But all had not been foreseen! What holy monk could divine that within himself the prisoner would find joys and torments which not even the venomous Parthenope could have aroused in any heart.
The Tower of the Cross (Torre della Croce), so called at that time and for the past four hundred years the Tower of the Prey (Torre della Preda), dominates with its battlements all the vulgar quarters of Naples. It rears itself at the extreme end of a mass of old ruins still serving as a prison, through custom, and to which the people have given the name of Prison of the Blood-Hound (Carcer delle Veltro). At the end of the fifteenth century, these ruins, of a somewhat recent reconstruction, had the appearance of a fortress, and a space of a hundred and fifty feet was free between the walls, flanked by moats, and the first low houses of the outskirts.
At the center of the platform where Della Preda was daily led, a guard house was built which divided it in two, save for narrow passages, and limited the view on the side of the country. As he placed his foot on the last step, the prisoner had opposite him, to his left, the town which stood out in the distance, full of square belfries and domes; to the right was the blue gulf.
A church with flying buttresses, heavy and in ruins, first draws the unaccustomed glance and fixes it by the splendor of its brilliantly ornamented madonna. When the setting sun sank to the end of the pointed niche and bathed her with rays, the rubies and chrysolites of her tiara, the lepidolites and topazes of her starred aureola reflected the brilliance of luminaries and the faced adorned with diamond eyes looked rapturous.
The first time that Guido climbed to the tower was an evening when the sun was setting. He saw neither the flashing town with its green terraces, nor the blue bay with its white sails; but, uttering a cry, he asked:
"Down there! Down there! Who is that lady?"
"That lady? What lady?" repeated Veltro, with an astonished, already uneasy eye.
"Yes, that lady in front of the church of the Orphans?"
"Ah! you mean above the portal? That's the Novella, my lord," Veltro replied, baring his head as he pronounced the name, "a blessed and benevolent madonna. You can hardly see her well from below, the street is too narrow, but everybody knows that she is there, and that is enough."
"What an agreeable woman!" answered Guido. "O Novella! Protect me and love me!"