So far the picture created more than three hundred and fifty years ago remains the same; fundamental customs do not change in Rome. But on the other side of the wall, where once sat and talked the joyous Pope and his company, what ruin and desolation! Some day the Italian Government will sweep the crumbling loggias free from dust and rubbish and tear away the protecting foliage, not redeeming but unmasking the desecration of the centuries. To-day the dark water in the rough garden tanks, the unpruned trees and wild flowers, the old mule stabled under the ruined loggias where hay is stored, the mysterious gloom of the vaulted roof above the Corinthian capitals and everywhere black shadows of impenetrable depth make up a scene whose like can in all probability be found only among the engravings of Piranesi. [Illustration] II. THE NYMPHÆUM OR “SECRET FOUNTAIN” The Villa Giulia proper is designated in the old Italian books as l’Invenzione nella Vigna Giulia, and the literal English translation of invention not inappropriately describes this truly marvellous creation. Amannati, Vasari, Vignola,[D] and even the aged Michelangelo spent themselves upon the architectural devices by which this pleasure-house became a place of almost fabulous beauty. Consummate knowledge of perspective was employed in making the building, which is not at all large, seem so, and the only defect in the entire design is, as might have been expected, the Pope’s fault, for Julius insisted upon working into the loggias in the rear of the upper court of the fountain a gift of columns, beautiful in themselves but too small for the surrounding proportions, thus making that part of the construction appear insignificant and inferior to the rest. The Pope’s changing caprice wearied even the good-natured Vasari, who has left the record that “there was no getting the villa done”; and it was not long before Vignola, a man of genuine and independent genius, wearied utterly of serving such a master and went off with the great Cardinal Farnese to build the latter’s villa of Caprarola, where he could work at peace and for an appreciative and sympathetic patron.