"The enclosed porticos in Pliny's description differed no otherwise tilom our present galleries, than that they had pillars in them : the use of this room was for walking." Casters I Vus, p. 4-4.
Castel observes, that though Pliny calls his house ; it appears that. after having described but part of it. yet, if ever) diieta or entire apartment may be supposed to contain three rooms. he has taken notice of no less than forty-six, besides all which, there remains near half the house undes•ribed. which was, as he says. allotted to the use of the servants ; and it is very probable this Dart was made uniform with that he has already described. But it must be remem bered, that diminutives in Latin do not always imply small ness of size, but are frequently used as words of endearment and approbation ; and in this sense it seems most probable that l'iiny here uses the word l'illuhs The following is Pliny's description of his summer villa in Tuscany book v. letter vi., addressed to Apollinaris.
"The kind concern you expressed when you heard of may design to pass the summer at my villa in Tuscany., and your obliging endeavours to dissuade me from going to a place which you think unhealthy, are extremely pleasing to inc. I confess, the atmosphere of that part uilTuscany, which lies towards the coast, is thick and unwholesome : but my house is situated at a great dist:owe from the sea, wider one of the Apennine mountains, which, of all others, is most esteemed for the clearness of its air. But that you may lie relieved from all apprehensions on my account. I will give you a de scription of the temperature of the climate, the situation of the country. and the beauty of my villa, which I am per suaded you will read with as much pleasure as I shall relate. The winters are severe and cold. so that myttles, olives, and trees of that kind, which delight in constant warmth, will not flourish here: but it produces bay-trees in great perfec tion; t et, sometimes, though indeed out oftener than in the neighbourhood of I:4one, they are killed by the severity of the seasons. The sunniness are exceedingly temperate, and continually attended with refreshing breezes. which are sel dom interrupted by high winds. If you were to come here, and see the numbers of old men who have lived to be grand. finhers and great-grandfilthers, and hear the stories they emt entertain you with of their ancestors, you would fancy your self born in some former age. The disposition of the country is the most beautifill that can be imagined; figure to your mi immense amphitheatre; but such as the hand of nature only could torts. lbtbl'e you lies a vast extended plain. bounded by a range of mountains, whose summits are covered w itlt lofty and venerable woods, which supply of game : from thence. as the mountains dee;ine, they are adorned with mitten% oods. Intermi.sed with these are little hills °1st, strong and flit a soil, that it would be (Milt:tilt to find a single stone (9)ml them ; their lettility is nothing interior to the lowest grounds; and though their harvest, in deed, is somewhat later, their crops are as well matured. At the foot of these hills the eye is presented, wherever it turns, with one unbroken view of ninnberless vineyards, terminated by a border, as it were, of shrubs. From thence you have a prospect of the adjoining fields and meadows below. The soil of the former is so extremely stiff, and, upon the first ploughing, turns up in such vast clods, that it is necessary to go over it nine several times, with the largest oxen and the strongest ploughs, before they can be thoroughly broken ; whilst the enamelled meadows produce trefoil, and other kinds of herbage, as fine and tender as if it were but just sprung up, being continually refreshed by never failing rills. But though the country abounds with great plenty of water, there are no marshes; for, as it lies upon a rising ground, whatever water it receives without absorbing, runs off into the Tiber. This river, which winds through the middle of the meadows, is navigable only in the winter and spring, at which seasons it transports the produce of the lands to Home; but its channel is so extremely low in summer, that it scarcely deserves the name of a river ; towards the autumn, however, it begins again to renew its claim to that title.