What shall I tell you? After these words they leave the church and go to their own houses, and after they have eaten, the people, men and women, go into the districts that have made these processions, and they find in twelve houses the twelve Maries, so beautifully arrayed as is a wonder to see. Each one has a crown of gold with precious stones upon her head, and they are dressed in cloth of gold, and on their robes there are precious stones and pearls without number. The ladies and maidens sit around them, very richly dressed, and the men present their friends with confectionery to eat and with wine to drink. And on the following day they make other feasts in their twelve houses. And our Lord the Doge wears the crown of gold on the eve of our Lady, as he wears it at Pentecost, and after vespers he returns to the palace in the same manner in which he came. On our Lady’s day, the second of February, each of the two districts which give the beautiful and rich festival, as I have narrated, prepare six great barges, and have them rowed to the head of the city, exactly where the Bishop of Venice lives; these six barges are very richly draped with cloth of gold and carpets. And then ladies and maidens are taken on board four of them, very richly habited, and they put the Maries in the midst, and in another barge go forty men well armed, with their drawn swords in their hands; and in another go the clerks arrayed with the richest treasures of the Church. Then comes the Bishop, and gives his benediction, and when he has blessed them they all return into their barges, and the Bishop goes with them, with two abbots in their great barges, so richly dressed, and they are all arrayed in copes of cloth of gold. The Lord Bishop has his canons in his company, and the two abbots have their monks. Then the barges set forth from the palace of the Lord Bishop, adorned as I told you, and they meet upon their way two magnificent barges, which are to be for the same festival next year. They all go thus before the church of our Lord St. Mark, and there they drop anchor, and lie to wait for the coming of our Lord the Doge. When the Bishop and the two abbots have come to the shore they go out upon dry land with all their company, and go together into the church of our Lord St. Mark, and find our Lord the Doge at mass; and after mass they come back to the barges. The Lord Doge comes under the umbrella, with the Bishop by him on one side and the senior canon on his other side, and both the abbots before them. The Doge is crowned with gold, and the Bishop wears his mitre, and the abbots, the chaplains, and the canons go singing in procession; the trumpets and the cymbals go before every one, and the crosses afterwards.