Part 25

"So; say'st thou thus, Giulio?" another boyish voice exclaimed. "Then will I, too, play the herald for thee. Room," he cried, "for the worthy Prior of Capua! room for the noble Knight of St. John!" And down the broad staircase, thronged with gallant costumes, brilliant banners, and gleaming lances, the two merry boys elbowed their way.

Boys? you ask. Yes, boys--both of them, for all their priestly and high-sounding titles. In those far-off days, as we shall see, honors were distributed not so much for merit as from policy; and when royalty married royalty at ten and twelve to serve the ends of state, there was nothing so very wonderful in a noble prior of eleven or a lord cardinal of thirteen.

"Well, well, my modest young Florentines," said Lorenzo de Medici, in his harsh but not unkindly voice, as he met the boys in the grand and splendidly decorated entrance-hall; "if ye do but make your ways in life with such determination as that, all offices needs must yield to you. A truce to tattle, though, my fair Giulio. Modesty best becomes the young; Giovanni's cardinalate, remember, has not yet been proclaimed, and 't is wisest to hold our tongues till we may wag them truthfully. But, come," he added in a livelier tone, "to horse, to horse! the Triumph waits for none,--noble abbot and worshipful knight though they be--like to your shining selves. To-night be ye boys only. Ho, for fun and frolic; down with care and trouble! Sing it out, sing it out, my boys, well and lustily:

"Dance and carol every one Of our band so bright and gay; See your sweethearts how they run Through the jousts for you to-day."

And with this glee from one of his own gay carnival songs, Lorenzo the Magnificent sprang to the back of his noble Barbary horse, Morello, and spurred forward to mingle in the glories of the pageant.

It was a wondrous display--this carnival pageant, or "Triumph," of the Medici. Great golden cars, richly decorated, and drawn by curious beasts; horses dressed in the skins of lions and tigers and elephants; shaggy buffaloes and timorous giraffes from the Medicean villa at Careggi; fantastic monsters made up of mingled men and boys and horses, with other surprising figures as riders; dragons and dwarfs, giants and genii; beautiful young girls and boys dressed in antique costumes to represent goddesses and divinities of the old mythologies; and a chubby little gilded boy, seated on a great globe and representing the Golden Age--the age of every thing beautiful in art and life;--these and many other attractions made up the glittering display which, accompanied by Lorenzo the Magnificent and his retinue of over five hundred persons, "mounted, masked, and bravely apparelled," and gleaming in the light of four hundred flaring torches, traversed the streets of Florence, "singing in many voices all sorts of canzones, madrigals, and popular songs."

"By the stone nose of the marzoccho, but this is more joyous than the droning tasks we left behind us at Pisa; is it not, my Giovanni?" gayly exclaimed the younger of the two boys as, glittering in a suit of crimson velvet and cloth of gold, he rode in advance of one of the great triumphal cars. "My faith," he continued, "what would grim-eyed old Fra Bartolommeo say could he see thee, his choicest pupil in pontifical law, masking in a violet velvet suit and a gold-brocaded vest?"

"I fear me, Giulio," replied his cousin Giovanni, a pleasant-looking, brown-faced lad of nearly fourteen, "I fear me the good Fra would pull a long and chiding face at both our brave displays. You know how he can look when he takes us to task? And tall? Why, he seems always to grow as high as Giotto's tower there."

"Say, rather, like to the leaning tower in his own Pisa! for he seems as tall, and threatens to come down full as sure and heavily upon us poor unfortunates! Ah, yes, I know how he looks, Giovanni; he tries it upon me full often!" and Giulio's laugh of recollection was tempered with feeling memories.

Here an older boy, a brisk young fellow of sixteen, in a shining suit of silver and crimson brocade, rode toward them.

"Messer Giovanni," he said, "what say'st thou to dropping out of the triumph here by the Vecchio Palace? Then may we go back by the Via Pinti and see the capannucci."

Now, the capannucci was one of the peculiar carnival institutions of the Florentine boys of old, as dear to their hearts as are the fifth of November and its 'Guy' to the young Londoner of to-day. A great tree would be dragged into the centre of some broad street or square by a crowd of ready youngsters. There it would be set upright and propped or steadied by great faggots and pieces of wood. This base would then be fired, and as the blaze flamed from the faggots or crept up the tall tree-trunk, all the yelling boys danced in the flaring light. Then, when the capannucci fell with a great crash, the terrible young Florentine urchins never omitted to wage, over the charred trunk and the glowing embers, a furious rough-and-tumble fight.

Giovanni and Giulio, for all their high-sounding titles, welcomed exciting variety as readily as do any other active and wide-awake boys, and they assented gleefully to the young Buonarotti's suggestion.

