CAMPO BEHIND S. GIACOMO IN ORIO
the inexpressible joy of the jeweller, who knew the address well enough.
At that time there dwelt in Venice a branch of the famous Fugger family of Augsburg, the richest bankers of the sixteenth century. They owned all
Mutinelli, Annali.
the district of the city round the church of San Giacomo, and had even protected themselves by a sort of wall. There they had built a bank, a hospital, and houses for their numberless retainers, and they lived in a kind of unacknowledged principality of their own which was respected both by the State and the people.
The family had the most magnificent traditions of hospitality. When the Emperor Charles V. passed through Augsburg in the earlier part of the same century, he lodged in the Fuggers’ house, and as it was winter, his hosts caused his fires to be made only of aromatic wood imported as a perfume from Ceylon. Henry III. visited the Fuggers in Venice, and they were neither surprised by his unannounced visit nor unprepared to receive a royal guest.
While in Venice the King spent much of his time with Veronica Franco, the celebrated poetess and courtesan. She, on her side, fell deeply in
Tassini.
love with the man who was to be the worst of all the French kings. But he was only twenty-three years old then, he was half a Medici by blood, and all of one by his passionate nature. Veronica loved him with all her heart, and amidst all the evil he did there was at least one good result, for when he was gone she would not be consoled, nor would she ever look on another man, but mended her life and lived in a retirement to which she sought to attract other penitent women.
She had a picture of the King painted, and no doubt he was vividly present in her thoughts when she wrote the following sonnet, which is attributed to her, and which I do into prose for greater accuracy:—