[126] Essais, iii. 9: “Et puis cette mesme Rome que nous voyons, merite qu’on l’aime: confederée de si longtemps, et par tant de tiltres à nostre Couronne: seule ville commune et universelle. Le Magistrat souverain qui y commande, est recognu pareillement ailleurs: c’est la ville Métropolitaine de toutes les nations Chrestiennes. L’Espagnol et le François chacun y est chez soy: pour estre des princes de cet Estat, il ne faut estre que de Chrestienté où qu’elle soit. Il n’est lieu ça bas que le Ciel ait embrassé avec telle influence de faveur et telle constance: sa ruine mesme est glorieuse et enflée.”
[127] Montaigne writes at length over this event in Essais, iii. 9.
[128] The Villa d’Este was built by Pirro Ligorio for the Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, son of Alfonso II. of Ferrara, in the middle of the sixteenth century. Eustace, who visited it in 1801, describes it as fallen to decay.
[129] The statues which Montaigne saw were all found in Hadrian’s Villa. In 1780 a certain number of them were taken by Duke Ercole III. to Modena, and the remainder removed to Rome and added to the Capitoline Museum. The last-named statue was covered with a bronze robe by Bernini in deference to current notions of propriety.
[130] This is all the mention he makes of Hadrian’s Villa.
[131] Montaigne notes his first interview with this official and the objections taken to his writings on page 139.
[132] 4 A.M.
[133] Stanislaus Hosius or Hozyusz was a native of Cracow, and was educated at Padua, where he was a fellow-student with Reginald Pole, and at Bologna. He introduced the Jesuits into Poland in 1569, and was charged with many confidential missions between Pius IV. and the Emperor Ferdinand during the sittings of the Council of Trent. He founded the hospital of S. Stanislaus for his countrymen in Rome. He died at Capranica in 1579. Possibly the Pole mentioned by Montaigne was Stanislaus Reskke, who has left a life of Cardinal Hosius, Stanislai Hosii Cardinalis Vita, Roma, 1587.
[134] She was the daughter of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who, according to the current saying in Rome, had made the three most beautiful things in the city: the Palazzo Farnese, the Church of the Gesù, and La bella Clelia. After the death of her husband in 1585, she gave occasion for scandal on account of her connection with the Cardinal dei Medici and Alfonso Vitelli. Her father ultimately compelled her to marry Marco Pio of Savoy, who was ten years her junior. The marriage was an unhappy one.
[135] Probably a misprint for Noirmôutier.