which Timoteo della Vite, a painter whose excellence
we shall attest in our thirtieth chapter, depicted Minerva with her
aegis, Apollo with his lyre, and the nine muses with their appropriate
symbols. A similar small study was fitted up immediately over this one,
set round with arm-chairs encircling a table, all mosaicked with
_tarsia_, and carved by Maestro Giacomo of Florence, while on each
compartment of the panelling was the portrait of some famous author, and
an appropriate distich. One other article of furniture deserves special
notice--a magnificent eagle of gilt bronze, serving as a lectern in the
centre of the manuscript room. It was carried to Rome at the devolution
of the duchy to the Holy See, but was rescued by Pope Clement XI. from
the Vatican library, and restored to his native town, where it has long
been used in the choir of the cathedral.'[68]

* * * * *

'Of Francesco Maria's literary pursuits we have various pleasing
memorials. Not satisfied with the valuable library of MSS. that had
descended to him from the Feltrian dukes, he formed another of standard
printed works. Indeed, he became an assiduous book-collector; and the
letters of his librarian, Benedetto Benedetti, in the Oliveriana
Library, are full of lists which his agents in Venice, Florence, and
even Frankfort are urged to supply. In his own voluminous
correspondence, we find constant offers from authors of dedications or
copies of their productions, the tone of which is highly complimentary
to his taste for letters. In 1603, the Archbishop of Monreale, in Spain,
transmits him the regulations he proposed to prescribe in bequeathing
his library to a seminary he had founded in his diocese, expressing a
hope that they might prove useful to the Duke's collection, "at this
moment without parallel in the world." Instead of quoting the vague
testimony of courtly compliment, as to the use which this philosophic
Prince made of these acquisitions, let us cite the brief records of his
studies, preserved in his own Diary. In 1585, "terminated an inspection
of the whole works of Aristotle, on which I have laboured no less than
fifteen years, having had them generally read to me by Maestro Cesare
Benedetti, of Pesaro."'[69]

* * * * *

'Francesco di Giorgio, in his _Treatise on Architecture_, mentions Duke
Federigo as holding out inducements for the learned men at his court to
illustrate th