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Updated: May 19, 2025
I have this day received from the island of Cyprus of which thou shalt be Queen " and he bent his knee, in courtly fashion before his child, as though he would be first to bring her homage, "by the hand of the ambassador Mastachelli, this portrait of thy Lord, Janus, the King; and these Eastern pearls a royal gift."
But nothing of this transpired beyond the walls of the Council Chamber, from whence at last, to make an end of the pitiful waverings of this fickle King, an ambassador was sent to the court of Cyprus to state in terms that could not be misunderstood, that if Janus were to disgrace his royal word, solemnly pledged by his Ambassador Mastachelli in presence of the Serenissimo and the Signoria, the insult to a Queen already betrothed to him would be a slight the Republic would not suffer, and that Venice would become the enemy instead of the ally of Cyprus.
The Ambassador Mastachelli was waiting with his suite, and the signing of the parchment which bore the seals of Venice and of Cyprus was the trifle of a moment. A circlet of rubies the sign of the promise had been consecrated by the saintly Patriarch, Lorenzo Giustiniani, and the Lady Fiorenza took comfort from the look in his noble face as he bent over Caterina to give the benediction.
So they were ready to give rapt attention to the flattering proposals of the young Cyprian Monarch, as presented by his dignified ambassador, the Signor Filippo Mastachelli, when he appeared before the Signoria with the retinue and splendor of an Eastern Prince, bearing gifts of jewels meet for a royal bride, to claim the hand of a patrician maid of Venice, to make her Queen of Cyprus.
He was beautiful as a young god, with a face full of laughing appeal, and not less charming than the miniature set in crystals which Mastachelli bore among the wedding gifts; and the grace of him could not be matched, for his power of winning, when he had set his heart to the task.
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