GARDENS OF ESTE AND GONZAGA PRINCES 
prospect and the luxuriant vegetation of this lovely 
region. On one memorable visit which she paid to 
Salo in 1513 she was the object of a popular ovation 
on the part of the natives, who poured out in boats to 
meet her barge and brought her presents of fish and 
fruit, and, what pleased her less, tedious addresses to 
which she was compelled to listen. And it was on 
Lady Day, while she lingered in the lemon groves, 
that she received the Symposium which her learned 
friend, the Vicentine humanist Trissino, had composed 
in her honour, a present, as she wrote to the donor, 
altogether appropriate to this divine Riviera, where she 
felt free to devote herself wholly to poetry and 
meditation. 
The sight of the palace gardens at Gubbio and 
Urbino moved Isabella to make improvements in the 
ancient Castello of the Gonzagas at Mantua. Here, 
on the ground floor of the grim old building, she had 
her famous Grotta—an open court paved with majolica 
tiles bearing Gonzaga devices and surrounded with 
elegant columns and niches containing busts and 
statues. Her idea was to make this a place of retreat, 
where, surrounded by beautiful paintings and marbles, 
she could enjoy the pleasures of solitude or the 
company of a few kindred spirits, and with this end 
in view she was never weary of importuning her friends 
to get her “ some beautiful thing for the Grotta! ” 
53 
