International studio (16.1902)

Italy's Private Gardens

signalise the event in this way. Certainly his heirs
and successors carried on the tradition in the best
possible spirit, taking infinite pains in the preserva-
tion of the trees and in the cultivation of innumer-
able rare plants. At the same time the garden has
not too much of the over-regular, academic style.
Oaks, firs of all descriptions, and cypresses form its
solid background. It is traversed by a single canal,
but no bubbling water, no spurting fountain breaks
its intense calm. In the background on a gentle
hillock stands a tower, designed in the good
mediaeval Florentine style, presenting to the eye,
with its little terraces and battlements, a vague
suggestion of the campaniles of the churches of
Badia and S. Croce. But the tower, of beautiful
red-brown stone, is absolutely modern, having been
erected in 1857 by Carlo Torrigiani in memory of
his father, the Marquis Peter.
While the Tuscan character preserves both in
villas and in gardens a note of exquisite refinement,
the imitation of the antique has enriched and
amplified the Roman style. On the old soil, with
its ancient glories, we have the old conformations
and styles, including the baroque, to which the
local stone, the lapis tiburtinus, lends itself

admirably. The villas of Bagnaja, Tivoii and
Frascati, are typical examples which we must
all admire. They differ from the Tuscan villas,
in which the architectural element predominates
over the arboreal and the floral. But as Rome is
really the city of fountains, we must recognise that
its private villas owe their architectural advantage
to the abundance of water available.
In all the Roman villas one observes an almost
extravagant spirit of regularity. As to the urban
gardens—I say nothing about the Villa Pamphili—
mention must be made, among the most recent, of
the Villa Albani and the Villa of the Cavalieri di
Malta, or Knights of Malta.
The first-named of these was constructed by
Marchionne in 1758, and acquired by the Torlonias
in 1869. Very little remains of the precious archi-
tecture collected by the founder, Cardinal Albani,
with the assistance of Winckelmann. The ample
semicircular facade, corresponding with the front
of the palace, is adorned with forty marble
columns of various sorts—evidence enough of a
firm intention to maintain the old magnificence.
The Villa di Malta rising on Aventino, >s
the work or the famous Piranesi. The broad,