A Jay of Italy

It was the early rapture of the renaissance, penetrating like an April song into these newly reclaimed lands. The wind blew from Florence, and all the peaceful vales, so long tr...

In the first hours of their fearful doom he was more full of wonder than alarm--astounded, in the swooning sense. He had not come yet to realise the mortal nature of their punis...

'Rogue,' she said, 'to tease and vex me, and all the time this talisman in thy sleeve. Ay, make the most of it: snuffle and root. My dog has deserved of me.'

Now, a woman-petted, cake-fed belswagger is too much of an anomaly for the test of nerves. Tassino, shouted at, gave an hysteric jump which brought him to the very brink of tear...

On a hot morning, in the year 1476 of poignant memory, there drew up before an osteria on the Milan road a fair cavalcade of travellers. These were Messer Carlo Lanti and his in...

She had not been able to realise her own impotence to disarm an antagonist already half-demoralised, as she believed this one to be. For, before ever she had precipitated this e...

'Ay, prophesy!' thundered a fourth voice; and a fist like a rammer crashed upon the assailant's face, spread-eagling it. The man went down in a welter. Bembo fled to Lanti's arm...

'Why, look you, child, love may very well have its procurer--say a State Secretary, where love is of high standing. And thence may follow the subversion of a State. There's a pr...

'The moment thy back was turned. So quick he sped to discredit thee--to reverse thy judgments. The monk thou'd left to starve, a dog well-served--he'd release him, a fine text t...

It stood in a dusky corner by the dead forge. Not so much light as would certainly guide a hand was allowed to fall upon it; for deeds of darkness, to be successful, must be pre...

A dead silence fell. Some turned their faces in terror. Here and there a woman cried out. In the midst, Messer Jacopo raised his eyes to the battlements, and saw a white hand li...

'Often the court goes hunting the wolf or deer--I care not; or a-picnicking by the river, which I like, and where we catch trouts and lampreys to cook and eat on the green; then...

Shaking, but exultant in his evil little heart, he broke loose and led the way to a remote angle of the battlements, where the trunk of a great tower, like the drum of a hinge,...

He was a small, ill-formed, harsh-featured man, very soberly dressed, and with a cropped head--a feature sufficiently disdainful of the bushed and elaborately waved locks of tho...

It proved a simple one, after all--the more so as the animal, it appeared, was tenant in a very swarming warren, where concealment was easy. It was into a frowzy hole that, in t...

'Father Abbot, we thank you for your trust. We were less than human to abuse it. O, it flew with white wings to shelter in our bosom! Shall we be hawks to such a dove! Take comf...

The Duke lifted the cup shakily, stumbled at its brim, steadied himself, and sipped. His eyes dilated and grew wolfish--'I am vindicated,' he stuttered: 'O sweet little saint!'-...

Glooming and mumbling, he went back to the palace. A page met him with the message that the Duchess of Milan desired his attendance. He frowned, and went, as directed, to her pr...

'Yes, they have forgotten,' said the boy; and he began to sing so sweetly as he rode, that the other, after a grunt or two, sunk into a mere grudging rapture of listening.

Pity him in that minute. I think, poor wretch, his state was near the worse--so strong, and yet so helpless. He shrieked, he struck himself, he blasphemed. Monstrous? it was mon...

'I know nought of it,' growled the Fool. 'If you had but chose to tell me. I am no gossip. Bona's ring was it, and leased to thee? Mayhap the rain that night washed it from thy...

'Good trust--always the faithful trust. Why, Narcisso, what should I do betraying thee? We'll work and end together, and take our wages. Dead, do you say? Why, then, all's said....