[221] These being the insignia of the Pope, Florence, and Siena. See Della Valle, Lettere Sanese, II., 47.
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"Sistere qui potuit nullo cum fœdere Sixtus, Audito tantum nomine pacis, obiit." MSS. Bib. Magliab. Cl. vii. No. 345. |
[*223] Cf. Ambrogio da Paullo, Cronaca Milanese, 1476-1515.
[224] We have spoken of this above.
[*225] Cf. Pasolini, Caterina Sforza. It was Ludovico and Cecco Orsi who slew Girolamo, with the aid of two soldiers.
[226] The current edition of this anecdote, though somewhat too gross for literal translation, is curiously illustrative of the determined character of its heroine. It is thus recounted by Boccalini, in his Ragguagli di Parnasso:—"Onde i congiurati così vedendosi ingannati, apertamente le protestarono, che in pezzi avanti gli occhi le havrebbono tagliati i suoi Figliuoli, s'ella non consegnava loro la Rocca nelli mani, e ch'ella per quelle horrende minaccie, in tanto non si spaventò punto, che anzi alzatesi le vesti, e loro mostrando le parte vergognose, disse, che de' suoi Figliuoli facessero a voglia loro, che a lei rimaneva la stampa di rifarne degli altri." He represents Caterina as demanding, on the merits of this action, admission into Parnassus, whereupon Apollo decides, after ample discussion, that although "il sempre contenersi entro i termini della modestia, fosse obbligo delle donne private, disse, che le Principesse nate di alto sangue, negli accidenti gravi, che occurrevano loro, erano obbligate mostrar virilità." Bonolli, in his history of Forlì, tells the same story, and Vallery characterises the expedient of the Countess as "noblement impudique, et moins mère que femme de parti." Those who wish to compare the various authorities on this point will find them enumerated by Sismondi, chap. lxxxix. A letter of the conspirators to Lorenzo de' Medici, printed by Roscoe, Appendix, No. 24, tends to clear him of that participation in their crime of which he was suspected.
[227] Urb. MSS. No. 1248. It was compiled after the death of Duke Federigo, and apparently for his son's court.
[*228] Castiglione, Il Cortegiano (Firenze Sansoni, 1894), Lett. Dedic. I., lib. I., iv.; III., ii.; III., xlix. Cf. also Bembo, Lettere, IV., i., 31.
[229] In the Laurentian Library (Plut. 91. No. 44, f. 57) there is a laboured Latin epithalamium in ninety-six lines, written on this marriage by Marcial de Gathe of Mantua, among his poems which are dedicated to Bernardo Bembo.