The property is situated in the district of Lendinara, on the fat and fertile low-lying region between Rovigo and Padua, and belongs to the commune--parish, as we should say--of St. Bellino. The house, dating probably from the latter part of the fifteenth century, is not much more than a hundred yards or so from the _piazza_ of the village, which boasts two thousand inhabitants. The road between the two is bordered with trees. The whole district is as flat as a billiard table, and as prosaical in its well-to-do fertility as can be imagined. It is intersected by a variety of streams, natural and artificial. About a couple of miles from the house to the south is the Canalbianco; and a little farther to the north the Adigetto. To the east runs the Scortico. St. Bellino, from whom the village is named, was, it seems, enrolled among the martyrs by Pope Eugenius the Third in 1152. He has a great specialty for curing the bite of mad dogs. There is a grand cenotaph in his honour in the village church, which was raised by some of the Guarini family. But this, too, like all else, became a subject of trouble and litigation to our poet. A certain Baldassare Bonifaccio of Rovigo wanted to transport the saint to that city. Guarini would not hear of this; litigated the matter before the tribunals of Venice, and prevailed. So the saint still resides at St. Bellino to the comfort of all those bitten by mad dogs in those parts. The house and estate have passed through several hands since that time; but a number of old family portraits may still be seen on the walls, together with the family arms, and the motto, "Fortis est in asperis non turbari." The armchair and writing table of the poet are also still preserved in the house, and a fig-tree is pointed out close by it, under the shade of which the poet, as tradition tells, wrote on that table and in that chair his "Pastor Fido." There is an inscription on the chair as follows: "Guarin sedendo qui canto, che vale al paragon seggio reale."[58] It was not, however, during this his last residence here that the "Pastor Fido" was written, but long previously. It was doubtless his habit to escape from the cares of official life in Ferrara from time to time as he could; and it must have been in such moments that the celebrated pastoral was written.[59]