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CHAPTER II.

May2ist, Casola Introduced to Agostino Contarini.—
Visit to the Milanese Ambassador.—Situation of
Venice.—The Ducal Palace and Plans for the
Restoration.—The Sforza Palace.—Piazzas.—Mer¬
chandise and Warehouses. — Provisions.—Flour
Market and Bread Shops.—Meat.—Fowls.—Fish.—
Fruit and Vegetables.—^Wine.—Drinking Water.—
Splendour of Venetian Edifices.—Casola's Meeting
with Fra Francesco Trivulzio and his Friends.

On Wednesday, the 21st of May, I took one of the Milanese
couriers to guide me about Venice, and went to the houses
of the merchants for whom I had letters, and to each one
I gave his own. Then, as I was afraid of not finding a
place in the galley, I was immediately introduced to the
Magnificent Don Agostino Contarini,^ a Venetian patrician
and captain of the Jaffa galley—thus the galley is
named which carries the pilgrims going to Jerusalem—
and he ordered my name to be written in the Pilgrims'
Book.2 At this time I found that I had been in too great
a hurry to leave home, and that I must wait several days
before the departure of the said galley.

In order that the tediousness of waiting should not
make me desire to turn back and do as the children of
Israel did when they went into the Promised Land, I
determined to examine carefully the city of Venice, about
which so much has been said and written, not only by

1.    See Introduction, pp. 95-101.

2.    The Pilgrims' Book was the Register of the Contracts, between Patroni and
Pilgrims, kept in the office of the Cattaveri,