GARDENS AND VILLAS ON LAKE MAGGIORE. 
367 
by reason of its excessive 
dimensions. It would 
seem as if at first the 
palace was to have 
been correctly in scale 
and of a size which 
would have accorded with 
the interesting church 
facing the water’s edge. 
The vast unfinished 
structure of the present 
palace has, however, some 
historical interest. Here 
it was that Napoleon slept 
after the great victory of 
Marengo, the crowning 
mercy of that campaign, 
which as a manifesta- 
tion of the youthful 
genius of the great con- 
queror still fires the 
imagination to-day as 
much as when he first burst into Italy. The baroco interiors (bigs. 385 and 387) are monu- 
mental in scale, and have more imagination to mitigate their wildness than is often found 
elsewhere. The hall of tapestries is distinctly a fine room (Fig. 3S6). It ends in an open 
grotto court, by which the garden lay-out is most ably connected to the palace block, brom 
this very curious oval court, which conceals a change of axis, you ascend up to the level of the 
terrace plateaux (Fig. 382). The garden itself is in perfect relation, and reveals the mind of a 
385. — THRONE ROOM, ISOLA BEI.LA. 
386. — ISOLA BELLA : THE H.\LL OF TAPESTRIES. 
