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And what else? Children. Salt. And what else? Children. Yeast. I see Luigi is still eating snow, and Alfonso too, and Pierino. Do you like it? Children. Yes, Signora. Do you like it? Children. Yes, Signora. Well, eat a little more, but not much, it might make you ill.
What he attempted against Alfonso of Ferrara, and actually achieved against a few petty despots and Condottieri, was assuredly not of a kind to raise his reputation. And this was at a time when the monarchs of the West were yearly growing more and more accustomed to political gambling on a colossal scale, of which the stakes were this or that province of Italy.
The first part extends from the Creation of the World to the occupation of Spain by the Visigoths, and is dull; the second part tells of the Goths in Spain and of the conquest of Spain by the Moors, and is less dull; the third part brings down the story of the nation to the reign of Ferdinand the Great, early in the eleventh century; and the fourth part continues it to the date of the accession of Alfonso himself in the year 1252.
Then Alfonso XII., son of the exiled Isabella, was proclaimed heir to the throne. Alfonso XIII., is his son. Alfonso XII.'s first task was to suppress the Carlists, and in this he succeeded. The people were tired of the continual strife. Royalists and republicans alike welcomed the new monarch.
The mounted warrior to the extreme right, who has been supposed to represent Alfonso d'Este, shows the genial physiognomy made familiar by the Madrid picture so long deemed to be his portrait, but which, as has already been pointed out, represents much more probably his successor Ercole II. d'Este, whom we find again in that superb piece by the master, the so-called Giorgio Cornaro of Castle Howard.
Berenguela was married, and with her own consent, to Alfonso IX., King of Leon, who had of late made war upon her father, and with this marriage and the peace which followed between the two countries, Spain prospered for a time.
He had also managed to detect and expose a pretended instance of fasting, as his father, Alfonso, had done before him. The Court, certainly, was no accomplice in maintaining these blind superstitions. We have been quoting from an author who wrote in earnest, and who by no means stands alone in his judgement.
Right joyful was the King of Toledo at this which King Don Alfonso had done, for the loyalty which he had shown towards him.
After three years had passed and no heir to the throne had been born, Alfonso threatened to plead his kinship as a reason and get a divorce; but Leonora, anticipating the trouble into which this might plunge the country, as Alfonso was eager to marry her as soon as the divorce should have been granted, urged him not to bring about this separation and did all in her power to make him abide by the arrangement which had been made for him.
I think it very likely that, in the course of the poetical love-making to various ladies, which was almost identical in that age with addressing them in verse, Torquato, whether he was in love or not, took more liberties with the princesses than Alfonso approved; and it is equally probable, that one of those liberties consisted in his indulging his imagination too far.
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