1 88 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
and tower-like masses of the taller houses contrast the generality of the long, level lines of walls 
punctuated by the brown depths of arch and window opening. 
Laurel and cypress in their own home provide a green setting perfect in harmony of form 
and colour. Such is the locale where the famous Pirro Ligorio, whose delightful Casino at the 
Vatican has been already illustrated, conceived in 1550 -1559 the vast Villa D’Este for the 
Cardinal Ippolito D’Este. Son of Lucrezia Borgia and brother of Duke Ercole II, he was 
created Cardinal in 1539 and Governor of Tivoli in 1550. After his death the villa was 
inherited bv Cardinals Luigi and Alessandro, until, in 1796, the male branch of the house of 
D’Este being extinct with Ercole III, his daughter brought it to Ferdinand, Archduke of 
Austria, in whose family it remained up to the entrance of Italy into the Great War. 
Lying to the west of the town, to which it adjoins rather than belongs, there were two main 
features in the selected site for this palatial villa — a stream of the ,\nio, to supply the indispensable 
194.— GENERAL VIEW OE TIVOLI AND THE FALLS. 
water effects, and a great fall in the ground, which admitted of magnificent terraces and descending 
stairways. The villa itself is lodged on the hillside, and from the entrance at the back a cortile, 
adjacent to the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, gives access to a great descending barrel- 
vaulted staircase leading to a vaulted corridor of great length, running at the back of a series of 
frescoed chambers, forming the lower main floor of the house. A projecting loggia, central 
to the facade, with twin raking flights of steps, descends to the great terrace, which is closed at 
either end by well designed architectural features reminiscent of Roman triumphal archways. 
The further one is a most interesting open loggia hall with balconied recesses, from which fine 
views are commanded over the gardens and the surrounding hillsides. The corresponding 
terminal is treated as a great niche framing a group of sculpture. The whole lay-out is 
dominated by a magnificent axial vista extending down the centre of the gardens, and bordered 
by immense cypresses some two hundred and ten feet high, with trunks nearly ten feet thick. 
About half way down is a great cross view over a series of lake-like ponds leading up to the 
