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Re: Valery Rees' query about whether the marriage was real. There has been an awful lot of work done on the late medieval marriage ceremonies in Florence in particular. Yes, it is possible to be married by giving the bride a ring, without a priest. That was an early phase of contracting the marriage. Also, afterward (at least in Florence) there was the custom of the womenfolk of the (groom's ?) family presenting the new bride with rings. If you want bibliography on this, I have it packed up in boxes at the moment. Suffice it to say, that the marriage customs where considerably different from today's. There seems no doubt on the point that she would have been actually married, even if it were only the first phase of the process. (Recall, for example, the legend of how the Guelf/Ghibelline split occurred when a bride was gilted by the prospective groom - G. Villani tells this I believe. Sorry - my citations are fuzzy because I'm not by my books right now.) Gloria Allaire %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%