The Story of Siena and San GimignanoGardner, Edmund G.
History
The Story of Siena and San Gimignano
Gardner, Edmund G.
Art -- Italy -- Siena; San Gimignano (Italy) -- History; Siena (Italy) -- History
"In honour of the said Duchess, there was arranged by the Arts a most
beauteous pageant and dance at the foot of the Palace of the Signori,
and there were invited as many worthy young women and girls as Siena
had, who came right well adorned with robes and jewels, and young men to
dance. And there was made a great she-wolf, all gilded, out of which
came a morris-dance of twelve persons, right well and richly adorned,
and one dressed like a nun, and they danced to a canzone that begins:
'She won't be a nun any more.' And at the said dance a goodly collation
was provided of marchpanes and other cates in abundance, with fruit of
every kind according to the season. To the said Duchess and her nobles
it seemed a fair thing and a rich pageant, and that she-wolf pleased
them immensely, and they thought that we had lovely women."
On June 19th, 1482, when the factions that preceded the expulsion of the
Noveschi were at their height, a preacher of a very different stamp to
Bernardino appeared upon the scenes: the future opponent of Savonarola,
Fra Mariano, the favourite of the Medici. "Maestro Mariano da
Genazzano," writes Allegretto, "of the Osservanti of St Augustine,
preached at the foot of the Palace of the Signori, to the Signoria, the
Cardinal and all the People, the Signoria with the People having first
gone to the Duomo to fetch the Madonna delle Grazie with the
baldacchino. And the preacher's introit was: _Every kingdom divided
against itself shall be brought to desolation_, which he repeated three
times, each time raising his voice higher. And when the sermon was
finished, they brought back the Madonna to the Duomo with all the
People."[71]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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