ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
Mantua, such a home had been prepared for her. 1 
la 1535 she visited the shores of the Lake of Garda 
once more and revelled in the beauties of the gardens 
at Sermione and Salo as fully as when she had first 
seen them five-and-forty years before. 
All through Isabella’s life the foremost masters of 
the age were ready to do her bidding. Raphael 
painted a Madonna for her Grotta and designed a 
tomb for her lord. Leonardo once sent her a sketch 
of a Florentine villa and garden which the Marquis 
had admired, but remarked that in order to make 
the thing perfect it would be necessary to bring the 
site of the house to Mantua. He excused himself 
for not colouring the ivy, box, and other evergreens 
of the garden, but offered to send her a painting and 
a model of the villa, a thing which we may be quite 
sure he never did. Many years afterwards, when 
Castiglione returned to Mantua on his way to Spain, 
he brought with him from Rome the plan of a 
beautiful garden and habitation designed by Michel¬ 
angelo. Great was the excitement at Court when the 
model was set up before Madama. Courtiers and 
ladies alike were loud in praises of the ingenuity of 
the plans, and her son, the Duke, declared that he 
would certainly build a palace from these admirable 
designs. But money, as usual, was scarce at Mantua. 
1 S. Davari, Arch. st. Lombardo, 1895. 
62 
