DOI Kapitel:
IV. Villas near Rome
DOI Kapitel:I. Caprarola and Lante
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61216#0171
ITALIAN VILLAS
We have to do here with one of the fortified residences
rarely seen save in the north, but doubtless necessary
in a neighbourhood exposed to the ever-increasing
dangers of brigandage. Italy, indeed, built castles and
fortified works, but the fortress-palace, equally adapted
to peace and war, was almost unknown.”
The numerous illustrated publications on Caprarola
make it unnecessary to describe its complex architecture
in detail. It is sufficient to say that its five bastions are
surrounded by a deep moat, across which a light bridge
at the back of the palace leads to the lower garden. To
pass from the threatening facade to the wide-spread
beauty of pleached walks, fountains and grottoes, brings
vividly before one the curious contrasts of Italian coun-
try life in the transition period of the sixteenth century.
Outside, one pictures the cardinal’s soldiers and bravi
lounging on the great platform above the village ; while
within, one has a vision of noble ladies and their cava-
liers sitting under rose-arbours or strolling between
espaliered lemon-trees, discussing a Greek manuscript
or a Roman bronze, or listening to the last sonnet of the
cardinal’s court poet.
The lower garden of Caprarola is a mere wreck of
overgrown box-parterres and crumbling wall and balus-
trade. Plaster statues in all stages of decay stand in
the niches or cumber the paths; fruit-trees have been
planted in the flower-beds, and the maidenhair withers
in grottoes where the water no longer flows. The archi-
I 28
We have to do here with one of the fortified residences
rarely seen save in the north, but doubtless necessary
in a neighbourhood exposed to the ever-increasing
dangers of brigandage. Italy, indeed, built castles and
fortified works, but the fortress-palace, equally adapted
to peace and war, was almost unknown.”
The numerous illustrated publications on Caprarola
make it unnecessary to describe its complex architecture
in detail. It is sufficient to say that its five bastions are
surrounded by a deep moat, across which a light bridge
at the back of the palace leads to the lower garden. To
pass from the threatening facade to the wide-spread
beauty of pleached walks, fountains and grottoes, brings
vividly before one the curious contrasts of Italian coun-
try life in the transition period of the sixteenth century.
Outside, one pictures the cardinal’s soldiers and bravi
lounging on the great platform above the village ; while
within, one has a vision of noble ladies and their cava-
liers sitting under rose-arbours or strolling between
espaliered lemon-trees, discussing a Greek manuscript
or a Roman bronze, or listening to the last sonnet of the
cardinal’s court poet.
The lower garden of Caprarola is a mere wreck of
overgrown box-parterres and crumbling wall and balus-
trade. Plaster statues in all stages of decay stand in
the niches or cumber the paths; fruit-trees have been
planted in the flower-beds, and the maidenhair withers
in grottoes where the water no longer flows. The archi-
I 28