Train and Retinue of Noble Officers and Gentlemen, his store of Pages, Palfreniers, Guards with Swissers with Halbards, his Troop of Horse, waiting upon him, make this Court appear splendid.
The Great Duke.
The Duke himself also, who makes this Court, makes it a fine Court. His extraordinary Civility to Strangers, made us think our selves at home there. He is now above Fifty, and hath an Austrian Look and Lip, which his Mother Magdalena of Austria, Sister to the Emperour Ferdinand the II. lent him. He admits willingly of the Visits of Strangers, if they be Men of condition; and he receives them in the midst of his Audience-Chamber standing; and will not discourse with them, till they be covered too. It's impossible to depart from him disgusted, because he pays your Visit with as much Wit as Civility: and having entertained you in his Chamber with Wise discourse, he will entertain you in your own Chamber too with a Regalo of dainty Meats and Wines, which he will be sure to send you.
The Great Dutchess.
The Great Dutchefs too is another main Pillar of this Court.—She is of the House of the Duke of Urbin, once a Soveraign Prince in Italy , but now extinct in her Father, who was the last Duke: and she had been Soveraign of that Dutchy, had she been of the Soveraign Sexe: but what Nature refused her in Sex, it hath given her in Beauty, and so made her a Greater Soveraign, even of Florence. In a word, Florence the Fair, was never so fair, as was the Fair Dutchess of Florence, when I saw her first. Of her the Great Duke hath two Sons. Cosmus the Prince of Toscany hath married one of the Daughters of the late Duke of Orleans.He
