THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



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CHAPTER XXIV. 

 VILLA MEDICI, FLORENCE, AND THE VILLA FONT'-ALL'-ERTA. 



WHEN we stand on the terrace at Villa Medici, at Fiesole below the hill, and think 

 of the presence there of Lorenzo, we do not call him to mind as the cruel victor 

 of Volterra and the destroyer of Florentine liberty, but rather as the dear friend 

 - and patron of the most cultivated and refined minds in a great age. Of all 

 the Medicean villas, none was more intimately interwoven than this one with the lives of the 

 most interesting of that group. Three men stand out, interesting and distinguished, in that 

 day of remarkable personalities Marsilio Ficino, Angelo Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola. 

 The first was a philosopher, a refined, mystical thinker, whose delicate health was combined 

 with extraordinary literary activity. Priest and secular teacher, he preached very often both 

 in his own parish church and in Florence. His pupils were devoted to him, and with them he 

 kept up a large correspondence. The translation of Plato, which no doubt had a deep influence 

 on the thought of the day, was his greatest work. He made many translations and left some 

 original work besides a mass of very interesting correspondence carried on by him with such 

 men as Federigo da Montefeltro and Bembo, as well as with the Medicis themselves. In spite 



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-THE DRIVE IN. 



