ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
after the fatigues of Lucrezia Borgia’s wedding, with 
only two or three ladies, “ the cooks and the carvers,” 
and the baby-boy Federico, without whom his mother 
declared she could not be happy. Here they were en¬ 
joying each other’s society and the gardens of Porto in 
all the beauty of June, when the news of Caesar Borgia’s 
sudden invasion of Urbino reached Mantua, and after 
a few days of terrible suspense Duke Guidobaldo him¬ 
self arrived, having ridden day and night before his 
pursuers and “ only saved his shirt and doublet.” Here 
Isabella came after her return from the Court of Leo 
the Tenth in 1515, feeling that it was easier to think 
of the delights of Rome and the friends whom she had 
left behind in these solitary shades than in the little 
rooms and dull society of Mantua. In those days the 
Marchesana’s gardens at Porto became one of the sights 
of Italy and attracted illustrious strangers from all 
parts. “ I sing the praises of the delicious gardens of 
Porto,” wrote the Venetian priest, Niccolo Liburnio, 
in a pastoral idyll dedicated to Isabella, “ the charm of 
their perpetual verdure and running waters, of their 
abundant fruit and fragrant flowers.” 
Cardinals and foreign ambassadors, Giuliano de’ 
Medici and the “ Bel Bernardo ” Bibbiena, the Viceroy 
Cardona and the legate Chiericati, Bembo and Trissino, 
were among the guests whom Isabella welcomed at her 
villa. Another distinguished scholar, the saintly Fra 
56 
