The Vow of the Peacock and Other Poems/The Vow of the Peacock Notes
NOTES.
NOTE I.
"For Catherine looked what she had been,
At once the beauty and the queen."
"The new king of Cyprus had been attached from early youth to Catarina, niece of Andréa Cornaro, a Venetian noble, resident on his Cypriote estate; and no sooner was he freed from certain political and domestic obstacles, than he tendered his hand to that lady. In order to satisfy the rigid law which forbade the marriage of any Venetian of noble birth with a foreigner, the destined royal bride was solemnly adopted by the state, and declared a daughter of St. Mark; she was then married by proxy, in the presence of the doge and signory, conducted by the bucentaur to the galley which awaited her in the port, and escorted by a squadron of ships of war, with becoming pomp, and a portion of 100,000 ducats, to the territories of her husband." After his death the island was governed by his widow.
"Fifteen years had now passed during which the signory had governed Cyprus, under the name of Catarina, whose son died not long after his birth; and the islanders, who at first chafed beneath the yoke of the Republic, and earnestly sought to transfer their allegiance to Naples, had now become accustomed to their virtual masters. There were contingencies, nevertheless, not likely to escape the sagacity of Venice, by which some other hand, after all her long intrigue, might perhaps gather its fruits. Catarina still retained more than ordinary beauty; and her picture, in widow's weeds (even now glowing with almost original freshness among the treasures of the Palazzo Manfrini), was one of the earliest great works of Titian, which, both from the skill of the artist and the loveliness of the subject, extended his growing fame beyond the borders of the Lagune. With so great attractions, coupled to the rich dowry of a kingdom, it was not probable that the queen of Cyprus would long remain without suitors; and rumour already declared her to be the intended bride of Frederic, a son of the king of Naples. If she married and bore children, Cyprus would become their inheritance; and to prevent the possibility of such an extinction of their hopes, the Venetian government resolved to assume its sovereignty directly in their own persons. The civilians, therefore, were instructed to avouch the legitimacy of this claim; and they declared, perhaps with less sincerity than solemnity, that the son of Giacopo Lusignano inherited the crown from his father; that since he died a minor, his mother inherited from him; and that finally Venice inherited from his mother, an adopted daughter of St. Mark.
"Giorgio Cornaro, a brother of the queen, was solicited to conduct the ungrateful process of her deposition. To his representations,—that by abandoning the care of a turbulent kingdom, and returning to her native land, in which she might pass the remainder of her life tranquilly and securely, amongst those bound to her by natural ties, she would far more consult her own happiness than by remaining exposed in a remote and foreign country to the hazards of its ambiguous friendship,— she replied with confidence, that there was little which could allure a woman environed with the splendour of royalty and the observance of a court, to descend to the parsimonious habits and undistinguished level of a republican life; and that it would please her far better if the signory would await her decease before they occupied her possessions. But to arguments explanatory of the will, the power, and the inflexibility of the senate, it was not easy to find an adequate answer; and the natural eloquence, as the historian styles it, of her brother ultimately prevailed. 'If such,' she observed, as soon as tears permitted speech, 'be your opinion, such also shall be mine; nevertheless, it is more from you than from myself that our country will obtain a kingdom.' Having thus reluctantly consented, after a few days delay she commenced her progress to Famagosta; royal honours attended her every where as she passed, and on the 6th of February she signed a formal act of abdication in the presence of her council; attended a solemn mass, at which the banner of St. Mark was consecrated; delivered that standard to the charge of the Venetian general; and saw it raised above her own on the towers of the citadel. On the approach of summer she embarked for Venice, where she was received as a crowned head by the doge and signory; and in return for the surrender of her sceptre, she enjoyed a privilege never before or since accorded to any of her countrywomen, a triumphal entry to St. Mark's Piazzetta, on the deck of the Bucentaur. A revenue of 8000 ducats was assigned her for life; and the delights of the 'Paradise' of Asola, in the Trevisan mountains, in which the unqueened queen continued to assemble her little court, have been immortalised by a volume long among the most popular works of early Italian literature; and graced by the poetry, the sentiment, the piety, and the metaphysics of the illustrious historian from whom we have borrowed our narrative of Catarina's dethronement."
NOTE II.
"Divinest Petrarch."
"It was on the 4th of June, that the poet, in company with the Archbishop of Patræ, was enjoying a delicious prospect of the sea from his windows, and cheating a summer evening with familiar talk, when the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a galley in the offing, fancifully dressed out with green boughs. This unusual decoration, the rapid motion of the oars, the joyful shouts of the mariners, the garlands which they had twined round their caps, the streamers which floated from their masts, all betokened the arrival of some pleasing intelligence. A signal was given from the beacon-tower of the port, and the whole population of the city flocked to the water's edge, breathless with curiosity, to ascertain the news. As the bark came nearer shore, some flags of the enemy were seen hanging from her stern; and all doubt was then removed that she was the messenger of victory. What, however, was the general surprise and joy, when it was announced that the rebels were not only worsted, but conquered, that Candia was subdued, and that the war was at an end! The doge, with his court and prelates, and the whole attendant crowd of citizens, immediately repaired to St. Mark's and offered up a solemn service of thanksgiving. The festivals which succeeded lasted for many days; and they were closed by a tournament and a magnificent equestrian parade, for which Petrarch is unable to find an adequate Latin name.
In this last spectacle, a troop of four-and-twenty noble Venetian youths, headed by a Ferrarese, splendidly arrayed, and mounted on horses gorgeously caparisoned, started singly, but in quick succession, from a barrier in the Piazza di San Marco, and, coursing round to a goal, uninterruptedly renewed the same circle, brandishing lances from which silken ribands fluttered to the wind. The doge, with his brilliant train, sat in the marble gallery over St. Mark's porch, by the well-known horses, whence the evening sun was shaded by richly embroidered canopies. On his right hand sat Petrarch himself, whose love of pleasure was satisfied by two days' attendance on the protracted festivity. The splendour of the scene was heightened by the presence of several English barons, some of them of the royal blood, who at that time were in Venice, so far as we can understand Petrarch's obscure statement, engaged in some maritime negotiation; though one of the chroniclers assures us that they had no other object than a laudable desire of seeing the world. In the court below not a grain of sand could have fallen to the pavement, so dense was the throng. A wooden scaffolding, raised for the occasion, on the right of the piazza, contained a bright store of beauty; the forty noblest dames of Venice, glittering with costly jewels. In the horse-course, honour was the sole prize; but, for the tournament, in which danger was to be encountered, more substantial rewards were proposed. For the most successful champion, a crown of solid gold, chased with precious stones; for the second, a silver belt, of choice workmanship.