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And among the dignities who carried their black lucco or furred mantle with an air of habitual authority, there was an abundant sprinkling of men with more contemplative and sensitive faces: scholars inheriting such high names as Strozzi and Acciajoli, who were already minded to take the cowl and join the community of San Marco; artists, wrought to a new and higher ambition by the teaching of Savonarola, like that young painter who had lately surpassed himself in his fresco of the divine child on the wall of the Frate's bare cell unconscious yet that he would one day himself wear the tonsure and the cowl, and be called Fra Bartolommeo.
"Well, I will gratify you both. Belgrade is taken; Prince Eugene, as usual, was foremost in the fight; but unhappily for some people, and happily for others " Here Barbesieur paused to enjoy the agony of his sister's suspense. Her face he could not see, but her trembling figure gave evidence of the poignancy of her anguish. "Well " said Strozzi, "what befell him?"
Immediately in front of the tomb he had posted a grim sentinel a black marble statuette of Mors, modeled from that hideous little brass figure which Spence saw at Florence, representing a skeleton sitting on the ground, resting one arm on an urn. Filled though it was with sparkling bijouterie that would have graced the Barberini or Strozzi cabinets, the glitter of the room was cold and cheerless.
Strozzi, forgetting that the sweep had to return, began to make declarations to Laura, and finally became so lovelorn as to throw himself at her feet. He was on his knees, whining for forgiveness, when the little sweep, like a deus ex machina, alighted suddenly in the middle of the hearth, and surprised him in his abject and ridiculous posture.
Her name, she told me, was Virginia Strozzi, and her people were very poor folk of Condoglia. Condoglia was a village on a spur of the mountains, the property, with the bodies and souls of its inhabitants, of a great lord, a marchese. She was sixteen years old and had never tasted meat. Condoglia was but a mile away; it was getting dark. Would I spend the night there?
Buonarroto, born in 1477, had been put to the cloth-trade, and was serving under the Strozzi in their warehouse at the Porta Rossa. He was a worthless fellow, and gave his eldest brother much trouble. Sigismondo, born in 1481, took to soldiering; but at the age of forty he settled down upon the paternal farm at Settignano, and annoyed his brother by sinking into the condition of a common peasant.
Francis died in 1547; and we do not know that any of Michelangelo's works passed directly into his hands, with the exception of the Leda, purchased through the agency of Luigi Alamanni, and the two Captives, presented by Ruberto Strozzi.
Pity she is not here to see them." The marquis shivered. "Who speaks of my Laura?" said he. "I, I, her brother," bawled Barbesieur, looking straight into Strozzi's eyes. "I spoke of her, and, by G-d, I have a right to call her, for I am her brother Barbesieur!" Strozzi extended his hand, and an imbecile smile flitted over his ghastly face. "Ah! then, you love her?" asked he, mournfully.
This fellow was a great friend of the bravo. They met, and Bibboni told him that he should like to go and kiss the hands of Messer Ruberto, whom he had known in Rome. Strozzi inhabited the same palace as Lorenzino.
Later on, when Carlo Strozzi was sent away in exile, his family was not disturbed in the least, and it was during his absence from the city that his daughter Maddalena was married to Luchino Visconti in the midst of most brilliant ceremonies. Guests were invited from all the north of Italy, there were horseraces and tournaments, and the whole function was one of great pomp and brilliancy.
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