266 
THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
Venus by Gian Bologna, the principal figure of a fountain. The main road mounts up the hill 
to the back of the palace, which, detached and spacious as it is in front, is, at the back, sunk in 
a deep trench-like cutting, which has necessitated the contrivance of various expedients for filling 
up and bridging over, A raised plateau, with a very fine and elaborate fountain, fills the main 
vacuum, towards which the first floor of the palace looks straight out across a paved court (Fig, 273), 
The great open slope immediately at the back of the palace is given up to a really 
magnificent amphitheatre, one of those mises-en-scenes which bring home to us how regal were the 
ideas of entertainment current in the Renaissance, It is reallv large, and yet amusing as a faint 
copy of the great classic models from which the idea was taken. There are six tiers of seats 
in the huge semicircle of stone, and the arena is fenced round by a stone balustrade with fluted 
pillars, tasteful, even severe, in design. The niches which ornament the amphitheatre at 
intervals, filled alternately by a vase and a statue, are far removed from the florid and flippant 
style of the baroque, which w'as then just coming into vogue (Figs, 273 and 276), 
278, — LOOKING UP THE GRE,VT AVENUE, 
The view from the right-hand corner of the amphitheatre is famous ; but let Shellev speak 
of it, for it is not altered at all since he saw it : “ You see below, Florence, a smokeless city, its 
domes and spires occupying the vale ; and beyond, to the right, the Apennines, whose base 
extends even to the walls. The green valleys of these mountains, which gentlv unfold them- 
selves upon the plain, and the intervening hills covered with vineyards and olive orchards, are 
occupied by the villas, which are, as it were, another citv, a Babylon of palaces and gardens. In 
the midst of the picture rolls the Arno, through woods and bounded by the aerial snow and 
summits of the I.ucchesc Apennines, On the left, a magnificent buttress of lofty, craggy hills 
juts out in many shapes over a lovely vale and approaches the walls of the citv, Cascine and 
ville occupy the pinnacles and abutments of those hills, over which is seen at intervals the 
ethereal mountain line, heavy with snow. The vale below is covered with cypress groups, 
whose obeliskine forms of intense green pierce the grey shadow' of the hill that overhangs them. 
The cypresses, too, of this garden form a magnificent foreground of accumulated verdure ; 