"Quick, to the Via Pinti!" they cried, and yielding up their horses to the silver-liveried grooms who attended them, they turned from the pageant, and with their black visors, or half masks, partly drawn, they pushed their way through the crowds that surged under the great bell tower of the Palazzo Vecchio and thronged the gayly decorated street called the Via Pinti.

With a ready handful of danarini and soldi, small Florentine coins of that day, they easily satisfied the demands of the brown-skinned little street arabs who had laid great pieces of wood, called the stili, across the street, and would let none pass until they had yielded to their shrill demand of "Tribute, tribute! a soldi for tribute at the stili of San Marco!"

With laugh and shout and carnival jest, the three boys were struggling through the crowd toward the rising flame of a distant capannucci, when suddenly, with a swish and a thud, there came plump against the face of the young Giovanni one of the thin sugar eggs which, filled with red wine, was one of the favorite carnival missiles. Like a flow of blood the red liquid streamed down the broad, brown cheek of the lad, and streaked his violet tunic. He looked around dismayed.

"Ha, bestia!" he cried, as his quick eye detected the successful marksman in a group of laughing young fellows a few rods away. "'T was thou, wast it? Revenge, revenge, my comrades!" and the three lads sent a well-directed volley of return shots that made their assailants duck and dodge for safety. Then followed a frequent carnival scene. The shots and counter-shots drew many lookers-on, and soon the watchers changed to actors. The crowd quickly separated into two parties, the air seemed full of the flying missiles, and, in the glare of the great torches that, held by iron rings, flamed from the corner of a noble palace, the carnival fight raged fast and furiously. In the hottest of the strife a cheer arose as the nimble Giulio, snatching a brilliant crimson scarf from the shoulders of a laughing flower-girl, captured, next, a long pikestaff from a masker of the opposite side. Tying the crimson scarf to the long pike-handle, he charged the enemy, crying, "Ho, forward all!" His supporters followed him with a resistless rush; another volley of carnival ammunition filled the air, and a shout of victory went up as their opponents broke before their charge and the excited crowd went surging up the street. Again a stand was made, again the missiles flew, and now, the candy bon-bons failing, the reckless combatants kept up the fight with street refuse,--dust and dirt, and even dangerous stones.

It was in one of those hand-to-hand encounters that a tall and supple young fellow dashed from the opposing ranks and grappled with Giulio for the possession of the crimson standard. To and fro the boys swayed and tugged. In sheer defence the less sturdy Giulio struck out at his opponent's face, and down dropped the guarded disguise of the small black visor.

"Ho, an Albizzi!" Giulio exclaimed, as he recognized his antagonist. Then, as the long pikestaff was wrested from his grasp, he raised the well-known cry of his house, "Palle, Palle! Medici to the rescue."

"Ha, Medici--is it?" the young Albizzi cried, and, as Giovanni de Medici pressed to the aid of his cousin, Francesco Albizzi clutched at Giovanni's mask in turn and tore it from his face.

"Hollo!" shouted the scornful Albizzi. "We have uncovered the game! Look, boys, 't is Messer Giovanni himself! Hail to My Lord Cardinal! Hail to the young magnifico!" and, doffing his purple bonnet, as if in reverence to Giovanni, he struck the lad with it full on his broad, brown cheek.

His followers applauded his deed with a shout, but it was a weak and spiritless one, for it was scarcely safe to make fun of the Medici then in Florence, and cowards, you know, always take the stronger side.

The supporters of the Medici hastened to wipe out the insult offered to the boy cardinal. They pressed forward to annihilate Albizzi's fast-lessening band, but the young Giovanni interfered.

"Nay, hold, friends," he said, "'t is but a carnival frolic, and 't is ended now. Messer Francesco did but speak in jest, and, sure, I bear no malice."

But the hot-headed Albizzi, the son of a house that had ever been rivals and enemies of the Medici, would listen to no compromise.

"Ho, hark to the smooth-tongued Medici!" he cried. "Boys of Florence, will ye bow to this baby priest? Your fathers were but boys when they struck for the liberties of Florence and drove this fellow's father, the lordly magnifico, like a whipped cur behind the doors of the sacristy, and scattered the blood of that boy's father on the very steps of the altar of the Reparata!"

The young Giulio, when he heard this brutal allusion to the murder of his father, could restrain himself no longer; but, rushing at Francesco Albizzi, expended all his fierce young strength upon the older boy in wildly aimed and harmless blows.

Giovanni would have again interceded, but when he saw the vindictive young Albizzi draw a short dagger from his girdle, he felt that the time for words had passed. Springing to the relief of his cousin, he clutched the dagger-arm of the would-be murderer. There was a rallying of adherents on both sides; young faces grew hot with passion, and a bloody street fight seemed certain.