The Day of the Betrothal

It was the last week of the Carnival, and the streets of Florence were at their fullest and noisiest:

• there were the masqued processions, chanting songs, indispensable now they had once been introduced by Lorenzo the Magnificent;
• there was the favourite rigoletto , or round dance, footed “in piazza” under the blue frosty sky;
• there were practical jokes of all sorts, from throwing comfits to throwing stones⁠—especially stones.

For the boys and striplings, always a strong element in Florentine crowds, became at the height of Carnival-time as loud and unmanageable as tree-crickets, and it was their immemorial privilege to bar the way with poles to all passengers, until a tribute had been paid towards furnishing those lovers of strong sensations with suppers and bonfires: to conclude with the standing entertainment of stone-throwing, which was not entirely monotonous, since the consequent maiming was various, and it was not always a single person who was killed.

So that the pleasures of the Carnival were of a checkered kind, and if a painter were called upon to represent them truly, he would have to make a picture in which there would be so much grossness and barbarity that it must be turned with its face to the wall, except when it was taken down for the grave historical purpose of justifying a reforming zeal which, in ignorance of the facts, might be unfairly condemned for its narrowness.