VI 
LOMBARD VILLAS 
O N the walls of the muniment-room of the old 
Borromeo palace in Milan, Michelino, a little- 
known painter of the fifteenth century, has 
depicted the sports and diversions of that noble family. 
Here may be seen ladies in peaked hennins and long 
drooping sleeves, with their shock-headed gallants in 
fur-edged tunics and pointed shoes, engaged in curious 
games and dances, against the background of Lake 
Maggiore and the Borromean Islands. 
It takes the modern traveller an effort of mental read- 
justment to recognize in this “ clump of peaked isles ” — 
bare Leonardesque rocks thrusting themselves splinter- 
wise above the lake — the smiling groves and terraces 
of the Isola Bella and the Isola Madre. For in those 
days the Borromei had not converted their rocky islands 
into the hanging gardens which to later travellers became 
one of the most important sights of the ‘‘grand tour”; 
and one may learn from this curious fresco with what 
seemingly hopeless problems the Italian garden-art dealt, 
and how, while audaciously remodelling nature, it con- 
trived to keep in harmony with the surroundings amid 
which it worked. 
*97 
