ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
of our friend Plato— De summo bono —which I hope 
you have by this time translated into Latin, for there is 
nothing that I desire so ardently as to find out the 
true road to happiness. Come then and fail not to 
bring with you the lyre of Orpheus.” 1 
Here in April 1459, when Cosimo was too infirm to 
leave the Via Larga, his sons entertained young 
Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who was sent by his august 
father, Francesco, Duke of Milan, to meet Pope 
Pius II. 
“ Yesterday,” the boy wrote home to his parents, “ I 
went to Careggi, a most beautiful palace belonging 
to Cosimo, and was shown all over the place, and was 
no less delighted with the gardens, which are altogether 
enchanting, than with the noble building, which is 
certainly one of the finest houses in this city, when you 
consider the halls, bedrooms, kitchens, and furniture.” 2 
Galeazzo proceeds to describe the banquet at which 
he was entertained by Piero de’ Medici and the chief 
members of his family, all saving Cosimo’s handsome 
son Giovanni, who refused to sit down, and himself 
insisted on waiting on the guests. A young Tuscan 
poet, Antonio Cammelli of Pistoja, chanted a poem in 
praise of the Sforza’s great deeds to the music of his 
lute, after which the Medici ladies and Marietta Strozzi, 
whose bust was carved by Desiderio da Settignano, and 
1 M. Ficini, Eft. i. 1. 
2 Bibliotheque Nationale, Fonds italien, 1588. 
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