This can be one of the most popular tourist sites in Italy,
so beware, especially at week-ends. Cardinal Ippolito d'Este,
having failed to become Pope on three occasions, retired here
in 1550, and employed the eminent antiquarian Pirro Ligorio to
lay out a garden on the precipitous slope. Ligorio designed an
amazingly complex water garden and filled it with sculpture from
Hadrian's Villa. The villa, frescoed by the Zuccari, serves as
a backdrop to the garden, where the water pours and gushes down
the hillside before rising up in a series of magnificent fountains.
It has inspired myriad artists, writers and musicians.
