Villa Adriana

“ Adair—who had remained silent, quietly amused at this animated discussion—now thought that it was going a little too far, and managed to change the conversation.
Shortly afterwards they arrived at the entrance to the Villa Torlonia, where they alighted, and the coachman drove to the hotel in Frascati to await their order to return.
The villa is but a stone's-throw from the town: a magnificent terrace leads to the large, rambling, white building, in which one could well imagine half-a-dozen families living with separate households. The view from the front is grand indeed. ”

“ The heavy grating of the lower windows, the picturesque archway leading to the square, paved courtyard, the little garden on one side, with its olive-tree bending over the grey wall towards the road below—all breathe an almost cloistered quietness. Parva domus magna quies, [6] runs the legend sculptured in black letters on grey marble over the house door.
Nothing clashes in this villa. The present proprietor, with his antiquarian and artistic tastes, and his love of Latin inscriptions, has produced a rare welding of past with present. ”

“ A haunting suggestiveness breathes from these surroundings, like the perfume exhaled when one unlocks a long-closed sandal-wood casket, once the depository of dainty feminine trifles. It needs not the name of the villa to tell us that a lady, sitting in this loggia, once duplicated Da Udine's traceries in her embroidery, gathered roses in the garden, and looked longingly toward Rome while awaiting the coming of her princely lover, and many a visitor has been piqued by the ignorance of the custodian of the villa to search history for this mysterious Madama. ”

“ NEGLECTED but not ruinous, its marbles mossy, its once unrivalled garden invaded by sweet wild-flower banditti which run riot among the gentle roses, its fountains dry, their cracks and crannies the homes of basking lizards, its charming loggia trodden only by enthusiasts for whom every spot touched by the genius of Raphael is a shrine of pilgrimage—the Villa Madama, though appealing in its desertion, is not a melancholy solitude. ”

“ Grace fell in love with the spot because, although near the high-road to Genoa, it lay off the beaten track, and was purely Italian—no Swiss-German hotel, no English tourists. The villa was out of repair, and by no means beautiful; but some extent of land went with it—olive woods, lemon groves, old, old mulberry trees, festooned with vines that were looped from tree to tree, banks of carnations, a wilderness of roses.
Lady Perivale sent for the owner's agent, and bought land and villa as easily as she would have bought a bonnet. ”

“ Snatch nature's graces from the hand of Time."
But it is the view afforded by the double arcade of loggias and by every window of the palace façade which was the crowning glory of the villa. The amethystine Sabine Hills and the immense Campagna encircle the Eternal City, from whose mists the dome of Saint Peter's seems to rise a buoyant, iridescent bubble.
It was Pirro Ligorio (architect also of the exquisite Villa Pia) who in 1545 accomplished the miracle of converting the savage cliff into a staircase of enchantment. ”

“ It is reached by driving from Florence through the low envineyarded country for five miles. Then, on the left, under the hills, one sees what looks like a great old barrack, grimy, mossy, and deserted. This is the villa. All outside is decay, but when you enter, there are charming old halls and chambers, connected by open arches, and filled with pictures, china, books, and beautiful old carved furniture. A terrace, lined with immense vases of lilies and tulips, opens on a garden with vine-shaded pergolas and huge orange-trees in tubs; and beyond are the wooded hills. ”

“ At sunset we were wandering over the ruin of Adrian’s villa, which lies upon the first step of the Appenines. Behind us, the vesper bells of Tivoli were sounding, and their echoes floating sweetly under the broken arches; before us, stretching all the way to the horizon, lay the broad Campagna; while in the middle of its great waves, turned violet-colored by the hues of twilight, rose the grouped towers of the Eternal City; and lording it among them all, like a giant, stood the black dome of St. ”

