The guilds of the arts and trades had been privileged to escort the wife of Lorenzo Tiepolo to the church: first the blacksmiths with flying banner; then the merchants of fur, dressed in their richest garments and most priceless sables, and wearing ermines fit for an emperor; the weavers next, singing at the top of their voices to the music of trumpets and cymbals, and bearing both silver cups and flagons full of wine. After the weavers the tailors came in the dress of their trade guild, white robes embroidered with red stars; and the wool-merchants bore olive branches in their hands and had crowns of olive leaves on their heads; also the makers of quilts and coverlets were crowned with gold beads, and wore on their shoulders white cloaks embroidered with fleur-de-lis; and there [Illustration: S. LORENZO] were the sellers of cloth of gold, and the shoemakers, the mercers, the pork-butchers, the glass-blowers, the jewellers and the barbers, all displaying the rich and fantastic costumes of their guilds in the great procession, a very splendid sight. Thus escorted the Dogess entered Saint Mark’s, and knelt at the high altar, and before she went away she deposited thereon an offering of ten ducats. Then she was led to the throne-room of the palace and took her seat beneath a canopy beside her husband the Doge. The ceremony ended with a huge and sumptuous banquet, to which were invited all the heads of the guilds who had appeared in the procession. Francesco Dandolo was a man of wit and of many resources. It is related, though without serious proof, that he had moved Clement V. to pity by appearing, as ambassador, in a penitent’s dress, and wearing an iron collar, weeping and moaning, and remaining prostrate at the pontiff’s feet. It has even been said that one or more of the cardinals kicked him as he lay there, called him a dog, and otherwise insulted him; but that he bore all patiently for his country’s sake. One authority explains, however, that the nickname of ‘dog,’ or ‘watch-dog,’ had been bestowed upon his family long before that time, as ‘Cane,’ dog, and ‘Mastino,’ mastiff, were actually used as baptismal names in the great family of Scala. He reigned ten years, with fortune good and evil, but chiefly good. More than once, in his time, the safety of the State was gravely menaced, but all ended well, and the sum of his administration was a gain to Venice. Since the beginning of the fourteenth century the [Illustration: THE CHAPEL OF ST. MARK’S] [Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 115_] city of Padua had been a prey to faction and internal strife. The aristocratic party fought for the family of the Scala, while the citizens and people were devoted to the house of Carrara. By turns the two families got the advantage and held the power, but the Carrara were really the stronger, for the Venetians helped them, on the ground that one of them, Jacopo, had married a daughter of the Doge Pietro Gradenigo.