Or che la rugiadosa
Alba la rondinella a pianger chiama,
Questi che tanto v' ama,
Sonno, gran padre nostro e dell' ombrosa
Notte figlio, pietosa
E sacra schiera noi
Di Sogni, o belle donne, mostra a voi;
Perchè il folle pensiero
Uman si scorga, che seguendo fiso
Amor, Fama, Narciso
E Bellona e Ricchezza il van sentiero
La notte e il giorno intero
S' aggira, al fine insieme
Per frutto ha la Pazzia del suo bel seme.
Accorte or dunque, il vostro
Tempo miglior spendete in ciò che chiede
Natura, e non mai fede
Aggiate all' arte, che quasi aspro mostro
Cinto di perle e d' ostro
Dolce v' invita, e pure
Son le promesse Sogni e Larve scure.
Of the Castle.
By way of having yet another different spectacle, there was built with singular mastery on the vast Piazza di S. Maria Novella a most beautiful castle, with all the proper appurtenances of ramparts, cavaliers, casemates, curtains, ditches and counterditches, secret and public gates, and, finally, all those considerations that are required in good and strong fortifications; and in it was placed a good number of valorous soldiers, with one of the principal and most noble lords of the Court as their captain, a man determined on no account ever to be captured. That magnificent spectacle being divided into two days, on the first day there was seen appearing in most beautiful order from one side a fine and most ornate squadron of horsemen all in armour and in battle-array, as if about to meet real enemies in combat, and from the other side, with the aspect of a massive and well-ordered army, some companies of infantry with their baggage, waggons of munitions, and artillery, and with their pioneers and sutlers, all drawn close together, as is customary amid the dangers of real wars; these likewise having a similar lord of great experience and valour as captain, who was seen urging them on from every side, and fulfilling his office most nobly. And after the attackers had been reconnoitred several times and in various ways, with valour and artifice, by those within the castle, and various skirmishes had been fought, now by the horsemen and now by the infantry, with a great roar of musketry and artillery, and charges had been delivered and received, and several ambuscades and other suchlike stratagems of war had been planned with astuteness and ingenuity; finally the defenders were seen, as if overcome by the superior force, to begin little by little to retire, and in the end it seemed that they were constrained to shut themselves up completely within the castle. But the second day, after they had, as it were during the night, constructed their platforms and gabionade and planted their artillery, there was seen to begin a most terrible bombardment, which seemed little by little to throw a part of the walls to the ground; after which, and after the explosion of a mine, which in another part, in order to keep the attention of the defenders occupied, appeared to have made a passing wide breach in the wall, the places were reconnoitred and the cavalry drew up in most beautiful battle-array, and then was seen now one company moving up, and now another, some with ladders and some without, and many valorous and terrible assaults delivered in succession and repeated several times, and ever received by the others with skill, boldness, and obstinacy, until in the end it was seen that the defenders, weary, but not vanquished, made an honourable compact with the attackers to surrender the place to them, issuing from it, with marvellous satisfaction for the spectators, in military order, with their banners unfurled, their drums, and all their usual baggage.
The Genealogy of the Gods.
We read of Paulus Emilius, that first captain of his illustrious age, that he caused no less marvel by his wisdom and worth to the people of Greece and of many other nations who had assembled in Amphipolis to celebrate various most noble spectacles there after the victory that he had won, than by the circumstance that first, vanquishing Perseus and subjugating Macedonia, he had borne himself valiantly in the management of that war, which was in no small measure laborious and difficult; he having been wont to say that it is scarcely less the office of a good captain, requiring no less order and no less wisdom, to know how to prepare a banquet well in time of peace, than to know how to marshal an army for a deed of arms in time of war. Wherefore if our glorious Duke, born to do everything with noble worth and grandeur, displayed the same wisdom and the same order in those spectacles, and, above all, in that one which I am about to describe, I believe that he will not take it amiss that I have been unwilling to refrain from saying that he was in every part its inventor and ordinator, and in a certain sense its executor, preparing all the various things, and then representing them, with so much order, tranquillity, wisdom, and magnificence, that among his many glorious actions this one also may be numbered to his supreme glory.
Now, yielding to him who wrote of it in those days with infinite learning, before me, and referring to that work those who may seek curiously to see how every least thing in this masquerade, which had as title the Genealogy of the Gods, was figured with the authority of excellent writers, and passing over whatever I may judge to be superfluous in this place, let me say that even as we read that some of the ancient Gods were invited to the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis in order to render them auspicious and fortunate, so to the nuptials of this new and most excellent bridal pair it appeared that there had come for the same reason not some only of these same Gods, but all, and not invited, but seeking to introduce themselves and by their own wish, the good auguring them the same felicity and contentment, and the harmful assuring them that they would do them no harm. Which conception appeared gracefully expressed in the following fashion by four madrigals that were sung at various times in the principal places by four very full choirs, even as has been told of the Triumph of Dreams; saying:
L' alta che fino al ciel fama rimbomba
Della leggiadra Sposa,
Che in questa riva erbosa
D' Arno, candida e pura, alma colomba
Oggi lieta sen vola e dolce posa,
Dalla celeste sede ha noi qui tratti,
Perchè più leggiadri atti
E bellezza più vaga e più felice
Veder già mai non lice.
Nè pur la tua festosa
Vista, o Flora, e le belle alme tue dive
Traggionne alle tue rive,
Ma il lume e 'l sol della novella Sposa,
Che più che mai gioiosa
Di suo bel seggio e freno
Al gran Tosco divin corcasi in seno.
Da' bei lidi, che mai caldo nè gielo
Discolora, vegnam; nè vi crediate
Ch' altrettante beate
Schiere e sante non abbia il Mondo e il Cielo;
Ma vostro terren velo
E lor soverchio lume,
Questo e quel vi contende amico nume.
Ha quanti il Cielo, ha quanti
Iddii la Terra e l' Onda al parer vostro;
Ma Dio solo è quell' un che il sommo chiostro
Alberga in mezzo a mille Angeli santi,
A cui sol giunte avanti
Posan le pellegrine
E stanche anime al fine, al fin del giorno,
Tutto allegrando il Ciel del suo ritorno.