The goddess herself, in accordance with
the inexorable logic of allegory to which even the painters at that
time conformed, wore hair only on the front part of her head, while the
back part was bald, and the genius who sat on the lower steps of the
car, and who symbolized the fugitive character of fortune, had his feet
immersed in a basin of water Then followed, equipped by the same
Florentines, a troop of horsemen in the costumes of various nations,
dressed as foreign princes and nobles, and then, crowned with laurel
and standing above a revolving globe, a Julius Caesar, who explained to
the king in Italian verse the meaning of the allegories, and then took
his place in the procession. Sixty Florentines, all in purple and
scarlet, closed this splendid display of what their home could achieve.
Then a band of Catalans advanced on foot, with lay figures of horses
fastened on to them before and behind, and engaged in a mock combat
with a body of Turks, as though in derision of the Florentine
sentimentalism. Last of all came a gigantic tower, the door guarded by
an angel with a drawn sword; on it stood four Virtues, who each
addressed the king with a song. The rest of the show had nothing
specially characteristic about it.
At the entrance of Louis XII into Milan in the year 1507 we find,
besides the inevitable chariot with Virtues, a living group
representing Jupiter, Mars, and a figure of Italy caught in a net.
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