1 Gragg, Florence Alden, trans., and Leona C. Gable, ed., The Commentaries of Pius II [Smith College Studies in History, XXII Google Scholar, pts. I, 2; xxv; xxx; xxxv; XLIII] (Northampton, Mass., 1936-1957).

2 Zippel, G., ed., Le vite di Paolo IIdi Gaspare da Verona e Michele Canensi [L. A. Muratori, Return Italicarum Scriptores, III, pt. 16] (Citta di Castello, 1904), 3–64 Google Scholar; Sanford, Eva M., ‘Gaspare Veronese, Humanist and Teacher,’ Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, LXXXTV (1953), 199 Google Scholar.

3 Marini, G., Degli Archiatri Pontifici, II (Rome, 1784), 178–198 Google Scholar. Marini used a manuscript that had been in Perugia which Zippel was unable to locate, RISS, in, pt. 16, xl-liii.

4 Muratori, published the beginning of Bk. iv as Bk. III: RISS, III, pt. 2 (Milan, 1734), cols. 1039–1044 Google Scholar, which is the text of Bk. rv through p. 54, line 15 of Zippel's edition.

5 Zippel, RISS, ffl, pt. 16 (1904), xii-XIV.

6 Ibid. The lost item is number 103 of the inventory.

7 Phillipps’ catalogue of 1837 describes the Gordan MS. under a heading ‘ExBibl. Miscellaneis’, with the notation ‘(Payne)’ and no date given, as item 6944, Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum in bibliotheca D. Thomae Phillipps, Bart. (Middlehill, Worcs., 1837), 103, 105. Zippel suspected that it may have been among the thefts of Guglielmo Libri, op. cit., xii-xiii. It can be demonstrated now that Libri had a commercial interest in rare books well before he was expelled from Tuscany for political reasons in 1831, and that he was almost certainly responsible for the disappearance of as many as 300 volumes from the library of the Accademia dei Georgofili (a small collection specializing, as one might expect, in agriculture, which possessed, in 1889, no incunables and no manuscripts: Italy, Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio, Statistica idle biblioteche, pte. I [Rome, 1893], 1. iv; n, 2), where he was employed for a short time before 1827: Fumagalli, Giuseppe, Guglielmo Libri (Florence, 1963), pp. 53–55 Google Scholar, 61-64; so that a book stolen by Libri in Italy might have come into the hands of Payne and Foss, ‘(Payne)’ above, in time to be sold to Phillipps by 1832, the date suggested by its accession number in Phillipps’ catalogue, de Ricci, Seymour, English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1930), p. 122 Google Scholar, n. 6. Catalogues of Payne and Foss for this period are on file in the Grolier Club in New York City, but Miss Fowler searched for the Gordan MS. with no success. Another promising link between Florence and Middlehill might be the collection of Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford, a notable philhellene who founded an Ionian University on Corfu in 1824 and gave it his books, many of which were Italian. When he died in 1827 his executors were able to set aside the gift and dispersed his collection through sales held in London between 1828 and 1835. These sales were conducted by Evans, and not by Payne and Foss, but Phillipps is known to have bought many items from the earl's collection: de Ricci, op. cit., pp. 94-95, 122; Fletcher, W. Y., English Book Collectors (London, 1902), p. 322 Google Scholar. We have still, it must be noted, made no progress beyond guesswork. 8 For reasons, to be sure, that remain primarily circumstantial. A very similar hand corrected the text of Cod. Vat. 3620 (Bk. IV) and Zippel believed it to be Gaspar's, RISS, m, pt. 16, xli. The same hand corrected Cod. Vat. 3621 (Bk. n), but a second hand, more ‘calligraphic’ and definitely someone else's, made further corrections; and this hand seemed to Zippel to be the same as that which wrote a dedication to Gaspar's commentary on Juvenal, Cod. Casanat. 397, likely under the circumstances to be his own. The first, cursive, hand should be identical to a letter of Gaspar's to Ambrogio Traversari, Florence, Archivio di Stato, Carte Strozziane, ser. 1, f. 136, c 5, but there are disturbing variations in some letter forms between the two, and the writer has concluded that the two hands are similar but not necessarily the same.

9 RISS, III, pt. 16, x-xii.

10 E.g., Zippel, op. cit., xiii; Zabughin, Vladimiro, Giulio Pomponio Leto, 1 (Rome, 1909), 40 Google Scholar; P. Egidi, review, ‘Gaspare da Verona e Michele Canensi, Le vite di Paolo n, a cura di Zippel', G., Archivio della Deputazione [then R. Societa] Romana di Storia Patria, XXVII (1904), 268 Google Scholar.

11 Efforts to read these passages, using infrared and ultraviolet light, have all been unsuccessful. The circumstance of the erasures makes it more likely that the Magliabecchiana and Gordan MSS. are the same, but one cannot be certain since every copy of the work would be as likely to be censored as any one example.

