[Medieval People by Eileen Edna Power]@TWC D-Link book
Medieval People

CHAPTER III
12/46

Then came the glass-workers in scarlet furred with vair, and gold-fringed hoods, and rich garlands of pearls, carrying flasks and goblets of the famous Venetian glass before them, and the comb and lantern makers, with a lantern full of birds to let loose in the Doge's presence, and the goldsmiths wearing wreaths and necklaces of gold and silver beads and sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, topazes, jacinths, amethysts, rubies, jasper, and carbuncles.

Master and servants alike were sumptuously clad, and almost all wore gold fringes on their hoods, and garlands of gilded beads.

Each craft was accompanied by its band of divers instruments, and bore with it silver cups and flagons of wine, and all marched in fair order, singing ballads and songs of greeting, and saluted the Doge and Dogaressa in turn, crying 'Long live our lord, the noble Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo!' Gild after gild they marched in their splendour, lovely alike to ear and eye; and a week fled before the rejoicings were ended and all had passed in procession.

Canale surpasses himself here, for he loved State ceremonies; he gives a paragraph to the advance of each gild, its salutation and withdrawal, and the cumulative effect of all the paragraphs is enchanting, like a prose ballade, with a repeated refrain at the end of every verse.[9] What, they lived once thus in Venice, where the merchants were the kings, Where St Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?
Listening to the magnificent salutation of the Doge by the priests of St Mark's, 'Criste, vince, Criste regne, Criste inpere.

Notre signor Laurens Teuples, Des gracie, inclit Dus de Venise, Dalmace atque Groace, et dominator de la quarte partie et demi de tot l'enmire de Romanie, sauvement, honor, vie, et victoire.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books