annielefroy:The only evidence of a meeting between the future Grand Duchess of Moscow and the wife o
annielefroy:The only evidence of a meeting between the future Grand Duchess of Moscow and the wife of Lorenzo the Magnificent is a letter from Luigi Pulci addressed to signor de’ Medici. The poet does not skimp on caustic remarks about the bride’s appearance. The description made by him is one big hyperbole, it hardly deserves close attention. However, the scurrilous epistle makes it clear —in 1472 the paths of two prominent women of their time crossed for a moment. “Your wife was looking as if she was bewitched,” writes Pulci “at this ludicrous distortion of feminine beauty, and listened mesmerized to the words of the translator.”Sophia, who had spent almost twenty years in Rome and received a brilliant education, deliberately did not speak Italian on the day of the engagement, trying to emphasize her Greek origin in front of the Prince’s envoys. After all, it was the reason for how rapidly her fate was changing. Pulci quips: “All day long, until the evening, she was talking in Greek, but never invited us to have some food or drinks, neither in Greek nor in Latin or in Italian. However, she somehow managed to explain to Donna Clarice, that for the tailoring of her tight and ugly dress, she had used at least six pieces of expensive silk cloth, which would have been enough to the entire dome of Santa Maria Rotonda.” What Clarice thought of it all is unknown. -- source link
#history#clarice orsini#sophia palaiologina#15th century