12 Weiss, Roberto has already been able to report that there is nothing in Bk. v about the congiura, Un Umanista Veneziano, Papa Paolo II (Venice, 1957), p. 20 Google Scholar, n. 4. Most likely Gaspar had in mind the Auditors of the Rota: see Rocquain, Felix, La cour de Rome et l'esprit de riforme avant Luther, m (Paris, 1897), 386 Google Scholar. There is a distichon opposite die incipit for the lost MS. in the Magliabecchiana inventory, reproduced by Zippel, RISS, m, pt. 16, xii, which may be repeated here: ‘Sunt deleta meis quaedam, derosaque chartis | Magnatum imperium, qui sic volenta, peregi.’ It does seem to refer to powerful men who want something covered up, and not to a madcap conspiracy that everyone knew about. One may speculate on a possibility that papal officials were implicated in the conspiracy, but neither the erasures nor the surviving text of Bk. v can make any contribution to such a thesis.

Pope Paul was well known for his severe measures against corrupt officials: Raynaldus, Ordericus, Annates Ecclesiastici, x (Lucca, 1753), 438 Google Scholar. Platina relates that Pope Paul became angry when he suggested that the pope refer his case to the judges: ‘ “Ita nos ad judices revocas, ac si nescires omnia jure in scrinio pectoris nostri collocata est?” ‘ Liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum [Muratori, RISS, III, pt. 1] (Citta di Castello, 1932), 369.

13 And not all of the work, as Weiss suggests, Un Umanista Veneziano, he cit. On Sermoneta see, inter alia, Leone Caetani, ed., Pantanelli, Pietro, Notizie Storiche di Sermoneta, 2 vols. (Rome, 1909)Google Scholar. Pantanelli was a cleric born about 1710 who died about 1784; his manuscript was composed, it appears, some time before 1766, op. cit., I, viii-ix. It makes no mention of Gaspar's Bk. v.

14 Caetani, Don Gelasio, Domus Caietana [Documenti dell’ Archivio Caetani, sez. 4] (Sancasciano Val di Pesa, 1927)Google Scholar, I, pt. 2, 159.

15 See Zabughin, V., Vergilio nel Rinascimento italiano da Dante a Torquato Tasso, 1 (Bologna, 1921), 231 Google Scholar.

16 Maffeo's Rusticalia, in which he complains that the country folk are not what they were in Vergil's time, were composed during his villeggiatura in 1431: Zabughin, Vergilio nel Rinascimento, I, 253, n. 9; Voigt, Georg, Die Wiederbelebung des Classischen Altertums, n (Berlin, 1893), 40 Google Scholar. Zabughin remarks that Maffeo ‘vede la natura attraverso un velame di carta scritta’, op. cit., 1, 232. He suggests that Maffeo's thoughts about rustic life might be of interest for the social history of the Renaissance, op. cit., I, 252, n. 9: a fortiori, Gaspar's views of a generation later could be of even more interest to students today. Better, however, to regard the development as primarily literary and only incidentally as sociology: as time went on men came to know Vergil's pastoral poetry better, as well as the mind of its author. See Zabughin, op. cit., I, 234-235. One must note that Maffeo, who was probably born in 1407 [ Brinton, Anna Cox, ed., Maphaeus Vegius and his Thirteenth Book ojtheAeneid (Stanford University, 1930), p. 5 Google Scholar. was almost exactly contemporary to Gaspar, though he died somewhat earher, in 1458. See Voigt, Wiederbelebung, II, 41.

17 Zippel's researches on Gaspar's early education make it quite unlikely that he was born later than 1408, op. cit., xx-xxii; it may have been as early as 1400, Sanford, ‘Gaspare Veronese’, Trans. Am. Philol. Assn., LXXXTV, 192.

18 Gregorovius, Ferdinand had wanted to make the ascent but found the path too difficult, Wanderjahre in Italien, ed. H.-W. Kruft (Munich, 1967), p. 474 Google Scholar. Ashby, T. S. described the site at length, ‘Le mont de Circe et ses environs’, École française de Rome, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, xxv (1905 Google Scholar), 157-209, and observed that weeds and brambles on die mountain made it almost impossible to move: op. cit., 189.

19 Kristeller, P. O., ed., Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, 1 (Washington, 1960), 202–205 Google Scholar; Sanford, Eva M., ‘Renaissance Commentaries on Juvenal’, Trans. Am. Philol. Assn., LXXIX (1948), 101 Google Scholar; Zippel, op. cit., xxvii. Flavio Biondo describes the dove-catching technique in the Italia illustrata which he presented to Nicholas V in 1453; see Voigt, Wiederbelebung, 11, 507. Flavio's work is hard to find, and it is worth while quoting him at length: ‘Palumbae cum mari transvolato italiam relicturae sunt aliquandiu in nemoribus antiatum [Anzio] commorantur. Quare peritissimi neptunienses [those of Nettuno] retia quam maxima in id aucupii magno parata impendio suspendunt. Exinde palumbes quascunque longo tractu viderint congregates in arboribus considere iactu lapidis et clamore territas in aera volare compellunt; dumque aves in magnum coactas numerum advolando tensis retium insidiis viderint supereminare contorta funda parvum lapidem vel naturaliter album, vel gypso delinitum maximo emittunt crepitu, quo territae bombo palumbes ut accipitres. Chiluones a Plinio appellatos, quibus nunc falchonibus est nomen quas in lapide bomboque fundae timent declinando serventur; terrae quam possunt volatu rapidius appropinquant sicque amentes in retia se praecipiunt:’ in Roma instaurata. De originis et gestis Venetorum. Italia illustrata (Verona: Boninus de Boninis, 20 Dec. 1481-7 Feb. 1482) (Library of Congress: Thacher 594). There is no pagination in this edition and the passage quoted occurs at f. 2v of the description of ‘Regio tertia latina’.

