3 o 4 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



The following sonnet on a present of violets, by Lorenzo himself, shows that he was really 

 a poet : 



Not from bright cultured gardens, where sweet airs 



Steal softly round the rose's terraced home, 



Into thy white hand, Lady, have we come ; 



Deep in dark dingles are our wild wood lairs, 



Where once came Venus racked with aching cares, 



Seeking Adonis through our leafy gloam : 



Hither and thither vainly doth she roam, 



Till her bare foot a felon bramble tears. 



To catch the sacred blood that from above 



Dripped off the leaves, our small white flowers we spread : 



Whence came that purple hue that now is ours. 



Not summer airs, nor rills from far springs led 



Have nursed our beauty ; but by tears of love 



Our roots were watered, love-sighs formed our flowers. 



Villa Medici had, however, a darker association for Lorenzo. It was when he was staying here 

 as a youth with his brother Giuliano that the Pazzi conspiracy was hatched against him. It 

 had been the intention of the conspirators to commit the murder when they went to dine with 

 Lorenzo at Fiesole, and it was only after they found that Giuliano would be absent that they 

 transferred their attempt to the cathedral ; by prearrangement the lifting of the Host gave 

 the signal. Giuliano was murdered, but Lorenzo, who escaped by his coolness and presence 

 of mind, took a terrible vengeance on the assassins. 



The villa, which was built by Michelozzo Michelozzi for Lorenzo's father, Giovanni, 

 son of Cosimo Medici, has subsequently been transformed into an eighteenth century house 

 by Cavaliere Mozzi, to whom it was left by the Countess of Orford on her death at Pisa in 1781. 

 Everyone will remember the constant references to her in Walpole's letters. The vaulted 

 rooms however are still there ; and there must always have been the terrace in front. Vasari 

 tells of the vast expanse in the foundations on the hillside, and how by the excellence of the 

 building there were no cracks. These under-works were used as oil and wine cellars and 

 for general farm purposes. The glory of Villa Medici remains in its view. It stands high 

 upon the hillside, with the ground dropping swiftly below, dominating the whole landscape. 

 Florence spreads over the valley, the low violet hills bound the horizon, and the Arno winds 

 like a white ribbon through belts of dark green cypresses. Soft but clear through the delicious 

 mountain air come the mingled notes of the innumerable church bells. From this spot Lorenzo 

 and Giuliano rode down on that April day to the Duomo, which they could see far away 

 in the valley, on that expedition from which one of them was never to come back. Here they 

 gathered those they loved around them, in the brief intervals of repose in their crowded 

 lives. We realise how they held that thought, leisure and friendship were still the best things 

 that life had to give. 



Once more the world's great age begins anew, 



Once more the blossoms of that marvellous spring unclose. 



As the sun sinks behind the purple Carrara mountains we picture the group who must 

 often have watched its setting from this terrace : the Magnificent Medici, dark, saturnine, 

 sympathetic, the man of marvellous tact and infinite variety, conversing with his brilliant friends, 

 full of wit, social gossip, or grave discourse as the music of Plato or Homer sounded in their 

 ears. " Then when the stream of thought begins to weary, Pulci breaks the silence with a 

 bran-new canto of Morgante, or a singing-boy is bidden to tune his mandoline to Messer 

 Angelo's last-named ballata" E. M. P. 



The Villa Font'-All'-Erta at Camerata belongs to the Rasponi family. Built on the 

 Camerata Hill, a spur from St. Domenico, the name of the villa means the spring on 

 the hill. The steepness of the ascent by roads winding up the hillside justifies the title. 

 Niccolo Gaddi, a descendant of Taddeo Gaddi, the painter, a pupil of Giotto, who died in 

 1366, built, or, rather, greatly added to the house, and there is good reason to think that 

 Ammanati (1511-1592), who built the back court of the Pitti Palace in 1558-1570, may also have 

 given the designs for this villa. Scipione Ammirato, speaking of Niccolo Gaddi, says : ' He 

 is building in the country a palace more fit to be in a city than in the country." Ammanati's 

 cortile at the Pitti is one of the most characteristic pieces of work in Florence, and this fact 



