THE GARDENS OF VENICE 



by the death of two of her noblest sons. 1 " Poor 

 Navagero," wrote Bembo, " was a most rare being, who 

 could not fail to do honour to his country. If he had 

 been an ignorant fool, he would have lived." 2 



Another distinguished friend of Navagero and 

 Bembo, who owned a villa at Murano, was Trifone 

 Gabriele, whom Ariosto calls the " new Socrates." So 

 great was his reputation for learning that at the 

 prayer of Cardinal Pole and Bembo, the Pope released 

 him from a rash vow made in early youth to take 

 priest's orders, and abandon the study of pagan 

 literature. Trifone would never accept any office or 

 preferment from the State, and when he was offered 

 the Patriarchate of Venice, replied in the following 

 words : 



" Siano degli altre le mitre e le corone, 

 Rura mihi et rigus placeant in vellibus anmes." 



He loved the woods and waters of his villa in the 

 green Euganean hills, and planted pergolas of rose and 

 honeysuckle, vines and jessamine in his garden at 

 Murano. Here, in the happy days before Messer 

 Andrea was sent abroad, he and Trifone studied the 

 MS. of Bembo's Prose, and revised the text of the classics 

 which they edited for Aldus. Like Navagero, Trifone 

 shared his good things freely with poorer scholars, and 

 threw open his gardens to the members of the Aldine 



1 Sadoleto, Epist.fam.^ 106. * Letters, v. 65. 



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