20 Kristeller, P. O., ‘An Unpublished Description of Naples by Francesco Bandini’, Romanic Review, XXXIII (1942), 297–298 Google Scholar.

21 Caetani, G., Epistolarium Honorati Caietani [Documenti, sez. 3] (Sancasciano Val di Pesa, 1926)Google Scholar, pp. 13, 19 (1452: letters of Scarampo to Onorato), and especially that of 10 July 1453, op. cit., 30: ‘Degli poponi [cf. Gaspar's text, f. ir], come scripse l'altro giorno a la M. V., ve prega la signoria sua vogliate adoperarvj ne habia domenica qualche uno per tempo, se possibile è.’

22 And, of course, to Scarampo. Nicholas V had a taste for the Fogliano mullet, and Scarampo wrote Onorato during the Lenten season of 1450 requesting ‘uno o vero doj some de quel vostre pescie’ in time for the arrival of the pope and cardinals at S. Lorenzo, Scarampo's titular church: G. Caetani, Epistolarium, pp. 3-4. The cardinal offered payment for these ‘pesce de mare del piu bello sia possebile’ which Onorato and his consort refused, op. cit., pp. 4-5. Don Gelasio identifies the fish as the Fogliano mullet. Pantanelli celebrated the abundance and quality of the mullet and other fishes of the coastal lakes in his own time, Notizie Storiche, 1, 8-9.

23 Italia illustrata, ed. cit., fs. 1-3. In fairness to the medieval lords of the district, it must be said that Flavio compares its condition throughout to what it was in the time of Strabo (Geography 5. 3. 2-13, esp. 5, 6 [ed. Loeb, 1923], and the desolation he complains of may just as well be the work of Totila. Guiraud, Jean, L'État Pontifical après le Grand Schisme [Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, LXXIII]) (Paris, 1896),48–49 Google Scholar, fails to take account of Flavio's dependence on Strabo. Cardinal Ammanati describes a trip he took through Lazio, visiting Anzio and Nettuno in September of 1467; he saw impressive Roman remains and enjoyed the hunting and fishing: Jacopo Ammanati [Cardinal Piccolomini], Epistolae, etc. (Milan: Minutianus, 1521), f. 140 (to Pietro Arrivabene, Oct. 4, 1467). Of course the sport could be rewarding while agriculture was in a state of decay. In another part of Lazio classical studies were said to be prospering: Pecci, B., ‘Contribute per la storia degli umanisti nel Lazio,’ Arch. Romana di Stor. Patr., XIII (1890), 451–453 Google Scholar, 456, quoting part of an elegy by Sulpizio da Veroli which celebrates the felicity of the Campania, op. cit., 464-465. To be sure, Sulpizio was interested in the region across the Monti Lepini from Sermoneta.

24 The town of Ninfa, which belonged to the Caietani and lay on level ground below Sermoneta, has been celebrated in modern times as a picturesque ruin and seems to have been for the most part abandoned by 1468: its fortunes are worth noting here. There is some disagreement as to whether anyone lived there in Gaspar's time, and he mentions no settlement; G. Caetani maintains that the place was completely abandoned, except for its churches, in 1382, when it was attacked and partly destroyed by men from neighboring towns, although malaria and its poor strategic position may have contributed to its desertion, Domus Caietana (1927), 1, pt. 1, 306-307. Earlier, G. Tomassetti concluded that malaria had been primarily responsible but that the population had declined only slowly; he cited the ‘non-regulation of the Pontine marshes in more modern days’ and stated that the last inhabitants left between 1675 and 1680: ‘Ninfa’, Journal of the British and American Archaeological Society of Rome, iv, no. 3 (1910), 293-299. The reader curious about Ninfa must not overlook Gregorovius’ charming description of the place, Wanderjahre, pp. 386-390; Tomassetti's article, like many that appeared in the Journal cited, is good reading as well.

25 G. Caetani, Domus Caietana, 1, pt. 2, 87-91; plan of Sermoneta, op. cit., 132; sketch of Benozzo Gozzoli's painting of the town, in S. Maria di Sermoneta, op. cit., 141.

