The Fountain of Villa Giulia

This was where "his Holiness got repose without incommoding the public," which, on the other side of the wall, refreshed itself and its beasts of burden from the public fountain. The columns were joined together by a balustrade, and the three-sided colonnade held in its embrace a large fish-pond with various jets d'eau.Beyond this architectural loveliness stretched long walks bordered with fruit-trees and espaliers, and up these paths the Pope walked when, refreshed after his long journey from the Vatican, and eager to see what his workmen had concluded over night, he finally decided to go on to the villa on the hill. This beautiful fountain and its loggias have suf­fered more than customary outrage from time, neglect, and stupidity. There would seem to be no vile use to which the loggias have not been put; and the superim-position of the Casino of Pope Pius IV, which is now recognized to be the work of Piero Ligorio, has entirely altered the proportions and beauty of the public foun­tain. The fate of Pope Julius's creation, from the time of his death until 1900, is poorly outlined in the various half-obliterated escutcheons and inscriptions which now ornament the fountain and its superstructural Casino. As the villa and all the land about it had been immediately sequestered by the Apostolic Chamber in spite of the protests of Julius Ill's legal heirs before a tardy compensation was awarded them, this portion of the Monte property was divided by Pope Pius IV be­tween a son of the Duke of Tuscany "who was to have the usufruct for his lifetime "and his own two nephews, Carlo and Federigo Borromeo. A sister of these Borro-meo brothers married a Colonna, and the property was bestowed upon her as dowry. It remained in that family until 1900, when it was purchased by the present owner, Cavaliere Giuseppe Balestra, who already owned the adjoining villa on the high ground, which might have been a part of the original Villa Giulia, since it corresponds to that land which Julius III had acquired from Cardinal Poggio and Cardinal San Vitelleschi. The Medici escutcheon may have been placed there either by the Duke of Tuscany or by Pius IV. The Pope was of very humble Milanese origin and had no connection whatever with the great family whose name he happened to have; but after he became Pope, the Duke Cosimo I, who found it to his interest to have the Pope on his side, permitted him to use the escutcheon. Contrary to the decent Roman custom,* the original inscription of Julius III was removed in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, by that one of the Colonna who inherited the property after the death of the last descendant of the earlier branch.