Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis
Stare urbem et toto ponere jura mari:
Nunc mihi Tarpejas quantum vis Juppiter arceis
Objice et illa tui mœnia Martis ait,
Si pelago Tybrim praefers, urbem aspice utramque
Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse deos.
[628] Lettere de’principi, i. 88, 98.
[629] Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 508. At the end we read, in reference to the bull as the arms of the Borgia:
‘Merge, Tyber, vitulos animosas ultor in undas;
Bos cadat inferno victima magna Jovi!’
[630] On the whole affair, see Roscoe, Leone X., ed. Bossi, vii. 211, viii. 214 sqq. The printed collection, now rare, of these Coryciana of the year 1524 contains only the Latin poems; Vasari saw another book in the possession of the Augustinians in which were sonnets. So contagious was the habit of affixing poems, that the group had to be protected by a railing, and even hidden altogether. The change of Goritz into ‘Corycius senex’ is suggested by Virgil, Georg. iv. 127. For the miserable end of the man at the sack of Rome, see Pierio Valeriano, De infelic. literat. ed. Menken, p. 369.
[631] The work appeared first in the Coryciana, with introductions by Silvanus and Corycius himself; also reprinted in the Appendices to Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, and in the Deliciae. Comp. Paul. Jov. Elogia, speaking of Arsillus. Further, for the great number of the epigrammatists, see Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, l. c. One of the most biting pens was Marcantonio Casanova. Among the less known, Jo. Thomas Muscanius (see Deliciae) deserves mention. On Casanova, see Pier. Valer. De infel. lit. ed. Menken, p. 376 sqq.; and Paul. Jov. Elogia, p. 142 sqq., who says of him: ‘Nemo autem eo simplicitate ac innocentiâ vitae melior;’ Arsillus (l. c.) speaks of his ‘placidos sales.’ Some few of his poems in the Coryciana, J. 3 a sqq. L. 1 a, L. 4 b.
[632] Marin Sanudo, in the Vite de’duchi di Venezia, Murat. xii. quotes them regularly.
[633] Scardeonius, De urb. Patav. antiq. (Graev. thes. vi. 11, col. 270), names as the inventor a certain Odaxius of Padua, living about the middle of the fifteenth century. Mixed verses of Latin and the language of the country are found much earlier in many parts of Europe.
[634] It must not be forgotten that they were very soon printed with both the old Scholia and modern commentaries.
[635] Ariosto, Satira, vii. Date 1531.