Letters of Pliny
which, I am persuaded, you will hear with as much pleasure as I shall
take in giving it. The air in winter is sharp and frosty, so that
myrtles, olives, and trees of that kind which delight in constant
warmth, will not flourish here: but the laurel thrives, and is
remarkably beautiful, though now and then the cold kills it--though not
oftener than it does in the neighbourhood of Rome. The summers are
extraordinarily mild, and there is always a refreshing breeze, seldom
high winds. This accounts for the number of old men we have about, you
would see grandfathers and great-grandfathers of those now grown up to
be young men, hear old stories and the dialect of our ancestors, and
fancy yourself born in some former age were you to come here. The
character of the country is exceedingly beautiful. Picture to yourself
an immense amphitheatre, such as nature only could create. Before you
lies a broad, extended plain bounded by a range of mountains, whose
summits are covered with tall and ancient woods, which are stocked with
all kinds of game.
The descending slopes of the mountains are planted with underwood, among
which are a number of little risings with a rich soil, on which hardly a
stone is to be found. In fruitfulness they are quite equal to a valley,
and though their harvest is rather later, their crops are just as good.
At the foot of these, on the mountain-side, the eye, wherever it turns,
runs along one unbroken stretch of vineyards terminated by a belt of
shrubs. Next you have meadows and the open plain. The arable land is so
stiff that it is necessary to go over it nine times with the biggest
oxen and the strongest ploughs. The meadows are bright with flowers, and
produce trefoil and other kinds of herbage as fine and tender as if it
were but just sprung up, for all the soil is refreshed by never failing
streams. But though there is plenty of water, there are no marshes; for
the ground being on a slope, 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 Rome: but in
summer it sinks below its banks, leaving the name of a great river to an
almost empty channel: towards the autumn, however, it begins again to
renew its claim to that title. You would be charmed by taking a view of
this country from the top of one of our neighbouring mountains, and
would fancy 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, whichever way it turns. My house,
although at the foot of a hill, commands as good a view as if it stood
on its brow, yet you approach by so gentle and gradual a rise that you
find yourself on high ground without perceiving you have been making an
ascent. Behind, but at a great distance, is the Apennine range. In the
calmest days we get cool breezes from that quarter, not sharp and
cutting at all, being spent and broken by the long distance they have
travelled. The greater part of the house has a southern aspect, and
seems to invite the afternoon sun in summer (but rather earlier in the
winter) into a broad and proportionately long portico, consisting of
several rooms, particularly a court of antique fashion. In front of the
portico is a sort of terrace, edged with box and shrubs cut into
different shapes. You descend, from the terrace, by an easy slope
adorned with the figures of animals in box, facing each other, to a lawn
overspread with the soft, I had almost said the liquid, Acanthus: this
is surrounded by a walk enclosed with evergreens, shaped into a variety
of forms. Beyond it is the gestation laid out in the form of a circus
running round the multiform box-hedge and the dwarf-trees, which are cut
quite close. The whole is fenced in with a wall completely covered by
box cut into steps all the way up 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 open plain and
numerous other meadows and copses. From the extremity of the portico a
large dining-room runs out, opening upon one end of the terrace, while
from the windows there is a very extensive view over the meadows up into
the country, and from these you also see the terrace and the projecting
wing of the house together with the woods enclosing the adjacent
hippodrome. Almost opposite the centre of the portico, and rather to the
back, stands a summer-house, enclosing a small area shaded by four
plane-trees, in the midst of which rises a marble fountain which gently
plays upon the roots of the plane-trees and upon the grass-plots
underneath them. This summer-house has a bed-room in it free from every
sort of noise, and which the light itself cannot penetrate, together
with a common dining-room I use when I have none but intimate friends
with me. A second portico looks upon this little area, and has the same
view as the other I have just been describing. There is, besides,
another room, which, being situate close to the nearest plane-tree,
enjoys a constant shade and green. Its sides are encrusted with carved
marble up to the ceiling, while above the marble a foliage is painted
with birds among the branches, which has an effect altogether as
agreeable as that of the carving, at the foot of which a little
fountain, playing through several small pipes into a vase it encloses,
produces a most pleasing murmur. From a corner of the portico you enter
a very large bed-chamber opposite the large 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 basin which receives it below. This room
is extremely warm in winter, lying much exposed to the sun, and on a
cloudy day the heat of an adjoining stove very well supplies his
absence. Leaving this room, you pass through a good-sized, pleasant,
undressing-room into the cold-bath-room, in which is a large gloomy
bath: but if you are inclined to swim more at large, or in warmer water,
in the middle of the area stands a wide basin for that purpose, and near
it a reservoir from which you may be supplied with cold water to brace
yourself again, if you should find you are too much relaxed by the warm.
