid out in this park-like way, and the Prato 
della Valle would form an admirable model for the treat- 
ment of open spaces in a modern city. 
A few miles from Padua, at Ponte di Brenta, begins 
the long line of villas which follows the course of the 
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