ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
cornices open on to the blue lagoon. Through these 
arched portals we look out across the shining waters to 
the white towers and dark cypresses of San Michele, 
and the distant furnaces of Murano. In one corner 
of the gardens stands the Casa degli Spiriti, a pavilion 
where festive gatherings were held in days of old, 
and the midnight echoes of the revellers’ voices, borne 
across the waters, gave rise to the legend that the 
house was haunted. As we look from the steps of 
Villa Contarini at the dense cloud of smoke rising from 
the chimneys of Murano on the opposite shore, it is 
difficult to realise that this island was once famous 
for its sumptuous pleasure-houses and gardens. Yet 
so it was in the days of Gaspare Contarini and Pietro 
Bembo, of Titian and Aretino. Then poets and 
travellers alike extolled Murano as the most delightful 
place in the world, dear above all to scholars and 
thinkers, and meet to be the home of nymphs and 
goddesses. They praised its balmy breezes and 
sparkling fountains, its fields of musk and damask 
roses, of violets and narcissus, its groves of citron and 
orange, and beds of sweet-smelling mint, of rosemary 
and lavender. 
“ Much more,” exclaims Casola, “ might be said 
of Murano, and of its thousand delights, and how the 
island is surrounded by waters and has the most 
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