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As I recall your starry names, no blush hinting unmannerliness suspect and unconfessed hits me on the cheek: Simonetta, Ilaria, Nenciozza, Bettina; you too, candid Mariota of Prato; you, flinching little Imola; and you, snuff-taking, wool-carding ancient lady of the omnibus scorner of monks, I have kissed your hands, I have at least given our whole commerce frankly to the world; and I know not how any shall say we have been closer acquainted than we should.
By the windows a low divan heaped with velvet cushions and skins. But for a coffer and a prayer-desk and a curtained recess which enshrined Simonetta's bed, the room looked wind-swept and bare. When he entered, Simonetta was standing by the window leaning her hand against the ledge for support.
Hereabout are many Botticelli school pictures, chief of these the curious girl, called foolishly "La Bella Simonetta," which Mr. Berenson attributes to that unknown disciple of Botticelli to whom he has given the charming name of Amico di Sandro. This study in browns, yellow, and grey always has its public. Other popular Botticelli derivatives are Nos. 348 and 357.
It so happened that Lorenzo's brother Giuliano, who was assassinated later by the Pazzi, loved, very tenderly, a lady named Simonetta, reputed to be the most beautiful woman in all Florence; so great was her fame that she was quite generally spoken of as la bella Simonetta, and the artist Botticelli, who had an eye for a pretty woman, has left us a portrait which vouches for her charms in no uncertain way.
Cries of Moro! Moro! began to be heard in the streets of Milan. Simonetta, becoming alarmed, threw Donato del Conte, one of the Ghibelline leaders, into prison, upon which Sanseverino and the Sforzas loudly demanded his release. Simonetta gave them fair words in return, and induced the dissatisfied chiefs to meet in the park of the Castello, where they agreed to lay down their arms.
Priests and acolytes, tapers, banners, vestments and a great silver Crucifix, they drifted by, chanting the dirge for Simonetta; and she, as if for a sacrifice, lifted up on her silken bed, lay couched like a white flower edged colour of flame.... ... Santa Croce, the great church, stretched forward beyond her into the distances of grey mist and cold spaces of light.
It was their intention, after the duke's death, to collect their followers together and proceed to those parts of the city where they imagined the plebeians would be most disposed to take arms against the duchess and the principal ministers of state, and they thought the people, on account of the famine which then prevailed, would easily be induced to follow them; for it was their design to give up the houses of Cecco Simonetta, Giovanni Botti, and Francesco Lucani, all leading men in the government, to be plundered, and by this means gain over the populace and restore liberty to the community.
Madonna, or I have read your grey eyes in vain; it was enthusiasm that flame of our fire so sacred that though it play the incendiary there shall be no crime or where would be now the "Vas d'elezione"? nor though it reveal a bystander's grin, any shame at all. I shall live to tell that story of thine, Lady Simonetta, to thy honour and my own respect; for, as a poet says,
The piazza was the scene also of that famous tournament given by Lorenzo de' Medici for Giuliano in 1474, of which the beautiful Simonetta was the Queen of Beauty, and to which, as I have said elsewhere, we owe Botticelli's two most famous pictures. Difficult to reconstruct in the Piazza any of those glories to-day.
Like the tournament that Giuliano held later in honour of Simonetta Vespucci, which Poliziano has immortalised, and for which Botticelli painted a banner, this pageant of Lorenzo's, for it was rather a pageant than a fight, was sung, too, by Luca Pulci, and was held in Piazza S. Croce.
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