The Italian Formal Garden 
design, were and are still so beautiful that they have never 
ceased to excite the admiration of every visitor. They were 
designed by masters, men of taste and culture, filled with the 
sense of beauty, who wrought in harmony with their environ¬ 
ment and with the beauties of the prospect and atmosphere 
about them. However questionable the taste of certain deco¬ 
rative details, their general decorative effect is almost always 
“the CENTRAL FEATURE IS THE HOUSE OR CASINO f} 
Casino, Villa Borghese Rome 
excellent and in harmony with the fanciful and wayward beauty 
of the gardens. At least this is true of the gardens as they ap¬ 
pear to-day, the crumbling stuccoes and the masonry stained by 
weather, tinged orange and green by lichens and mosses, over¬ 
run with ivy and creeping roses, and contrasting richly with 
the dark green of the stone pines behind and the ilex and 
box in front. Their charm is not wholly of atmosphere and 
color and rampant vegetation, nor merely the romantic half¬ 
melancholy of their silent walks, their grass-grown terraces, 
their whispering pines, and gentle decay. They possess a posi¬ 
tive artistic beauty in the proportion and balance which control 
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