THE GARDENS OF PAPAL ROME 
or comedies, while the upper half, reaching to the 
villa walls, was laid out as a garden with broad flights 
of steps, wide terraces, and avenues of cypress and 
orange trees. A superb fountain, adorned with the 
famous Pigna or bronze cone which, according to 
an old tradition, once crowned the Mausoleum of 
Hadrian and afterwards, as Dante records, stood in the 
Atrium of old St. Peter’s, was placed in the centre of 
the highest terrace. Immediately behind this fountain, 
closing in the view, was a colossal niche, eighty feet 
high, roofed over with a semi-cupola and hemi-cycle 
of pillars, and forming an imposing facade to the 
Belvedere. At the same time Bramante enlarged and 
beautified the villa. A Cortile or inner hall, to 
contain the Pope’s antique statues, was added, as well 
as the celebrated spiral staircase with tiers of Doric, 
Ionic, and Corinthian pillars rising one above another. 
Phis stairway was constructed in such a manner that 
it might be ascended on horseback, and caused the 
Roman wits to say that the Pope’s architect had made 
a new road to heaven, broad and easy enough for 
the feeblest souls to get there. 
The greatest admiration was excited by Bramante’s 
plans, and the progress of the work was hurried on 
by the Pope with characteristic impetuosity. “The 
design of this fabric,” wrote Vasari, “was considered 
so fine that nothing equal to it had been seen in Rome 
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