Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/13

Rh from the terrace of his marble palace in the myrtle and orange groves which he himself planted, raised his gray head in the proud consciousness of his country, and his life of citizenship in her service. Fiesco, the bold head of a party, must have comprehended the Genoese republic with the same proud, grand glance, when, as in Schiller's Fiesco, he exclaimed, “Thou mine!” The mighty spirits of the first republic have left here evident traces, and although Genoa has lost her republican independence, and is now merely a city of the Sardinian state, it is still, nevertheless, one of the most remarkable and peculiar cities of Italy. I will now say a few words about what I saw there, and first of the Villa Pallavicini.

It is a hill converted into pleasure grounds, with temples, ruins, three hermit's cells, Swiss chalets, pagodas, and all kinds of buildings, scattered here and there amongst groves, rocks, lakes, without plan or method, as by an architect of genius half intoxicated. The guide who conducted me around, repeated continually, “une belle exposition!” And of the ruins, the groves or the temples; “tout est vieux; tout est neuf!” Which expression might indeed imply, that the plans from which they were taken were old, but the buildings new. The most beautiful feature of the Villa, seemed to me, however, to be the view, from its laurel groves, of Genoa and the sea. The most remarkable object there, was, in my opinion, the artificial grotto, made of natural, splendid stalactites, in the dark vault of which we were rowed round in a little boat, and came out upon a lake of the clearest water, on the shores of which stand kiosks, obelisks, pagodas, &c. It is like