CHAPTER VII.
"more great in martyrdom than throned as cæsar's mate."
At the Prince of Viana's villa in the interior there was a masquerade; brílliant, gorgeous, like the splendid feste of mediæval Italy, of Venice in its Dandolo glory, when the galleys swept home with the rich Byzantine spoils; of Florence while Isabel Orsini was in her loveliness, and the Capello beamed her sunny fatal smile, and even grave Machiavel sauntered well amused through the festive Gardens of Delight, when the Embassies of the Ten came in their purple pomp, or the City of Flowers laughed through endless mirth and music. The fête was very magnificent at the palace at Antina, given by lavish princely hands that scattered their gold right and left, and vied with the Grammont and the Doria brilliance away yonder in old Rome. That at it other masks were worn than those black Venetian ones of pleasure, that beneath
