ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



As Tuscan architects and painters built the chapels of 

 Nicholas the Fifth and Sixtus the Fourth, and decorated 

 their walls with frescoes, so the Vatican garden was 

 first of all laid out, not by a Roman citizen, but by 

 Bramante of Urbino. 



The great man who transformed Italian architecture 

 in the sixteenth century was a native of that little 

 duchy in the heart of the Apennines, where art and 

 letters flourished under the paternal rule of the best of 

 princes, and the finest spirits of the age met at the 

 court of the Montefeltro Dukes. Born in 1444 at 

 a farm two miles from Urbino, young Bramante saw 

 with his own eyes the building of Laurana's wonderful 

 palace, and, there can be little doubt, was himself a 

 pupil of the Istrian architect. At thirty he went to 

 Milan, where he entered the service of the Sforza 

 Dukes and became the favourite architect of that 

 enlightened prince, Lodovico il Moro, " the master of 

 those who know." For the next five-and-twenty 

 years he lived at this brilliant court in close companion- 

 ship with Leonardo and Caradosso, building churches 

 and bridges, superintending works in the provinces, or 

 rearing graceful colonnades and painting frescoes in 

 the Castello. When the final catastrophe came and 

 " the Duke," in Leonardo's mournful words, " lost 

 state, fortune, and liberty " at one blow, Bramante was 



compelled to leave his buildings unfinished and seek 



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