most enchanting views of
the world. Near the Trinita di Monti stands the historic Villa Medici,
the French Academy of which the great Carolus Duran is now the director.
The view across the valley in which lies the Piazza di Spagna, the river
to St. Peter's, from the Villa Medici, is one of the finest in Rome.

The architecture of the garden facade is attributed to Michael Angelo.
These gardens have a circuit of more than a mile, laid out in the formal
rectangles and densely bordered walks of the Italian custom. All manner
of old fragments of sculpture are scattered through them,--a torso, a
broken bust, a ruined statue, an old and partly broken fountain,--and
entablatures and reliefs are seen in the walls on every hand. No sound
of the city ever penetrates into this dense foliage which secludes the
gardens of the famous Villa Medici.

One of the features of Roman life is the fashionable drive on Monte
Pincio in the late afternoons. An hour or two before sunset the terrace
of the Piazza Trinita di Monti begins to be thronged with pedestrians,
who lean over the marble balustrade, gazing at the incomparable pictured
panorama where the vast dome of St. Peter's, the dense pines of the
Villa Pamphilia-Doria on the Janiculum, and the dark cypress groves on
Monte Mario loom up against the golden western sky.

Compared with the extensive parks of modern cities the Monte Pincio
would prefigure itself as a drive for fairies alone. It comprises a few
acres only, thickly decorated with trees and shrubbery, with a casino
for the orchestra that plays every afternoon, and a circular carriage
drive so limited in extent that the same carriage comes in view every
few minutes.

The Eternal City has had so many birthdays that one would fancy them to
have become negligible; but it was announced on April 21 of 1907 that
the date was a special anniversary, and she took on aspects of
festivity. The municipal palaces and museums were hung with tapestries,
flags were flying from the Capitol, the municipal guards were all in
full dress uniform and the municipal orchestra played in the Piazza
Colonna. The historic bell began ringing at eight in the morning in
peals that were well calculated to call the Caesars from their tombs and
which might, indeed, have been mistaken for the final trumpet calls of
Gabriel. But the Romans take their pleasures rather sadly and
sternly,--not like the light-hearted Florentines in song and laughter,
or with the j