“ But his face is wreathed with smiles, for he genuinely loves his two beautiful nieces, Lucrezia, Duchess of Urbino, and the gentle Leonora, who are his guests, and he loves his villa, whose beauties he is pointing out to them.
"You do not see the garden at its best," he cavils. "Wait till the roses garland the balustrades. It is too early yet to enjoy Tivoli; the frost may have left the ground but it lingers still in the pavements of this great palace. The halls are damp as vaults; we would have done well, my nieces, to have remained another month in Rome. ”

“ Fortunately, it was at once lighted by all of them, by their affection for one another; if she had not had the consoling brightness of mutual love, oh, it would have been impossible for her to go and live in that dark, gloomy, cavernous villa-house, among the eternally rustling trees, under the eternally louring skies! The house was dear to Van der Welcke and Addie because of a strange sympathy, a sense that their home was there and nowhere else. ”

“ From Strà to Fusina the shores of the Brenta are lined with charming pleasure-houses, varying in size from the dignified villa to the little garden-pavilion, and all full of interest and instruction to the student of villa-architecture; but unhappily no traces of their old gardens remain, save the statues which once peopled the parterres and surmounted the walls. Several of the villas are attributed to Palladio, but only one is really typical of his style: the melancholy Malcontenta, built by the Foscari, and now standing ruinous and deserted in a marshy field beside the river. ”

“ And yet, struggle against the singular emotion as she would, she could not cure herself of thinking that big house gloomy and regretting the little villa in the Kerkhoflaan at the Hague, even though she had never known any great domestic happiness there. . . . Still . . . still, one loves the thing that one has grown used to; and was it not funny that she had grown so fond of that little house, where she had lived four years, and been disconsolate when, after the old man's death, Van der Welcke and Addie too had insisted on moving to the big, sombre villa at Driebergen? ”

“ As the young adventurer Brandilancia, who was to play the part of the true Essex, rode up the hill crowned by the Villa Medici he was struck by the resemblance of the massive retaining walls to those of some medieval fortress. As such they had served in ancient days, holding the villa safe in their protecting embrace from any uprising of the populace of Rome, while on the side toward the Campagna they had withstood more than one siege of the Goths. ”

“ Lina had undoubtedly expected to see Baron von Pranken, when she heard his horse approaching.
Eric was now riding along the river-bank in the valley. He was so full of cheerfulness, that songs rose to his lips as they had not done for a long time; he did not give them voice, but sang them in his soul. The whole fulness and variety of thought, perception, and feeling were stirring in his heart. As he saw the sun shining on the glass dome of Villa Eden, it struck him like a lightning flash,—
Why is such a free, delightful existence denied me? why must I labor in the service of others? ”

“ It is safe to say that no one enters the grounds of the Villa Medici without being soothed and charmed by that garden-magic which is the peculiar quality of some of the old Italian pleasances. It is not necessary to be a student of garden-architecture to feel the spell of quiet and serenity which falls on one at the very gateway ”

“ About 1⁄2 M. farther, a little to the left, is the villa *Achilleion (adm. to the building and the grounds 11–3, 2 dr.) , built in 1890–1 for Empress Elizabeth of Austria (d. 1898) , in the Italian Renaissance style, and purchased by the German emperor in 1907. The back of the villa is adjoined by a peristyle and three terraces adorned with statues. On the road, just beyond the villa, is the Restaurant Bella Vista. We now descend (short-cuts for walkers) to the (2 M.) fishing-village of Benizze, where delicious oranges grow, and where there are remains of a Roman villa (boat to Corfu, 5 dr.) ”

“ I remember!' cried Eleanor, starting up. 'There is the palazzo—and the village.'
In front of them, indeed, rose an old villa of the Renaissance, with its long flat roofs, its fine loggia, and terraced vineyards. A rude village of grey stone, part, it seemed, of the tufa rocks from which it sprang, pressed round the villa, invaded its olive-gardens, crept up to its very walls. Meanwhile the earth grew kinder and more fertile. ”

