slope;
it has before it a plain that descends little by little, for the space
of a mile and a half, down to the River Arno, and exactly where the
ascent of the mountain begins stands the palace, which was built in
past times by Pier Francesco de' Medici, after a very good design. The
principal front faces straight towards the south, overlooking a vast
lawn with two very large fish-ponds full of running water, which comes
from an ancient aqueduct made by the Romans in order to conduct water
from Valdimarina to Florence, and provided with a vaulted cistern
under the ground; and so it has a very beautiful and very pleasing
view. The fish-ponds in front are divided in the middle by a bridge
twelve braccia wide, which leads to an avenue of the same width,
bounded at the sides and covered above by an unbroken vault of
mulberry-trees, ten braccia in height, thus making a covered avenue
three hundred braccia in length, delightful for its shade, which opens
on to the high road to Prato by a gate placed between two fountains
that serve to give water to travellers and animals. On the eastern
side the same palace has a very beautiful pile of stable-buildings,
and on the western side a private garden into which one goes from the
courtyard of the stables, passing straight through the ground-floor of
the palace by way of the loggie, halls, and chambers on the level of
the ground; from which private garden one can enter by a door on the
west side into another garden, very large and all filled with
fruit-trees, and bounded by a forest of fir-trees that conceals the
houses of the labourers and others who live there, engaged in the
service of the palace and of the gardens. Next, that part of the
palace which faces north, towards the mountain, has in front of it a
lawn as long as the palace, the stables, and the private garden
altogether, and from this lawn one climbs by steps to the principal
garden, a place enclosed by ordinary walls, which, rising in a gentle
slope, stretches so well clear of the palace as it rises, that the
mid-day sun searches it out and bathes it all with its rays, as if
there were no palace in front; and at the upper end it stands so high
that it commands a view not only of the whole palace, but also of the
plain that is in front and around it, and likewise about the city. In
the middle of this garden is a forest of very tall and thickly-planted
cypresses, laurels, and myrtles, which, laid out in a circular shape,
h