A consideration of the life of the Countess Matilda points to the fact
that there was but this one woman in all Italy at this time who _knew_
enough to take advantage of her opportunities and play a great rôle upon
the active stage of life. Many years were to pass before it could enter
the popular conception that all women were to be given their chance at a
fuller life, and even yet in sunny Italy, there is much to do for
womankind. Then, as now, the skies were blue, and the sun was bright and
warm; then, as now, did the peasants dance and sing all the way from
water-ribbed Venice to fair and squalid Naples, but with a difference.
Now, there is a measure of freedom to each and all--then, justice was
not only blind but went on crutches, and women were made to suffer
because they were women and because they could not defend, by force,
their own. Still, there is comfort in the fact that from this dead level
of mediocrity and impotence, one woman, the great Countess of Tuscany,
was able to rise up and show herself possessed of a great heart, a great
mind, and a great soul; and in her fullness of achievement, there was
rich promise for the future.




Chapter II

The Neapolitan Court in the Time of Queen Joanna


If you drive along the beautiful shore of the Mergellina to-day, beneath
the high promontory of Pausilipo, to the southwest of Naples, you will
see there in ruins the tumbling rocks and stones of an unfinished
palace, with the blue sea breaking over its foundations; and that is