IXTROnVCrORY. 
7 
Above the upper floor, the piano nobile, the vast roof is the granary of the farm, and no 
one heeds the wild skirmishes of the rats. When the Great Lady, ruler of the entire district, 
goes forth a trumpet blast announces the fact. She regulates the lives of her dependants in 
every detail, including their marriages. It is an intimate union of the life of the countryside 
in its lowest as well as its more developed form. We understand how from Roman days the 
Palazzo of the family in the Citta had its wine shop on the ground floor, where the produce 
of the family vineyard was openly sold. 
Thanks to this union of villa and farm, we get the delightful foregrounds of vines and 
olive trees. The low, horizontal lines of the casa are contrasted by the aspiring poplar, whose 
vertical lines express so much energy, controlled ahvays within the graceful outline of the mass. 
In the larger villas a massive campanile, or tower belvedere, centres the group of related 
though divergent buildings. In 
the early morning the wide eaves 
cast shadows reaching to the 
very foot of the walls, a shadow’ 
screen which rises slowly till at 
noon its depth is that of their 
projection. The wide-spaced 
windows afford an adequate 
area of wall for true dignity, and 
the closed Venetians preserve 
the surface of the wall in a 
broad mass of brilliant, spark- 
ling sunshine. Creamy w'hite 
buildings, with brown, golden- 
spotted roofs set in olive green 
tones and contrasted against 
dark poplar masses, and, over- 
head, brilliant, unfathomable 
depths of blue sky — such is 
the unfading mental picture 
of the villas of the heart of 
Italy. 
Still there remains another, 
and vet different, group of 
impressions — the clustered hill- 
sides of the sea coasts and of 
the inland lakes where terraced 
masses of w'hite dots are strew’n 
profusely over green slopes that 
are well-nigh obliterated. An 
impatient desire to restore the 
solitude of nature is checked 
by the thought of the per- S. — belvedere. 
vading interest of human life 
and effort concentrated in areas of such continuing habitation. Such must have been the aspect 
of the shores of Baiae when the ire of the Roman satirist was provoked by the artificial 
peninsulas on which the wealthy erected their villas in the very sea itself. It is human life 
unwinding the same scroll w'ith some slight variation only of the lettering within. 
Too much can be made of the absence of flowers, destined by brilliancy of colouring and 
shortness of life in such a climate to the wise restraint of some special enclosure. Here, 
in walled or balustraded surroundings, the orange, magnolia, myrtle and rose tree 
flourish W'ith a surpassing effect due to their very scarcity of use. Italy has had little use 
for grass banks ; the masonic tradition is, fortunately, too strong, and no embanked terrace 
