THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
301 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
VILLA MEDICI, FLORENCE, AND THE VILLA FONT’-ALL’-ERTA. 
W HEN we stand on the terrace at Villa Medici, at Fiesole below the hill, and think 
of the presence there of Lorenzo, we do not call him to mind as the cruel victor 
of Volterra and the destroyer of Florentine liberty, but rather as the dear friend 
and patron of the most cultivated and refined minds in a great age. Of all 
the Medicean villas, none was more intimately interwoven than this one with the lives of the 
most interesting of that group. Three men stand out, interesting and distinguished, in that 
day of remarkable personalities — Marsilio Ficino, Angelo Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola. 
The first was a philosopher, a refined, mystical thinker, whose delicate health was combined 
with extraordinary literary activity. Priest and secular teacher, he preached very often both 
in his own parish church and in Florence. His pupils were devoted to him, and with them he 
kept up a large correspondence. The translation of Plato, which no doubt had a deep influence 
on the thought of the day, was his greatest work. He made many translations and left some 
original work besides a mass of very interesting correspondence carried on by him with such 
men as Federigo da Montefeltro and Bembo, as well as with the Medicis themselves. In spite 
312. — THE DRIVE IN. 
