The Square of St. Mark was found to give
space enough not only for tournaments, but for 'Trionfi,' similar to
those common on the mainland. At a festival held on the conclusion of
peace, the pious brotherhoods ('scuole') took each its part in the
procession. There, among golden chandeliers with red candles, among
crowds of musicians and winged boys with golden bowls and horns of
plenty, was seen a car on which Noah and David sat together enthroned;
then came Abigail, leading a camel laden with treasures, and a second
car with a group of political figures- -Italy sitting be tween Venice
and Liguria--and on a raised step three female symbolical figures with
the arms of the allied princes. This was followed by a great globe with
the constellations, as it seems, round it. The princes themselves, or
rather their bodily representatives, appeared on other chariots with
their servants and their coats of arms, if we have rightly interpreted
our author.
The Carnival, properly so called, apart from these great triumphal
marches, had nowhere, perhaps, in the fifteenth century so varied a
character as in Rome. There were races of every kind--of horses, asses,
buffaloes, old men, young men, Jews, and so on. Paul II entertained the
people in crowds before the Palazzo di Venezia, in which he lived. The
games in the Piazza Navona, which had probably never altogether ceased
since the classical times, were remarkable for their warlike splendor.
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