ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
delights dear to his soul. It was “to please Messer 
Andrea ” that Bembo and Castiglione joined Raphael 
and their Venetian friends one spring morning, and 
went on a memorable excursion to Tivoli, there 
to explore the ruins of Hadrian’s villa, and walk by 
the rushing waters of Arno, in the dewy orchards sung 
by the Latin poet. And Navagero was never so happy 
as when he could spend a week with one or two 
chosen friends in his own garden at Murano. Here 
he devoted himself to the cultivation of flowers and 
plants with the same ardour which he showed in the 
study of letters, and clipped his yews and pruned his 
roses as carefully as he composed his Latin verses or 
edited Virgil or Lucretius for the Aldine Press. An 
eloquent description of Messer Andrea’s garden has 
been left us by Christophe Longueil, the Flemish scholar, 
who was driven by the jealousy of the Roman scholars 
at Leo X’s Court to take refuge at Padua. 
“I have been at Venice for a fortnight,” wrote 
Longolio, as he was called by his Italian friends, to 
Bembo in June 1520, “ and spent a week of the greatest 
enjoyment with our dear friend, Messer Andrea 
Navagero, in his country house at Murano. The 
garden belonging to this villa was a very pleasant sight, 
since all the trees in the orchard and plantations are 
laid out in the form of a quincunx.” 
This method of planting trees, to which Sir Thomas 
Browne alludes as “ the quinquncal lozenge in use 
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