This custom of spending the summer months in the suburbs of Venice was called "villeggiatura." It was one of the gayest times of the year for the Venetians. They lived by night. All day long they lay behind closed blinds, while the sun parched and baked the ground. Only from five o'clock in the afternoon until four in the morning could they be said to live. Then they held dances, card-parties, and flirtations. During these hours, when the temperature was low, amusement and pleasure reigned supreme; but no sooner did the sun begin to rise than, as surely as Cinderella disappeared at the stroke of twelve, the gay society of the Brenta vanished, and the place lay dead and silent once more under the intolerable glare. How different society in Venice was in the early days! Then the houses were marvels of luxury; the finest wit, the most brilliant conversation, and the most delightful music were to be heard in Venice. It was not in the houses of the old aristocracy that the most brilliant people--painters, writers, poets, and politicians--assembled. It was in the houses of women who were looked upon as more or less shady persons, whom no Venetian gentleman would dream of introducing to his wife. The wives of the aristocracy were seldom seen except at public functions. They took much the same position in society as the "honoured interior" takes in Japan at the present day. (The geisha, although she is infinitely more entertaining, has no social status whatever.) The Venetian lady of quality, unlike the "honoured interior," dressed in the most magnificent style. In the estimate of her husband nothing was too gorgeous or too costly for her to wear. Among all those of the larger towns of northern Italy, Venetian women of the sixteenth century were the first to wear needle-point.