3. A "desciorgh" of gold (whatever that may be) of the value of 100 ducats.
4. Twelve bracelets of gold, of the value of 40 ducats.
Then follow fifteen articles of female dress, gowns, petticoats, mantles, skirts, and various other finery with strange names, only to be explained by the ghost of some sixteenth century milliner, and altogether ignored by Ducange, and all other lexicographers. But they are described as composed of satin, velvet, brocade; besides crimson velvet trimmed with gold fringe, and lined with ermine; and flesh-coloured silk petticoats, trimmed with black velvet. The favourite colour appears to be decidedly crimson.
It is noticeable, that while all the more valuable presents of Pescara to Vittoria are priced, nothing is said of the value of her gifts to the bridegroom. Are we to see in this an indication of a greater delicacy of feeling on the part of the lady?
So the priests did their office—a part of the celebration, which, curiously enough, we learn from Passeri, was often in those days at Naples, deferred, sometimes for years, till after the consummation of the marriage—the Pantagruelian feastings were got through, the guests departed, boat-load after boat-load, from the rocky shore of Ischia; and the little island, restored after the unusual hubbub to its wonted quiet, was left to be the scene of as happy a honeymoon as the most romantic of novel readers could wish for her favourite heroine.
CHAPTER III.
Vittoria's Married Life—Pescara goes where Glory Waits Him—The Rout of Ravenna—Pescara in Prison turns Penman—His "Dialogo di amore"—Vittoria's Poetical Epistle to her Husband—Vittoria and the Marchese del Vasto—Three Cart-loads of Ladies, and three Mule-loads of Sweetmeats—Character of Pescara—His Cruelty—Anecdote in Proof of it.