Adjoining the cold bath is one of a medium degree of heat, which enjoys
the kindly warmth of the sun, but not so intensely as the hot bath,
which projects farther. This last consists of three several
compartments, each of different degrees of heat; the two former lie open
to the full sun, the latter, though not much exposed to its heat,
receives an equal share of its light. Over the undressing-room is built
the tennis-court, which admits of different kinds of games and different
sets of players. Not far from the baths is the staircase leading to the
enclosed portico, three rooms intervening. One of these looks out upon
the little area with the four plane-trees round it, the other upon the
meadows, and from the third you have a view of several vineyards, so
that each has a different one, and looks towards a different point of
the heavens. At the upper end of the enclosed portico, and indeed taken
off from it, is a room that looks out upon the hippodrome, the
vineyards, and the mountains; adjoining is a room which has a full
exposure to the sun, especially in winter, and out of which runs another
connecting the hippodrome with the house. This forms the front. On the
side rises an enclosed portico, which not only looks out upon the
vineyards, but seems almost to touch them. From the middle of this
portico you enter a dining-room cooled by the wholesome breezes from the
Apennine valleys: from the windows behind, which are extremely large,
there is a close view of the vineyards, and from the folding doors
through the summer portico. Along that side of the dining-room where
there are no windows runs a private staircase for greater convenience in
serving up when I give an entertainment; at the farther end is a
sleeping-room with a look-out upon the vineyards, and (what is equally
agreeable) the portico. Underneath this room is an enclosed portico
resembling a grotto, which, enjoying in the midst of summer heats its
own natural coolness, neither admits nor wants external air. After you
have passed both these porticoes, at the end of the dining-room stands a
third, which according as the day is more or less advanced, serves
either for Winter or summer use. It leads to two different apartments,
one containing four chambers, the other, three, which enjoy by turns
both sun and shade. This arrangement of the different parts of my house
is exceedingly pleasant, though it is not to be compared with the beauty
of the hippodrome,' lying entirely open in the middle of the grounds, so
that the eye, upon your first entrance, takes it in entire in one view.
It is set round with plane-trees covered with ivy, so that, while their
tops flourish with their own green, towards the roots their verdure is
borrowed from the ivy that twines 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 stands a grove of laurels which
blend their shade with that of the planes. This straight boundary to the
hippodrome[75] alters its shape at the farther end, bending into a
semicircle, which is planted round, shut in with cypresses, and casts a
deeper and gloomier shade, while the inner circular walks (for there are
several), enjoying an open exposure, are filled with plenty of roses,
and correct, by a very pleasant 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, partitioned off by box-row hedges. In one place you have a
little meadow, in another the box is cut in a thousand different forms,
sometimes into letters, expressing the master's name, sometimes the
artificer's, whilst here and there rise little obelisks with fruit-trees
alternately intermixed, and then 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 this lies a spot adorned with
a knot of dwarf plane-trees. Beyond these stands an acacia, smooth and
bending in places, then again various other shapes and names. At the
upper end is an alcove of white marble, shaded with vines and supported
by four small Carystian columns. From this semicircular couch, the
water, gushing up through several little pipes, as though pressed out by
the weight of the persons who recline themselves upon it, falls into a
stone cistern underneath, from whence it is received into a fine
polished marble basin, so skilfully contrived that it is always full
without ever overflowing. When I sup here, this basin serves as a table,
the larger sort of dishes being placed round the margin, while the
smaller ones swim about in the form of vessels and water-fowl. Opposite
this is a fountain which is incessantly emptying and filling, for the
water which it throws up to a great height, falling back again into it,
is by means of consecutive apertures returned as fast as it is received.
Facing the alcove (and reflecting upon it as great an ornament as it
borrows from it) stands a summer-house of exquisite marble, the doors of
which project and open into a green enclosure, while from its upper and
lower windows the eye falls upon a variety of different greens. Next to