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The story is unmistakably high art, for from the opening lines of the proem you hear the slow, measured wing of death; and after you have read the volume, forever, for you, will the smoke of martyr-fires hover about the Piazza Signoria, and from the gates of San Marco you will see emerge that little man in black robe and cowl that homely, repulsive man with the curved nose, the protruding lower lip, the dark, leathery skin that man who lured and fascinated by his poise and power, whose words were whips of scorpions that stung his enemies until they had to silence him with a rope; and as a warning to those whom he had hypnotized, they burned his swart, shrunken body in the public square, just as he had burned their books and pictures.
Here they had their dwellings and workshops, their schools and institutions, receiving every protection and encouragement from the Signoria, who recognised the importance of the wool trade and its allied industries to Genoa. Cloth-weavers, blanket-makers, silk-weavers, and velvet-makers all lived in this quarter, and held their houses under the neighbouring abbey of San Stefano.
I never passed the Piazza della Signoria without standing some minutes before the Loggia dei Lanzi and the old ducal palace with its marvelous tower.
The associates were Bernardino di Giordano, Il Talano, Il Caiano, Maestro Jacopo del Bientina and M. Giovan Battista di Cristofano Ottonaio, both heralds of the Signoria, Buon Pocci, and Domenico Barlacchi.
"The Signoria hath had warnings without end," the Chief of the Ten was explaining hastily to Father Gianmaria, as they strolled toward the chapel. "The Holy Father wanteth him out of Venice, since he hath been Consultore for the man is a marvel! But he would rather have him alive than dead as the learned Scioppius hath explained, not long since, to Fra Paolo himself!
They were real shopman's hands. The landlord brought some special feast-day cake, so overjoyed he was to have his Giovanni speaking English with the Signoria. When we went away, we asked 'John' to come down to our villa to see us. We scarcely expected him to turn up. Yet one morning he appeared, at about half past nine, just as we were finishing breakfast.
It was this Giustinian who had been carried in triumph on the shoulders of the people, before the Doge and the Signoria who had been the hero when that solemn Mass, in honor of the victory, had been offered up in the ducal chapel when the Rialto and the Merceria, for the extravagant joy of Venice, were draped in blue and scarlet and gold, bound laurel wreaths and decorated with the art treasures of Titian and Giorgone.
"Then wherefore hath the Signoria created this office of Teologo Consultore, and appointed thereto this friar of the Servi, of whom they tell such marvels as if the Collegio, with all our learned chancellors, were not enough!" "Leave thou these matters to the Signoria, who, verily, know how to rule ay, and how to choose; for the man is like none other."
Tito was looking alternately down on the scene below, and upward at the varied knot of gazers and talkers immediately around him, some of whom had come in after witnessing the commencement of the procession in the Piazza della Signoria.
During the siege of Florence, in 1597 an eagle which had been shot at fled into the city, and the Signoria gave the bearer four ducats because the omen was good. Certain times and places were favourable or unfavorable, or even decisive one way or the other, for certain actions.
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