In the midst of these horrors, while the mutilated bodies of some of the victims were still hanging before the palace of the _Podestà_, exposed to the public view, a most magnificent funeral ceremony was performed in honour of the murdered Feo. Burriel describes the long line of ecclesiastical, military, and civic dignitaries, with pages, musicians, ladies, friars, soldiers, and three squires in cloth of gold, on horses similarly caparisoned, who bore the sword, spurs, helmet, and cuirass of the deceased, moving to the sound of loud-chanted dirges from the fortress to the cathedral. The procession must have passed with its wailing _De profundis_ and _Miserere_ chants, and its glittering heraldic braveries, by the spot where the ghastly remains of the victims, for whom was no "miserere," were polluting the air in the hot summer sunshine. And the entire scene in its setting of picturesque Italian city architecture, with its startling contrasts, and suggestiveness of unbridled passions, and deeds of lawless violence, would seem to be marked characteristically enough by the impress of medieval peculiarities. But Burriel says, that the similitude of the spectacle to that described by Virgil, as having taken place at the funeral of Pallas, son of King Evander, was so great, that it may be supposed that Catherine had modelled the one in imitation of the other! By the combined soothing of funeral services, and gratified vengeance, the bereaved widow was, it should seem, sufficiently consoled, to engage herself, early in the year 1496, in extensive projects of palace building, and acquisition of parks and pleasure-grounds. The alterations and improvements, which Madama was now bent on, mark characteristically the change in the habits and desires of the powerful and wealthy, which was now beginning to manifest itself. Increasing magnificence and luxury demanded ampler opportunity for its display, and a pleasanter field for its enjoyment. Italian princes began to be no longer content to pass their lives immured in the high dungeon-like walls of ancient feudal mansions, in the heart of walled and gloomy cities. And Catherine was not likely to be among the slowest to adopt any new mode of increased magnificence and splendour. There were, moreover, dark and sad reminiscences enough attached to the old seignorial residence in the _piazza_, to make it odious to the lady twice widowed there, under circumstances in themselves, and in their consequences, so painful to look back on.