The correspondence of the loving couple, passionate and sad, continued during six months, at the end of which time Apollonia wrote to the Signory imploring permission to share her husband’s prison; but this was refused her, though her request was supported by the warmest recommendations from the Emperor himself. Exasperated, Frangipane attempted to escape from prison, but his plan was discovered, and he was only the more closely watched. Apollonia now requested the favour of a safe-conduct that she might, at least, come to Venice as a traveller and visit her husband; this also was refused, not once only, but again when she wrote a second time.
There was now but one thing left for her to do, and she determined to risk coming to Venice without a safe-conduct. She arrived in the depth of winter in 1516, with four maids of honour, her chamberlain, her physician, and twenty-two servants. As the Council of Ten was ashamed to imprison her it placed her in the keeping of the patrician Dandolo, who was the general inspector of the ducal prisons, and he placed at her disposal his palace on the Grand Canal, which is now the Hôtel Danieli. She took up her quarters there on the thirteenth of January with her suite, and on the twentieth she appeared before the Doge and his counsellors arrayed in a magnificent silk gown and a black satin mantle lined with sable; a heavy gold chain hung down upon her bosom, and a golden coif was set upon her hair in the German fashion; three young girls dressed in black cloth followed her, one after the other, and an old duenna, the physician, and the chamberlain brought up the rear.
The fair Countess addressed the Doge with feminine eloquence and tact. She began by rendering thanks for the kindness and consideration shown to her husband, and she requested permission to see him twice a week. She argued that this permission was absolutely necessary to her, for she said that she was very ill, and that the treatment ordered by her doctor was of such a nature that she entirely declined to submit to it except in the presence of her husband. The Doge and his counsellors had never had to face such arguments before; they felt themselves absolutely powerless, and yielded at once.
But on the morrow old Dandolo, the inspector of prisons, appeared before them in a condition of indescribable dismay and excitement. He said that when the Countess was at last in her husband’s prison, on the previous evening, she had made such a scene in order to be allowed to stay all night that he, Dandolo, had yielded much against his will and had left the couple together. And now, in the morning, he had found the
PALAZZO RESSONICO
Countess still in bed, declaring that she was dangerously ill, and demanding that her doctor should be sent to her without delay.
The Doge and his counsellors were in a quandary, and Dandolo was tearing his hair. Sanudo informs us that ‘there was much noise in the council’ that morning, and it is easy to believe that he was telling the truth. Almost half of the grave magistrates were in favour of leaving the Countess with her husband; the rest, with a very small majority, voted that she must quit the prison. The motion passed, but it was one thing to decide what she should do, and quite another thing to make her do it. She declared that since she was inside the tower, no power on earth should get her out of it, and she defied the Doge, the Council of Ten, and all their works. Before such portentous obstinacy the government of Venice retired in stupefaction, and she was left in peace.
But she was human, after all, and under prolonged imprisonment her health broke down, and she was obliged to leave the tower each year to go to the waters of Abano; but even then she refused to go out until a formal promise had been given her that she should be allowed to return immediately after the cure.