GARDENS OF ESTE AND GONZAGA PRINCES 



prospect and the luxuriant vegetation of this lovely 

 region. On one memorable visit which she paid to 

 Salo in 1513 she was the object of a popular ovation 

 on the part of the natives, who poured out in boats to 

 meet her barge and brought her presents of fish and 

 fruit, and, what pleased her less, tedious addresses to 

 which she was compelled to listen. And it was on 

 Lady Day, while she lingered in the lemon groves, 

 that she received the Symposium which her learned 

 friend, the Vicentine humanist Trissino, had composed 

 in her honour, a present, as she wrote to the donor, 

 altogether appropriate to this divine Riviera, where she 

 felt free to devote herself wholly to poetry and 

 meditation. 



The sight of the palace gardens at Gubbio and 

 Urbino moved Isabella to make improvements in the 

 ancient Castello of the Gonzagas at Mantua. Here, 

 on the ground floor of the grim old building, she had 

 her famous Grotta an open court paved with majolica 

 tiles bearing Gonzaga devices and surrounded with 

 elegant columns and niches containing busts and 

 statues. Her idea was to make this a place of retreat, 

 where, surrounded by beautiful paintings and marbles, 

 she could enjoy the pleasures of solitude or the 

 company of a few kindred spirits, and with this end 

 in view she was never weary of importuning her friends 

 to get her " some beautiful thing for the Grotta ! " 



53 



