Explore "The Strolling Saint" by Rafael Sabatini on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In the Chamber of Justice of the Communal Palace sat that day not the Assessors of the Ruota, but the Councillors in their damask robes--the Council of Ten of the City of Piacenza. And to preside over them sat not their Prior, but Ferrante Gonzaga himself, in a gown of scarlet velvet edged with miniver.
They sat at a long table draped in red at the room's end, Gonzaga slightly above them on a raised dais, under a canopy. Behind him hung a golden shield upon which was figured, between two upright columns each surmounted by a crown, the double-headed black eagle of Austria; a scroll intertwining the pillars was charged with the motto "PLUS ULTRA."