ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



dear citizen." Afterwards, when his son Angelo was 

 disgraced and imprisoned by the ungrateful Joanna, 

 the Signory of Florence interfered on his behalf, and 

 sent the Queen an indignant remonstrance, reproach- 

 ing her for so grievously forgetting the services of 

 the great man who had stood by her when all others 

 forsook her, and had more than once shown how gladly 

 he would have died in her cause. Matteo Palmieri, 

 a scholar of the age of the Medici, wrote a history of 

 the Grand Seneschal, and Andrea Castagno intro- 

 duced his portrait among the life-sized figures of 

 celebrated Italians which he painted for the Villa 

 Pandolfini at Legnaia. 



But it was still with the Certosa, as Niccolo had 

 himself wished, that his memory was chiefly asso- 

 ciated. There, according to the directions given 

 in his will, his body, embalmed and brought from 

 Naples, was laid to rest in the crypt by the side of his 

 beloved Lorenzo. The best sculptors of the day, 

 Orgagna's pupils, were employed to raise the Area 

 above his remains and carve his sleeping effigy as 

 nearly as possible approaching to what he had been in 

 life. There we see the Grand Seneschal, in full 

 armour, reclining under a Gothic canopy of marble 

 supported by spiral columns. The head rests on the 

 embroidered pillow, and the hands are folded with 



the quiet consciousness that their work is done. The 



224 



