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A local chronicler in the year 1494 mentions, in enumerating the palaces of the lords of the house of Este, the Palazzo del Cortile and Castle Vecchio as belonging to the duke; Castle Vecchio to Alfonso and the palace of the Certosa to Cardinal Ippolito.
The heavy door of the Casa Lesca swung in, admitting Lawrence to a damp stone-flagged room. At the farther end it opened on a little cortile, where gnarled rose-bushes were in bloom. A broken Venus, presiding over a dusty fountain, made the centre of the cortile, and there a strapping girl from the campagna was busy trimming the stalks of a bunch of roses.
A true relation of what passed in the Palazzo Guarini may serve to show how just she had been. The Count had received news of his henchman's attendance with a nod, had kept him waiting two hours in the cortile, then remembered him and bid him upstairs. "Well, dog," said the young lord, from his dressing-table, "and why the devil are you so late to report yourself?"
Vannucci turned back into the house and closed the door; but I stayed in the cortile pretending a trouble with my spurs. Sure enough, in a short time I heard a light footfall. Imola stood beside me. "Wish me a safe journey," I said smiling, "and no more bare-headed cavaliers on the road." Her lips hardly moved, so still her voice was. "Was he bare-headed?" she asked, as if in awe.
"I love him as much as you do, I dare swear," said she; "but he may be very useful. Remember that I am but a poor gentlewoman with my fortune to make." "Give me the making of it, my angel," cried the Captain, crushing his heart with his fist. "You shall have the most crowded cortile in Ferrara. May I give you a humble bit of advice?" "Certainly you may."
Within, it had a great, cool, gray cortile, with high, light arches around it, heavily-corniced doors, of majestic altitude, opening out of it, and a beautiful mediaeval well on one side of it. Mrs. Hudson's rooms opened into a small garden supported on immense substructions, which were planted on the farther side of the hill, as it sloped steeply away. This garden was a charming place.
The signorina had not arrived; Lawrence lounged against the gunwale of a gondola, which lay on one side of the court. A pretentious iron gate led from the cortile to the farm, where the running vines stretched from olive-stump to trellis, weaving a mat of undulating green.
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