7 ° THE GARDEXS OF ITALY. 
ill-treated by her husband, appeals to him in heartrending distress, another lavs before him all 
the details of a lawsuit. Poets hasten to dedicate their works to him, while ambassadors come 
to see his latest acquisitions. He was one of the earliest and most generous patrons of Bernini, 
who has left us two splendid portrait busts of him, which are now in the Accademia in Venice. 
The eyes are small and piercing, yet good-tempered, the nose coarse, the mouth large and 
genial, wTile, as a whole, the countenance has a look of power and kindliness. 
The Cardinal’s first idea in making the villa seems to have been that of having a place of his 
own outside the city to which he could invite Court personages and distinguished foreigners. He 
had already acquired an estate at Frascati, and had there built a superb villa ; but as Secretary 
of State, he found it difficult to go there frequently, much more so to transport thither the 
ecclesiastics of the Sacred College, the Roman nobility, the foreign ambassadors and the Court 
Sa. — FOLINT.VIN IN THE CROSSW.tVS. 
ladies who made up the society in which he delighted. He designed the villa Borghese, more- 
over, in a measure for the benefit of the Roman people, to whom it was often opened. 
Scipione Borghese died in 1633, leaving all his possessions to his brother, Marc Antonio, 
who had been created Prince of Sulmona. In succeeding years there are continual records of 
vineyards and pieces of land being bought and thrown into the grounds of the villa. The Borghese 
princes always reserved the right to close it on certain days, but by about 1828 it had come to be 
looked upon almost as a place of public resort. In that year its owner complains of damage done to 
the fountains, and it was closed for a time, but was again opened at the urgent request of Cardinal 
Aldobrandini. In 1832 permission was given to open a restaurant, splendid public fetes were 
held there, and by 1865 it was thrown open on six days of the week. When an attempt was 
made to close it in 1884 the public rebelled, and the journals declared that the populace, citizens, 
artists, strangers, the Court, and the King and Queen, were all alike mortified and inconvenienced. 
For some time it was subject to capricious regulations, and it is a matter for congratulation that 
the largest and most splendid garden of Rome, which bounds the whole of one side of the city, 
is now at length freely thrown open as the property of the nation. 