26 Ibid., 106-134; Epistolarium, XIV-xv.

27 Epistolarium, 34.

28 In a letter of 3 March 1455, Calixtus III commands Oronato to send ‘frumenta et alia blade’ to Rome ‘et illic vendi libere facias’: Caetani, G., Regesta Chartamm [Documenti, sez. 2], v (Perugia, 1930), 104 Google Scholar.

29 Caetani, G., Domus Caietana, I, pt. 2, 38, 74; Caietanorum Genealogia [Documenti, sez. 1] (Perugia, 1920)Google Scholar, Tav. A-XXXVIII.

30 G. Caetani, Domus Caietana, 1, pt. 2, 95-152, passim; Caietanorum Genealogia, loc. cit;. Pantanelli, Notizie Storkhe, 1, 483-486.

31 G. Caetani, Domus Caietana, 1, pt. 2, 157.

32 Ibid., 81-87, 111-130.

33 Pastor, Ludwig, History of the Popes, ed. F. I. Antrobus, iv (reprint: London, 1949), 124 Google Scholar.

34 G. Caetani, Dotnus Caietana, I, pt. 2, 157. Gaspar's remarks about Pope Paul's fondness for Onorato (f. ir) should be noted. It is interesting that Gaspar goes out of his way to describe the pains taken by Cardinal Torquemada to leave the bulk of his property to Pope Paul and to the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, letting his nephews be content with modest gifts inter vivos (fs. IOV, IIr). Scarampo's will had provided quite the reverse and the pope had been quick to set it aside, Pastor, Hist. Popes, IV, 126.

35 G. Caetani, Dotnus Caietana, I, pt. 2, 87-91.

36 Ibid., 135-137.

37 G. Caetani, Epistolarium, 34-35; Michele di Prato, a papal official, writes Onorato of a conversation he had with Pope Nicholas V shortly after his visit to Sermoneta. The pope spoke well of Onorato, and Michele asked him if he had ever been to Sermoneta. The pope had not, and asked him questions about the place. Michele answered at length, ‘dicendogli che io ò dormito in uno letto che era chome una montagna, ornatissimo di choperta et di lenzuola et do origlierj et che v'era una cottrice prima di piuma, poi uno altissimo et bonissimo materasso dj bambagia, et etiam uno bonissimo materasso di lana tale che in Roma sono molti ricchi che non à uno tale quale è quello do lana in ne Uoro lettj; et de buon fuochi et paniciellj, panni di razza [n.: Arazzi], tappetj et banchalj et argientiera et schinierj, chavallj et famiglj’. Yet Don Gelasio's collections and essays often refer to material hardships suffered by the family during this decade.

38 The prince of Bassiano wrote Miss Fowler in 1946 that the floating island was still there, and a photograph of the lake shows plenty of vegetable matter floating on its surface: G. Caetani, Dotnus Caietana, 1, pt. 1, 310. A mass of brush supported by bubbles of marsh gas may remain on the surface long enough to bear plants growing in the soil that adheres to it: see New York Times, 17 July 1946. More relevant, perhaps, is Plinius Secundus Hist. Natur. 11. 96, 209: ‘Sunt et in Nymphaeo parvae, Saliares dictae, quoniam in symphoniae cantu ad ictus modulantium pedum moventur’, writing of floating islands in general. The editor [ed. Loeb, H. Rackham] identifies Nymphaeum as a promontory in Illyria but there is no reason to believe he is right. G. Caetani identifies Pliny's lake as Ninfa, mentions other legends about it, and observes that still more stories grew up after the town was abandoned in the fourteenth century: op. cit., I, pt. 1, 107.

39 Zippel, RISS, III, pt. 16, xxix, n. 7. Gaspar was one of many Romans who took to prospecting for minerals after the great alum discovery at Tolfa in 1462. He describes his own activities in Bk. IV, op. cit., 59.

40 Embankments and some sort of mill existed at Ninfa long before 1457: G. Caetani, Domus Caietana, 1, pt. 2, 155. In that year Onorato sought to bring to law a builder, one Antonio Mirabasso, who had failed to perform on a contract to build a forge there: Caetani, G., Varia [Documenti dell’ Archivio Caietani, sez. 5] (Città del Vaticano, 1936), 188 Google Scholar. 189. Perhaps the Angevin war interrupted the project. In 1471 Onorato arranged with Master Guglielmo Antonio de Santo Marcello of Pistoia to build a nail-mill, a forge, a waterwheel, and a fulling-mill, op. cit., 218-219.

