174 
THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
This is the oldest of the villas of Frascati, and was laid out bv Alessandro Rufini, Bishop 
of Melfi, in 1548. In the seventeenth century it passed to the Falconieri family, who 
confided its restoration and redecoration to Francesco Borromini, the most florid of 
all the baroque artists. 
The grounds are small, but there are several very picturesque gateways, and the 
loggia and interior are frescoed by Giro Ferri, the artist who, in company with Pietro 
di Cortona, decorated the Pitti Palace in Florence. The ceiling of the great hall represents 
Aurora in her car, beyond is a room with a fountain in the middle. The villa, is now 
the property of the monks of Tre Fontane, wTo migrate there in June to escape the heat and 
181. — THE STAIRW.VY TO THE UPPER POOL, VILLA FALCONIERI. 
malaria of the plain. Earlier in the year their abbot is extremely kind and courteous in granting 
permission to visit and sketch the grounds. 
-Antiquarians are divided as to whether Cicero’s villa stood on the present site of Villa 
Falconieri or on that of the adjoining Villa Ruffinella. This last was at one time the residence 
of Lucien Bonaparte, the only one of the Emperor’s brothers W'ho never wore a crown. During 
his residence here, in 1818, it was the scene of one of the most audacious acts of brigandage 
ever committed in the Papal States. A party of robbers, who had long haunted Tusculum, 
seized the old priest of the family while out walking, and, having plundered and stripped him, 
bound him hand and foot. When the dinner hour arrived and the priest was missing, the 
household went out to look for him, and the robbers then entered the house and, attacking all 
the servants left, forced them to silence by their threats. One maid-servant, however, contrived 
