146 
THE GARDEXS OF ITALY. 
ascending in a cardinal’s coach. A lattice basket of wood set over an axle and two wheels, 
with a sturdy pony and a portly Roman as driver, contrived the ascent to the Aldobrandini with 
some tremors for the passenger. The diagonal gutters shown on Percier and Fontaine s plan 
are extraordinary obstacles that one would imagine must have been fatal to any more solid 
conveyance. The water rushing down the slopes plays havoc with the volcanic subsoil, and 
these gutters are essential to prevent the deep and quaggy ruts which would otherwise cut these 
hill roads into ribbons. 
At Tusculum and at Marino are quarries of the tufa, or peperino stone, which forms such an 
element in this villa architecture. It varies from golden yellow to a brown which is almost chocolate ; 
the darker colour, no doubt, results from the material being wet. This masonry is largely and effec- 
tively used at Mondragone. Open in texture and incapable of small detail, it is admirably adapted 
to the scale of these villas. It is sparingly employed, because the main walling is a local bluish rock, 
used as rubble, sometimes brick banded, but all covered with plaster and cream wash. Some of 
the villa buildings, like the Falconieri, have the appearance of being entirely in plaster, but the 
grand gatew'ay illustrated is a fine piece of solid masonry. Bricks have always been made of the 
local volcanic soil, and are of a very good red in colour. The Falconieri rooms are paved in 
brick with marble bands. The peperino stone lends itself admirably to the rough rustics and to the 
vigorous design of the carvings employed, as in the dragon spandrels of Mondragone. A. T. B. 
Tusculum of old for long centuries looked down upon Rome, for Rome was the most 
recent rather than the most ancient among the Latin cities. This 
Fatica di gloria e di sventuro, 
Terra Latina 
{This Latin land, 
Tired out witli glor\- and misfortune) 
goes back so far that its origin is lost in fabulous legends. It was said to have been founded 
by Telegoniis, the son of Ulvsses and Circe, and Mauritius, Prince of Tusculum, claimed to be 
descended from them. It is strange indeed, as one wanders up the lonely paths and slopes that 
lie behind Frascati, to think that all over this wild ground, where the goats crop and the gorse 
and wild thvme scent the air, rose 
Tlie white streets of Tuscnlnm, 
Tlie proudest town of all- 
A great, well ordered city with its own laws and civil dignitaries, and all around it a rich and 
cultivated countryside, with vines and olives, corn lands and pasture. On the neighbouring 
hills the white walls of other cities glimmered in the sunshine, Palestrina, Prteneste, the ancient 
towns of Gabii and Labicum, and, on the shores of the Alban lake, that Alba Longa from which, 
five hundred years after the founding of Tusculum, a little band of outlaws was to descend into 
the plain, and there, where a hill rose beside the river, was to found Roma Immortalis. 
Tusculum saw' Rome rise gradually to greatness. It intermarried, made treaties and 
fought with her in the w'ide plain below. It was jmobably over by Monte Porzio, in a 
depression that looks like an extinct crater, that Lake Regillus lay, w'here that battle was fought 
when out of forty thousand Latins only ten thousand came home, when Rome was only saved 
by her cavalry, and her generals voted a Temple to the Great Twin Brethren, whom, in the 
moment when all seemed lost, men had seen riding in their van. 
When, in the decline of the Republic and the rise of the Empire, men began to enjoy leisure 
they had the wish to escape from the bustle of towns, and peace reigning between Rome and 
prosperous Tusculum, the delightful slopes which lay below that city were singled out and 
villas rose in every part and of every description, from the smallest to the most sumptuous. The 
countryside w'as white with them ; the names of great numbers have been recovered, and the sites 
of many determined. There was the villa of the Octavii, where Villa Aldobrandini now stands ; 
Cato’s was at Monte Porzio, that of Pliny the younger at Centrone. The Javolem built 
W'here the ruins of Borghetto now stand, Cicero’s stately school and halls stretched away to 
Grotta Ferrata, and on the site of Villa Torlonia glow'ed the gardens of Lucullus, most famous 
of all. Archieologists believe that the ancient villas w'ere laid out on much the same plan as 
those of a later time with a succession of terraces and marble balustrades, and arranged so 
