ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



in song. Here in June evenings he could linger on 

 the wide balconies under Bramante's arcades, looking 

 down on the road by which all the ambassadors entered 

 the city, or watching the joyous band of youths and 

 maidens at play in the meadows along the Tiber. 



" I am living here in the Belvedere," he wrote to his 

 mother at Mantua. "It is a real refreshment to my 

 spirit. Would to God you had so delightful a place 

 to live in, as this villa with its beautiful view and 

 delicious gardens, filled with all these noble antiques, 

 fountains, basins, and running water ! And what suits 

 me best of all, I am close to the Pope's palace." l 



But the best and fullest description that we have 

 of the Belvedere gardens is from the pen of Pietro 

 Pesaro, one of the three Venetian envoys who were 

 sent to congratulate Pope Adrian the Sixth on his 

 election in the spring of 1523. They had started for 

 Rome in the previous autumn, but had been compelled 

 to turn back again at Bologna for fear of the plague, 

 and had set out again in March, travelling by the 

 rougher roads and staying at remote country inns to 

 avoid infection. But the cordial reception which they 

 met with atoned for all these privations. One 

 Venetian Cardinal, the excellent Patriarch Grimani, 

 gave them a splendid banquet on St. Mark's Day, 

 when, according to custom, he threw open his palace 

 1 Serassi, Lettere^ \. p, 76. 



74 



