Note [123] page 63. In a note to this passage, Cian says: “Abito [rendered ‘habit of mind’] is a special condition or habitual quality of the mind, which manifests itself outwardly in a special costume [rendered ‘habitual tendency’], or equally habitual behaviour, which in turn reacts upon the disposition and moral attitude of the individual.”
Note [124] page 64. Lycurgus probably lived in the 9th century B.C., and was the reputed author of the Spartan laws and institutions.
Note [125] page 64. Epaminondas, a Theban general, defeated the Spartans at Leuctra in 371 B.C. and at Mantinea in 362 B.C., and lost his life in the latter battle.
Note [126] page 64. Themistocles, the Athenian statesman and general, persuaded the Greeks to resist the second Persian invasion by naval force at Salamis in 480 B.C.
Note [127] page 64. One of the finest of the Pompeian frescoes represents the centaur Chiron teaching Achilles to play upon the lyre.
Note [128] page 64. The reference here is of course to the familiar story of Orpheus and the beasts.
Note [129] page 64. Castiglione doubtless had in mind the legend of Arion, a Greek poet of Lesbos, who probably flourished about 700 B.C. We have a fragment of his verse addressed to Poseidon and telling of the dolphins, who had wafted the poet safely to land when he had lost his course.
Note [130] page 65. As we shall see, the Magnifico’s request was not complied with until the second evening (page 81).
Note [131] page 65. Quintus Fabius Pictor was a Roman general who served in the Second Punic War, and wrote a Greek history of Rome, much esteemed by the ancients, but now lost. Pliny affirms that Fabius painted the temple in the 450th year after the founding of Rome (i.e. 300 B.C.), and that the painting was still extant about the beginning of our era.
Note [132] page 66. The Apollo Belvedere was discovered in 1503, the Laocoön group in 1506, and other famous antique statues only a few years earlier.