The Ambassador of Ferrara Writes to His Prince About a Cool Party in 1572

Such throaty timbres – oboes and bassoons – such gowns! My Lady, apricot and plum, her sleeves ablaze with blue October moons – for one short night, her villa had become the very essence of elysium! To “fortify” us, as My Lady said, against the winter tedium to come, to banish melancholy, drive out dread, she threw an Autumn Ball. Delirium! We met the equinox with pipe and drum. The quality of Florence all attended, and never were Their Graces better fed! The sun was up before our revels ended – and Isabella? Still no thought of bed! Three further galliards she’d yet to tread. It seems I hear those trumpets even yet, and taste the sweetmeats of that epic spread (she’d plied us with light moscatel to whet the palate) – I believe my mortal head will throb for ever more, autumnal red!