ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
painted by Giotto and Angelico, and a hundred other 
artists, for the sake of F rancis, La Vernia of which 
Dante sang in the highest spheres of Paradise. 
“ Nel crudo sasso intra Tevere ed Arno 
Da Cristo prese l’ultimo sigillo 
Che le sue membra du’ anni portarno.” 
Bibbiena itself, where we spent the night before 
undertaking the steep ascent of Monte Alvernia, is a 
flourishing little town in the heart of the Casentino, 
standing in the midst of cornfields and chestnut 
woods. Brown-faced children and dark-eyed maidens, 
with smooth, long tresses and broad straw hats, 
looked curiously at us from the door-steps as we passed, 
and every roof and window of the quaint old wooden 
houses was gay with heaps of orange-coloured maize 
spread out to dry in the sun. 
The walls of Bibbiena were razed by the Florentines 
jji their anger with the inhabitants who received the 
exiled Medici on their expulsion in 1509, but its chief 
claim on public notice rests on the celebrity attained 
by one of its natives, Bernardo Dovizi, better known 
as Cardinal Bibbiena, the Secretary of Leo X, and the 
friend and patron of Raphael. It is to the credit of 
the worldly prelate and author of the Calandra 
that in his busy Roman life, amidst all the honours 
which the Pope showered upon him, he did not forget 
his birthplace, but erected the church of S. Lorenzo 
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