House and Garden 
VILLA ALBANI, ROME 
ENTRANCE AT FRASCATI 
tangled in his books, lor here he lived and wrote his 
last heart-throbs. 
In single spies the pines are adorable green 
powder-puffs, feathery pompons, ornamental fluff's 
to be sprinkled through the landscape and to give 
a shiver of pleasure to the ecstatic worshiper. Thus 
we see them at Villa Albani and in a thousand 
other seductive places. Down in the south flourishes 
the wondrous quercta, the 
live-oak, the ilex, which 
beguiles tbe winter landscape 
into summer, for who can 
walk the long alleys ol the 
Villa Borghese or the Pincio 
on a sunn}' winter morning 
without living in his heart 
a summer day? Demurely 
trimmed they stand decently 
before the Villa Medici to 
guard the view of Rome, 
and behind the villa of the 
picture gallery they screen 
and soften the old marbles 
around the green. 
And the palm in the 
south—also in the north, 
for the palm is able to 
stand a bitter wind with 
icicles in it, and the cold 
that comes in from the 
sea up Genoa way, on 
the Riviera Levante. It 
only asks that its roots be 
not held fast in solidlv 
j 
frozen ground. In fact 
it is a bluff'er, claiming 
to be a tender languisher 
of the tropics, but if you 
brush away its affectations. 
capable of Spartan courage—and by this is its charm 
made infinite. 
Now what is the summing up of all this pother 
about Italian winter trees ? A prayer to the arbor¬ 
iculturist to give to those of us who love to stay in 
our own country, a chance to enjoy these same 
beauties here, and that without a weary journey to 
California’s reliable climate, or to Florida’s winter 
respite from her enemy the 
sun. The reproduced Ital¬ 
ian garden is with us. It 
is the latest note in our 
landscape gardening, and 
we have adopted it with 
avidity. The formal gar¬ 
den alone is not enough; it 
must be Italian. And this, 
with delightful inappropri¬ 
ateness is true, whether the 
rich man’s home be on the 
sandy reaches of New Jer¬ 
sey or on the stern and rock- 
bound coast of Maine. 
But it is not enough that 
a man shall erect a few yards 
of concrete pergola, plot out 
spotty flower beds, and 
sprinkle among all these 
the product of the stone¬ 
cutter’s atelier. Something 
yet is strangely wanting. It 
is the trees. To those who 
have read and dreamed, 
lived and loved, in the true 
Italian garden, the modern 
aff'air without the proper 
trees in or near it, is but a 
weakling stabbing at deep 
sentiment. 
GATEWAY AT FRASCATI 
164 
