[943] Instances under Sixtus IV., Jac. Volaterr. in Murat. xxiii. col. 135 (bombardorum et sclopulorum crepitus), 139. At the accession of Alexander VI. there were great salvos of artillery. Fireworks, a beautiful invention due to Italy, belong, like festive decorations generally, rather to the history of art than to our present work. So, too, the brilliant illuminations we read of in connexion with many festivals, and the hunting-trophies and table-ornaments. (See p. 319. The elevation of Julius II. to the Papal throne was celebrated at Venice by three days’ illumination. Brosch, Julius II. p. 325, note 17.)
[944] Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 772. See, besides, col. 770, for the reception of Pius II. in 1459. A paradise, or choir of angels, was represented, out of which came an angel and sang to the Pope, ‘in modo che il Papa si commosse a lagrime per gran tenerezza da si dolci parole.’
[945] See the authorities quoted in Favre, Mélanges d’Hist. Lit. i. 138; Corio, fol. 417 sqq. The menu fills almost two closely printed pages. ‘Among other dishes a mountain was brought in, out of which stepped a living man, with signs of astonishment to find himself amid this festive splendour; he repeated some verses and then disappeared’ (Gregorovius, vii. 241). Infessura, in Eccard, Scriptt. ii. col. 1896; Strozzii Poetae, fol. 193 sqq. A word or two may here be added on eating and drinking. Leon. Aretino (Epist. lib. iii. ep. 18) complains that he had to spend so much for his wedding feast, garments, and so forth, that on the same day he had concluded a ‘matrimonium’ and squandered a ‘patrimonium.’ Ermolao Barbaro describes, in a letter to Pietro Cara, the bill of fare at a wedding-feast at Trivulzio’s (Angeli Politiani Epist. lib. iii.). The list of meats and drinks in the Appendix to Landi’s Commentario (above) is of special interest. Landi speaks of the great trouble he had taken over it, collecting it from five hundred writers. The passage is too long to be quoted (we there read: ‘Li antropofagi furono i primi che mangiassero carne humana’). Poggio (Opera, 1513, fol. 14 sqq.) discusses the question’: ‘Uter alteri gratias debeat pro convivio impenso, isne qui vocatus est ad convivium an qui vocavit?’ Platina wrote a treatise ‘De Arte Coquinaria,’ said to have been printed several times, and quoted under various titles, but which, according to his own account (Dissert. Vossiane, i. 253 sqq.), contains more warnings against excess than instructions on the art in question.
[946] Vasari, ix. p. 37, Vita di Puntormo, tells how a child, during such a festival at Florence in the year 1513, died from the effects of the exertion—or shall we say, of the gilding? The poor boy had to represent the ‘golden age’!
[947] Phil. Beroaldi, Nuptiae Bentivolorum, in the Orationes Ph. B. Paris, 1492, c. 3 sqq. The description of the other festivities at this wedding is very remarkable.
[948] M. Anton. Sabellici, Epist. l. iii. fol. 17.
[949] Amoretti, Memorie, &c. su. Lionardo da Vinci, pp. 38 sqq.
[950] To what extent astrology influenced even the festivals of this century is shown by the introduction of the planets (not described with sufficient clearness) at the reception of the ducal brides at Ferrara. Diario Ferrarese, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 248, ad. a. 1473; col. 282, ad. a. 1491. So, too, at Mantua, Arch. Stor. append. ii. p. 233.
[951] Annal. Estens. in Murat. xx. col. 468 sqq. The description is unclear and printed from an incorrect transcript.
[952] We read that the ropes of the machine used for this purpose were made to imitate garlands.