41 In 1474 Onorato bought, from the monastery of Grottaferrata, rights to all the lakes he did not already own between Caprolece and Foceverde, G. Caetani, Domus Caietana, 1, pt. 2, 56. Don Gelasio observed (in 1927) that the fisheries were still operated as they had been two thousand years ago, and that the fish had been, in earlier times, packed in casks with snow from the mountains and sent to Rome, where families paid dearly for them (cf. Gaspar, f. 2v: ‘et populus Romanus libenter comparat et vescitur’). At least one of the published letters asking or thanking Onorato for fish is dated in the summertime: Epistolarium, 43, doc. C-884 (trout) (Scarampo to O., Pontecorvo, 17 August 1454); but there is no reference to refrigeration techniques in these materials. Early literature on the subject seems to have entirely to do with cooling drinks, e.g., references from eight classical Latin authors on the use of snow for that purpose collected by Forbes, Robert J., Studies in Ancient Technology, rv (Leiden, 1956)Google Scholar. He finds that mountain snow is still (1958) collected in Syria and stored in pits and cellars: op. tit., vi (1958), 105. What seems to have been the earliest chemical technique, using saltpeter, was described in Rome by a Spanish physician, Villafranca, Bias, in 1550, Methodus refrigerandi ex vocato salenitro vinum, aquamque, etc. (Rome, 1550)Google Scholar, but there is no indication that Villafranca realized that his device, if it worked, might be used to preserve food.

42 G. Caetani, Epistolarium, 34-35. This is the letter about the great bed, above, n. 37.

43 See above, n. 19; Pecci, Arch. Romana di Stor. Patr., XII, 453.

44 A look-out for pirates may seem exotic, but cf. Gaspar's f. 10, below. Ashby's description of the site agrees in general with Gaspar, Mélanges, xxv, 157-209, passim, but it is impossible to decide which of the various constructions, if any, is the one Gaspar mentions. There is nothing on top of the mountain (f. 4r: ‘in cuius montis apice …’) which sounds like Circe's bath; somewhat farther down there is ‘a rectangular open cistern made of concrete which cannot be dated precisely': this unlikely construction occupies the most likely location. There is also, about halfway up the slope, a fountain called ‘Mezzo Monte’, made of brick of the Roman period but reconstructed later, for what purpose Ashby could not guess, op. cit., 190. These discrepancies do allow the suspicion that Gaspar never climbed the mountain but relied on hearsay for what is more a literary exercise than a work of observation.

45 Pliny devotes a long passage, Hist. Natur., xxv, 21, 47-25, 61, to hellebore, with a reference to Anticyra: ‘… Drusum quoque apud nos, tribunorum popularium clarissimum, cui ante amnes plebs astans plausit, optimates vero bellum Marsicum inputavere, constat hoc medicamento comitiali morbo in Anticyra insula’, op. cit., 21, 52. The editor (W. H. S. Jones, ed. Loeb) remarks that Anticyra is a peninsula, not an island. But Anticyra is not among the places Pliny mentions as producing the best hellebore, op. cit., 21, 49. Gaspar does follow Pliny in giving veratrum as the term used for it in Italy, op. cit., 21, 52. Pliny observes that aconite (napelli) is good for killing panthers, op. cit., but says nothing about feeding it to baby girls. The plant (aconitum napellus, Linn., fam. Ranunculaceae, known also as wolfsbane, monkshood, friar's cap, and blue rocket), is in fact used as a poison by primitive hunters as far afield as the Aleutians, and medicinally as a sedative, anodyne, and febrifuge in a variety of diseases including croup: Wren, Richard C., F.L.S., Potter's New Cyclopaedia of Botanical Drugs and Preparations (London, 1956), 4 Google Scholar.

46 De mir. ausc. 78, accepted as part of the canon, but certainly not his work, W. S. Hett (ed. Loeb, 1936).

47 Hist. Natur., xxv, 5, 11: ‘… unde arbitror natum ut Aeschylus e vetustissimis in poetica refertam Italiam herbarum potentia proderet, multique Circeios, ubi habitavit Ola …’ W. H. S. Jones identifies the reference as a pentameter quoted by Theophrastus Hist. Plant., IX, 15, I:.

48 Pantanelli allows that the climate of the place Gaspar chose for his villeggiatura has not the best reputation, for it lies exposed to the sirocco and the hot wind is made humid by the marshes: the inhabitants suffer from what appear to be virus infections and the like but not, it seems, from malaria. Pantanelli does go on to point out various advantages of the site, Notizie Storiche, 1, 89-91.

49 Gaspar had stated in an earlier book that the plague had scarcely appeared in the city for three years, RISS, III, pt. 16, 49 (Bk. iv). Zippel disputes him, loc. cit., n. 3.

50 The solemn opening of the General Chapter is on the Monday following Pentecost, but the members assemble informally on the vigil and their authority begins then. Normally the proceedings are finished by the following Saturday, Hinnebusch, William A., History of the Dominican Order (Staten Island, N.Y., 1965), p. 177 Google Scholar. Pentecost in 1468 fell on Sunday, June 5.

51 Augusto de Rubeis to the duke of Milan, Rome, 2 April 1468: Milan, Archivio di Stato: Sforzesco, Potenze Estere, Roma, cart. 64; Lorenzo de Pesaro, ibid., 4 April 1468.

52 Giovanni Bianco, ibid., 4 April 1468; Ammanati, Epistolae, fs. 145V-146V (A. to Paul II, Pienza, 23 June 1468).

53 Lorenzo de Pesaro, he. at. He does not give us the name of the chaplain. Lorenzo will stay at his post, he writes, saying, like St. Peter to Christ, ‘Domine, et si oportebit’.

