123. The building itself consists of three floors: we remember no instance of a greater number, and only one or two of fewer. It is, in general, crowned with a light balustrade, surmounted by statues at intervals. The windows of the uppermost floor are usually square, often without any architrave. Those of the principal floor are surrounded with broad architraves, but are frequently destitute of frieze or cornice. They have usually flat bands at the bottom, and their aperture is a double square. Their recess is very deep, so as not to let the sun fall far into the interior. The interval between them is very variable. In some of the villas of highest pretensions, such as those on the banks of the Brenta, that of Isola Bella, and others, which do not face the south, it is not much more than the breadth of the two architraves, so that the rooms within are filled with light. When this is the case, the windows have friezes and cornices. But, when the building fronts the south, the interval is often very great, as in the case of the Villa Porro. The ground-floor windows are frequently set in tall arches, supported on deeply engaged pilasters as in the Villa Somma-Riva. The door is not large, and never entered by high steps, as it generally opens on a terrace of considerable height, or on a wide landing-place at the head of a flight of fifty or sixty steps descending through the gardens.
124. Now, it will be observed, that, in these general forms, though there is no splendor, there is great dignity. The lines throughout are simple to a degree, entirely uninterrupted by decorations of any kind, so that the beauty of their proportions is left visible and evident. We shall see hereafter that ornament in Grecian architecture, while, when well managed, it always adds to its grace, invariably takes away from its majesty; and that these two attributes never can exist together in their highest degrees. By the utter absence of decoration, therefore, the Italian villa, possessing, as it usually does, great beauty of proportion, attains a degree of elevation of character, which impresses the mind in a manner which it finds difficult to account for by any consideration of its simple details or moderate size; while, at the same time, it lays so little claim to the attention, and is so subdued in its character, that it is enabled to occupy a conspicuous place in a landscape, without any appearance of intrusion. The glance of the beholder rises from the labyrinth of terrace and arbor beneath, almost weariedly; it meets, as it ascends, with a gradual increase of bright marble and simple light, and with a proportionate diminution of dark foliage and complicated shadow, till it rests finally on a piece of simple brilliancy, chaste and unpretending, yet singularly dignified; and does not find its color too harsh, because its form is so simple: for color of any kind is only injurious when the eye is too much attracted to it; and, when there is so much quietness of detail as to prevent this misfortune, the building will possess the cheerfulness, without losing the tranquillity, and will seem to have been erected, and to be inhabited, by a mind of that beautiful temperament wherein modesty tempers majesty, and gentleness mingles with rejoicing, which, above all others, is most suited to the essence, and most interwoven with the spirit, of the natural beauty whose peculiar power is invariably repose.
125. So much for its general character. Considered by principles of composition, it will also be found beautiful. Its prevailing lines are horizontal; and every artist knows that, where peaks of any kind are in sight, the lines above which they rise ought to be flat. It has not one acute angle in all its details, and very few intersections of verticals with horizontals; while all that do intersect seem useful as supporting the mass. The just application of the statues at the top is more doubtful, and is considered reprehensible by several high authorities, who, nevertheless, are inconsistent enough to let the balustrade pass uncalumniated, though it is objectionable on exactly the same grounds; for, if the statues suggest the inquiry of "What are they doing there?" the balustrade compels its beholder to ask, "whom it keeps from tumbling over?"
126. The truth is, that the balustrade and statues derive their origin from a period when there was easy access to the roof of either temple or villa; (that there was such access is proved by a passage in the Iphigenia Taurica, line 113, where Orestes speaks of getting up to the triglyphs of a Doric temple as an easy matter;) and when the flat roofs were used, not, perhaps, as an evening promenade, as in Palestine, but as a place of observation, and occasionally of defense. They were composed of large flat slabs of stone (κεραμος,[20]) peculiarly adapted for walking, one or two of which, when taken up, left an opening of easy access into the house, as in Luke v. 19, and were perpetually used in Greece as missile weapons, in the event of a hostile attack or sedition in the city, by parties of old men, women, and children, who used, as a matter of course, to retire to the roof as a place of convenient defense. By such attacks from the roof with the κεραμος the Thebans were thrown into confusion in Platæa (Thucydides ii. 4.). So, also, we find the roof immediately resorted to in the case of the starving of Pausanias in the Temple of Minerva of the Brazen House, and in that of the massacre of the aristocratic party at Corcyra (Thucydides iv. 48):—Αναβαντες δε επι το τεγος του οικηματος, και διελοντες την οροφην, εβαλλον τω κεραμω.
127. Now, where the roof was thus a place of frequent resort, there could be no more useful decoration than a balustrade; nor one more appropriate or beautiful than occasional statues in attitudes of watchfulness, expectation, or observation: and even now, wherever the roof is flat, we have an idea of convenience and facility of access, which still renders the balustrade agreeable, and the statue beautiful, if well designed. It must not be a figure of perfect peace or repose; far less should it be in violent action: but it should be fixed in that quick, startled stillness, which is the result of intent observation or expectation, and which seems ready to start into motion every instant. Its height should be slightly colossal, as it is always to be seen against the sky; and its draperies should not be too heavy, as the eye will always expect them to be caught by the wind. We shall enter into this subject, however, more fully hereafter. We only wish at present to vindicate from the charge of impropriety one of the chief features of the Italian villa. Its white figures, always marble, remain entirely unsullied by the weather, and stand out with great majesty against the blue air behind them, taking away from the heaviness, without destroying the simplicity, of the general form.
