ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



much of their boyhood in Cafaggiuolo. Here they 

 were sent when the plague was raging in Florence 

 and their grandfather was dying at Careggi, and here 

 after his death they often spent the summer with the 

 widowed Monna Contessina. The boys, as the fattore 

 told their father, had a happy time, riding, fishing, 

 shooting, and visiting different parts of the estate. 

 Lorenzo, it appears, already showed a taste for garden- 

 ing, and asked Piero's leave to lay out the rough 

 ground in front of the villa. And it was at a village 

 fair in the neighbourhood of Cafaggiuolo that he met 

 the peasant girl who became the heroine of his rustic 

 idyll, Nencia da Barberino. From the first a genuine 

 love of nature inspired his youthful sonnets and 

 canzoni. He describes the ilex-woods and rippling 

 streams, the song of the nightingales in the thicket, 

 the belle, fresche e purpuree mole in the grass and the 

 red and white rosebuds of the gardens. A sunflower 

 on the terraces of Careggi filled him with tender 

 musings on the death of the fair Simonetta, and his 

 mistress Lucrezia first appeared to him, like Botticelli's 

 Venus, in a shower of roses. The simple joys of rural 

 life, the calm repose of the villa, and the beauty of 

 trees and flowers are themes of which he never tires. 

 Let others seek the stately halls and busy marts of the 

 city, the games and pleasures which bring with them 

 a thousand vexing cares. All he asks for is a little 