54 Augusto de Rubeis, ibid., with a long list of the dead in the houses of various prelates.

55 Lorenzo de Pesaro, ibid., 16 April 1468: ‘La papa hogge se ha fatto portare all' improviso da Sam Marco a Sam Pietro credemo sia perche uno suo comivaro e morto de morbo.’ Ordinarily the pope preferred to stay at San Marco during the summer when the region of the Vatican was apt to be infested with fever: Pastor, Hist. Popes, iv, 78 n.

56 Lorenzo de Pesaro, he. cit., 7 April 1468.

57 Among Galeazzo Maria Sforza's envoys, only the letters of Lorenzo de Pesaro, who seems to have been a somewhat emotional person. He left town finally on June 18: Giovanni Bianco, ibid., 18 June 1468.

58 Guglielmo Rocca, apostolic prothonotary, to ‘S. M.’ (King Ferrante): contemporary copy, A. S. Milan, Sforzesco P. H.,Roma, c 64, 9 August 1468; Paul II to the duke of Milan, ibid., Rome, 26 August 1468. But cf. n. 61, below. By June 7 many cardinals had left town but others had not ‘potuto havere licentia che omne uno fugge laiere de qui': Lorenzo de Pesaro, ibid., 7 June 1468. On June 13 there were six cardinals left in the city: ibid., 13 June 1468. On May 13 Cardinal d'Estouteville had proposed that they all be allowed to continue to receive certain revenues during their absence from the city ‘ad balnea vel propter pestem seu aeris intemperiem’. All but one of them were back by October 1: Bourgin, M. G., ‘Les cardinaux francais et le Diaire camerale de 1439-1486’, Mélanges, XXIV (1904)Google Scholar, 278-279. The cardinals who left were gone by June 13: Lorenzo de Pesaro, epist. cit. Pope Paul himself was ill for a few days, according to Ammanati, Epistolae, 150 (9 July 1468).

59 Ibid.; Pietro Arrivabene gave the same report to the Marchesa Barbara of Mantua but he doubted its veracity: Mantua, Archivio di Stato: Carteggio Roma, b 843, 19 June 1468.

60 Frater Paulus de Hossius to Bianca Maria Sforza, A. S. Milan, Sforzesco P. E., Roma, c 64, 4 August 1468: ‘… si per die la pesta en molto cessata….’

61 The duke of Milan wrote the apostolic prothonotary Guglielmo de Rocca on July 21 that he had at the time no ambassadors left in Rome: ibid., Lorenzo de Pesaro had reported on June 16 that ‘anche sto nel morbo grandissimo’, and on June 18 Giovanni Bianco wrote that ‘me transtularo per quello paise de la marca per passare questi tre mese de aere pestifero che è qua a Roma’. Lorenzo wrote on the same day confirming that Giovanni was going. Pastor gives an excerpt from a letter of Giacomo Trotti to Borso, duke of Modena, 8 July 1468, which puts matters in a worse light than ever: forty or fifty Romans are dying every day; the pope is planning to leave and everyone is fleeing the city; only three cardinals remain and they have closed their doors so that none may go out: Hist. Popes, IV, 493, app. 24. Pastor's discussion of the plague in its various aspects is especially interesting, op. cit., 29-30.

62 Reichert, B. M., ed.,ActacapitulorumgeneraliumordinisPraedicatomm,m (Rome, 1898)Google Scholar.

63 Pastor, Hist. Popes, III, 278; Hinnebusch, Hist. Dominican Order, 1, 229-233.

64 A John of Viterbo is listed in the Datarius Apostolicus as Bishop of Cotrone until his death on 25 November 1496: Hoffman, Walther v., Forschungen zur Geschichte der Kurialen Behorden, II [Bibliothek des Kgl. Preuss. Historischen Instituts in Rom, XIII] (Rome, 1914), 116 Google Scholar. There is also a Giovanni Battista da Viterbo, brother of the goldsmith Andrea, mentioned in documents of 1471 cited by Zippel, RISS, III, pt. 16, 192, lines 47, 50. Neither one is identified as O. P. Niccolò Tuba, John's kinsman, eludes discovery as well. Hoffman mentions a Paolo Tuba among the Taxatores litter arum apostolicum, but his appointment is rather late, 18 March 1499; he became scriptor in 1481 and died in 1512: op. cit., 97.

65 For ‘Ioannes Catus Siculus’ one might guess Giovanni di Castro, Bishop of Agrigento, but the identification is not likely. Castro became bishop in 1479, cardinal in 1496, and died in 1506, Eubel, Conrad, Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi, n (Miinster, 1901), 94 Google Scholar; he would be rather young for his accomplishments to be described as Gaspar states them. He is not identified as a member of the Order, and the literature of the Order makes no mention of his work.

66 Spano, Nicola, L'Universith di Roma (Rome, 1935), p. 4 Google Scholar.(good bibliography, xxvii-xxix).

67 Ibid., pp. 8-9.

68 Hinnebusch, Hist. Dominican Order, 1, 184.

69 Zippel concludes that it was written about then, RISS, III, pt. 16, 53, n. 5. Nothing in the text contradicts him: it purports to be an account of the third year of Paul's pontificate, which year began in September 1466.

