In Italy the marriage was a more solemn and complicated affair. The law indeed was compelled to intervene with a view to limiting the expenditure, in spite of which certain Florentine marriages cost some £20,000, without reckoning the presents—and the presents made a heavy item. At Venice the witnesses, sometimes numbering forty, could not escape for less than two hundred ducats apiece. The marriage set the artistic world in motion. Men of letters came flocking up with inflictions in the shape of epithalamiums, more or less new, descanting in Grecian style on the theme “is marriage a necessity?” or farragoes of pedantry, crammed with allusions to the ancients, full of names like Lycurgus and Plato, lauding the families of the young couple to the skies, and comparing the bride and bridegroom to Philip of Macedon, Mithridates, Dido; eclogues were rained on them, and apologues, and declamations in Latin verse. All these were printed, and constituted an authentic memorial of the event. A painter of repute would be commissioned to decorate the trunk for the brides trousseau; he would depict on it a story from Scripture or mythology, or a genre scene,[34] and this formed another memorial, often charming and always worth keeping.[35] In the pages of history we find descriptions of so many weddings that it would be no easy matter to make a selection. King Alfonso of Aragon, hardly serious as a husband but a very splendid prince, was married with a magnificence that was long remembered. On the shores of the sea, the glorious sea of Naples, tables were set up for a company of thirty thousand, amid fountains running wine and pavilions flashing with light. In the neighbouring forest a hunt was organised for the Court. The Neapolitans in their enthusiasm invoked the sun to witness that nothing more beautiful could ever be seen. The wedding of Eleanor of Toledo to the Duke of Florence in 1539 is described with abundant details in a little book compiled for the occasion. There you may read a description of the triumphal arches, the statues, the dramatic performances, and find the complete text of the stanzas, the madrigals and the comedy. The music was printed separately. One may read also the details given by M. Molmenti of the dazzling pageants at Venice: the official proclamation in the court of the Doge’s palace, the prolonged and sumptuous preparations for the festive entertainments, the canals _en fête_, the façades of the palaces hung with bunting, the gondoliers in red silk hose skimming the waves, the armies of servants in gold-embroidered liveries, the bonfires, the fireworks, the fifers and trumpeters, the serenades, dramatic performances, balls, banquets with lavish displays of gold plate and decorations flashing with all the colours of the rainbow—it is all like a dream; even Veronese would have despaired of painting the thousand extravagances of this feverish life.