ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



his art, by Niccoli's command, on this last memorial of 

 the son he had loved so well. And as we stand by these 

 tombs, where father and son rest in their long slumber, 

 we feel that Niccol6's words have come true, and that 

 after all this Certosa is his most lasting monument. 

 Since his time whole dynasties have risen and fallen 

 in the Sicilies, change has succeeded change, and king- 

 doms have been swept away, till not a trace of his 

 work remains to bring back his name to men's lips. 

 But at the end of these five hundred years every 

 traveller who, walking through Val d'Ema, sees the 

 long pile of buildings lifting their battlements 

 against the sky, and asks who founded the Certosa, 

 receives for answer " Niccolo Acciaiuoli, the Grand 

 Seneschal." 



We see it now in the days of its decay, but for 

 many hundred years after Niccolo's death the Certosa 

 was one of the most celebrated monastic foundations 

 in Italy. Like other Tuscan convents, it became the 

 home of art, a sphere where the painters of different 

 schools and ages were invited to diplay their powers. 



In that same chapel of the Acciaiuoli, not many 

 years after the great Seneschal's death, a young 

 Dominican friar from the convent of Fiesole painted 

 his first works, and introduced some angels playing 

 musical instruments, whose exceeding beauty at- 

 tracted universal attention, and were before long to 



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