Most gorgeous and altogether successful was the tournament given here by Lorenzo dei Medici in 1467, to celebrate his approaching marriage with Clarice Orsini, when he jousted against all comers in honour of the lady of his sonnets and odes, Lucrezia Donati. There was not much serious tilting about it, but a magnificent display of rich costumes and precious jewelled caps and helmets, and a glorious procession which must have been a positive feast of colour. "To follow the custom," writes Lorenzo himself, "and do like others, I gave a tournament on the Piazza Santa Croce at great cost and with much magnificence; I find that about 10,000 ducats were spent on it. Although I was not a very vigorous warrior, nor a hard hitter, the first prize was adjudged to me, a helmet inlaid with silver and a figure of Mars as the crest."[36] He sent a long account of the proceedings to his future bride, who answered: "I am glad that you are successful in what gives you pleasure, and that my prayer is heard, for I have no other wish than to see you happy." Luca Pulci, the luckless brother of Luigi, wrote a dull poem on the not very inspiring theme. A few years later, at the end of January 1478, a less sumptuous entertainment of the same sort was given by Giuliano dei Medici; and it was apparently on this occasion that Poliziano commenced his famous stanzas in honour of Giuliano and his lady love, Simonetta,--stanzas which were interrupted by the daggers of the Pazzi and their accomplices. It was no longer time for soft song or courtly sport when prelates and nobles were hanging from the palace windows, and the thunders of the Papal interdict were about to burst over the city and her rulers. [36] Quoted in Mr Armstrong's _Lorenzo de' Medici_. Entering the Church through the unpleasing modern façade (which is, however, said to have followed the design of Cronaca himself, the architect of the exceedingly graceful convent of San Salvadore al Monte on the other side of the river), we catch a glow of colour from the east end, from the stained glass and frescoes in the choir. The vast and spacious nave of Arnolfo--like his Palazzo Vecchio, partly spoiled by Vasari--ends rather abruptly in the line of ten chapels with, in the midst of them, one very high recess which represents the apse and choir, thus giving the whole the T shape which we find in the Italian Gothic churches which were reared for the friars preachers and friars minor. The somewhat unsightly appearance, which many churches of this kind present in Italy, is due to the fact that Arnolfo and his school intended every inch of wall to be covered with significant fresco paintings, and this coloured decoration was seldom completely carried out, or has perished in the course of time. Fergusson remarks that "an Italian Church without its coloured decoration is only a framed canvas without harmony or meaning."