GARDENS OF ESTE AND GONZAGA PRINCES 



loving Duke Alfonso the Second. On one occasion 

 a masque with musical interludes called // Tempio cT 

 Amore was performed by a hundred gentlemen of the 

 Court in the Castello Gardens ; on another, the ducal 

 family and a chosen company of their friends sat 

 down to a banquet under an arbour of apple and pear, 

 orange and lemon trees, laden with ripe fruit, and 

 witnessed a performance of Tasso's Aminta in the sylvan 

 glades opposite, as they sat at table. 1 But the most 

 memorable festd was that given in honour of the French 

 monarch, Henri III, on his return from Poland in 1574. 

 A masque called L'lsola Beata was to be represented at 

 the Montagna one summer evening, and preparations 

 were made on a vast scale. Thousands of torches 

 illuminated the scene, a mimic siege and battle on the 

 lake were to be represented before the Court. All was 

 ready for the fray, when suddenly the wooden walls of 

 the sham castle caught fire and fell in with a crash, 

 several of the combatants were thrown into the water 

 and drowned, and the/^/^, which was to have been so 

 gay, ended in death and disaster. But if the gardens 

 of Ferrara and the festivites at the ducal Court reached 

 a pitch of splendour never before attained under Duke 

 Alfonso the Second, taxation also increased in an equal 

 measure, and the Duke boasted that he had doubled 

 his revenues by these exactions. The childless prince 



1 A. Solerti, Ferrara e la corte estettse, p. 97. 



45 



