[137] Purg. v. 133-136.
[138] Vasari.
[139] V. Lusini, Il San Giovanni di Siena, p. 14.
[140] “That vain folk which hopes in Talamone, and will lose more hope there than in finding the Diana,” Purg. xiii. 151-153. The Diana was a subterranean stream supposed to exist under Siena for which, in 1295, the General Council of the Campana decreed that the search should be undertaken.
[141] Documenti, ii. p. 337; cf. Allegretto, Diari, 773. Notice the title Spectabilità; in a less democratic city than Siena, they would have been Magnificence. Incidentally, we may observe (a point frequently missed by English writers, especially of fiction dealing with the Italian Renaissance) that Magnificence was a much less pretentious title at the end of the Quattrocento than it sounds to us now, being little more than the equivalent of “Your Worship” or “Your Honour” (though also applied to ambassadors); while Excellence was, until the middle of the sixteenth century, reserved for quasi-independent potentates, such as the Duke of Ferrara or the Marquis of Mantua, ruling fiefs of the Church or Empire.
[142] See pp. [88], [89]. In reading these documents, it should be borne in mind that the Sienese and Florentine year (but not the Roman) began on March 25th. The same rule applies to the dates on the Tavolette of the Biccherna and Gabella.
[143] Rondoni, Sena Vetus, p. 37. For further information upon the Tavolette the reader may be referred to Mr W. Heywood’s charming little book, A Pictorial Chronicle of Siena, to which I am indebted.
[144] Cf. Heywood, op. cit. p. 69.
[145] “The fury of arms having cooled down on every side, the Pope [Paul II.] easily found means to conclude an universal peace between the powers of Italy, wherein was named the Republic of Siena, in the name of which it was accepted and ratified by Messer Niccolò Severini, Sienese orator in Rome, in the month of May 1468.” Malavolti, iii. 4, p. 70 b.
[146] Diari Senesi, 813. The Cardinal Malfetta is G. B. Cibo, afterwards Innocent VIII., cf. p. 76.