The Achilleion at Corfu 
A GENERAL VIEW OF THE PALACE FROM A SUMMIT TO THE SOUTHWARD 
The structure is the work of the Italian architect, Raffaele Cansito 
procedure probably produced the most satis- 
factoryfresults,—provided of course one got 
any farther than the colonnade, which happens 
toJ.be a most detaining spot,—for then the 
tallTpalms and the numerous other varieties 
of tropical plants were little more than 
shrubs. To-day, however, these same shrubs 
are no longer children but grown men, as it 
were, and the view ot a terrace from the one 
next above it is anything but satisfactory, 
unless one is content with the evidences of 
an artistic beauty too general to analyze, and 
with a rather confused and jumbled idea of 
what is to be seen and ot what has been 
seen. There is plenty of evidence, in fact, 
that from the beginning these gardens were 
meant to be viewed from north to south to 
obtain a concrete idea of their plan. At 
any rate it seems most satisfactory that we 
pass unceremoniously through these gardens 
oblivious of their points of beauty until we 
stand at the extreme northern limit of a small 
plain attached, as it were, at right angles to 
the mountainside, from which the view is 
bounded only bv the limit of human vision. 
H ere in the apex of this somewhat conic¬ 
ally shaped garden is located the Dying 
Achilles, sculptured from Carrara marble by 
H erter in 1884. As a block of marble, it is 
faultless ; as a work of art, magnificent; and 
as the crowning feature of the Achilleion, 
as well as the standard by which every 
other piece ot art has been measured, noth¬ 
ing else of its kind could be conceived 
more appropriate and more perfect. To 
look upon that powerful yet graceful form 
in its agonizing struggle with Death, who 
has at last found the vulnerable spot with 
his poisoned dart, is to know as one can 
scarcely know otherwise the power and 
influence ot the Homeric mind which con¬ 
ceived the character, and to more truly ap¬ 
preciate the inspiration which those patri¬ 
archs in literature have given to the art of 
subsequent ages. 
Immediately back of the statue is a semi¬ 
circular seat of marble overtopped to-day by 
a tapestry-like hedge of bonibus, and filling 
the space of this semicircle is a tea-table of 
Indian granite. Leading to the immediate 
right and left of the statute are the garden 
walks, whose ramifications increase in num¬ 
ber until the center of the terrace is reached, 
then decrease in the same proportion to the 
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