“ The Diary says: “I am glad I have seen that old man’s face and his look, as though it came to us from beyond the grave. At times the cheers went up to the highest pitch of both men’s and women’s voices. A strange sound to hear in a church.”
A spring day spent at the well-known Hadrian’s Villa, under Tivoli, is not to be allowed to pass without a grateful record. It is a most exquisite place of old ruins, cypresses, olives and, at this time, flowering peach trees, violets and anemones. It is an enchanting site for a country house. ”

“ Really, I do not think that I have ever seen so large and fine a house, or one which is so well laid out and adorned with such excellent pictures. I do not believe there is another to rival it in the whole world, and did not think it possible to find a villa at once so spacious and so thoroughly comfortable and well arranged. To say the truth, if I were asked whether Vigevano, or the Castello of Pavia, or this place was the finest palace in the world—the Castello must forgive me, for I would certainly choose Belriguardo! ”

“ Our little villa, one of the very smallest on the lake, stands next the Villa D’Esté, so renowned as Queen Caroline’s—about two and a half miles from Como, in a small embayment bounded by lofty mountains, and almost hid among the thick shade of olives, citrons, wild fig-trees, and cactus. On every side stands some picturesque abode, all, or nearly all, belonging to distinguished persons, and built in every variety of architectural taste. ”

“ In all Italian garden-architecture there is nothing quite comparable for charm and delicately reminiscent classicalism with this grotto-bath of Pope Julius’s villa. Here we find the tradition of the old Roman villa-architecture, as it had been lovingly studied in the letters of Pliny, transposed into Renaissance forms, with the sense of its continued fitness to unchanged conditions of climate and a conscious return to the splendour of the old patrician life. ”

“ Adriana stopped this melancholy procession, and cried out to the duke for justice, telling him that the abbess had refused to deliver up her lunatic husband to her care. While she was speaking, her real husband and his servant Dromio, who had got loose, came before the duke to demand justice, complaining that his wife had confined him on a false charge of lunacy; and telling in what manner he had broken his bands, and eluded the vigilance of his keepers. Adriana was strangely surprised to see her husband, when she thought he had been within the convent. ”

“ The villas near Rome were all built on hilly sites, so that the laying out of the ground in terraces formed a very important element in their design, and this forms the chief attraction of the Italian villas of the 16th century, among which the following are the best known: the Villa Madama, the design of which, attributed to Raphael, was carried out by Giulio Romano in 1520 ”

“ And certainly, as we pass from Fiesole down the new road where the tram runs, turning into the lanes again just by Villa Galetta, on our way to Maiano, we may fancy we see many places where such a life as that has always been lived, and, as I know, in some is lived to-day. Everywhere on these hills you find villas, and every villa has a garden, and every garden has a fountain, where all day long the sun plays with the slim dancing water and the contadine sing of love in the vineyards. ”

“ They have christened our friend in the garden of Lucullus, the 'Venus de' Medici,' ignorant of the prouder name she bore, and they call the relief in that new villa, 'The Antinous of Cardinal Albani,' not knowing that the portrait and its original were alike, Faustina's."
Shall we, indulgent reader, on some fair, future day, led by the lure of old Rome, together revisit our loved villas and win the confidences of these marble men and women who smile on us so inscrutably, and yet with such all-compelling fascination? ”

“ It must be remembered, however, that with the exception of the great houses built near Rome by the Princes of the Church, and the country-seats of such reigning families as the Medici, the Italian villa was almost invariably a small and simple building, the noble proprietor having usually preferred to devote his wealth and time to the embellishment of his gardens. ”

“ The villa is a large, white Grecian building, not handsome enough for a palace nor pretty enough for a country house. There are some fine rooms, rather grand and very gloomy. The pleasantest sitting-room was a hall, painted and decorated like a Pompeian court, with a fountain in the centre, surrounded by flowers and ferns.
The gardens and terraces make the delight of the place. Vines, myrtles, and magnolia-trees are trained over arches, and under their fragrant shade, the air cooled by innumerable fountains, how pleasantly must the summer days pass! ”