THE GARDENS OF VENICE 



anything else in the world. You will wonder that I 

 have time to think of them in the midst of all my 

 labours, but I am a true Epicurean and should like to 

 spend my whole life in a garden. Therefore, as you 

 love me, dear Ramusio, take care of these beloved 

 groves while I am absent from home, for this is the 

 truest service that you can render me." 1 



No joy is greater, he often repeats, than to receive 

 his son-in-law's letters, at the end of a long and tedious 

 journey, and to hear how his trees and plants are doing. 

 From Barcelona he sent some caronba trees to be 

 planted at Murano, and from Seville he forwarded 

 seeds of sweet orange and of a flowering shrub called 

 ladano, with a blossom between a cistus and a white 

 rose, as well as some curious roots called batate^ which 

 had lately been brought from the Indies, and were 

 good to eat, tasting something like chestnuts. There 

 was also a new and delicious fruit, apparently a banana, 

 not unlike a melon, but with a flavour that was some- 

 thing between a quince and a peach, of which Navagero 

 sent home specimens, together with a beautiful dead 

 bird called a bird of paradise, also from the New 

 World which was to be given to Gaspare Contarini. 

 There are frequent allusions in these letters to a 

 certain Frate Francesco, who seems to have been his 

 head gardener and had charge of both his gardens in 

 his absence. 



1 D. Atanagi, Lettere, 676. 

 121 



