ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



Again, in the paintings of that devout Plagnone 

 artist, Lorenzo di Credi, we are allowed charming 

 glimpses of formal gardens with broad walks and ilex 

 avenues on the banks of running streams. Botticelli 

 thrones his Madonna in a bower of palm and olive, 

 cypress and myrtle, with tall white lilies and red and 

 white roses standing in bowls along the marble parapet, 

 and places the Court of Venus in a woodland glade 

 where the Graces dance hand in hand on the flowery 

 turf. 



But of all these old Florentines, none took greater 

 delight in rural scenes than Fra Angelico's pupil, 

 Benozzo Gozzoli. In the Campo Santo of Pisa this 

 excellent artist painted a whole series of Tuscan land- 

 scapes as a setting for the history of the patriarchs, 

 to the great admiration of his contemporaries. The 

 Tower of Babel rears its lofty pile among terraced 

 gardens and blossoming orchards ; youths and maidens 

 pluck the purple grapes from the pergola over 

 Noah's head ; while the Renaissance portico, where St. 

 Augustine teaches rhetoric, opens on a hillside crowned 

 with smiling villa-gardens. Still more to Benozzo's 

 taste was the task of painting the walls of the Medici 

 chapel in Via Larga which Cosimo's son Piero gave 

 him in 1459. Here he had to commemorate the 

 Council of Florence and introduce portraits of the 

 Greek Emperor and Patriarch, of Cosimo and his 

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