—You could not be more agreeably entertained, than by taking a view of the face of this country from the top of one of our neighbour ing mountains: you would suppose that not a real, but some imaginary landscape, painted by the most exquisite pencil, lay before you such an harmonious variety of beautiful objects meets the eye, which way soever it turns. Mv villa is so advantageously situated, that it commands a full view of all the country round ; yet you approach it by so insensible a rise. that you find yourself upon an eminence, without per ceiving you ascended. Behind, but at a great distance, stands the Apennine mountains. in the calmest day we are re freshed by the winds that blow from thence. but so spent, as it were, by the long tract of land they travel over, that they are entirely divested of all their strength and violence betiffe they reach us. The exposition of the principal Inuit of the house is tell south, and seems to invite the afternoon sun in summer (but somewhat earlier in winter) into a spacious and well-proportioned portico, consisting of keveral members, partieularly a porch built in the ancient manner. III the front of the "antic° is a sort of terraee, embellished with various figures, and bounded with a box-hedge, from whence you descend by an easy slope, adorned with the IT preSelltati011 Of divers animals, in box, answering alternately to each other, into a lawn overspread with the son, I had almost said the liquid, acanthus: this is surrounded by a walk enclosed with tonsile evergroens, shaped into a variety of tinans. Beyond it is the gestatio, laid out in the form of a circus, ornamented in the middle with box cut in number less different figures, together with a plantation of shrubs, prevented by the shears from shouting up too high : the whole is fenced in with a wall covered by Nix, rising by dillerent ranges to the top. On the outside of the wall lies a meadow that owes as many beauties to nature, as all I have been describing within does to art ; at the end of which are several other meadows and fields interspersed with thickets. At the extremity of this portico stands a grand dining-room, which opens upon one end of the terrace; as from the windows there is a very extensive prospect over the meadows up into the country. from whence you also have a view of the terrace, and such parts of the house which project forward, together with the woods enclosing the idjacent hippodrome. Opposite almost to the centre of the poi tico, stands a square edifice, which enrompasses a small area. shaded by four plane.t•ees, in the midst of which a fiamtain rises, in on w hence the water, running over the edges of a marble basins gently refreshes the surrounding plane-trees, and the verdure underneath them. This apstrtment consists of a bed-chamber, secured from every kind of noise, and which the light itself cannot penetrate ; together with a common dining-room, which I use when I have none but intimate friends with me. A second portico looks upon this little area, and has the same prospect with the former I just now described. There is, besides, another room, which, being situated close to the nearest plane-tree, enjoys a constant shade and verdure : Its sides are incrusted half-way with carved marble ; and from thence to the ceiling a foliage is painted with birds intermixed among the branches, which has an effect altogether as agree able as that of the carving : at the basis a little fountain, playing through several small pipes into a vase, produces a most pleasing murmur. From a corner of this portico you
enter into a very spacious chamber, opposite to the grand dining-room, which, from some of its windows, has a view of the terrace, and from others, of the meadow; as those in the front look upon a cascade, which entertains at once both the eye and the ear ; for the water, dashing from a great height, foams over the marble bason that receives it below. This room is extremely warm in winter, being much exposed to the sun; and in a cloudy day, the heat of an adjoining stove very well supplies his absence. From hence you pass through a spacious and pleasant undressing-room into the cold-bath room, in which is a large gloomy bath : but if you are dis posed to swim more at large, or in warmer water, in the middle of the area is a wide bason for that purpose, and near it a reservoir flout whence you may be supplied with cold water to brace yourself again, it' you should perceive you are too much relaxed by the warm. Contiguous to the cold bath is another of a moderate degree of heat, which enjoys the kindly warmth of the sun, but not so intensely as that of the hot-bath, which projects farther. This last consists of three divisions, each of different degrees of heat : the two former lie entirely open to the sun ; the latter, though not so much exposed to its rays, receives an equal share of its light. Over the undressing-room is built the tennis-court, which, by means of particular circles, admits ofdifferent kinds of games. Not far from the baths, is the staircase leading to the enclosed portico, after von have first passed through three apartments : one of these looks upon the little area with the four plane trees round it ; the other has a sight of the meadows ; and from the third you have a view of several vineyards : so that they have as many different prospects as expositions. At one end of the enclosed portico, and, indeed, taken off from it, is a chamber that looks upon the hippodrome, the vine yards, and the mountains; adjoining is a room which has a full exposure to the sun, especially in winter ; and from whence runs an apartment that connects the hippodrome with the house : such is the form and aspect of the front. On the