THE GARDENS OF PAPAL ROME 
“ Dimmi ch’io potro aver ozio talora 
Di riveder le Muse, e con lor, sotto 
Le sacre frondi ir poetando ancora . . . 
Pei Sette Colli.” Ariosto. 
Imperial Rome, we are often told, was a city of 
gardens. The sumptuous pleasure-grounds of the 
Emperors and the gardens of wealthy patricians, such 
as Lucullus and Sallust, extended over a large portion 
of the Seven Hills. On the terraced slopes at the 
foot of the Janiculum were the public gardens be¬ 
queathed by Julius Caesar to the people; on the 
opposite heights of the Esquiline was the villa of 
Maecenas, where Horace and his friends enjoyed the 
hospitality of their august patron. Even the Suburra 
was not without flowers, and Pliny speaks of the 
window-gardens of the poorer citizens. The sites of 
these old gardens and the names of their owners still 
lingered in the mind of the mediaeval Roman, from 
whose memory the vision of ancient Rome and its 
departed splendours had never wholly faded. But 
the revival of gardening that formed so marked a 
feature of the Renaissance did not reach Papal 
Rome until the first years of the sixteenth century. 
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