ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
are still standing. The charming frescoes on the walls 
were painted by Andrea del Sarto and his scholars to 
commemorate the gifts of parrots, apes, and other 
animals that were presented to the Magnifico in 1488 
by the Sultan of Babylon, and placed in the menagerie 
at Poggio. Among these was a giraffe which excited 
so much interest that it was sent round to the convents 
to gratify the curiosity of the nuns. “ The creature 
will eat anything,” writes Tribaldo de’ Rossi. “ It pokes 
its nose into every peasant’s basket, and is so gentle 
that it will take an apple from a child’s hand. But it 
died on January 2, and everybody was sorry for the 
beautiful spotted giraffe.” 1 
The vast gardens which Lorenzo laid out on the 
ground sloping down to the river, the orchards and 
mulberry trees which he planted in order to encourage 
the silk trade, and the woods which he stocked with 
peacocks and pheasants, quails and waterfowl, have 
been described by Michele Verini in prose and by 
Poliziano in verse. But in spite of the strong dykes 
that were built to protect the gardens from the winter 
floods, one day the Ombrone broke its banks, and 
swept away the islet which Lorenzo had planted with 
rare herbs and trees. Like a true humanist, he con¬ 
soled himself for this disaster by writing an Ovidian 
poem, in which he describes how Ambra, the loveliest of 
1 D. Salvi. (Domenici, 247.) 
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