front of the bronze horses, he witnessed the chivalric shows given in the
Piazza below, which was then unpaved, and admirably adapted for equestrian
feats of arms. It is curious to read the poet's account of these in a city
where there is now no four-footed beast larger than a dog. But in the age
of chivalry even the Venetians were mounted, and rode up and down their
narrow streets, and jousted in their great campos.

Speaking of twenty-four noble and handsome youths, whose feats formed a
chief part of a show of which he "does not know if in the whole world
there has been seen the equal," Petrarch says: "It was a gentle sight to
see so many youths decked in purple and gold, as they ruled with the rein
and urged with the spur their coursers, moving in glittering harness, with
iron-shod feet which scarcely seemed to touch the ground." And it must
have been a noble sight, indeed, to behold all this before the "golden
facade of the temple," in a place so packed with spectators "that a grain
of barley could not have fallen to the ground. The great piazza, the
church itself, the towers, the roofs, the arcades, the windows, all were--
I will not say full, but running over, walled and paved with people." At
the right of the church was built a great platform, on which sat "four
hundred honestest gentlewomen, chosen from the flower of the nobility, and
distinguished in their dress and bearing, who, amid the continual homage
offered them morning, noon, and night, presented the image of a celestial
congress." Some noblemen, come hither by chance, "from the part of
Britain, comrades and kinsmen of their King, were present," and attracted
the notice of the poet. The feasts lasted many days, but on the third day
Petrarch excused himself to the Doge, pleading, he says, his "ordinary
occupations, already known to all."

Among remoter feasts in honor of national triumphs, was one on the Day of
the Annunciation, commemorative of the removal of the capital of the