At certain times these rules were relaxed by necessity. How could plainly dressed women support the background of the salons of the Ducal Palace? When there they must be gorgeously attired; and knowing that these opportunities must come, the ladies of Venice bought as many pearls and other jewels and as splendid garments of every sort as they could get, and waited impatiently for a festival when they might wear them. In 1574, when Henry III. visited Venice, an edict announced that, "all contrary decrees notwithstanding, it shall be permitted to every lady invited to the said feast to wear all dresses and jewels of what kind soever seems to them most favorable for the adornment of their persons." One can imagine the result. How gladly these ladies, so long restricted to plain dressing, would vie with each other in the beauty and richness of their dress in these festal days; and from the pictures and the written accounts of their magnificent costumes we know with what success their efforts were crowned. Some of them covered their arms, chests, throats, hair, and even their robes with pearls of untold value, sometimes costing millions of ducats. {224} For a long time the custom of bleaching the hair prevailed. A large hat-brim with no crown was used. The hair, being wet with some preparation, was thrown out of the crown space and spread over the broad brim, which shaded the person from the sun. Thus prepared they sat on their balconies and housetops as long as a ray of sunshine could be had. Titian and Veronese painted golden and shining hair on women, goddesses, and nymphs because no other color of hair was in good form. Many of the fashions in dress of the Venetian ladies of the time of the Renaissance were artistic and elegant; others were too grotesque for expression, and none more so than the pattens, to which we have already referred. Not being tall and stately, they wished to raise themselves artificially; but when pattens were extreme in height, all elegance and dignity of carriage was out of the question. One can but wonder how the "potent, grave, and reverend seigniors" of the Venetian Senate could have found time to attend to all the detail of the dress, and even of the eating of the Signori, their wives, and their guests; but it is plainly to be seen that the jealousy which had led them to lessen from year to year the power and dignity of the Doge, found food to feed upon in the privileges and honors which were permitted to the Dogaressa.