more than four hundred in number; and
then the chariot, or triumphal car, covered with ornaments,
trophies, and most bizarre things of fancy; altogether, a thing
which makes men's intellects more subtle, and gives great pleasure
and satisfaction to the people.

[Illustration: PERSEUS DELIVERING ANDROMEDA

(_After the panel by =Piero di Cosimo=. Florence: Uffizi, 1312_)

_Brogi_]

Among these spectacles, which were numerous and ingenious, it is my
pleasure to give a brief description of one, which was contrived
mostly by Piero, when he was already of a mature age, and which was
not, like many, pleasing through its beauty, but, on the contrary,
on account of a strange, horrible, and unexpected invention, gave no
little satisfaction to the people: for even as in the matter of food
bitter things sometimes give marvellous delight to the human palate,
so do horrible things in such pastimes, if only they be carried out
with judgment and art; which is evident in the representation of
tragedies. This was the Car of Death, wrought by him with the
greatest secrecy in the Sala del Papa, so that nothing could ever be
found out about it, until it was seen and known at one and the same
moment. This triumphal chariot was an enormous car drawn by
buffaloes, black all over and painted with skeletons and white
crosses; and upon the highest point of the car stood a colossal
figure of Death, scythe in hand, and right round the car were a
number of covered tombs; and at all the places where the procession
halted for the chanting of dirges, these tombs opened, and from them
issued figures draped in black cloth, upon which were painted all
the bones of a skeleton, over their arms, breasts, flanks, and legs;
which, what with the white over the black, and the appearing in the
distance of some figures carrying torches, with masks that
represented a death's head both in front and behind, as well as the
neck, not only gave an appearance of the greatest reality, but was
also horrible and terrifying to behold. And these figures of the
dead, at the sound of certain muffled trumpets, low and mournful in
tone, came half out of their tombs, and, seating themselves upon
them, sang to music full of melancholy that song so celebrated at
the present day: "Dolor, pianto, e penitenzia." Before and after the
car came a great number of the dead, riding on certain horses picked
out with the greatest diligence from among the leanest and most
meagre that coul