DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19775#0014
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
they studied the Gospels and they wrote poetry."
The gifted Pico della Mirandola had a retreat
near Fiesole, and the learned Poliziano was his
near neighbour. A letter of Poliziano to the
celebrated scholar, Marsilio Ficino, gives an attrac-
tive picture of their life. " Wandering beyond the
limits of his own plantation, Pico sometimes steals
unexpectedly on my retirement and draws me
from my shades to partake of his supper. What
kind of supper that is, you well know ; sparing,
but neat, and rendered grateful by the charms
of his conversation. Be you, however, my
guest ; your supper shall be as good, your
wine perhaps better; for in the quality of my
wine I shall contend for superiority with Pico
himself."
A most complete and delightful picture of the
country life of the fifteenth century comes to us in
connection with the life of the old aristocrat, Agnolo
Pandolfini, who looked on the Medici as an
upstart, and retired to his villa at Signa when
Cosimo came back to power in 1434. This villa
seems to have been a model of hospitality and
comfort. Within eight miles of Florence, on rising
slopes, it overlooks the city, and is surrounded by the
most fertile olive orchards and vineyards. Pandol-
fini had lost his wife while still young, but his
two sons and their wives, his " two loving
daughters-in-law," did the honours for him. He
was an ardent devotee of literature, and enjoyed
the society of learned guests whom he delighted to
gather round him. He had stables well stocked with
horses, and often mounted a company of eighteen or
twenty friends. Falcons he possessed in numbers,
as hawking was one of the principal sports ; and
there was also hunting of deer and hares, and
plenty of fishing. His sons came from the city
on Sundays and holidays, bringing guests with
them. He lived to be eighty-five, and remained
hale and vigorous to the last.
The revival of villa-building in Rome came
later, and was owed to the wealth and profusion
of the great papal houses. Almost all the Roman
villas were built by cardinals, beginning with those
of the houses of Este and Farnese in the sixteenth
century, and their magnificent entertaining vied
with the traditions of the davs of old Rome.
J
The result of all this varied love of gardens
has been to leave us a marvellous variety of pleasure
houses and grounds throughout Italy in more or
less excellent preservation.
Turn where you will, you meet with places
which merit Cicero's term, " my delights." All
are rich in memories, there are few of which we
cannot gather some story which enriches some
special moment of that far-reaching past, or awakes
some personality which once made its impression
here ; and so the impression of these beautiful
gardens to all thinking beings must be enhanced
tenfold, when something is realised of the his-
torical associations with which they are bound up
and vivified.
Evelyn March Phillipps.
they studied the Gospels and they wrote poetry."
The gifted Pico della Mirandola had a retreat
near Fiesole, and the learned Poliziano was his
near neighbour. A letter of Poliziano to the
celebrated scholar, Marsilio Ficino, gives an attrac-
tive picture of their life. " Wandering beyond the
limits of his own plantation, Pico sometimes steals
unexpectedly on my retirement and draws me
from my shades to partake of his supper. What
kind of supper that is, you well know ; sparing,
but neat, and rendered grateful by the charms
of his conversation. Be you, however, my
guest ; your supper shall be as good, your
wine perhaps better; for in the quality of my
wine I shall contend for superiority with Pico
himself."
A most complete and delightful picture of the
country life of the fifteenth century comes to us in
connection with the life of the old aristocrat, Agnolo
Pandolfini, who looked on the Medici as an
upstart, and retired to his villa at Signa when
Cosimo came back to power in 1434. This villa
seems to have been a model of hospitality and
comfort. Within eight miles of Florence, on rising
slopes, it overlooks the city, and is surrounded by the
most fertile olive orchards and vineyards. Pandol-
fini had lost his wife while still young, but his
two sons and their wives, his " two loving
daughters-in-law," did the honours for him. He
was an ardent devotee of literature, and enjoyed
the society of learned guests whom he delighted to
gather round him. He had stables well stocked with
horses, and often mounted a company of eighteen or
twenty friends. Falcons he possessed in numbers,
as hawking was one of the principal sports ; and
there was also hunting of deer and hares, and
plenty of fishing. His sons came from the city
on Sundays and holidays, bringing guests with
them. He lived to be eighty-five, and remained
hale and vigorous to the last.
The revival of villa-building in Rome came
later, and was owed to the wealth and profusion
of the great papal houses. Almost all the Roman
villas were built by cardinals, beginning with those
of the houses of Este and Farnese in the sixteenth
century, and their magnificent entertaining vied
with the traditions of the davs of old Rome.
J
The result of all this varied love of gardens
has been to leave us a marvellous variety of pleasure
houses and grounds throughout Italy in more or
less excellent preservation.
Turn where you will, you meet with places
which merit Cicero's term, " my delights." All
are rich in memories, there are few of which we
cannot gather some story which enriches some
special moment of that far-reaching past, or awakes
some personality which once made its impression
here ; and so the impression of these beautiful
gardens to all thinking beings must be enhanced
tenfold, when something is realised of the his-
torical associations with which they are bound up
and vivified.
Evelyn March Phillipps.