GARDENS OF FLORENTINE HUMANISTS 
representing the Graces doing homage to the bride, 
while her accomplished husband, “ the friend of all the 
Muses,” is welcomed by the Arts and Sciences. To¬ 
day Sandro’s frescoes hang on the staircase of the Louvre, 
and Ghirlandaio’s portrait of the lovely maiden, a 
masterpiece of Florentine art, is the pride of Mr. 
Pierpont Morgan’s library at New York. Only the 
old white house remains, with the square tower and 
pillared loggia, and a doorway with the Tornabuoni arms 
carved in stone amid a tangled thicket of roses and 
jessamine. 
At the foot of Monte Morello, two miles beyond 
Careggi, stood another country house closely con¬ 
nected with a younger branch of the Medici. This 
was the beautiful villa of Castello, built, says Vasari, 
a with rare skill by Cosimo s nephew, Pier Francesco. 
In front of the house was a wide lawn with tanks 
of water divided by clipped hedges and long avenues 
of mulberry-trees leading down to the Arno, while 
behind, the gardens were laid out in terraces, adorned 
with statues and fountains, against the steep hillside. 
Castello was the scene of many brilliant festivities in 
the days of Pier Francesco’s son Lorenzo, the intimate 
friend of Poliziano and patron of Botticelli. For him 
Sandro painted those great pictures of “ Primavera ” 
and the “ Birth of Venus,” in which the humanists’ love 
of old myths and delight in the joyous May-time alike 
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