ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



completely disappeared, but another remains in which 

 he is seen, with a kindly smile on his face, giving a 

 piece of gold to his pet dwarf. 



The Schifanoia frescoes were the glory of Borso's 

 reign, but Duke Ercole was the great builder who made 

 Ferrara the finest city in North Italy. Soon after his 

 accession, he sent to ask Lorenzo de' Medici for a copy 

 of Alberti's Treatise on Architecture , and carried out his 

 improvements on the principles laid down by the great 

 writer. The stately symmetry of the well-kept streets 

 and wide squares, the fine palaces standing in their 

 blossoming gardens, were the admiration of every visitor 

 to Ferrara. It was Ercole who laid out the delizie^ or 

 gardens, of the Schifanoia, where his son Alfonso was 

 born in July 1476. 



" A beautiful fete," writes the Ferrarese chronicler, 

 " was given in honour of the child's christening. A 

 hundred trumpeters, pipers, and tambourine-players 

 made music, and the tables of the Sala Grande were 

 decked with a splendid display of confetti representing 

 lords and ladies, castles, trees, and animals in gilt and 

 coloured sugar. But as soon as the palace doors were 

 opened, the people rushed in and carried off everything, 

 leaving the board bare." * 



The Schifanoia Gardens were the scene of another 

 brilliant festa in the following summer, when Ercole 



1 Diario Ferrarese, p. 250. (Muratori, xxiv.) 



36 



