ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
and most beloved of all the dynasties that held sway 
between the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. It was 
a common saying that three ruling passions—the love 
of building, of travel, and of threatricals—distinguished 
all the members of the ducal family. In those days 
the art of building, as we have seen, included the laying 
out of the gardens, an object that was held worthy to 
occupy the attention of the best architects. Accord- 
ingly, the sumptuous pleasure-houses and delicious 
gardens which sprang up all round Ferrara in the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were among the most 
remarkable features of the golden age when the white 
eagle of Este floated from the towers of the Castello 
Vecchio. If no other record of these vanished palaces 
remained, the works of Boiardo and Ariosto would 
show how great a part they played in that court life 
which is so vividly reflected in the verses of these 
poets. The gardens of Belfiore and the Schifanoia, 
of Belriguardo and Belvedere, were the scene of those 
manifold pageants and festivities that were held in 
honour of illustrious guests, or of births and marriages 
in the ducal family, and helped to make each incident 
in the Prince’s private life a memorable event in the 
history of his people. These wide terraces, flanked 
with loggias and adorned with marble fountains and 
statues, these grassy lawns surrounded with hedges of 
box and laurel, with groves of ilex and cypress, afforded 
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