————Vallis te proxima misit,
Appenninigenæ qua prata virentia sylvæ
Spoletana metunt armenta gregesque protervi.
Monaldeschi (tom. xii. Script. Ital. p. 533) gives the Ursini a French origin, which may be remotely true.]
105 ([return])
[ In the metrical life of Celestine V. by the cardinal of St. George (Muratori, tom. iii. P. i. p. 613, &c.,) we find a luminous, and not inelegant, passage, (l. i. c. 3, p. 203 &c.:)—
————genuit quem nobilis Ursæ (Ursi?)
Progenies, Romana domus, veterataque magnis
Fascibus in clero, pompasque experta senatûs,
Bellorumque manû grandi stipata parentum
Cardineos apices necnon fastigia dudum
Papatûs iterata tenens.
Muratori (Dissert. xlii. tom. iii.) observes, that the first Ursini pontificate of Celestine III. was unknown: he is inclined to read Ursi progenies.]
106 ([return])
[ Filii Ursi, quondam Clestini papæ nepotes, de bonis ecclesiæ Romanæ ditati, (Vit. Innocent. III. in Muratori, Script. tom. iii. P. i.) The partial prodigality of Nicholas III. is more conspicuous in Villani and Muratori. Yet the Ursini would disdain the nephews of a modern pope.]
107 ([return])
[ In his fifty-first Dissertation on the Italian Antiquities, Muratori explains the factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines.]