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"That white rose which I brought thee was in sign of my mother's favor," Marcantonio reminded Marina more than once; "and for the rest all will be well; and for a little, we can wait." Ah, yes, they could wait in such a smiling world, under a sky so exquisite, gliding over the opal of the still lagoons at twilight.
Some of the details raise a suspicion that Vasari had before his eyes the transcript en grisaille which he says was made by Aristotele da San Gallo, and also the engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi. The prominence given to the ivy-crowned old soldier troubled by his hose confirms the accuracy of the Holkham picture and the Albertina drawing.
The winds, wandering through the Piazza, sometimes blew lightest whispers from the Broglio into the Council Chambers of the Republic; and so it was decreed that when the beautiful wedding pageant should be over, just as the whole of Venice would have laid itself at the feet of the charming bride would have made the young nobles of the palazzo Giustiniani the idols of the hour these dangers to Venice should be honorably removed by the appointment of Marcantonio Giustiniani, di Maggior Consiglio, as Secretary to the Venetian Resident in Rome, with the gracious permission of the Senate for the Lady Marina to bear him company.
The bissoni parted and came no further, having brought their maiden from Murano with every sign of love and honor; the barges of the people fell back behind them, and through their ranks the bridal gondolas followed the bark of the priest of San Donato to the steps of the Piazzetta, where the train of the Giustiniani, in a magnificence that was well-nigh royal, had just disembarked, and Marcantonio stood bareheaded among the nobles to receive his bride.
All those who loved Medea da Carpi, who loved and who served her, died: Giovanfrancesco Pico, her first husband, whom she left stabbed in the castle from which she fled; Stimigliano, who died of poison; the groom who gave him the poison, cut down by her orders; Oliverotto da Narni, Marcantonio Frangipani, and that poor boy of the Ordelaffi, who had never even looked upon her face, and whose only reward was that handkerchief with which the hangman wiped the sweat off his face, when he was one mass of broken limbs and torn flesh: all had to die, and I shall die also.
On the fourth day after this, Marcantonio Colonna gave up the citadel, into which he had retired, on condition of safety to their persons and effects, but obliging himself on the other hand, together with the rest of the officers, not to bear arms against the King of France nor the Pisan Council till the next festival of S. Mary Magdalen; and not many days after, Bishop Vitello, who commanded in the castle with a hundred and fifty men, agreed to surrender it on terms of safety for life and goods.
Marcantonio had entered the gondola gaily, with a full, pleasurable sense of the beauty of life, and well content with that portion which had fallen to his lot; for he was easily affected, and the air of the palace was full of the excitement of his fête.
All night I lay awake watching the embers of my wood fire, and thinking of Medea da Carpi mewed up, in winter, in that solitude of Sant' Elmo, the firs groaning, the torrent roaring, the snow falling all round; miles and miles away from human creatures. I fancied I saw it all, and that I, somehow, was Marcantonio Frangipani come to liberate her or was it Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi?
Marcantonio, on the contrary, was handsome, winning, pleasure-loving after an innocent fashion, which brought some sneers from his compeers, the gay "company of the hose;" but he thought life not made for pain, nor ugliness, nor hardness of any sort; he was bred to luxury, yet his intellectual inheritance made learning easy for him; he was many sided and vacillating, an exquisite in taste and the science of trifles.
"Name her," the Lady Laura repeated, unbending slightly. "Marina Magagnati." She stood listening, as if more were to follow, then she shook her head. "I know not the name, unless but it is not possible! She is not of Venice, then?" "A Venetian of the Venetians, my mother, with the love of Venice in her soul but not " "Marcantonio, explain thine enigma!
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