Excerpt from Ariadne, Vol. 2 of 3: The Story of a Dream The villa of Hilarion was vast as a king's palace, and almost as full Of magnificence and profusion it was always kept ready for him; there were many years when he never went near it; there were other years when he lived there all the four seasons through; in these painted marble halls, brilliant with Giulio Romano's bold colours, where the windows Opened on the great avenues Of cedar and evergreen oak, arching like clois ters on all sides to show some temple, lake, or statue, it was easy to believe that one was still in the era of' magnificent Leo, or that luxurious Lucrezia might have been coming thither on her 'palfrey, or the Vatican court floating up Tiber in its barges with Bernardo Accolti rhyming his madrigals and sonnets to the rhythm of the -oars. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.