DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19775#0056
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
carriage drive and built some supplementary walls
during his so-called " imprisonment."
The gardens are entered from the Museum of
Sculpture at the back of St. Peter's, and for more
than a cursory glimpse of them a special permit
is required. This is obtained from one of the
Cardinals, and requires to be vised by the major-
domo, who is to be found near the entrance to
the Scala Regia. Armed with this, a delicious early
morning wander can be enjoyed. The gardens are
cleared at twelve, when the Pope generally walks or
drives there.
They are of horseshoe shape. On entering, a
noble terrace stretches away and goes round two
sides of a large formal garden. This terrace, which
has a beautiful view of the great dome, is the place
where Leo XIII. so often sat, and where the well-
known picture of him, surrounded by his Cardinals,
was painted. It is sheltered by a high close-clipped
wall of greenery, in which statues are set at intervals;
beyond, are dropping terraces with walks dark and
shady under bowering ilexes, and openings cut here
and there, in which fountains fling high their silver
showers.
At the end of the first stretch of terrace
the carriage road mounts up the hill and encircles
the grounds ; but more tempting than the wide,
well-kept drive, is an irregular opening in the green
wall, through which you pass into a bosky wood,
wild and shady, exquisite in the spring-time when
the elms and birches are fresh with tender green,
the ground starred with blue and white anemones
and rosy cyclamen and bluebells, and the blackbirds
and nightingales sing in every bush. The little
woodland glade is dotted about with relics of
antiquity, remains of the masses of marble and stone
works which must have once adorned this spot.
Here is a little votive altar half hidden in feathery
green, there a graceful figure of a nymph stands
in the flickering sunlight, or a tall, worn stone cross,
a relic of early Christian days, towers above an old
sarcophagus. If it were not for these documents
in stone, we might fancy ourselves in some lovely
English wood ; but they carry us back to a remote
past whose sequence with to-day has never been
broken.
At the top of the wood the ground opens out,
and upon the crest of the hill is a small villa with
plainly-furnished rooms, and a little chapel, built as
a summer residence for Leo XIII. Beyond it is a
vineyard with a broad walk leading to the ugly
modern grotto of the Madonna of Lourdes, and
further on, to a large enclosure for wild animals ; a
sort of menagerie. Here are ostriches, pelicans,
and other foreign birds, and various kinds of deer.
The present Pope often walks here, and comes
to watch them through the bars. The lone; wall
here, with the Saracenic tower, was that held by
the Roman volunteers who fought so well against
the French in 1849. The sculptor, W. W. Story,
speaks of his visit during the defence. " As we
looked from the wall on this the third day after
the battle, we saw the monks under the black flag
looking for the unburied dead who had fallen in
the ditches or among the hedges. The French had
retreated without an effort to bury their dead, and
a living, wounded man was found on this third
day with the bodies of two dead soldiers lying across
him." A little below this we come to a tiny
summer-house, in which is a gilt chair where His
Holiness may rest after the climb uphill. A shady
pergola of vines stretches in front of it, under which
the light is golden green on the hottest summer
day, and this is a favourite promenade of the present,
as it was of the late, Pope. Not fir off is Pope
Leo's little writing house, in which he used often
to transact business with his secretary. During the
great heat Leo XIII. often went up to the garden
at nine in the morning, after saying mass, and spent
the whole day in the garden, receiving everyone
there, dining in the garden pavilion, guarded by
the Swiss, to whom he generally sent a measure
of good wine, and in the cool of the day he would
take a drive, and not return to the Vatican till
after sunset. The road passes near his little summer-
house, and it was at this point that on his last drive
the aged pontiff stopped the carriage, and raising
himself, looked long over the Eternal City lying
below him, with the Alban Hills rising far beyond.
Pius IX. used to ride here on his white mule, and
the present Pope walks here nearly every day.
Past a rough grotto fountain on the slope of
the hill, the road leads downward to the lower and
more formal part of the garden, past a fine wall
fountain, where the water spouts in jets and stars
over the brown lip of a basin fringed with maiden-
hair fern. As we look at. the water gushing from
the rocks we may recall that it was brought here
in its plenty by Trajan, after a terrible inundation
led him to restrain and turn the Tiber. This,
according to Falda's old book of gardens of 1640,
went by the name of Fontana delli Torri, and from
it the path winds to the entrance to a little palm
garden, which of old was the garden of the simples.
Immediately below is the entrance to the nucleus,
the most beautiful spot in the garden, the Casino
of Pius IV., the Villa Pia, the chefd\euvre of the
famous architect Pirro Ligorio, built with material
taken from the stadium of Domitian in Piazza
Navona.
A stone-paved courtyard is set round with low
walls and seats, above which are ranged stone vases,
in which grow stiff yet graceful aloes ; at either
end is a beautiful porch-like recess, the arch of
which is filled by a great, graceful shell decoration,
and the sides have busts set in niches, the whole
decorated in the rich and fanciful style of the
Renaissance with delicate painting and stucco-work.
On one side is a large garden-house, airy, yet with
a certain stateliness, its facade rich and dainty with
wreaths and bas-reliefs. The walls within are
painted with gay medallions by Zuccaro, Baroccio,
and Santi di Tito. Here are two ancient mosaics,
one representing a hunt, the other a bacchanalian
( 45 )
carriage drive and built some supplementary walls
during his so-called " imprisonment."
