GARDENS OF FLORENTINE HUMANISTS 
so fast that they promise to shelter not only our 
descendants but ourselves. . . . But why, oh why, do 
I recall every detail of my villetta P Never can I gaze 
on the beauty of earth and sky without remembering 
my villa and those with whom I long to spend my 
few remaining days.” 1 
In his old age, Petrarch was fortunate enough to 
find another home on Italian soil, at Arqua, in the 
Euganean hills, where he built himself a villa “ piccola, 
ma graziosa ,” and spent the last years of his life in the 
peaceful enjoyment of the beautiful prospect and sweet, 
wholesome air. The low white-walled house is still 
standing in the olive-woods on the heights above 
Arqua, and the garden, with its medlars and pome¬ 
granates, its vines and acacias, is little altered since he 
lived there. During centuries it has been the goal of 
pilgrims from all lands, who, like Bembo and Niccolo 
da Correggio, Byron and Shelley, have climbed the 
hill to visit the poet’s tomb near the church, and have 
looked down from the loggia of Petrarch’s home on 
the “ waveless plain of Lombardy ” stretching far away 
in the blue distance. 
While Petrarch was counting his fruit-trees and 
defending his garden from the Naiads of the Sorgue, 
another Florentine, Boccaccio, was writing those in¬ 
imitable pages in which he describes the gardens of 
1 Lettere di F. Petrarca (G. Eracassetti), iv. 41 . 
5 
