European and Japanese Gardens 
fountain. From the point of view of design, the dense foliage of 
this upper terrace serves as a foil and background for the more 
open and artificial levels below it, and as a transition to the 
wilder landscape of mountain and forest behind it. 
The flower-garden is laid out in geometrical compartments 
bordered by square-clipped hedges of box, within which flowers 
and foliage plants are cultivated in beds forming elaborate 
scroll-patterns. The level walks are of gravel. An elaborate 
fountain adorns the central area, forming a focus and point of 
interest for the whole design. A high stone wall surrounds the 
garden on three sides; it is usually covered with vines or hid¬ 
den by a profuse growth of box, yew, ilex, cypress, and pine, 
producing an impression of perfect seclusion with no oppres¬ 
sive display of prison-like walls. On the fourth side is the 
retaining-wall of the middle terrace, which forms a monu¬ 
mental decorative background for this lower garden, and a 
foundation and preparation for the elaborately architectural 
treatment of the second level. 
The central and dominant feature of the whole design is 
the house or casino on the second level, on which it sometimes 
advances to the front edge, as in the Pamfili Doria, its base¬ 
ment, entered from the garden, forming in such cases the cen¬ 
tral portion of the terrace wall. Designed chiefly as a pleasure- 
house, for short sojourns and entertainments, its architecture 
is usually of a festal and sometimes trivial character, perfectly 
in harmony with its purpose, and almost always in keeping 
with the fanciful, wayward charm of the gardens. Few of these 
casinos are commendable as architectural compositions, but 
the softening hand of time and the delightful beauty of the old 
gardens, which improve with age, impart to these somewhat 
dubious compositions an adventitious charm impossible to 
imitate. 
In the Villa Lante, at Bagnaia, near Viterbo, there is an 
interesting departure from the usual practice. Two houses, or 
casini, stand one on either side of the central axis, permitting 
an unobstructed axial vista through the whole extent of the 
grounds, from top to bottom. Occasionally the casino is a 
palazzo of considerable size, as in the Villa d’Este at Tivoli ; 
while in the cases of the Pitti palace and the palace at Capra- 
rola (the Villa Farnese), the entire villa grounds lie behind the 
residence. 
3 1 
