ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
villa of Belfiore, and crossing the Via degli Angeli 
under a bridge, ran along the edges of the Barchetto to 
the north-east gates. Here, at the angle of the city 
walls, stood the Montagnola, a hill planted with orange 
and citron groves and watered by running streams 
descending in terra-cotta conduits from the summit. 
At the base of the mount was the Rotonda, a villa built 
by Ercole the Second, with cool subterranean halls, 
hidden in bowers of roses and jessamine, which were a 
favourite resort of the Court ladies in the summer heats. 
Further still, at the extreme end of the eastern walls, 
looking down on the waters of the Po, the Viale reached 
yet another palace built by Ercole the Second at the 
foot of a hillock known as the Montagna di S. Giorgio, 
made from the soil of the trenches dug by Alfonso the 
First to defend Ferrara against Pope Julius the Second. 
Here Ercole and his son had laid out a vast labyrinth 
with marble fountains and a grotto adorned with niches 
and mosaics in the style of Raphael’s Loggie. Winding 
paths, shaded by pergolas of vines and roses, led to the 
top of the hill, where a small piazza commanded a 
superb prospect over the city, while at its base was a 
lake with rose hedges rising in tiers from the water, and 
woods peopled with gold and silver pheasants. 1 
These villas were the scene of many sumptuous 
banquets and spectacles in the reign of the pleasure- 
1 M. A. Guarini, op. cit p. 296. 
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