spicy gardens of the East.  The sides of the walks were almost closed with red and white roses and with jessamine so that they gave sweet odours and shade not only in the morning but when the sun was high, so that one might walk there all day without fear.  What flowers there were there how various and how ordered, it would take too long to tell, but there was not one which in our climate is to be praised, which was not to be found there abundantly.  Perhaps the most delightful thing therein was a meadow in the midst, of the finest grass and all so green that it seemed almost black, all sprinkled with a thousand various flowers, shut in by oranges and cedars, the which bore the ripe fruit and the young fruit too and the blossom, offering a shade most grateful to the eyes and also a delicious perfume.  In the midst of this meadow there was a fountain of the whitest marble marvellously carved, and within—­I do not know whether artificially or from a natural spring—­it threw so much water and so high towards the sky through a statue which stood there on a pedestal, that it would not have needed more to turn a mill.  The water fell back again with a delicious sound into the clear waters of the basin, and the surplus was carried away through a subterranean way into little waterways most beautifully and artfully made about the meadow, and afterwards ran into others round about, and so watered every part of the garden; it collected at length in one place, whence it had entered the beautiful garden, turning two mills, much to the profit, as you may suppose, of the signore, and pouring down at last in a stream clear and sweet into the valley.”

If this should seem a mere pleasaunce of delight, the vision of a poet, the garden of a dream, we have only to remember how realistically and simply Boccaccio has described for us that plague-stricken city, scarcely more than a mile away, to be assured of its truthfulness:  and then listen to Alberti—­or old Agnolo Pandolfini, is it?—­in his Trattato del Governo della Famiglia, one of the most delightful books of the fifteenth century.  He certainly was no poet, yet with what enthusiasm and happiness he speaks of his villa, how comely and useful it is, so that while everything else brings labour, danger, suspicion, harm, fear, and repentance, the villa will bring none of these, but a pure happiness, a real consolation.  Yes, it is really as an escape from all the care and anxiety of business, of the wool or silk trade, which he praised so much, that he loves the country. “La Villa, the country, one soon finds, is always gracious, faithful, and true; if you govern it with diligence and love, it will never be satisfied with what it does for you, always it will add [**Transcriber’s Note:  undecipherable] to recompense.  In the spring the villa gives you continual delight; green leaves, flowers, odours, songs and in every way makes you happy and jocund:  all smiles on you and promises a fine harvest, filling