THE GARDENS OF VENICE 
roses and lilies, the citron and orange trees. The deli¬ 
cious verdure of the lawns round Benedetto Cornaro’s 
house, in Pietro Aretino’s words, “ surpassed all the 
splendours of this favoured shore,” while the same 
writer extols the gardens of the scholar-printer Fran¬ 
cesco Marcolini in the same impassioned language. 
Marcolini himself was a very remarkable man, the 
chosen friend of Titian, of Bembo, and Sansovino, 
excellent alike as goldsmith, architect, printer, and poet. 
He was called in to alter the works of the clock on the 
tower of S. Stefano, and in 1545 Sansovino employed 
him to design the wooden bridge at Murano, which 
was only removed twenty-eight years ago. That he 
was a good gardener, too, we learn from the Aretine, 
who declares that in the summer heat, Marcolini’s villa 
on the Giudecca was the most enchanting place in the 
whole world. 
“ Where else can you find deeper and cooler shades, 
more fragrant flowers, where else can you listen to the 
songs of endless birds which, with their Petrarchian 
music, refresh the weary soul and charm the tired 
senses to sleep ? ” 1 
In this same quarter of the Giudecca was the villa 
of Sante Cattaneo, with its stately columns and marble 
halls after the style represented in Bonifazio’s well- 
known painting of “ L’Epulone,” or the parable of 
1 Lettere, i. 107 ; v. 122. 
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