ionable rights over the cities of Romagna. Sigismondo, shorn of
his sovereignty, took the command of the Venetian troops against the
Turks in the Morea, and returned in 1465, crowned with laurels, to die
at Rimini in the scene of his old splendour.

A very characteristic incident belongs to this last act of his life.
Dissolute, treacherous, and inhuman as he was, the tyrant of Rimini
had always encouraged literature, and delighted in the society of
artists. He who could brook no contradiction from a prince or soldier,
allowed the pedantic scholars of the sixteenth century to dictate to
him in matters of taste, and sat with exemplary humility at the feet
of Latinists like Porcellio, Basinio, and Trebanio. Valturio, the
engineer, and Alberti, the architect, were his familiar friends; and
the best hours of his life were spent in conversation with these men.
Now that he found himself upon the sacred soil of Greece, he was
determined not to return to Italy empty-handed. Should he bring
manuscripts or marbles, precious vases or inscriptions in half-legible
Greek character? These relics were greedily sought for by the
potentates of Italian cities; and no doubt Sigismondo enriched his
library with some such treasures. But he obtained a nobler
prize--nothing less than the body of a saint of scholarship, the
authentic bones of the great Platonist, Gemisthus Pletho.[3] These he
exhumed from their Greek grave and caused them to be deposited in a
stone sarcophagus outside the cathedral of his building in Rimini. The
Venetians, when they stole the body of S. Mark from Alexandria, were
scarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this
Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this
legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum
Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob
ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque
mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much
cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta,
having served as general against the Turks in the Morea, induced by
the great love with which he burns for all learned men, brought and
placed here the remains of Gemisthus of Byzantium, the prince of the
philosophers of his day.'

Sigismondo's portrait, engraved on medals, and sculptured upon every
frieze and point of vantage in the Cathedral of Rimini, well denotes
the man. His face is see