GARDENS OF ESTE AND GONZAGA PRINCES 
a bower of pinks and columbines, where red admiral 
and swallow-tail butterflies flit to and fro, and a sprig 
of juniper on the lady’s shoulder denotes her name. 
Leonello’s brothers shared his love of art if they 
hardly equalled him in devotion to learning. Borso, 
who first bore the title of Duke, completed the 
Schifanoia Palace begun by his grandfather, and em¬ 
ployed Cossa and his followers to paint the interior 
with frescoes of the months and seasons. The low 
red-brick house is still standing among the fruit trees 
at the end of the grass-grown street, with Borso’s uni¬ 
corn on the marble portal and his brother Ercole’s 
diamond wrought in the terra-cotta frieze. Within are 
the faded and half-effaced pictures which tell of life 
in the court and camp, in the town and countryside. 
The Duke is there, magnificent in cloth of gold, riding 
out to the chase, administering justice to his subjects 
and looking on with courtiers and ladies at the famous 
races that were run for the Palio on St. George’s Day. 
We see the peasant at work in the harvest and vintage, 
the merchant at the counter, the scholar at his books 
women bending over the embroidery loom, youths and 
maidens playing viols and whispering together among 
the pomegranate trees on the flowery grass where the 
rabbits are at play, while Venus drives her chariot 
drawn by swans under a blue sky flecked with soft 
white clouds. A scene in which the Duke was repre¬ 
sented receiving a basket of cherries from a child has 
35 
