Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/120

108 villa; but its existing character must be in unison with its country; and it must appear to be inhabited by one I brought up in that country, and imbued with its national feelings. In Italy, especially, though we can even here dispense with one component part of elevation of character, age, we must have all the others: we must have high feeling, beauty of form, and depth of effect, or the thing will be a barbarism; the inhabitant must be an Italian, full of imagination and emotion: a villa inhabited by an Englishman, no matter how close its imitation of others, will always be preposterous.

We find, therefore, that white is not to be blamed in the villa for destroying its antiquity; neither is it reprehensible, as harmonising ill with the surrounding landscape; on the contrary, it adds to its brilliancy, without taking away from its depth of tone. We shall consider it as an element of landscape, more particularly, when we come to speak of grouping.

There remains only one accusation to be answered, viz., that it hints at a paltry and unsubstantial material: and this leads us to the second question, Is this material allowable? If it were distinctly felt by the eye to be stucco, there could be no question about the matter, it would be decidedly disagreeable; but all the parts to which the eye is attracted are executed in marble, and the stucco merely forms the dead flat of the building, not a single wreath of ornament being formed of it. Its surface is smooth and bright, and altogether avoids what a stone building, when