Mrs. Charles MacVeagh

“ The last remains of Aurdian's Temple of the Sun were presented by Prince Colonna to the Pope and went into the fabric of the villa, and a great collection of portrait busts of the Emperors, found in the villa of Hadrian, helped to adorn the loggias and niches. The villa was filled with rare marbles, tables, statues, and vases, and the marble colunms of the central loggia were so lustrous that Amannati says they mirrored every one who entered there. As the villa is constructed on the hillside, various levels are the natural result, and this feature has been used with diverse and happy effects. ”

“ Consummate knowledge of perspective was employed in making the building, which is not at all large, seem so, and the only defect in the entire design is, as might have been expected, the Pope's fault, for Julius insisted upon working into the loggias in the rear of the upper court of the fountain a gift of columns, beautiful in themselves but too small for the surrounding proportions, thus making that part of the construction appear insignificant and inferior to the rest. ”

“ For Julius III the wonderful water was only a perquisite belonging to the "good gift of the papacy," and he devoted his short pontificate to its exploitation and adornment, possibly silencing his scruples by the thought that the construction of a public fountain on this highway justified his manner of obtaining the water. At the two opposite angles of the Via Flaminia and the Arco Oscuro, where the ascent toward his villa began, he erected two fountains, blunting the acute end of each angle by a mostra or high façade from the base of which issued the water. ”

“ Those who visit the Villa Giulia in the morning hours may see the Campagna carts on their way back from Rome drawn up before the public fountain of Pope Julius III, and the sleepy drivers, tired horses, and responsible little dogs refreshing themselves with the water. ”

“ The “ secret fountain," with its light and shade, its rest and motion, sound and silence, its art and nature, was the poetic expression of life as it was known by the men for whom it was created.
The records of those days are never free from blood, and at least one assassination is connected with the building of this house of mirth* Baronino, an associate of Vignola and Amannati, leaving the villa with a friend on a certain evening, was set upon as he turned into the Via Flaminia and stabbed to death. ”

“ To-day the dark water in the rough garden tanks, the unpruned trees and wild flowers, the old mule stabled under the ruined loggias where hay is stored, the mysterious gloom of the vaulted roof above the Corinthian capitals and everywhere black shadows of impenetrable depth make up a scene whose like can in all probability be found only among the engravings of PiranesL The Villa Giulia proper is designated in the old Italian books as Tlnvenzione nella Vigna Giulia, and the literal English translation of invention not inappropriately describes this truly marvellous creation. ”

“ The various courts are all on different planes while, with the one exception of the grand double stairway in the central court, all the stairs are cunningly concealed so that there is no suggestion of physical effort as the eye passes from one plane to another. The vaulted roofs of the long semicircular galleries and various rooms were decorated with paintings or with stucco work of the most exquisite perfection. Traces of this last are still to be seen above the niches containing the colossal river-gods, the Tiber and the AJTLO (Amannati was a Florentine) . ”

“ The shallow, broad stairway leading down from the right-hand garden under the terraces was put in for the benefit of the cavalry quartered there during a petty war of the eighteenth century, when the horses were taken down to drink at the Nymphseum I The present gardens in no wise represent the beautiful formal gardens which stretched there on either side of the various courts, and the present walls cannot possibly enclose that space which was once filled with orange groves and every sort of device for fastidious delight. ”

“ The villa was still far from finished when Julius III's short pontificate came to an end. The Conclave almost unanimously chose as Ms successor their saintly brother, Cardinal della Croce. [4] The world had entered upon a new phase. Northern Europe had brought the spirit of the Reformation to the gates of Rome, and men were ashamed of Pope Julius III, whose misfortune it had been to live half a century too late. ”

“ The niches round about were filled with marble boys carrying urns upon their shoulders from which the water was poured into the semicircular stream at their feet. It is impossible to tell from the description of the old pictures what, if any, statue filled the central niche behind the virgins. ”