s of the fifteenth century, the very man whose
simple and hard common-sense got him wealth, or at least a fine
competence, and, as he has told us, a good housewife, and made him one
of the toughest traders in Europe, would become almost a poet in his
country house. Old Agnolo Pandolfini, talking to his sons, and teaching
them his somewhat narrow yet wholesome and delightful wisdom,
continually reminds himself of those villas near Florence, some like
palaces,--Poggio Gherardo for instance,--some like castles,--Vincigliata
perhaps,--"in the purest air, in a laughing country of lovely views,
where there are no fogs nor bitter winds, but always fresh water and
everything pure and healthy." Certainly Cosimo de' Medici was not the
first Florentine to retire from the city perhaps to Careggi, perhaps to
S. Domenico, perhaps farther still; for already in Boccaccio's day we
hear the praise of country life,--his description of Villa Palmieri, for
instance, when at the end of the second day of the _Decamerone_ those
seven ladies and their three comrades leave Poggio Gherardo for that
palace "about two miles westward," whither they came at six o'clock of a
Sunday morning in the year 1348. "When they had entered and inspected
everything, and seen that the halls and rooms had been cleaned and
decorated, and plentifully supplied with all that was needed for sweet
living, they praised its beauty and good order, and admired the owner's
magnificence. And on descending, even more delighted were they with the
pleasant and spacious courts, the cellars filled with choice wines, and
the beautifully fresh water which was everywhere round about.... Then
they went into the garden, which was on one side of the palace and was
surrounded by a wall, and the beauty and magnificence of it at first
sight made them eager to examine it more closely. It was crossed in all
directions by long, broad, and straight walks, over which the vines,
which that year made a great show of giving many grapes, hung gracefully
in arched festoons, and being then in full blossom, filled the whole
garden with their sweet smell, and this, mingled with the odours of the
other flowers, made so sweet a perfume that they seemed to be in the
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 wit