3-028-663 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

St. Peter's, Rome, from the Borghese Villa Gardens, 1870. 'The extensive pleasure-ground or park of the Villa Borghese, lying just outside the city wall of Rome...is the favourite resort of citizens and visitors who desire to enjoy an hour of repose and retirement...There are many points of view to be obtained in the park and gardens, which command various fine prospects of the city and its neighbourhood...From the rock, crowned with a fragment of ruined building on the right hand - a mock ruin, as we are half ashamed to confess - descends a rude staircase of stone steps to the gravel path...Looking across the lawn, where stands a marble statue, one sees the entrance gateway, with its two Ionic pillars and two pilasters, like a Grecian portico, close to the high road. The top of the city gate, called the Porta del Popolo, the entrance to Rome from the old Flaminian Way, is seen rising above this structure...Architecture, sculpture, and picture-galleries are all very well for aesthetic instruction; but the jaded senses will fail at length to respond to the appeal of Art; and the healing influence of Nature, with a breath of fresh air and a bright glow of sunshine, is the best consolation of the weary tourist'. From "Illustrated London News, 1870.