[33] Machiavelli, Arte della Guerra, lib. 3.—Du Bos, Ligue de Cambray, tom. i. dis. prélim.—Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. 2, p. 41. Polybius, in his minute account of this celebrated military institution of the Greeks, has recapitulated nearly all the advantages and defects imputed to the Swiss hérisson, by modern European writers. (See lib. 17, sec. 25 et seq.) It is singular, that these exploded arms and tactics should be revived, after the lapse of nearly seventeen centuries, to be foiled again in the same manner as before.
[34] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. pp. 45, 46.—Machiavelli, Arte della Guerra, lib. 3.—Du Bos, Ligue de Cambray, ubi supra.
[35] Guicciardini speaks of the name of "cannon," which the French gave to their pieces, as a novelty at that time in Italy. Istoria, pp. 45, 46.
[36] Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. 2, p. 42.—Machiavelli, Arte della Guerra, lib. 7.
[37] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 35.—Alonso da Silva acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction of the sovereigns, in his difficult mission. He was subsequently sent on various others to the different Italian courts, and uniformly sustained his reputation for ability and prudence. He did not live to be old. Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 4.
[38] Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. lib. 26, cap. 6.—Salazar de Mendoza, Monarquía, lib. 3, cap. 14.
This branch of the revenue yields at the present day, according to Laborde, about 6,000,000 reals, or 1,500,000 francs. Itinéraire, tom. vi. p. 51.
[39] Zurita, Abarca, and other Spanish historians, fix the date of Alexander's grant at the close of 1496. (Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib, 2, cap. 40.—Reyes de Aragon, rey 30, cap. 9.) Martyr notices it with great particularity as already conferred, in a letter of February, 1495. (Opus Epist., epist. 157.) The pope, according to Comines, designed to compliment Ferdinand and Isabella for their conquest of Granada, by transferring to them the title of Most Christian, hitherto enjoyed by the kings of France. He had even gone so far as to address them thus in more than one of his briefs. This produced a remonstrance from a number of the cardinals; which led him to substitute the title of Most Catholic. The epithet of Catholic was not new in the royal house of Castile, nor indeed of Aragon; having been given to the Asturian prince Alfonso I. about the middle of the eighth, and to Pedro II., of Aragon, at the beginning of the thirteenth century.
I will remark, in conclusion, that, although the phrase Los Reyes Católicos, as applied to a female equally with a male, would have a whimsical appearance literally translated into English, it is perfectly consonant to the Spanish idiom, which requires that all words, having reference to both a masculine and a feminine noun, should be expressed in the former gender. So also in the ancient languages; Aemen tyrannoi, says Queen Hecuba; (Euripides, Troad, v. 476.) But it is clearly incorrect to render Los Reyes Católicos, as usually done by English writers, by the corresponding term of "Catholic kings."
[40] Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 1495.