The entire passage runs as follows; "Prima era in grazia del Papa Madonna Lucrezia sua figlia, la quale è savia e liberale; ma adesso il Papa non l'ama tanto, e l'ha mandato a Nepi; e le ha dato Sermoneta, che gli costa ducati ottanta mila; benche il Duca—(her brother Cesare)—ghiel' abbia tolta, dicendo, 'è donna; non la potrà mantenere.' E si dice anche che esso duca ecª.—(sic)—con la predetta sorella Lucrezia; il qual Duca sarà, se vive, uno dei primi capitani d'Italia."
It is fair to observe, that the tenour of this ambassador's report seems to acquit Lucrezia of having been her brother's accomplice in the murder of her husband, Don Alphonso of Aragon.
2.—[Page 70.]
Olympia's biographers, M. Bonnet and Mr. Colquhoun, in a work entitled "Life in Italy and France in the Olden Time," have supposed that Morato was called to Ferrara by Alphonso to be tutor to his sons, and that this engagement was previous to his exile; and the former of the above writers names Ippolito and Alphonso as having been his pupils. The authority he cites is a letter of Curione; in which, however, it is simply stated that Morato educated two brothers of Hercules. Now, of the two named by M. Bonnet, Ippolito was born in 1509, and Alphonso in 1527, facts which alone cast some difficulty on the statement. Further, it is difficult to understand why, when Ippolito, the second son, and Alphonso, the fourth son, were entrusted to Morato, Francesco, the third son, born in 1510, should have been withheld from his care. But the question is set at rest and all made clear by the authority of the accurate work of Girolamo Baruffaldi, in vol. viii. of the Raccolta Ferrar. di Opusc., in which, as well as in Frizzi's elaborate history, Morato is stated to have been entrusted with the education of Alphonso and Alphonsino, the sons of Duke Alphonso by Laura Dianti, who was his wife—say the Ferrarese writers—his concubine, say the defenders of the Apostolic chamber, who considered these sons as illegitimate—after the death of Lucrezia Borgia. Alphonso was born in 1527, and Alphonsino in 1530. The elder would therefore have been six, and the younger three years old at the time of Morato's departure from Ferrara; dates which sufficiently prove that the tutorship in question must have commenced after his return in 1539, when the lads were respectively twelve and nine years old.
3.—[Page 75.]
Marot's lines run as follows:—
"Ha! Marguerite, escoute la souffrance
Du noble cueur de Renée de France;
Puis comme sœur plus fort que d'esperance
Console–la.
"Tu sais comment hors son pays alla,
Et que parents et amis laissa là,
Mais tu ne sais quel traitement elle a