ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



between the delicate marble shafts of an arched 

 window, and a pink oleander flowering overhead. 

 Further on, you may come on a clump of cypresses 

 and a carved marble bench standing in the midst of 

 a field of young wheat, and beyond these discover 

 the pillars of a gateway mossy with age, bearing the 

 shields and armorial bearings of some ancient family. 

 But the hinges of the gate are rusty and the path 

 through the cornfield leads nowhere. A profound 

 melancholy broods over the scene. Villas and gardens 

 \ alike have vanished. The men and women who 

 lived there are dead and gone. Their names, even 

 the most illustrious among them, have been for- 

 gotten, and the very site of Bembo's " dolce Noniano " 

 is unknown. Only the nightingales which charmed 

 his poet-soul still sing in the silence of the summer 

 night, and the roses which Navagero loved hang in 

 clusters over the low red wall of the lagoon. Nature 

 renews her youth, and year by year the spring returns 

 with her perennial charm. 



'34 



