The banquets were prepared for a marriage rather than for a magnificent feast, and I think this was done de industria as an example to others not to exceed the modesty and simplicity suitable to marriages, so there was never more than one roast. In the morning a small dish, then some boiled meat, then a roast, after that wafers, marzipan and sugared almonds and pine-seeds, then jars of preserved pine-seeds and sweetmeats. In the evening jelly, a roast, fritters, wafers, almonds, and jars of sweetmeats. On Tuesday morning, instead of the roast were sweet pies of succulent vegetables on trenchers; the wines were excellent malvasy, trebbiano,[132] and red wine. Of silver plate there was little.
No sideboards had been placed for the silver. Only tall tables in the middle of the courtyard, round that handsome column on which stands the David,[133] covered with tablecloths, and at the four corners were four great copper basins for the glasses, and behind the tables stood men to hand wine or water to those who served the guests. The same arrangement was made in the garden round the fountain you know. On the tables were silver vessels in which the glasses were put to be kept cool. The salt-cellars, forks, knife-handles, bowls for the fritters, almonds, sugar-plums, and the jars for preserved pine-seeds were of silver; there was none other for the guests save the basins and jugs for washing of hands. The tablecloths were of the finest white damask linen[134] laid according to our fashion.
About four hundred citizens were invited to these five banquets, and among them the first of your house was your Lorenzo, and then Agnolo and Lodovico; I was also there.
On Monday morning to all who had received veal, jelly was given, and then about 1500 trenchers full were presented to others. Many religious [monks and nuns] also received gifts of fowls, fish, sweetmeats, wine, and similar things.
After the guests at the first tables had finished many hundreds ate. They say that between the house here and that of Messer Carlo[135] more than a thousand people ate, and at Messer Carlo’s every day one hundred barrels of wine were drunk.
In the house here, where the marriage feast was, every respectable person who came in was at once taken to the ground-floor hall, out of the large loggia, to refresh himself with fruit, sweetmeats, and white and red wine. The common folk were not invited.
The feasting began in the morning a little before dinner-time, then every one went away to repose. At about the twentieth hour (4 o’clock) they returned and danced until supper-time on the stage outside, which was decorated with tapestries, benches, and forms, and covered in with large curtains of purple, green, and white cloth, embroidered with the arms of the Medici and the Orsini. Every time a company came on to the stage to dance they took refreshments once or twice, according to the time. First came the trumpeters, then a great silver basin, then many smaller ones full of glasses, then small silver jars full of water, then many flasks of trebbiano and then twenty-three silver bowls full of preserved pine-seeds and sweet conserves. To all was given in abundance and all the dishes were emptied; and the same with the flasks of wine. The account has not been made, but from five to ... thousand pounds of sweetmeats and sugar-plums were consumed.
The bride has received about fifty rings, costing they say from ten to fifty or sixty ducats each; one piece of brocade; a sweetmeat dish of silver, and many other such things; and a small book of the offices of Our Lady, most beautiful, the gift of Messer Gentile,[136] written in letters of gold on blue vellum and covered with crystal and worked silver, which cost about two hundred florins. On Tuesday the bride left (a tournament was held first), and returned to the house of the Alessandri in the same dress in which she came to be married. This was a robe of white and gold brocade and a magnificent hood on her head, as is used here. She rode the same horse and was accompanied by the same youths, whose rich dresses of silver brocade embroidered with large pearls and jewels baffle description. From what they tell of courts of great princes nothing was ever seen like it save certain jewels of great value worn by some great Lords. Of the women I say nothing! Such jackets and robes of silk, all of them embroidered with pearls. I rather blame than praise this height of civilisation. And thus ended this marriage.
One day it rained; on the Monday, just when the feast was at its highest. It seemed as though done on purpose. It enveloped everything and wet the beautiful dresses, for the rain was so sudden and so heavy that many could not get under shelter soon enough. But the youths and the women had not put on the finest clothes which they had reserved for that day, the most important of the feast, so that to many it seemed their money had been spent in vain, not being able to wear them. However, on Tuesday morning when the bride went to hear mass in S. Lorenzo, accompanied by all the youths and maidens who had attended her at the wedding, every one was in their finest clothes. I warrant you that there were about fifty maidens and young girls and as many or more youths, so richly dressed that I do not think that anywhere among so many people could such a splendid and fine spectacle be seen.
I know that though I have written you many things and in much detail there is much still to be said; and although it is not worth your reading or my writing, yet I have done so for your information, as I know you to be curious, and that you like to know exactly how things went. So I have written thus thinking it would please you better than a more serious style.[137]