ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



after the fatigues of Lucrezia Borgia's wedding, with 

 only two or three ladies, " the cooks and the carvers," 

 and the baby-boy Federico, without whom his mother 

 declared she could not be happy. Here they were en- 

 joying each other's society and the gardens of Porto in 

 all the beauty of June, when the news of Caesar Borgia's 

 sudden invasion of Urbino reached Mantua, and after 

 a few days of terrible suspense Duke Guidobaldo him- 

 self arrived, having ridden day and night before his 

 pursuers and " only saved his shirt and doublet." Here 

 Isabella came after her return from the Court of Leo 

 the Tenth in 1515, feeling that it was easier to think 

 of the delights of Rome and the friends whom she had 

 left behind in these solitary shades than in the little 

 rooms and dull society of Mantua. In those days the 

 Marchesana's gardens at Porto became one of the sights 

 of Italy and attracted illustrious strangers from all 

 parts. " I sing the praises of the delicious gardens of 

 Porto," wrote the Venetian priest, Niccolo Liburnio, 

 in a pastoral idyll dedicated to Isabella, " the charm of 

 their perpetual verdure and running waters, of their 

 abundant fruit and fragrant flowers." 



Cardinals and foreign ambassadors, Giuliano de' 

 Medici and the "Bel Bernardo" Bibbiena, the Viceroy 

 Cardona and the legate Chiericati, Bembo and Trissino, 

 were among the guests whom Isabella welcomed at her 

 villa. Another distinguished scholar, the saintly Fra 



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