9.—[Page 151.]
Among the smaller punishments incurred by some of those more or less implicated in these conspiracies, it is worth noting that one well-to-do citizen was fined ninety lire, and all his household furniture, estimated at fifty lire more. This sum may be probably considered as equivalent to about £20 sterling at the present day, and does not give a very favourable idea of the amount of domestic comfort existing among the citizens. Another conspirator was fined an hundred lire, and "all his rich and precious furniture was confiscated." In this case the estimated value is not mentioned. But as the amount of the fine is nearly the same, it is probable that the culprit belonged to about the same sphere of society.
10.—[Page 159.]
The classical reader may, if curious in such matters, turn to Muratori's columns for the strangely cynical, and wholly unreproducible language, in which Infessura relates the incident. I have written "classical," which is generally understood to mean Latin or Greek readers. And a large portion of Infessura's chronicle is written in very barbarous Latin. But portions, without any apparent reason for the change, are written in Italian. And the passage in question occurs in one of those portions.
11.—[Page 190.]
The narrative in the text follows the statement of Bonoli and Burriel, which has also all the probabilities of the case to support it. Other historians represent Catherine herself to have come out on the ramparts, and to have turned a deaf ear to the piteous entreaties of her children, that she would give up the fortress, and so save their lives. Some of these writers also recount a tale, which suited as it is to the taste of the vulgar for what is striking, coarsely coloured, and gross, has become the most popularly known incident of Catherine's career. When threatened with the immediate destruction of her children before her eyes, she is said to have replied, in terms more coarse than can be repeated here, that others might come whence those had come, and to have accompanied the assertion by gestures yet more undescribable on an English page.
There is every reason to believe that the whole of this story is an invention. But it is an invention nearly contemporaneous with the events; and, given as it is by its inventors by no means as a blameable trait in the heroine's character, but rather as a proof of commendable energy and vigorous courage, it is curious as an indication of the prevailing manners and feelings of the period.
12.—[Page 223.]
"Pantaloons does not probably properly express the meaning of 'calze.'" The chronicler means those elastic-knitted garments of silk or wool for the lower half of the person, trowsers and stockings in one, which sat tight to the limb, and the appearance of which is familiar to the eyes of those acquainted with the pictures of the time, especially the great festival paintings of the Venetian school.