It was with the Villa Conti-Torlonia at Frascati that Story rightly associated the men and women of the Colonna in the lines which I have quoted.
The Haunted Pool
Villa Conti Torlonia, Frascati
Hither certainly came the ladies of Palliano[8] from their castle in the neighbouring hills, for the Conti were cousins of the Colonna, and fond of entertaining their kindred on the terraces of their ancestral villa.
Here Giulia Gonzaga must have met another renowned woman of the family, Giovanna of Aragon, the wife of Ascanio Colonna, with their little son Marcantonio, from the Castle of Marino, hardly three miles away. This boy was to become the most renowned man of his race, and was to form a link between the lives of two women of Palliano, to whom brief reference must be made, for the pity and horror of their fate are not surpassed in all the annals of tragedy.
At first glance it may seem strange that the Colonnas possessed no suburban villa which could rival that of the Conti. Castles in plenty were theirs, Marino, Palliano, Palestrina, and a score of others, but though these sheltered comfortless, so-called palaces within their strong walls, there was never an attempt made here to indulge in such a feat of landscape-gardening as the Conti's
"fountain stairs,
Down which the sheeted water leaps alive."
The reason of this lack of the amenities of life is not far to seek. The magnificent Colonna palace at Rome, with its beautiful garden, answered every purpose of an elaborate villa. Here they flaunted in seasons of prosperity, retiring to their mountain fastnesses in times of trouble.
For five hundred years succeeding generations have added to the sumptuousness and charm of the Roman palace, and the portraits of the fair ladies who once gave those regal rooms their chief attraction still look down upon us from their walls. They hold us still with an all-compelling fascination: the noble Vittoria Colonna, whom Michael Angelo worshipped; that Duchessa Lucrezia, whom Van Dyck painted in her velvet robe and jewelled ruff; Felice Orsini and her children; and the bewitching Marie Mancini, as Mignard makes her known in her arch and innocent girlhood, and again with world-weary disillusion betraying itself through Netscher's pomp and opulence.