The Grand Duchess Bianca, who, with characteristic sweetness and generosity, had all along sympathised with poor Lady Cammilla, was the best customer of the convent industries, and, moreover, she frequently visited the gentle prisoner, and showed her many charming attentions.  For two Medici brides, also, Cammilla superintended the preparation of trousseaux—­her own daughter Virginia, Duke Cosimo’s child, and the Grand Duke’s eldest daughter, Maria, who married King Henry IV. of France.

Another sort of employment found in the Lady Cammilla an earnest and skilful directress, namely, the manufacture of sweetmeats, preserves, compotes, pastries, and every sort of delectable confectionery.  Perfumes and liqueurs—­usually the piquant produce of monasteries—­were also cunningly extracted by Cammilla’s subtle formulas.  These elegant specialities she gave away to old friends and visitors—­enclosed in delicate little glass and porcelain bottles and jars of her own design.

The fame of the Lady Cammilla’s skill and patronage reached foreign courts, and notable visitors to Florence did not fail to pay their courtesies to the great lady of the convent.  Two of these, the Archpriest Monsignore Simone Fortuna, confessor of the Duke of Urbino, and Cavaliere Ercole Cortile, the ambassador of Ferrara, have recorded their visits and their pleasure at seeing “La Serena Signora” in genial company and philanthropically employed.  The wily priest added, with sanctimonious admiration for female beauty:  “La Martelli is as fascinating as ever!”

Still, liberty is liberty, and captivity—­even when made as attractive and as unoppressive as possible—­is still captivity.  The Lady Cammilla never left the confines of her convent for twelve long years, and not till 4th February 1586 was she allowed a conge.  Then a sumptuous cavalcade, with splendid sedan-chairs, halted at the main portal of Santa Monica, and out of one stepped the Grand Duchess Bianca, in gorgeous State robes.  She had come to escort in person the Lady Cammilla, with every mark of respect and honour, to the marriage of her daughter, Virginia de’ Medici!

The young girl was just eighteen, passably old for a sixteenth-century noble bride!  In 1575, she had been assigned as the consort in prospect of Cavaliere Mario Sforza, General of the army of the Grand Duke Francesco.  The match, however, was broken off, when Cardinal Alessandro Sforza died, and left an immense fortune, but not to his nephew Mario, as had been expected; and so Mario proved to be too poor a suitor for the girl’s hand.

Mario, on his side, had cooled much in his ardour for Virginia.  Reports of the Cardinal de’ Medici’s—­Ferdinando’s—­familiarities, not only with the mother, but with the daughter also, were rife in Florence and in Rome.  Sufficient grounds there were for him to accept the cancellation of the proposal with equanimity.  The Marchese, for so he had been created, was not a whit more virtuous than the men of his day, but the sensuous are always the harshest judges of their kind!