Villa Palmieri will live for ever in Boccaccio’s exquisite and untranslatable _Decameron_. “The Queen,” he writes, “led them to a most beautiful and sumptuous palace situated somewhat above the plain on a small hill. They entered and went all over it, and seeing the large halls, the cleanly and well-decorated bed-chambers, completely furnished with all that pertains thereunto, their praise was unstinting and they reputed the owner to be rich and magnificent. Then descending and seeing the vast and pleasant courtyards of the palace, the cellars stocked with most excellent wines, and the copious springs of coldest water, they commended the place yet more highly. Desirous of repose they then seated themselves in a loggia overlooking the courtyard (every place being covered with flowers pertaining to that season, and with greenery), and the courteous steward came forward to welcome them and offered rich and dainty sweetmeats and rare wines for their refreshment.” The lovely gardens with _pergole_ of vines laden with bunches of grapes, the hedges of jasmine and crimson roses, the carved marble fountains, whose overflow of water was conducted by cunningly devised underground channels down to the plain, where it turned two mills “to the great profit of the lord of the villa,” are all described by Boccaccio in his inimitable poetic prose. [Illustration: (Drawing of elegant gardent stairway leading to house, with statues.)] The mills mentioned by Boccaccio were almost entirely destroyed by a flood of the Mugnone in 1409. Two years later they were rebuilt, and a third mill, nearer the town, was erected after the siege of Florence in 1529, and bestowed upon the Foundling Hospital as compensation for damage done to some of its farms. The arms of the Hospital, a swaddled baby, are still to be seen on one of the walls near the mill. FOOTNOTES: