Italian villas and their gardens . ately garden-architecture about thevilla has utterly destroyed the unity of the is a legend to the effect that Le Notre laid outthe park of the Villa Pamphily when he came to Romein 1678; but Percier and Fontaine, who declare thatthere is nothing to corroborate the story, point out thatthe Villa Pamphily was begun over thirty years beforeLe Notres visit. Absence of proof, however, meanslittle to the average French author, eager to vindicateLe Notres claim to being the father not only of French,but of Italian landscape-architecture; and M. Ri
Italian villas and their gardens . ately garden-architecture about thevilla has utterly destroyed the unity of the is a legend to the effect that Le Notre laid outthe park of the Villa Pamphily when he came to Romein 1678; but Percier and Fontaine, who declare thatthere is nothing to corroborate the story, point out thatthe Villa Pamphily was begun over thirty years beforeLe Notres visit. Absence of proof, however, meanslittle to the average French author, eager to vindicateLe Notres claim to being the father not only of French,but of Italian landscape-architecture; and M. Riat, in LArt des Jardins, repeats the legend of the VillaPamphily, while Dussieux, in his Artists Frangais aIEtranger, anxious to heap further honours on his com-patriot, actually ascribes to him the plan of the VillaAlbani, which was laid out by Pietro Nolli nearly twohundred years after Le Notres visit to Rome ! Appa-rently the whole story of Le Notres laying out of Italiangardens is based on the fact that he remodelled some I 10. ,.,^^^^9 .V- ^- ROMAN VILLAS details of the Villa Ludovisi; but one need only comparethe dates of his gardens with those of the principalRoman villas to see that he was the pupil and not themaster of the great Italian garden-architects. The last great country house built for a Roman cardi-nal is the villa outside the Porta Salaria which CarloMarchionne built in 1746 for Cardinal Albani. In spiteof its late date, the house still conforms to the type ofRoman villa subiirbana which originated with the VillaMedici; and it is interesting to observe that the Romanarchitects, having hit on so appropriate and original astyle, did not fear to continue it in spite of the growingtendency toward a lifeless classicalism. Cardinal Albani was a passionate collector of antiquesculpture, and the villa, having been built to display histreasures, is appropriately planned with an open arcadebetween rusticated pilasters, which runs the whole lengthof the fagade on the gr
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