70 Ibid., 56. There was popular rejoicing at the time, op. cit., 158, n. 1, 2 (Michele Canensi, De vita et pontificatu Pauli Secundi). A letter of Ammanati to Pope Paul has much the same tone as Gaspar's work: ‘Tota Italia nunc celebratur nomen ecclesiae, et beneficium renovate pacis illius opus putatur': Epistolae, f. 165 (Pienza, n.d.).

71 Canensi, RISS, III, pt. 16, 159.

72 For one, the situation at Tolfa: Pastor, Hist. Popes, iv, 158-159; Zippel, G., ‘L'allume di Tolfa e il suo commercio’, Arch. Romana di Stor. Patr., xxx (1907), 25–29 Google Scholar; and, of course, Gaspar himself, f. 6v. Zippel might have drawn more advantage than he did from the diplomatic correspondence of the time, which is full of information about this intricate contest.

73 Weiss, Un Umanista Veneziano, passim; but cf. Pastor, Hist. Popes, IV, 432-451, for a favorable view taken at an earlier time.

74 The diplomatic correspondence, especially that cited by Pastor, op. cit., 46, has a quality of immediacy not to be found in more literary compositions such as the letter of Agostino Patrizi published by Zippel, RISS, III, pt. 16, 181-182. It shows that the congiura was taken very seriously indeed by the authorities and by the people.

75 ‘Note in un Calendario di S. M. in Trastevere’, in Egidi, Pietro, ed., Necrologi e libri affini della Provincia Romana, 1 [Fonti per la Storia d'ltalia, XLIV] (Rome, 1908), 300 Google Scholar.

76 Pastor, Hist. Popes, IV, 161-162.

77 Ibid., 158-159; Zippel in Arch. Romana di Stor. Patr., xxx, 29.

78 RISS, in, pt. 16, 58.

79 Gregorovius, Ferdinand, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, trans. A. Hamilton, VII, pt. 1 (London, 1901), 227 Google Scholar, n. 2. The commission for general revision of the statutes was issued only in 1469: Creighton, Mandell, History of the Papacy, IV (London, 1897), 31–32 Google Scholar; Theiner, Augustin, Codex Diplomaticus Dominii Temporalis S. Sedis, III (Rome, 1862), 460 Google Scholar.(September 30). The ordinance in this case, including the exception granted apothecaries, seems to be that found at f. 84, c ccv, t 2, of the Capitoline MS. of i486 described by Gregorovius (communication of Ivo Romagnuoli to Miss Fowler, 1950). Gaspar's term ‘aromatarios’ could be used at the time in a restricted sense to mean sellers of medicinal wines, but a general sense is certainly intended by the language of the ordinance, if it is the one to which Gaspar refers: ‘Et salvo quod apothecas in quibus habitant continue possint tenere apertas. Et qui contrafecerit soluat pro uno. xx. solidos provisinorum. Et qui accusaverit delinquentem in predictis habeat medietatem pene. Salvo quod quilibet pro informis et messoribus tempore messium possint vendere omnia necessaria pro dictis informis et messoribus et que sint necessaria in funeri defunctorum. Et idem intellegatur in marescalcis et ferrariis pro necessitatibus bestiarum.’

80 RISS, III, pt. 16, 59; Pastor, Hist. Popes, III, 251; IV, 193. While he lived the despot received 500 gold pieces: op. cit., III, 250. This is of course the Zoe who married the Grand Duke of Moscow, Ivan m, in 1472.

81 See n. 69, above.

82 Some time after July 30, according to Malipiero's story, which is the most detailed: Malipiero, Domenico, Annali Veneti dall'anno 1457 al 1500, n [Archivio Storico Italiano, VII, pt. 2] (Florence, 1844), 597 Google Scholar. King James’ ambassadors arrived in Venice on that date to request Catherine's hand, and the Senate agreed to the match. Sir George Hill assumes that the marriage took place on July 30, presumably because of Malipiero's statement that on July 31 the Senate voted to reimburse ‘essa Rezina’ and the ambassadors for their expenses in connection with the wedding: History of Cyprus, m (Cambridge, 1948), 634, n. 4. But Malipiero's account includes a marginal entry of the date 1472 for this resolution.

On that date the Senate did, in fact, vote Catherine an allowance for a train of ninety servants so as to provide an adequate state for her return to Cyprus: Venice, Archivio di Stato, Registri del Senato, Deliberazioni Mar, reg. ix, f. 141. de Mas Latrie, L. M. has published this document without indicating where to find it, Histoire de Vile de Chypre sous le regne des Princes de la Maison de Lusignan, III (Paris, 1850), 330 Google Scholar, along with many others having to do with the marriage, op. tit., 307-334; see also references collected by Hill, op. tit., 640, n. 3.

