"The Boboli Garden is the most beautiful in Europe.
"Boboli was the name of the farmer who cultivated the land before it was
bought by Cosimo de' Medici and his wife Eleanora.
"After he had sold the property he remained buried in grief, because he
had an attachment for it such as some form for a dog or a cat. And so
great was his love for it that it never left his mind, nor could he ever
say amen to it; for on whatever subject he might discourse, it always
came in like one who will not be kept out, and his refrain was, 'Well,
you'll see that my place will become _il nido degli amori_ (the nest of
loves), and I myself after my death will never be absent from it.' His
friends tried to dissuade him from thinking so much of it, saying that he
would end by being lunatic, but he persevered in it till he died.
"And it really came to pass as he said; for soon after his death, and
ever since, many have on moonlight nights seen his spirit occupied in
working in the gardens."
* * * * *
The story is a pretty one, and it is strangely paralleled by one narrated
in my own Memoirs of the old Penington mansion in Philadelphia, the
gardens of which were haunted by a gentle ghost, a lady who had lived
there in her life, and who was, after her death, often seen watering the
flowers in them by moonlight. And thus do--
"printless footsteps fall
By the spots they loved before."
The second legend which I recovered, relating to the Boboli Gardens, is
as follows: