But the Florentine Carnival surpassed the Roman in a certain class of processions, which have left their mark even in literature.Among a crowd of masks on foot and on horseback appeared some huge, fantastic chariots, and upon each an allegorical figure or group of figures with the proper accompaniments, such as Jealousy with four spectacled faces on one head; the four temperaments with the planets belonging to them;the three Fates; Prudence enthroned above Hope and Fear, which lay bound before her; the four Elements, Ages, Winds, Seasons, and so on;as well as the famous chariot of Death with the coffins, which presently opened.Sometimes we meet with a splendid scene from classical mythology--Bacchus and Ariadne, Paris and Helen, and others.
Or else a chorus of figures forming some single class or category, as the beggars, the hunters and nymphs, the lost souls who in their lifetime were hardhearted women, the hermits, the astrologers, the vagabonds, the devils, the sellers of various kinds of wares, and even on one occasion 'il popolo,' the people as such, who all reviled one another in their songs.The songs, which still remain and have been collected, give the explanation of the masquerade sometimes pathetic, sometimes in a humorous, and sometimes in an excessively indecent tone.
Some of the worst in this respect are attributed to Lorenzo the Magnificent, probably because the real author did not venture to declare himself.However this may be, we must certainly ascribe to him the beautiful song which accompanied the masque of Bacchus and Ariadne, whose refrain still echoes to us from the fifteenth century, like a regretful presentiment of the brief splendor of the Renaissance itself:
'Quanto ?bella giovinezza, Che si fugge tuttavia!
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia:
Di doman non c'?certezza.'