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It is the palace of the oldest Genoese family, and the statues in the façade represent the most famous members of the clan, as Oberto, the son of the founder of this branch of the race, the Luccoli Spinola, Conrado, who ruled the city in 1206, and Opizino, who married his daughter to Theodore Paleologus, Emperor of Constantinople, and lived like a king and was banished in 1309.
There was no proof against him, save his own confession; and a confession extorted by torture is of no value whatever. There are certainly many good grounds for suspicion, but it is possible that Georges really repented his apostacy, and acted in good faith in deserting the standard of Paleologus.
He has no difficulty whatever in retracing the path of history, back to the days of Michael Paleologus or Timour the Tartar, and describing the viands set upon their tables and the thoughts that may have entered their brains; while in events of the present day he finds no more trouble in describing circumstantially the last moments of a traveller dying alone at the North Pole or in the midst of the most trackless waste of Sahara.
The cupola, glittering with gold, mosaic, and paintings of half the wonders in the Apocalypse, never fails transporting me to the period of the Eastern empire. I think myself in Constantinople, and expect Michael Paleologus with all his train.
Othus. This superb successor Of the earth's mistress, as thou vainly speakest, Stands midst these ages as, on the wide ocean, The last spared fragment, of a spacious land, That in some grand and awful ministration Of mighty nature has engulfed been, Doth lift aloft its dark and rocky cliffs O'er the wild waste around, and sadly frowns In lonely majesty. CONSTANTINE PALEOLOGUS, Scene I.
The thrones are of high interest from more than one point of view. The first was brought from Constantinople in 1472 by the Tsarina Sophia Paleologus, who, by her marriage with Ivan III., united the coats of arms of Byzantium and Russia. There is a certain resemblance between this throne and that known as the chair of St. Peter at Rome.
This lady, Blanche Paleologus, had been a most kind friend to young Bayard, and when she heard that he was stationed in the neighbourhood, she invited him to visit her, and received him with the utmost courtesy, treating him as if he were a member of her family.
The King of France seemed to favour the enterprise, and advanced money on the mortgage of certain estates within his dominions belonging to the Templars; Charles of Anjou followed the example of his royal relation; and Michael Paleologus, the Emperor of the East, announced his willingness to take arms against the ambitious sultan, who already threatened the independence of Greece.
But things were moving with the momentum gained by his father, Ivan the Great. It was Vasili's inheritance, not his reign, that was great. That inheritance he had maintained and increased. He had humiliated the nobility, had developed the movements initiated by his greater father, and had also shown tastes magnificent enough for the heir of his imperial mother, Sophia Paleologus.
The greater portion of the disorganised troops had made no pause at their camp, but had continued their headlong flight to the harbour, where their ships were moored, Paleologus himself, heartbroken and despairing at his failure, sharing their flight.
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