54 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



When at home, I a little more frequent my library, from 

 whence I at once survey all the whole concerns of my Family : 

 'tis situated at the Entrance into my House, and I thence under 

 me see my Garden, Court and base Court, and into all the parts 

 of the building. Then I turn over now one Book and then 

 another, of various subjects, without method or design : one 

 while I meditate, another I record, and dictate as I walk to 

 and fro, such whimsies as these I present you here. Essays: 

 Charles Cottorfs Translation. 



The house (of the Duke Cosimo, at Castello near Florence) is 

 nothing to speak of; but these different pieces of gardenage, the 

 whole situated on the slope of a hill, in such a way that the 

 straight alleys are all on a gentle and easy decline ; the cross- 

 alleys are straight and close. There are several galleries (berceaux) 

 to be seen very thickly interwoven and covered with all kinds 

 of aromatic trees, like cedars, cypresses, orange, lemon and 

 olive trees, the branches so mingled and interlaced, that it is 

 easy to see the sun at its greatest strength could not penetrate 

 them. The trunks of the cypresses and of those other trees are 

 planted in rows so close to one another, that only three or four 

 people could walk abreast. There is a large basin amongst 

 others, in the midst of which is to be seen a natural or artificial 

 rock, which seems all frozen over the top, by means of the same 

 material with which the Duke has covered his grottos at Prato- 

 lino ; and above the rock is a great copper medallion, repre- 

 senting a very old hairy man sitting down, his arms crossed, from 

 whose beard, forehead and skin, drips water incessantly drop by 

 drop, representing sweat and tears, and the fountain has no other 

 conduit but this. Elsewhere they had an amusing experience 

 for walking through the Garden, and looking at its singularities, 

 the gardener having left them for the purpose, as they were 

 standing at a certain spot looking at the marble figures, there 

 issued under their feet and between their legs through infinite 

 small holes, jets of water so fine as to be almost invisible, and 

 representing sovereignly well the distillation of fine rain, with 

 which they were all spirted by means of some subterranean 



