VILLA FALCONIERI.
Villa Falconieri, Frascati—abandoned, overgrown—the wonderful outline of huge Mondragone, with its pines against the mountains. All these villas near each other, and while they open up into the hill and woods (the lovely delicate rose of the budding chestnuts) are still almost within hail of the little town across the valley. So different from the Tuscan villa, even the grandest, say Mte. Gufoni, which is only the extended fattoria, its place chosen by the accident of agricultural business. This mouldering rococo villa is inhabited in summer by the Trappists of Tre Fontane, of that Abbey of St. Anastasia which was the suzerain of all Maremma, great part of Umbria and the Tuscan islands! At the end of their miserably cultivated little orto, presiding over the few leeks and garlics, on the balustrade towards Rome of all divinities, who but Hortorum Deus!
Near Grottaferrata in a flat green field, a nun, all in white, was seated under one of the big olives: a curious biblical figure.
April 26.