The gardens are entered from the Museum of
Sculpture at the back of St. Peter's, and for more
than a cursory glimpse of them a special permit
is required. This is obtained from one of the
Cardinals, and requires to be vised by the major-
domo, who is to be found near the entrance to
the Scala Regia. Armed with this, a delicious early
morning wander can be enjoyed. The gardens are
cleared at twelve, when the Pope generally walks or
drives there.
They are of horseshoe shape. On entering, a
noble terrace stretches away and goes round two
sides of a large formal garden. This terrace, which
has a beautiful view of the great dome, is the place
where Leo XIII. so often sat, and where the well-
known picture of him, surrounded by his Cardinals,
was painted. It is sheltered by a high close-clipped
wall of greenery, in which statues are set at intervals;
beyond, are dropping terraces with walks dark and
shady under bowering ilexes, and openings cut here
and there, in which fountains fling high their silver
showers.
At the end of the first stretch of terrace
the carriage road mounts up the hill and encircles
the grounds ; but more tempting than the wide,
well-kept drive, is an irregular opening in the green
wall, through which you pass into a bosky wood,
wild and shady, exquisite in the spring-time when
the elms and birches are fresh with tender green,
the ground starred with blue and white anemones
and rosy cyclamen and bluebells, and the blackbirds
and nightingales sing in every bush. The little
woodland glade is dotted about with relics of
antiquity, remains of the masses of marble and stone
works which must have once adorned this spot.
Here is a little votive altar half hidden in feathery
green, there a graceful figure of a nymph stands
in the flickering sunlight, or a tall, worn stone cross,
a relic of early Christian days, towers above an old
sarcophagus. If it were not for these documents
in stone, we might fancy ourselves in some lovely
English wood ; but they carry us back to a remote
past whose sequence with to-day has never been
broken.
At the top of the wood the ground opens out,
and upon the crest of the hill is a small villa with
plainly-furnished rooms, and a little chapel, built as
a summer residence for Leo XIII. Beyond it is a
vineyard with a broad walk leading to the ugly
modern grotto of the Madonna of Lourdes, and
further on, to a large enclosure for wild animals ; a
sort of menagerie. Here are ostriches, pelicans,
and other foreign birds, and various kinds of deer.
The present Pope often walks here, and comes
to watch them through the bars. The lone; wall
here, with the Saracenic tower, was that held by
the Roman volunteers who fought so well against
the French in 1849. The sculptor, W. W. Story,
speaks of his visit during the defence. " As we
looked from the wall on this the third day after
the battle, we saw the monks under the black flag
looking for the unburied dead who had fallen in
the ditches or among the hedges. The French had
retreated without an effort to bury their dead, and
a living, wounded man was found on this third
day with the bodies of two dead soldiers lying across
him." A little below this we come to a tiny
summer-house, in which is a gilt chair where His
Holiness may rest after the climb uphill. A shady
pergola of vines stretches in front of it, under which
the light is golden green on the hottest summer
day, and this is a favourite promenade of the present,
as it was of the late, Pope. Not fir off is Pope
Leo's little writing house, in which he used often
to transact business with his secretary. During the
great heat Leo XIII. often went up to the garden
at nine in the morning, after saying mass, and spent
the whole day in the garden, receiving everyone
there, dining in the garden pavilion, guarded by
the Swiss, to whom he generally sent a measure
of good wine, and in the cool of the day he would
take a drive, and not return to the Vatican till
after sunset. The road passes near his little summer-
house, and it was at this point that on his last drive
the aged pontiff stopped the carriage, and raising
himself, looked long over the Eternal City lying
below him, with the Alban Hills rising far beyond.
Pius IX. used to ride here on his white mule, and
the present Pope walks here nearly every day.
Past a rough grotto fountain on the slope of
the hill, the road leads downward to the lower and
more formal part of the garden, past a fine wall
fountain, where the water spouts in jets and stars
over the brown lip of a basin fringed with maiden-
hair fern. As we look at. the water gushing from
the rocks we may recall that it was brought here
in its plenty by Trajan, after a terrible inundation
led him to restrain and turn the Tiber. This,
according to Falda's old book of gardens of 1640,
went by the name of Fontana delli Torri, and from
it the path winds to the entrance to a little palm
garden, which of old was the garden of the simples.
Immediately below is the entrance to the nucleus,
the most beautiful spot in the garden, the Casino
of Pius IV., the Villa Pia, the chefd\euvre of the
famous architect Pirro Ligorio, built with material
taken from the stadium of Domitian in Piazza
Navona.
A stone-paved courtyard is set round with low
walls and seats, above which are ranged stone vases,
in which grow stiff yet graceful aloes ; at either
end is a beautiful porch-like recess, the arch of
which is filled by a great, graceful shell decoration,
and the sides have busts set in niches, the whole
decorated in the rich and fanciful style of the
Renaissance with delicate painting and stucco-work.
On one side is a large garden-house, airy, yet with
a certain stateliness, its facade rich and dainty with
wreaths and bas-reliefs. The walls within are
painted with gay medallions by Zuccaro, Baroccio,
and Santi di Tito. Here are two ancient mosaics,
one representing a hunt, the other a bacchanalian
( 45 )