GARDENS OF FLORENTINE HUMANISTS 



Caiano's nymphs, fled from the embraces of the river- 

 god Ombrone, and was turned into a rock by the 

 goddess Diana. 



In his later years, the Magnifico employed Sangallo 

 to build yet another villa at Lo Spedaletto on the 

 heights near Volterra, where he spent the autumn 

 months in the hope that the mountain air might benefit 

 his failing health. There Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, and 

 Filippino decorated the hall with paintings of Lorenzo's 

 favourite Greek myths, and traces of colour may still 

 be seen on a loggia in the garden. But of all these 

 villas, Careggi is the one most closely associated with 

 Lorenzo's memory. Here every year, on the birthday 

 of Plato, he gave a banquet to the Florentine Academy, 

 and it was here, like his grandfather, that he died. 



Seldom have comfort and splendour, richness and 

 simplicity, the beauties of Art and Nature, been more 

 happily combined than in these villas, where Lorenzo, 

 himself the most perfect of hosts, entertained the fore- 

 most scholars of the age, where Pulci recited romances 

 from his Morgante for the amusement of Monna 

 Lucrezia,and the witty chaplain Matteo Franco delighted 

 and annoyed the guests by turn with his sallies. Many 

 of the city gardens were also intimately associated with 

 the life of its humanists. Lorenzo adorned the gardens 

 of his palace in the Via Larga with excellent paintings 

 and antique marbles, and threw them open to artists 



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