Bembo describes a day, beginning with the breakfast at noon, in a large hall with a _loggia_ on either side, breezy and cool in spite of the heat without. Between the pillars of the loggia the spires of the cypress come up from the gardens below, and by their deep, dark green remind one of coolness and shadow as contrasted with the sunny lawns outside. The meal is done; but Caterina gives no signal for rising, and two of her maids move down the hall, and courtesy low before her. One of them strikes her lute and sings a song decrying love; the second answers in the opposite strain; and a third, the favorite of Caterina, to the accompaniment of her viol, sums up the argument on both sides. Then Caterina and most of her guests retire, to be seen no more until evening, when supper will call them together, and be followed by music and dancing until dawn. But three Venetian couples go to the gardens, the pride of Asolo, the young men in short black cloaks {239} and close-fitting hose of many-colored silks, the ladies in velvet and brocades, with masses of golden hair rolled tightly around cushions. How sorry we are that on this warm day they had no more comfortable apparel! Bembo gives a minute description of the walks, the stream from the living rock that flowed into a basin of stone, and similar objects, and ends by saying that they talked of platonic love through all the afternoon. The wedding proves that all love was not platonic here, and every fortnight there came the lord of Rimini, Pandolfo Malatesta, a man not well inclined to platonism. Whether he paid his suit to Caterina or to her maid Fiammeta, we know not, but in either case it gave a spice of something human and real to both their lives. Then Caterina's family were always coming and going. They thought to shine by the reflected light of her position, and she was called upon to arrange a marriage for her niece with a prince of Naples. All this was displeasing to Venice. The Cornari had a knight and a cardinal in their family, which seemed quite sufficient to the Senate, and Caterina was warned to make no attempts to confer greater benefits. It was also surmised that she did not forget Cyprus, and she was curtly advised to be content with Asolo, and send not her thoughts over sea.