After the deaths of Francesco I. and of Bianca Cappello within a few hours of each other at Poggio a Cajano, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici succeeded to the throne. Quitting the ecclesiastical state, he married Christine of Lorraine in 1589, and to amuse his young, good-looking French wife, gave entertainments which put to shame anything attempted in our days. Buontalenti, that most ingenious of men, painter, sculptor and architect, transformed the great courtyard of the Pitti palace into an amphitheatre covered in with scarlet cloth, and erected a castle on the side next the garden, while in the middle stood a stockade containing fireworks. On the firing of a cannon a triumphal car appeared, in which sat a magician who performed tricks of sleight of hand, and told fortunes to those who desired. Then followed a huge dragon drawing a chariot in which were the Duke of Mantua and Don Pietro de’ Medici attended by musicians, who sang sweet songs in praise of the bride. After them a mountain advanced without any visible motor power; it opened in front of the Grand Duchess, and two knights sprang out and challenged the others to mortal combat. “They fought,” writes Baldinucci, “with lances and then with swords, and meanwhile appeared the other masquerades, each one more beautiful and singular than the last. To make our story short, there were fountains, clouds, forests, shells, images of animals on chariots, ships, rocks, sirens, birds and elephants of extraordinary size; then came a great mountain, a crocodile and a conjurer, followed by a triumphal car, in which sat Don Virginio Orsini with eight nymphs, who offered beautiful vases filled with flowers and a programme of the festival, to the princes and princesses, the ladies and the cavaliers. A garden then glided into the amphitheatre, expanding and advancing without any visible agency, and in a short time admirable designs, formed out of clumps of myrtle and of box, such as ships, towers and castles, men, horses, pyramids and the like, were seen, such as we make of plants in our gardens, while the theatre was filled with sweet melody from the birds among the trees. Don Virginio descended from his car and attacked an adversary with his lance, whereupon all the other knights joined in the fray until separated by the explosion of the fireworks, and this finished the tournament. It was already four o’clock in the night when the princes, the noble ladies and the cavaliers, were conducted into the palace to a sumptuous banquet, and meanwhile the courtyard was filled with most limpid water to the depth of four feet.... No less than eighteen ships, large and small, among them a galleon of three decks, arranged themselves in line of battle. To the sound of drums, pipes, cymbals and other instruments used in naval warfare, and the firing of cannon, the spectators again took their seats, wondering exceedingly at the change that had taken place in so short a time. Thereupon a frigate