side, rises an enclosed summer portico, which has not only a prospect of the vineyards, but seems almost contiguous to them. From the middle of this portico you enter a dining room, cooled by the salutary breezes from the Apennine val leys; from the windows in the back front, which are extremely large, there is a prospect of the vineyards ; as you have also another view of them from the through the sum mer Along that side of this dining-room, where there are no NS iudows. runs a private staircase for the greater eon veniencv of serving at entertainments : at the farther end is a chamber from whence the eye is pleased with a view of the vineyards, and (what is not less agreeable) of the portico. Underneath this room is an enclosed portico, somewhat resem bling a grotto, which, enjoying. in the midst of the summer heats, its own natural coolness, neither admits our wants the refreshment of external breezes. After you have passed both these porticos, at the end of the dining-room stands a third, which, as the day is more or less advanced, serves either for winter or summer use. It leads to two diGrent apartments, one containing four chambers, the other three; each enjoy ing, by turns, both sun and shade. In the front of these agree able buildings, lies a very spacious hippodrome, entirely open in the middle, by %%•lia means the eye, upon your first entrance, takes in its whole extent at one glance. It is encompassed on every side with plane-trees, covered with ivy, so that while their heads flourish with their own foliage, their bodies enjoy a borrowed verdure ; and thus, the twining round the trunk and branches, spreads from tree to tree, and connects them together. Between each plane-tree are planted box-trees, and behind these, bay•trees, which blend their shade with that of the planes. This plantation, forming a straight boundary on both sides of the hippodrome, bends at the farther end into a semi•eirele, which being set round and sheltered with cypress-trees, varies the prospect, a deeper gloom ; while the inward circular walks, (for there are several) enjoying an open exposure, are per finned with roses, and connect, by a very pleasing contrast, the coolness of the shade with the warmth of the sun. Having passed through these several winding alleys, you enter a straight walk, which breaks out into a variety of others, divided by box edges. In one place you have a little meadow ; in another, the box is cut into a thousand different forms; sometimes into letters, expressing the name of the master ; sometimes that of the artificer ; whilst here and there little obelisks rise intermixed alternately with fruit-trees : when, on a sudden, in the midst of this elegant regularity, you are surprised with an imitation of the negligent beauties of rural nature : in the centre of which lies a spot surrounded with a knot of dwarf plane-trees. Beyond these is a walk planted with the smooth and twining acanthus, where the trees are also cut into a variety of names and shapes. At the upper end is an alcove of white marble, shaded with vines, supported by four small Carystian pillars. From this bench, the water, gushing through several little pipes, as if it were pressed out by the weight of the persons who repose themselves upon it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, from whence it is received into a finely polished marble boson, so artfully contrived, that it is always full ever overflowing. When I sup here, this boson serves for a table, the larger sort of dishes being placed round the margin, while the smaller ones swim about in the form of little vessels and water-fowl. Corresponding to this, is a fountain which is incessantly emptying and tilling; which it throws up a great height, falling back into it, is, by means of two openings, returned as fast as it is received. Fronting the alcove (and which reflects as great an ornament to it as it borrows from it) stands a summer-house of exquisite marble, the doors whereof project and open into a green enclosure ; as from its upper and lower windows, the eye is presented with a variety of different verdures. Next to this is a little private recess (which, though it seems distinct, may be laid into the same room) furnished with a couch; and, notwithstanding it has windows on every side, yet it enjoys a very agreeable gloominess, by means of a spreading vine climbs to the top. and entirely overshades it. I lore you may recline and fancy yourself in a wood ; with this difference only, that you are not exig)sed to the weather. In this place a fountain also rises, and instantly disappears : in different quarters are disposed several marble seats, which serve, no less than the summer-house, as so many reliefs after one is wearied with walking. Near each seat is a little titan and, throughout the whole hippodrome. several small rills run murmuring along, wheresoever the hand of art thought proper to conduct them, watering here and there different spots of verdure, and, in their progress, refreshing the whole.