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This invention having afterwards passed into Flanders, a certain Martin, who was held to be an excellent painter in Antwerp at that time, executed many works, and sent to Italy a great number of printed designs, which were all signed in the following manner: "M.C." The first of these were the Five Foolish Virgins with their lamps extinguished, the Five Wise Virgins with their lamps burning, and a Christ Crucified, with S. John and the Madonna at the foot of the Cross, which was so good an engraving, that Gherardo, the Florentine illuminator, set himself to copy it with the burin, and succeeded very well; but he went no further with this, for he did not live long.
Bracci, the Florentine ambassador, explains this action of Alexander's. He writes that his Holiness knew who were the murderers, and that he was taking no further steps in the matter in the hope that thus, conceiving themselves to be secure, they might more completely discover themselves. Bracci's next letter bears out the supposition that he writes from inference, and not from knowledge.
How artfully he lays his plans to ensnare me. No! I have a headache, and will stay at home. FIESCO. Pardon me, countess. You may be so cruel, but surely you will not. To-day a company of Florentine comedians arrive at my palace. Most of the Genoese ladies will be present this evening at their performance, and I am uncertain whom to place in the chief box without offending others.
Here beside a dim lamp Pietro was sitting, and was no little surprised to see the Florentine come in; who on his part was astonisht at the skeletons, the strange instruments, and extraordinary machinery around the old man. Not without confusion the latter came up to him. "I did not expect you here," said he, "but thought to find you without, or to look for you up in your own room.
At the same time, while he made himself the master of Florentine revels and the Augustus of Renaissance literature, he took care that beneath his carnival masks and ball-dress should be concealed the chains which he was forging for the republic. What he lacked, with so much mental brilliancy, was moral greatness.
Michelangelo chose for his cartoon an incident of the war with Pisa, in which the Florentine soldiers, bathing in the Arno, are surprised by the sound of trumpets, and run to arms.
"We have arrived at the dreadful field of Altopascio, where Castruccio Castracane cut up the Florentine legions," says he, "and now, friend, your trials begin.
The question having been strongly debated, an amicable arrangement was at length effected, by which Filippo engaged not to interfere with anything on the Florentine side of the rivers Magra and Panaro.
"The fact is that the Florentine of the middle-ages has reappeared in our century," said the countess. "Dante and Michael Angelo are in him." "That's the very truth," cried Adam. "He is a poet in soul." "So here I am, married to two Poles," said the young countess, with a gesture worthy of some genius of the stage.
The Florentine attracted every gaze by her broad, high brow, as white as snow, crowned with plaits of black hair that gave her a really royal look; by the refinement of her features, resembling the noble features of Andrea del Sarto's heads; by the outline of her face, the setting of her eyes; and by those velvet eyes themselves, which spoke of the rapture of a woman dreaming of happiness, still pure though loving, at once attractive and dignified.
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