ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
and it became known by the name of Villa Madama. 
Even in her lifetime, however, many of its treasures 
were dispersed. The noble statue of Jupiter, which 
excited the admiration of both Isabella d’Este and 
Vasari, was given by the Farnese to King Francis the 
First, while they presented another very fine bust to 
Charles the Fifth’s powerful minister, Cardinal de 
Granvelle. After Margaret’s death in 1586, Villa 
Madama remained the property of the Farnese family, 
who added a few new rooms and domestic offices with a 
view to rendering the house more habitable. Cardinal 
Odoardo Farnese often spent the summer here, and 
gave at least one memorable entertainment at Villa 
Madama. This was in the closing years of the six¬ 
teenth century, when II Pastor Fido , the pastoral drama 
of the Ferrarese poet, Battista Guarini, was per¬ 
formed in these grounds in the presence of a brilliant 
company of cardinals and princes. The last represen¬ 
tative of the family, Elisabetta Farnese, became the 
wife of King Philip the Fifth of Spain. At her death 
Villa Madama passed to her son, Charles the Third, 
King of Naples, and still belongs to his Bourbon 
descendants. During the last 150 years Villa Madama 
has been abandoned by its owners and allowed to fall 
into ruin. The English traveller Eaton, who visited 
Rome in 1820, gives a melancholy picture of the state 
to which it was reduced by this time. The chapel had 
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