ry. The fete began on a Sunday morning and lasted
until midday of the Tuesday following, and for that space of time almost
the entire population was entertained and fed by the Medici. On this
occasion the wedding presents took a practical turn, in part, for, from
friends and from some of the neighboring villages subject to the rule of
Florence, supplies were sent in great quantities; among the number,
record is made of eight hundred calves and two thousand pairs of
chickens! There were music and dancing by day and by night; musicians
were stationed in various parts of the city, and about them the dancers
filled the streets. An adequate conception of this scene will perhaps be
a matter of some difficulty, but those who know something of the way in
which the people in modern Paris dance upon the smooth pavements on the
night of the national holiday, the Quatorze Juillet, will possess at
least a faint idea of what it must have been. That all classes of the
population were cared for at this great festival is proved by the fact
that one hundred kegs of wine were consumed daily, and that five
thousand pounds of sweetmeats and candies were distributed among the
people.

The marriage of the poet Ariosto with the beautiful Alessandra Strozzi,
widow of Tito Strozzi, a noble Florentine who was famed in his day for
his Latin poetry, was not concluded with any such display and
magnificence, the author of the _Orlando Furioso_ being in no position
which made it necessary for him to entertain the whole population, and
having ideas all his own regarding the advantage of publicity in such
matters. Long before Ariosto's marriage, however, in the days of his
youth and before he had ever set eyes upon the Titian-haired Alessandra,
he fell captive to the charms of Ginevra Lapi, a young girl of
Florentine family, who lived at or near Mantua. He met her first at a
_festa di ballo_, we are told, and there he was much impressed with her
grace and beauty, for she seemed like a young goddess among her less
favored companions. Then began that attachment which lasted for long
years and which seems to have inspired much of his earlier lyric poetry.
Four years after their first meeting he writes that she was "dearer to
him than his own soul and fairer than ever in his eyes," and she seems
to have made a very strong impression upon his mind, as he mentions her
long afterward with most genuine tenderness. What more than this may be
said of Ginevra Lapi