Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/90

78, those she saw the very Sala del Consiglio could not have contained. Ippolita at war with the Athenian, or leading her Amazons afield; Ippolita turning her unmaimed side to an adoring warrior (the painter) and you, or suckling Ippolita (with the artist's strongly marked features) in an ivied ruin with peacocks about it; Ippolita in a colonnade at Athens on the right hand of the king—thus she saw herself daily; thus the old palace walls of Padua, if they could yield up their tinged secrets through the coats of lime, would show her rosy limbs and crowned head. Mantegna has her armoured, with greaves to the knee and spiked cups on her breastplate. Gian Bellini carried her to Venice, to lead Scythians in trousers against Theseus in plate-armour and a blazoned shield. Giorgione set her burning in the shade, trying to cool her golden flank in deep mosses by a well.

All this, and much more, Ippolita endured because she was a good as well as a beautiful girl. Sometimes she wept in a friend's arms, sometimes (really frightened) she sought her parish priest; mostly it was the wonder-working Virgin in Sant' Antonio or, at the greatest stress, the Saint's own black sarcophagus in the lighted chapel, to lay upon it a feverish palm or hot, indignant cheek. By some such aids as these she preserved entire her head, her heart, all her precious store, so that no flattery ever tarnished the clear glass of her mind, no assaults, however fierce, could bruise the root of modesty within her.

Her father, vexed man, at first felt the glory