Note 61 — English Authors on Gardening. (continued 2)
Reading edition
About eighty years previous to Hyll's Treatise on Bees, Rucellai, an Italian of distinction, who aspired to a cardinal's hat, and who laboured with zeal and taste (I am copying from De Sismondi's View of the Literature of the South of Europe) to render Italian poetry classical, or a pure imitation of the ancients, published his most celebrated poem on Bees. "It receives (says De Sismondi) a particular interest from the real fondness which Rucellai seems to have entertained for these creatures. There is something so sincere in his respect for their virgin purity, and in his admiration of the order of their government, that he inspires us with real interest for them. All his descriptions are full of life and truth."