S. ZOBENIGO
in 1560 after the designs of Palladio, of wood, in the court of the monastery of the Carità, but after a few years it took fire, and the monastery itself was destroyed with it.
I find that the Companions were great ‘racket’ players; but I apprehend that by ‘rackets’ the chroniclers intended to describe court tennis, which was played in Venice, whereas in most other Italian cities the game of ‘Pallone’ was the favourite, and has survived to our own time. It is played with a heavy ball which the player strikes with a sort of wooden glove, studded with blunt wooden pins and covering most of the forearm.
To return to the question of the large freedom and impunity granted to the Club by the government, the reason of such license is not far to seek. Young men who spend their time in a ceaseless round of amusement do not plot to overthrow the government that tolerates them. The Signory, on the whole, protected the Companions even in their wildest excesses, and no doubt believed them to be much more useful members of society than they thought themselves, since their irrepressible gaiety and almost constant popularity helped to keep the people in a good humour in times of trouble and disturbance.
At the time of the league of Cambrai, for instance, when Pope Julius II., the Emperor Maximilian, Louis XII. of France, and Ferdinand of Aragon agreed to destroy the Venetian Republic, and when it looked as if they must succeed, the Company of the ‘Eternals’ produced a mummery which was highly appreciated both by the government and the population.
They gave a sumptuous feast, after which the dining-hall was, as by magic, turned into an improvised theatre. In the middle of the stage
1510. Rom. v. 246.
sat a young noble who personated the King, splendidly arrayed in the Byzantine fashion, and attended by his counsellors, his chancellor, and his interpreter. Before him there came in state one who played the Papal Legate, dressed as a bishop in silk of old-rose colour, and he presented a brief and his credentials; whereupon, after crowning and blessing the King, he observed that he should like to see a little dancing, and two of the Companions at once danced for him with two of the fairest ladies. The Legate was followed by the Ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Ambassadors of France, Spain, Hungary, and Turkey arrived in turn; each spoke in the language of his country, and his speech was interpreted to the King. Last of all came the Ambassador of the Pigmies mounted on a tiny pony accompanied by four dwarfs and the professional buffoon Zanipolo. We must suppose the speeches to have been very witty, and the dwarfs and buffoons highly comic, since this incomprehensible nonsense was a stupendous success and was talked of long afterwards.
The taste for these ‘momarie,’ literally ‘mummeries,’ grew in Venice. Marin Sanudo describes one which was produced in the Square of Saint Mark’s on the Thursday before Lent in 1532. I translate a part of the list of the masks, to give an idea of the whole.