ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
completely disappeared, but another remains in which 
he is seen, with a kindly smile on his face, giving a 
piece of gold to his pet dwarf. 
The Schifanoia frescoes were the glory of Borso’s 
reign, but Duke Ercole was the great builder who made 
Ferrara the finest city in North Italy. Soon after his 
accession, he sent to ask Lorenzo de’ Medici for a copy 
of Alberti’s Treatise on Architecture , and carried out his 
improvements on the principles laid down by the great 
writer. The stately symmetry of the well-kept streets 
and wide squares, the fine palaces standing in their 
blossoming gardens, were the admiration of every visitor 
to Ferrara. It was Ercole who laid out the delizie , or 
gardens, of the Schifanoia, where his son Alfonso was 
born in July 1476 . 
“ A beautiful fete,” writes the Ferrarese chronicler, 
“ was given in honour of the child’s christening. A 
hundred trumpeters, pipers, and tambourine-players 
made music, and the tables of the Sala Grande were 
decked with a splendid display of confetti representing 
lords and ladies, castles, trees, and animals in gilt and 
coloured sugar. But as soon as the palace doors were 
opened, the people rushed in and carried off everything, 
leaving the board bare.” 1 
The Schifanoia Gardens were the scene of another 
brilliant festa in the following summer, when Ercole 
1 Diario Ferrarese, p. 250. (Muratori, xxiv.) 
36 
