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"My poor grand-aunt, Pisana Vendramin; he went and killed her with those songs of his, with that Aria dei Mariti." I feel senseless rage overcoming me. The people round the piano, the furniture, everything together seems to get mixed and to turn into moving blobs of color.
The mayor and all the authorities were out to meet him in those peculiar looking boats that are seen nowhere else in the world, called Lancia Pisana. Those boats are of ancient make; none of them being manufactured at the present day. They are about thirty feet long, richly carved and gaudily painted.
All day on Friday you may watch them at their little stalls, which litter Via Pisana and make it impassable. You might think you were at a fair, but that a fair in England, at any rate, is not so gay.
Then taking the road, hot and dusty, I set out not by Via Pisana, but by the byways, which seemed shorter for Florence. For long I went between the vines, in the misty morning, all of silver and gold, till I was weary.
Nicholas de Ausmo, in his commentary on the Summa Pisana, written in the beginning of the fifteenth century, says that the campsor may receive a gain from his transactions, provided that they are not conducted with the sole object of making a profit, and that the gain he may receive must be limited by the common estimation of the place and time.
From the lagoon rose a damp sea-breeze. What was it all? Ah! I began to understand: that story of old Count Alvise's, the death of his grand-aunt, Pisana Vendramin. Yes, it was about that I had been dreaming. I returned to my room; I struck a light, and sat down to my writing-table. Sleep had become impossible. I tried to work at my opera.
While seeming to avoid the Procuratessa Vendramin, Zaffirino took the opportunity, one evening at a large assembly, to sing in her presence. He sang and sang and sang until the poor grand-aunt Pisana fell ill for love.
Tweedie rode astride in a Mexican saddle, which, like those used by natives in India, are something after the pattern of an easy-chair. William Stokes, in an old work on riding which was published at Oxford, tells us that in Mexico "the pisana, or country lady, is often seen mounted before her cavaliero, who, seated behind his fair one, supports her with his arm thrown round her waist."
"It seems," says the Count, "that there was one of his songs in particular which was called the 'Husbands' Air' L'Aria dei Marit because they didn't enjoy it quite as much as their better-halves.... My grand-aunt, Pisana Renier, married to the Procuratore Vendramin, was a patrician of the old school, of the style that was getting rare a hundred years ago.
"Io son colui che tenni ambo le chiavi Del cuor di Federigo e che le volsi Serrando e disserando sì soavi Che dal segreto suo quasi ogni uom tolsi." It is but four miles down the hillside and through the valley along Via Pisana to Empoli in the plain.
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