A JOURNEY.
At length, in the summer of 1481, some brief pause in the business of sharing the Papal councils, making and breaking of leagues, persecuting the Colonnas, and entertaining ambassadors, made it possible for Girolamo and his wife to visit for the first time their dominions of Forlì and Imola. There were to be grand doings in Rome on the 30th of June, 1481. The Pope in grand gala, and with much ceremony and great rejoicings, was to bless the fleet, now coming up from Ostia to the city. There were to be feasts, candles, processions, and other such like "divine services," with "Florentine ambassador washing the Pope's hands at the beginning of the sacred rites; Venetian ambassadors washing them in the middle, and the Prefect of Rome at the end of the same;"[86] and drink and Papal blessings distributed to all comers.
But, despite all these attractions, Girolamo and Catherine with their retinue left Rome at daybreak on that day. It caused great surprise, says the chronicler, that they should not have chosen, at the cost of one day's delay, to be present at all these gay doings. But it was understood that that special day and hour had been indicated to him as fortunate for his journey, by the planets.
CHAPTER IV.
From Rome to Forlì with bag and baggage.—First presentation of a new lord and lady to their lieges.—Venice again shows a velvet paw to a second Riario.—Saffron-hill in brocade and ermine.—Sad conduct on the part of our lieges.—Life in Rome again.—"Orso! Orso!—Colonna! Colonna!"—A Pope's hate, and a Pope's vengeance.—Sixtus finally loses the game.
Journeys in the fifteenth century were important undertakings,—especially journeys of women and children. But this expedition of the Count Girolamo and his family was a very serious affair indeed. His departure from Rome resembled a veritable exodus. For he determined on transporting to Forlì, not only the whole of his numerous establishment of servants and retainers of all kinds, but also all his immense wealth in goods and chattels of all sorts. This kind of property formed a very much larger part of a rich man's substance in those times, than it does in these days of public debts and investments in all kinds of industrial undertakings. A rich man's wealth in the fifteenth century consisted of large masses of hoarded coin,—very much smaller in numerical amount, however, than the sums with which the traders and men of property of our day are daily conversant,—of horses, and long trains of richly caparisoned mules,—of large quantities of silks and other rich stuffs, both for clothing and furniture,—of arms and armour,—of jewels, and gold and silver plate,—and of the various other articles of household plenishing. In all such things the Count Riario, who had inherited all those rich possessions of his spendthrift brother the Cardinal, which, we are assured,[87] were for their quantity and magnificence one of the wonders of that age, was rich beyond any other individual of his contemporaries. And all this vast mass of miscellaneous property he now carried with him from Rome to Forlì.[88]
ALONG THE ROAD.