Page:Romola (London 1863) v1.djvu/155

Rh The "towers" of which Tito spoke were a part of the procession esteemed very glorious by the Florentine populace; and having their origin, perhaps, in a confused combination of the tower-shaped triumphal car which the Romans borrowed from the Etruscans, with a kind of hyperbole for the all-efficacious wax taper, were also called ceri. But inasmuch as all hyperbole is impracticable in a real and literal fashion, these gigantic ceri, some of them so large as to be of necessity carried on wheels, were not solid but hollow, and had their surface made not solely of wax, but of wood and pasteboard, gilded, carved, and painted, as real sacred tapers often are, with successive circles of figures—warriors on horseback, foot soldiers with lance and shield, dancing maidens, animals, trees and fruits, and in fine, says the old chronicler, "all things that could delight the eye and the heart;" the hollowness having the further advantage that men could stand inside these hyperbolic tapers and whirl them continually, so as to produce a phantasmagoric effect, which, considering the towers were numerous, must have been calculated to produce dizziness on a truly magnificent scale.

"Pestilenza!" said Piero di Cosimo, moving from the window, "those whirling circles one above the other are worse than the jangling of all the bells. Let me know when the last taper has passed."

"Nay, you will surely like to be called when the contadini come carrying their torches," said Nello;