VILLAS OF VENETIA 
river to its outlet at Fusina. Dante speaks in the “ In- 
ferno ” of the villas and castles on the Brenta, and it 
continued the favourite villeggiatura of the Venetian 
nobility till the middle of the nineteenth century. There 
dwelt the Signor Pococurante, whom Candide visited on 
his travels ; and of flesh-and-blood celebrities many 
might be cited, from the famous Procuratore Pisani to 
Byron, who in 1819 carried off the Guiccioli to his 
villa at La Mira on the Brenta. 
The houses still remain almost line for line as they 
were drawn in Gianfrancesco Costa’s admirable etch- 
ings, “Le Delizie del Fiume Brenta,” published in 1750; 
but unfortunately almost all the old gardens have dis- 
appeared. One, however, has been preserved, and as 
it is the one most often celebrated by travellers and 
poets of the eighteenth century, it may be regarded as 
a good example of a stately Venetian garden. This is 
the great villa built at Stra, in 1736, for Alvise Pisani, 
procurator of St. Mark’s, by the architects Prati and 
Frigimelica. In size and elegance it far surpasses any 
other house on the Brenta. The prevailing note of the 
other villas is one of simplicity and amenity. They 
stand near each other, either on the roadside or divided 
from it by a low wall bordered with statues and a 
short strip of garden, also thickly peopled with nymphs, 
satyrs, shepherdesses, and the grotesque and comic 
figures of the Commedia delF Arte ; unassuming vil- 
lini for the most part, suggesting a life of suburban 
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