[133] We have very few notices of his sporting tastes; but the Vatican collection of his letters includes one of the King of France, on sending, at his request, a brace of dogs.
[*134] The palace of Urbino was indeed the wonder of the age. Dennistoun, however, tells us little or nothing about Federigo's villas. The gardens of Lorenzo de' Medici at Poggio a Caiano were provided with every vegetable, both for ornament and use, which the most diligent search could supply. Indeed, his was one of the first collections of plants made in Europe. Alessandro Braccio, in a Latin poem addressed to Bernardo Bembo, gives a graphic account of it. Laurentian Library, Plut. LXXXVI., sup. cod. 41. Band. Cat., III., 787. The poem is given by Roscoe, Lorenzo de' Medici, App. XXV.
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"Nunc ager Umbreni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli Dictus; erat nulli proprius, sed cedit in usum Nunc mihi, nunc aliis." Horace, Sat., ii. 2. |
[136] See, as to later statistics of the duchy, the Appendix to Vol. III.
[137] Sismondi says the 14th; Harris Nicolas the 15th or 16th; Baldi mentions the morrow of the Assumption, which would be the 16th; but Berni specifies the fourth hour, or midnight of Tuesday the 14th, which corresponds with the calendar of that year.
[138] Gonfaloniere, originally signifying standard-bearer, was the title of supreme command in the papal armies, and is so used throughout these volumes when applied to the dukes of Urbino. In Florence, and other old republics, it meant the chief magistrate for the time, and it is still employed in the same sense throughout many towns, especially in the ecclesiastical states. The gonfalone, or banner of the Church, was and is now white, with the golden cross-keys, surmounted by the umbrella-shaped baldachino, or canopy, usually carried over the Pope in processions. This device was borne on the armorial shields of the Gonfalonieri, impaled between their proper quarterings, as seen on the stamp outside of these volumes. The golden keys surmounted by a triple tiara is another common pontifical device, used in place of a crest.
[139] Muzio, p. 389.
[140] Ricotti (Storia delle Compagnie di Ventura in Italia, 1844, vol. III., pp. 191-201) ably reviews the evidence on both sides, and satisfactorily disposes of an error which had been received during three centuries and a half.[*D]
[*D] Cf. also C.M. Ady, op. cit., p. 78, for a well-argued defence of Sforza.