[205] Riposati mistakes this for a metal weight. The French work does not venture on any conjecture as to the object represented.
[206] Mariotti's Italy.
[*207] For birth of Sixtus IV., cf. Creighton, op. cit., vol. IV., p. 65, and authorities there quoted. "His father was a poor peasant in a little village near Savona, and at the age of nine Francesco was handed over to the Franciscans to be educated. He acted for a time as tutor with the family of Rovere, in Piedmont, and from them he took the name by which he was afterwards known."
[208] Most of these were buried in the church of Sta. Maria del Popolo, at Rome, where their funeral inscriptions may be found.
[209] Cristoforo and Domenico della Rovere, brothers, and successively cardinals of San Vitale, were of the Vinovo family. The former has a tomb in the Church del Popolo, the latter was distinguished for his intelligent patronage of art. I have failed to affiliate Clemente, Bishop of Mende, surnamed il Grasso, made cardinal 1503, and died next year; and Stefano, who was nephew of Julius II., and had a son, Gian Francesco, Archbishop of Turin, who died in 1517.
[210] See below, [ch. xxxii.]
[211] Muratori has not scrupled to adopt this opinion, for which I can discover no adequate ground, and which is inconsistent with the accepted genealogy of the Riarii.
[212] The sumptuous and lavish festivities of the age, and the extent to which art was combined with classical associations in public displays, may be estimated from Corio's elaborate description of the reception at Rome, in 1473, of Duchess Leonora of Ferrara, with her suite, including 60,000 horses. *Cf. Annalisti di Tisi, quoted by Corvisieri, q.v. in Archivio Romano, vol. I.; Il Trionfo Romano di Eleanora d'Aragona. Creighton, op. cit., vol. IV., pp. 75-77, gives a splendid sketch of his life.
[*213] Cf. Fratini, St. della Basilica e del Convento di S. Francesco in Assisi (Prato, 1882), p. 260 et seq.
[*214] "Sixtus," says Creighton, "changed the course of life in Rome because his own recklessness was heedless of decorum. Hitherto the Roman court had worn a semblance of ecclesiastical gravity.... Rome became more famous for pleasure than for piety.... The Rovere stock was hard to civilise.... Hitherto the Papacy had on the whole maintained a moral standard; for some time to come it tended to sink even below the ordinary level. The loss that was thus inflicted upon Europe was incalculable" (op. cit., vol. IV., p. 132-3).