ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
between the delicate marble shafts of an arched 
window, and a pink oleander flowering overhead. 
Further on, you may come on a clump of cypresses 
and a carved marble bench standing in the midst of 
a field of young wheat, and beyond these discover 
the pillars of a gateway mossy with age, bearing the 
shields and armorial bearings of some ancient family. 
But the hinges of the gate are rusty and the path 
through the cornfield leads nowhere. A profound 
melancholy broods over the scene. Villas and gardens 
alike have vanished. The men and women who 
lived there are dead and gone. Their names, even 
the most illustrious among them, have been for¬ 
gotten, and the very site of Bembo’s “ dolce Noniano ” 
is unknown. Only the nightingales which charmed 
his poet-soul still sing in the silence of the summer 
night, and the roses which Navagero loved hang in 
clusters over the low red wall of the lagoon. Nature 
renews her youth, and year by year the spring returns 
with her perennial charm. 
!34 