128. It seems then that, by its form and details, the villa of the Lago di Como attains so high a degree of elevation of character, as not only brings it into harmony of its locus, without any assistance from appearance of antiquity, but may, we think, permit it to dispense even with solidity of material, and appear in light summer stucco, instead of raising itself in imperishable marble. And this conclusion, which is merely theoretical, is verified by fact: for we remember no instance, except in cases where poverty had overpowered pretension, or decay had turned rejoicing into silence, in which the lightness of the material was offensive to the feelings; in all cases, it is agreeable to the eye. Where it is allowed to get worn, and discolored, and broken, it induces a wretched mockery of the dignified form which it preserves; but, as long as it is renewed at proper periods, and watched over by the eye of its inhabitant, it is an excellent and easily managed medium of effect.
129. With all the praise, however, which we have bestowed upon it, we do not say that the villa of the Larian Lake is perfection; indeed we cannot say so, until we have compared it with a few other instances, chiefly to be found in Italy, on whose soil we delay, as being the native country of the villa, properly so-called, and as ever yet being almost the only spot of Europe where any good specimens of it are to be found; for we do not understand by the term "villa" a cubic erection, with one window on each side of a verdant door, and three on the second and uppermost story, such as the word suggests to the fertile imagination of ruralizing cheesemongers; neither do we understand the quiet and unpretending country house of a respectable gentleman; neither do we understand such a magnificent mass of hereditary stone as generally forms the autumn retreat of an English noble; but we understand the light but elaborate summer habitation, raised however and wherever it pleases his fancy, by some individual of great wealth and influence, who can enrich it with every attribute of beauty; furnish it with every appurtenance of pleasure; and repose in it with the dignity of a mind trained to exertion or authority. Such a building could not exist in Greece, where every district a mile and a quarter square was quarreling with all its neighbors. It could exist, and did exist, in Italy, where the Roman power secured tranquillity, and the Roman constitution distributed its authority among a great number of individuals, on whom, while it raised them to a position of great influence, and, in its later times, of wealth, it did not bestow the power of raising palaces or private fortresses. The villa was their peculiar habitation, their only resource, and a most agreeable one; because the multitudes of the kingdom being, for a long period, confined to a narrow territory, though ruling the world, rendered the population of the city so dense, as to drive out its higher ranks to the neighboring hamlets of Tibur and Tusculum.
130. In other districts of Europe the villa is not found, because in very perfect monarchies, as in Austria, the power is thrown chiefly into the hands of a few, who build themselves palaces, not villas; and in perfect republics, as in Switzerland, the power is so split among the multitude, that nobody can build himself anything. In general, in kingdoms of great extent, the country house becomes the permanent and hereditary habitation; and the villas are all crowded together, and form gingerbread rows in the environs of the capital; and, in France and Germany, the excessively disturbed state of affairs in the Middle Ages compelled every baron or noble to defend himself, and retaliate on his neighbors as he best could, till the villa was lost in the château and the fortress; and men now continue to build as their forefathers built (and long may they do so), surrounding the domicile of pleasure with a moat and a glacis, and guarding its garret windows with turrets and towers: while, in England, the nobles, comparatively few, and of great power, inhabit palaces, not villas; and the rest of the population is chiefly crowded into cities, in the activity of commerce, or dispersed over estates in that of agriculture; leaving only one grade of gentry, who have neither the taste to desire, nor the power to erect, the villa, properly so-called.
131. We must not, therefore, be surprised if, on leaving Italy, where the crowd of poverty-stricken nobility can still repose their pride in the true villa, we find no farther examples of it worthy of consideration; though we hope to have far greater pleasure in contemplating its substitutes, the château and the fortress. We must be excused, therefore, for devoting one paper more to the state of villa architecture in Italy; after which we shall endeavor to apply the principles we shall have deduced to the correction of some abuses in the erection of English country houses, in cases where scenery would demand beauty of design and wealth permit finish of decoration.
[17] Pale limestone, with dolomite. A coarse dolomite forms the mass of mountains on the east of Lake Lecco, Monte Campione, etc., and part of the other side, as well as the Monte del Novo, above Cadenabbia; but the bases of the hills, along the shore of the Lake of Lecco, and all the mountains on both sides of the lower limb of Como are black limestone. The whole northern half of the lake is bordered by gneiss or mica slate, with tertiary deposit where torrents enter it. So that the dolomite is only obtainable by ascending the hills, and incurring considerable expense of carriage; while the rocks of the shore split into blocks of their own accord, and are otherwise an excellent material.