He invented
the most extravagant disguises, to be worn by some of his more
intimate friends; he arranged grotesque dances, to be performed
at stated periods of the evening by professional buffoons, hired
from Florence. He composed a toy symphony, which included solos
on every noisy plaything at that time manufactured for children's
use. And not content with thus avoiding the beaten track in
preparing the entertainments at the ball, he determined also to
show decided originality, even in selecting the attendants who
were to wait on the company. Other people in his rank of life
were accustomed to employ their own and hired footmen for this
purpose; the marquis resolved that his attendants should be
composed of young women only; that two of his rooms should be
fitted up as Arcadian bowers; and that all the prettiest girls in
Pisa should be placed in them to preside over the refreshments,
dressed, in accordance with the mock classical taste of the
period, as shepherdesses of the time of Virgil.
The only defect of this brilliantly new idea was the difficulty
of executing it. The marquis had expressly ordered that not fewer
than thirty shepherdesses were to be engaged--fifteen for each
bower. It would have been easy to find double this number in
Pisa, if beauty had been the only quality required in the
attendant damsels. But it was also absolutely necessary, for the
security of the marquis's gold and silver plate, that the
shepherdesses should possess, besides good looks, the very homely
recommendation of a fair character.
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