The Villa Corsi-Salviati 
A BOUNDARY WALK OF THE GARDEN 
conservatory which is mentioned in the de¬ 
scription of the front of the house, and here 
it is that some of the finest trees are to be 
found, such as a magnificent group of white 
poplars and a very fine deodar. 
The conservatory is full forty feet long. 
Its walls are covered with Ficus repens. Tree 
ferns, palms, and orchids hanging in rustic 
wood and moss trays fill its long length ; but 
a conservatory 
in Italy, how¬ 
ever beautiful, 
can be little 
else than the 
resort of a bot¬ 
anist. In sum¬ 
mer the heat 
makes a glass- 
covered space 
unbearable to 
anything but 
tropical plants 
and in winter 
the villas are 
not inhabited. 
The Car- 
nesecchi are 
known to have 
had a villa on 
the same spot 
as the present Villa Corsi-Salviati certainly as 
early as the fifteenth century, if not before. 
This with the adjoining property they sold to 
the Corsi in 1502. The present was built on 
the site of the Carnesecchi Villa by Marchese 
Giovarini and his brother Monsignor Lo¬ 
renzo di Jacopo Corsi and finished in j66o. 
Several artists, famous in their day, beauti¬ 
fied its walls. The frescoes in the Gallery 
are Baccio del 
Bianco’s and 
one of the 
rooms on the 
ground floor 
is entirely 
decorated by 
M o s e d e i 
Zuccheri. One 
of the finest 
works of art in 
the house is a 
contemporary 
bronze bust 
of Sixtus V. 
( i 585 - i 59 °), 
perhaps the 
most remark¬ 
able Pope of 
the sixteenth 
century. 
THE RUSTIC SUMMER-HOUSE ON AN ISLAND IN THE LAKE 
150 
