ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



public, clad in sumptuous clothes and rich jewels, 

 and gave festive entertainments to illustrious visitors, 

 such as the Duchess of Ferrara and her daughters, 

 Isabella and Beatrice d' Este. 



Another community whose irregular practices gave 

 rise to considerable scandal was that of S. Maria della 

 Celestia, whose convent was destroyed in the last cen- 

 tury to make room for the Arsenal. The " Zeles- 

 tre" nuns, as they were commonly called, adopted 

 white habits of a very becoming fashion, and went so 

 far as to lay aside their veils and wear their hair in 

 ringlets, a practice which drew down upon them a 

 solemn rebuke from the Patriarch of Venice. In their 

 convent Easter was kept with as great mirth and fes- 

 tivity as if it had been another Carnival, and on the 

 election of a new abbess, in May 1509, they gave a 

 festd, at which several young patricians were present and 

 danced all night with the nuns, to the music of trum- 

 pets and fifes. Even in Venice such orgies could not 

 be permitted within convent walls, and on the follow- 

 ing day two of the young nobles who had led the 

 revels at the " Zelestre " were summoned to appear 

 before the Magnifico Bernardo Bembo, and duly repri- 

 manded for the disturbance which they had caused. 1 



Most of these convents and gardens perished long 

 ago, but the memory of one of them is still fresh in 



1 M. Sanudo, Dtan'i, viii. 307. 



106 



