ulas. These elegant
specialities she gave away to old friends and visitors--enclosed in
delicate little glass and porcelain bottles and jars of her own design.

The fame of the Lady Cammilla's skill and patronage reached foreign
courts, and notable visitors to Florence did not fail to pay their
courtesies to the great lady of the convent. Two of these, the
Archpriest Monsignore Simone Fortuna, confessor of the Duke of Urbino,
and Cavaliere Ercole Cortile, the ambassador of Ferrara, have recorded
their visits and their pleasure at seeing "La Serena Signora" in genial
company and philanthropically employed. The wily priest added, with
sanctimonious admiration for female beauty: "La Martelli is as
fascinating as ever!"

Still, liberty is liberty, and captivity--even when made as attractive
and as unoppressive as possible--is still captivity. The Lady Cammilla
never left the confines of her convent for twelve long years, and not
till 4th February 1586 was she allowed a _conge_. Then a sumptuous
cavalcade, with splendid sedan-chairs, halted at the main portal of
Santa Monica, and out of one stepped the Grand Duchess Bianca, in
gorgeous State robes. She had come to escort in person the Lady
Cammilla, with every mark of respect and honour, to the marriage of her
daughter, Virginia de' Medici!

The young girl was just eighteen, passably old for a sixteenth-century
noble bride! In 1575, she had been assigned as the consort in prospect
of Cavaliere Mario Sforza, General of the army of the Grand Duke
Francesco. The match, however, was broken off, when Cardinal Alessandro
Sforza died, and left an immense fortune, but not to his nephew Mario,
as had been expected; and so Mario proved to be too poor a suitor for
the girl's hand.

Mario, on his side, had cooled much in his ardour for Virginia. Reports
of the Cardinal de' Medici's--Ferdinando's--familiarities, not only with
the mother, but with the daughter also, were rife in Florence and in
Rome. Sufficient grounds there were for him to accept the cancellation
of the proposal with equanimity. The Marchese, for so he had been
created, was not a whit more virtuous than the men of his day, but the
sensuous are always the harshest judges of their kind!

No, Virginia was, after all, married to Don Cesare d'Este, Duke of
Modena. She had by the way, been promised, in 1581, to Francesco Sforza
di Santa Fiora, but he changed his mind and renounced the
world--conventionally of course--to