Daughters of the Doge by Edward Charles Page A

Department of Greek and ask for me. You will be expected.’
    We finished our business and returned to the table separately. I wondered what tomorrow would bring.

 
    C HAPTER 13
     
    January the 15th 1556 – Department of Greek Studies, University of Padua
     
    Another cold morning, and the prospect of another crisp but sunny day to come. After eight weeks together, the three of us seemed to have made an unspoken agreement, and we quietly went our separate ways, perhaps seeking the solitude we had been denied since leaving Louvain.
    Thomas breakfasted early and crossed the road to the university, intent on ferreting out old friends, and we did not expect to see him again for the rest of the day The earl had learned that Peter Vannes, English Ambassador to the Republic of Venice, was in Padua on a visit and expecting his arrival. He set off to meet him shortly after Thomas’s departure.
    After completing a hearty breakfast, I took to the city streets to explore. The Via San Canziano led me into the open space of the Piazza delle Herbe, crowded and noisy with the enthusiastic cries of the vegetable market, and I picked my way through the stalls to sit in the morning sunshine against the loggia of the Palazzo della Ragione opposite, where, they told me, the courts of justice sat.
    There was no wind, and the walls around me seemed to have held the warmth from yesterday’s sun, so that, early as it was, there was no chill, although the fields outside the city walls had been ice-bound when we arrived yesterday. The winter sun soaked into me and made me feel alive. I began to think about Venice. Would it be like this, I wondered: the sun, the architecture, the frenetic but humorous activity and the general feeling of well-being? Having escaped the chill of England under Queen Mary, I looked forward to spending some time – who knew how long? – in this most civilized part of the world.
    As my thoughts drifted to my planned meeting with Cheke at noon, my mood changed and I felt troubled again. Somehow, I thought, today’s meeting would lead me back towards conflict and not away from it. I trusted Cheke – his honesty, his competence and his judgement – but I did not know who else would attend the meeting, nor the subject we would be discussing. It was exciting but also disturbing, and I felt the need to walk once again.
    Circling left around the building behind me, I passed the tall tower of the Palazzi Communali and the city offices. The doorway was like the entrance to an ants’ nest, with endless arrivals and departures, yet each individual had an apparent sense of purpose, so that none dithered, but each made his way hurriedly in a clear direction. I decided I liked this city, and began to understand why Thomas had felt such a sense of homecoming as we had approached it yesterday.
    I wandered on, left again, across the Piazza dei Frutti and into the Piazza dei Signori. Before me stood the Corte Capitaniato, another imposing building, from which a lute sang sweetly in the morning air. Even the bustle of the people around me did not spoil the music’s charm but somehow enhanced it; as if a solitary bird was singing high above a marketplace, waiting for the opportunity of dropped food.
    To my left was the Loggia della Gran Guardia – quite a new building and, I was told, the meeting place of the Council of Nobles. Once again, the stonework was a golden yellow and the roof tiles a warm terracotta. It was like having summer cornfields and autumn foliage in the middle of winter. How well the people of this city ordered their lives, I thought. It was no wonder that wealth was growing in this part of the world and that, with the notable exception of Hans Holbein, the great painters were now to be found here in the Italian states – in Rome, Florence and Venice.
    There was so much I wanted to see and experience, but the world of painting was perhaps the most important. Thomas had drilled into me the need to record accurately