Now, it had been known in
Urbino ever since Pacifica had gone to her first communion that
whoever pleased her father well enough to become his partner would
have also to please her as her husband. Not much attention was
given to maidens' wishes in those times, and no one thought the
master-potter either unjust or cruel in thus suiting himself
before he suited his daughter. And what made the hearts of all the
young men quake and sink the lowest was the fact that Signer
Benedetto offered the competition, not only to his own apprentices,
but to any native of the duchy of Urbino. For who could tell what
hero might not step forth from obscurity and gain the great prize
of this fair hand of Pacifica's? And with her hand would go many
a broad gold ducat, and heritage of the wide old gray stone house,
and many an old jewel and old brocade that were kept there in dusky
sweet-smelling cabinets, and also more than one good piece of land,
smiling with corn and fruit trees, outside the gates in the lower
pastures to the westward.
Luca, indeed, never thought of these things, but the other three
pupils did, and other youths as well. Had it not been for the
limitation as to birth within the duchy, many a gallant young
painter from the other side of the Apennines, many a lusty
vasalino or boccalino from the workshops of fair Florence herself,
or from the Lombard cities, might have traveled there in hot haste
as fast as horses could carry them, and come to paint the clay for
the sake of so precious a recompense.
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