The Italian Formal Garden 
natecl by the great ecclesiastical princes and the formidable 
array of Pope’s nephews who monopolized the higher posts of 
Church and State. Most of the finest villas were built for car¬ 
dinals and church dignitaries, of whom the majority sustained 
this dubious relation to the head of the Church. The Lante, at 
Bagnaia, first built in 1477 for Cardinal Riario, was, about 1550, 
remodelled by Vignola for one of the Farnese nephews. To 
this family also belonged the imposing castle and beautiful 
grounds at Caprarola, also Vignola’s work. The superb Villa 
d’Este at Tivoli, one of the earliest as well as finest of extant 
works of the kind, was designed about 1540 by Pirro Ligorio, 
for the Cardinal Ippolito d’Este. At Frascati, the ancient Tus- 
culum, is an extraordinary group of contiguous villas—the 
Aldobrandini, Falconieri, Mandragone, and others, all built for 
cardinal princes by such artists as Della Porta, Giovanni Fon¬ 
tana, Olivieri, Martino Lunghi, Flaminio Ponzio, and others. At 
Rome the Borghese Villa, originally built for the dukes of 
Altemps, was enlarged in 1605 by (for) Caffarelli, nephew of 
Paul V ; on attaining the cardinalate he assumed the name of 
Borghese. The Farnese, Farnesina, Pamhli Doria, Albani, and 
a dozen others, owe their existence to the wealth and extrava 
gance of these churchly lords. With the decline of the secular 
power of the Church consequent upon the Reformation, the 
social conditions out of which these vast establishments had 
grown, slowly passed away; the building of new villas ceased, 
and it has been only with the utmost difficulty that some of these 
vast and wealth-consuming estates have since been maintained 
in even tolerably perfect condition. Not a few have run to 
decay, and are to-day endowed with the new and melancholy 
charm of ruin. Nature has reconquered the domain where 
she was held captive to man’s caprice, and vines, trees, shrubs, 
grass and dust have done their best to obliterate the work of 
human hands. Other gardens have been sold under the ham¬ 
mer or cut up into building lots, and there is no likelihood that 
many new ones will arise in their places, for Italy is poor, and 
there is no such concentration of wealth in strong families as 
to make probable the creation of new splendors of the kind. 
Those that remain are, therefore, doubly precious ; they are 
unique, for no modern imitation can reproduce their antique 
charm ; and nowhere else in the world is there the environ¬ 
ment of atmosphere, associations and art which envelops these 
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