THE LADY OF VERONA

"_Puella autem moriens dixit: 'Satanas, trado tibi corpus meum cum
anima mea.'" (Quadragesimale opus declamatum Parisiis in ecclesia Sti.
Johannis in Gravia per venerabilem patrem Sacrae scripturae
interpretem eximium Ol. Maillardum, 1511._)[1]

[Footnote 1: "But the dying girl said, 'Satan, I give over my body to
you along with my soul.'" (Lenten Sermon preached at Paris in the Church
of St. Jean-en-Grève by that venerable father and excellent expounder of
Holy Scripture, Olivier Maillard, 1511.)]


_The following was found by the Reverend Father Adone Doni, in the
Archives of the Monastery of Santa Croce, at Verona._

Signora Eletta of Verona was so wondrous fair and of so perfect a grace
of body, that the learned of the city, they who had knowledge of history
and legend, were used to call her lady mother by the names of Latona,
Leda and Semele, making implication thereby of their belief that the
fruit of her womb had been framed in her by a god, Jupiter, rather than
by any mortal man, such as were her husband and lovers. But the wiser
heads, notably the Fra Battista, whose successor I am as Superior of
Santa Croce, held that such exceeding beauty of the flesh came of the
operation of the Devil, who is an artist in the sense the dying Nero
understood the word when he said, "_Qualis artifex pereo!_"[1] And we
may be sure Satan, the enemy of God, who is cunning to work the metals,
excels likewise in the moulding of human flesh.

[Footnote 1: "What an artist dies in me!" "Oh! the loss to Art! the loss