As the crowds caught sight of Qara Koz a whisper began to spread through the city, becoming a murmur that had the effect of hushing all the riotous sounds of the day, so that by the time Argalia and the ladies arrived at the Palazzo Cocchi del Nero an extraordinary silence had fallen, as the people of Florence contemplated the arrival in their midst of physical perfection, a dark beauty to fill the hole left in their hearts by Simonetta Vespucci's death. Within moments of her coming she had been taken to the city's heart as its special face, its new symbol of itself, the incarnation in human form of that unsurpassable loveliness which the city itself possessed. The Dark Lady of Florence: poets reached for their pens, artists for their brushes, sculptors for their chisels.