The stone buildings, whose street-side windows are frosted, are built around grassy courtyards decorated with flowers and religious statues.

The simple heraldic decorations under the gables are no preparation for the sumptuous courtyard decorated with scenes from Vergil's "Aeneid."

One resident, 85-year-old Bessie Mayfield, a great-grandmother, lives in a smaller room on the first floor, facing a small courtyard decorated with plants.

Trumpets announced our coming as we passed under the archway into a wide courtyard decorated with all manner of shrubs and flowers.

To the west lies a courtyard decorated with mosaics; to the east, a square iwan used as a reception room.

The church has a façade built in 1725 by Ferdinando Fuga, which incloses a courtyard decorated with ancient mosaics, columns and a cantharus (water vessel).

Its most distinctive feature is the arcaded parapet that runs around the courtyard, decorated with a chequerboard pattern of purple and yellow stone blocks.

The theater has a single balcony that looks over a house designed to resemble an open tented courtyard, decorated with details borrowed from Assyrian and Persian architecture.

Inside, the porch has a vaulted roof and there is a large archway leading to the courtyard decorated with geometric figures.

It has five floors, a broad stairway that leads to the living rooms, and a courtyard decorated with a fountain, designed by Giacomo della Porta.