FLORENTINE VILLAS 
groups are basins of pink-and-white marble, carved 
with sea-creatures and resting on dolphins. Humour is 
the quality which soonest loses its savour, and it is often 
difficult to understand the grotesque side of the old gar- 
den-architecture ; but the curious delight in the repre- 
sentations of animals, real or fantastic, probably arose 
from the general interest in those strange wild beasts 
of which the travellers of the Renaissance brought home 
such fabulous descriptions. As to the general use of 
the grotto in Italian gardens, it is a natural develop- 
ment of the need for shade and coolness, and when the 
long-disused waterworks were playing, and cool streams 
gushed over quivering beds of fern into the marble 
tanks, these retreats must have formed a delicious con- 
trast to the outer glare of the garden. 
At Petraia the gardens are less elaborate in plan than 
at Castello, and are, in fact, noted chiefly for a fountain 
brought from that villa. This fountain, the most beau- 
tiful of II Tribolo’s works, is surmounted by the famous 
Venus-like figure of a woman wringing out her hair, 
now generally attributed to Giovanni da Bologna. Like 
the other Florentine villas of this quarter, where water 
is more abundant, Petraia has a great oblong vcisca, or 
tank, beneath its upper terrace ; while the house itself, 
a simple structure of the old-fashioned Tuscan type, 
built about an inner quadrangle, is remarkable for its very 
beautiful tower, which, as Herr Gurlitt 1 suggests, was 
doubtless inspired by the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio. 
x “ Geschichte des Barockstils in Italien.” 
37 
