GARDENS OF ESTE AND GONZAGA PRINCES 



which fortunately still belongs to direct descendants 

 of the ducal line of Visconti. The villa is a noble 

 structure built by Ruggieri in the first years of the 

 eighteenth century, the terraced gardens with their 

 pleached alleys and bright parterres, their fishponds, 

 arbours, and finely wrought iron gates, take us back 

 to still earlier days, when the Sforza reigned in Milan 

 and Leonardo the Florentine was the Duke's chief 

 engineer. 



In the early part of the sixteenth century, during 

 the troubled reign of Beatrice's sons, Maximilian and 

 Francesco the Second, the gardens of Milan became 

 famous as the meeting-place of many of those literary 

 celebrities whose names live in Bandello's novels. The 

 witty friar waxes eloquent in his description of Ippolita 

 Sforza and Scipio Atellano's gardens, where the rival 

 stars, Camilla Scarampi and Cecilia Gallerani, the 

 Sappho of her day, recited their poems in the cool 

 shade of a green pergola, and Lancinus Curtius and 

 Antonio Fregoso discussed classical texts by the 

 fountain side. Sometimes, as Bandello was telling one 

 of his merry tales, the tramp of horses' feet would be 

 heard in the street, a chariot decorated with the finest 

 gold and inlaid work, drawn by four splendid chargers 

 in rich trappings, would appear at the palace doors, 

 and cavaliers and ladies would hasten with joyful 

 acclamations to greet the gracious lady who honoured 



