[109] Comment. Pii Papæ II., pp. 129, 131, 184, 203.
[110] Muratori says that the battle of the Cesano was fought on the 26th; but we prefer the date given by Berni, who makes it commence on a Thursday night, being the 12th, not the 13th, which Sismondi has adopted for the combat.
[111] Papal bulls and briefs, when abusive, are often more pungent than dignified, and their epithets sometimes baffle translation. In this instance, the meaning being filtered through the slovenly Italian version of Muzio, may have lost somewhat of its point. The obscure mention of menial offices in the Pope's service, is perhaps a clumsy allusion to some now forgotten proverb.
[112] So say Muzio and Baldi. Pius II. and Reposati print the letter as from his brother Malatesta Novello, lord of Cesena, brother-in-law of Federigo, a prince who shared, without deserving, his brother's fate, and whose love of literature, differing widely from that of the vainglorious Sigismondo, continues to benefit posterity in the fine old library which he founded at Cesena, where its ponderous tomes remain chained to their stalls as he left them four centuries ago. See his verses in [I. of the Appendices].
[113] Muzio says in four days, Baldi in eighteen.
[114] Urb. Vat. MSS. No. 1236, her funeral oration.
[115] Baldi, Vita e fatti di Federigo, III., p. 59.
[116] Vat Urb. MSS. No. 829, f. 55. Other nearly similar lists of his household are preserved in No. 1248 of that library, and in Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3141, f. 144, and Oliveriana MSS. No. 384, f. 1. There is no date affixed to any of these, but they were probably drawn up after he had attained the ducal dignity.
[117] Ordine ed Officii della Corte del Serenissimo Signore il Duca de Urbino, Urb. Vat. MSS. No. 1248.
[118] Memorie concernenti la Città d'Urbino. It was edited by Monsignor Bianchini, and was meant to extend to four folio volumes, illustrating: (1) the city of Urbino; (2) the princes who ruled there; (3) its most famous citizens; (4) their works. Of these only the first volume saw the light, at the expense of Pope Clement XI., an Albani of Urbino. It contains, 1st, Baldi's prolix and fulsome Encomio della Patria; 2nd, his equally dull description of the ducal palace, with seventy-four engravings of its architecture and sculpture; 3rd, Bianchini's catalogue of the sculptured trophies, with seventy-two engravings; 4th, his geometrical survey of the province of Urbino in 1723. It is a curious example of a volume compiled from promising materials, but destitute of interest, and is dedicated to an English exile whose name, once a watchword ominous to our island, frequently meets us in Central Italy, and whose wanderings here found a brief repose. See an account of the Chevalier de St. George's residence at Urbino, in an article on the Stuarts in Italy, contributed by the author of these pages to the Quarterly Review for December, 1847, vol. LXXX.