' The people beholding this and
marvelling greatly said, 'What doth this man?' And they all looked at
one another...."
[Illustration: PORTAL OF S. GIOVANNI EVANGELISTA]
Sacchetti does not answer the question asked by the astonished people
of Ravenna, but goes on to tell us of the lord "who delighted in such
things as do all lords." He could not have answered it for he did not
know himself what it meant. We are in better case, I think, and know
that what that wild and half--blasphemous act meant was that the
Renaissance had made an end of the Middle Age here in Ravenna as
elsewhere.
XVII
RAVENNA IN THE RENAISSANCE
THE BATTLE OF 1512
When in the year 1438 duke Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan forced
Ostasio da Polenta, the fifth of that name, into an alliance and the
Venetians thereupon invited him to visit them, Venice had decided for
her own safety to annex Ravenna and Ostasio soon learned that the new
government had proclaimed itself in his old capital. He, as I have
said, presently disappeared, the victim of a mysterious assassination;
and Venice governed Ravenna by _provveditori_ and _podesta_, as
happily and successfully, it might seem, as she governed Venetia and a
part of Lombardy.
Pages:
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388