83 King James was calling himself a ‘son’ of Venice as early as November 1467, according to Hill, Hist. Cyprus, III, 631. This conclusion is derived from a considerable document published by Mas Latrie, Hist, de Chypre, III, 176-180, a declaration by the king regarding various claims by Venetian citizens, dated Nicosia, 11 November 1467. But the ‘singularem affectionem et fraternum et filialem amorem’, which he avers, sounds like ordinary diplomatic language and nothing more. King James did have an agent in Venice at the time, Ser Filippo Mistachiel, but the same document that indicates his presence gives plenty of reasons for it besides a possible marriage negotiation.

84 E.g., Mandell Creighton, quoted by Pastor, Hist. Popes, IV, 192.

85 Weiss, Un Umanista Veneziano, 18.

86 Zippel, RISS, III, pt. 16, xxxi; Kristeller, Catalogus, 1, 204.

87 Miss Susan Fowler began the work of preparing an edition of the Gordan MS. some years ago, but age and increasing infirmity made it impossible to finish before her death in 1968. The translation was well in hand at the time the materials were turned over to me, and her work in annotation has been invaluable.—A. A.

1 Modern botanical literature mentions no very large edible mushroom such as Gaspar describes that is native to central Italy. Fungi may grow elsewhere that are as big, but never as heavy, as those he claims to have seen. No modern authority recommends the pear as Gaspar does, but Pliny advises that dangerous varieties ‘tutiores fiunt cum carne cocti aut cum pediculo piri.

2 prosunt et pira confestim sumpta': Hist. Natur. XXII. 47, 99.

3 This marginal note is for the purpose of clearing up an ambiguity: in the text the same or a similar hand has put very distinct dots over the ‘i's’ of init.

4 Ital. cefali: mullet. 2 The buffalo of the region belong to a species that ranges from the Philippines to the western Mediterranean, a very different beast from the great pale oxen also found in the Marittima. They are fierce in the wild state but remarkably gentle when properly bred in captivity. See, inter alia, d'Ancona, Umberto, Trattato di Zoologia (Turin, 1953), p. 1013 Google Scholar. When Gregorovius visited the Monte Circeo in 1873 he was warned by fishermen not to walk along the shore from Terracina because of the herds of buffalo he would encounter: Wanderjahre, p. 468. There are many references to buffalo in the Caietani archives.

5 Pantanelli mentions eight kinds of game animal and sixty-nine of birds ‘among others’ in the woods between Sermoneta and the sea, op. cit., 27-28. 5 Perhaps a crab-apple or something of the sort; more likely Gaspar meant ‘apiis malisque’ and never corrected the error.

6 Obviously redundant. 6 Two chasms which do not much resemble what Gaspar describes are mentioned by Pantanelli, one ‘una gran cava d'alabastro’ used as a quarry, the other ‘una grandissima fossa rotonda’ called ‘Obico’ by the peasants of the district. He had no idea what the latter formation was and believed it unlikely, on account of its roundness, that it had been formed by an earthquake or by water erosion: op. cit., 21-22. The chasm in Laconia is almost certainly the Caeadas in the Taygetos mountains, great fissures caused by earthquakes into which the Spartans were said to have flung the condemned; one of them, behind Paroria, is said to be 200 meters deep: Boblaye, M. E. Puillon, Expédition scientifique de Morée: Recherches géographiques sur les mines de la Morée (Paris, 1836), p. 84 Google Scholar. Malaea is the cape south of this region, but Gaspar may have confused it with the Maina, the country west of the Taygetos, where at this time the Venetians were contending, and not very successfully, with the Turk who held Laconia. Venetian documents of the time tend to apply the name to the whole region.

7 Cf. Pastor, Hist. Popes, IV, 121. Pope Paul made his nephew Marco Barbo bishop of Vicenza in 1464 and cardinal 18 September 1467: Eubel, Hierarchia, II, 15, 293.

8 Helleborus niger, Linn., fam. Ranunculaceae (also Christmas rose, melampodium); used as a diuretic, cathartic, and emmenagogue; also ‘of value’ in nervous disorders, hysteria, and melancholia; dangerous except in minute doses: Wren, Cyclopaedia, 147- 148. See n. 45 to introduction, above (Pliny). Vergil mentions hellebore as a remedy for scabies in sheep, Georg. m, 451. The name veratrum may be a source of confusion, since there is a somewhat similar plant, Veratrum album or Digitalis ferruginea, fam. Scrophularineae, to which Pedanius Dioscorides ascribes medicinal properties, but none that work upon the brain: Gunther, Robert T., ed., The Creek Herbal of Dioscorides (Oxford, 1934), 541 Google Scholar.(IV. 150).

9 Most likely Ailanthus glandulosa, Desf., fam. Rutaceae (also Tree of Heaven, ailanto, Chinese sumach, Tree of the Gods); its bark is used, but not its seeds, against dysentery and many other complaints, Wren, Cyclopaedia, 306, but the berries of a similar American plant, the smooth sumach, Rhus glabra, Linn., fam. Anacardiaceae, are used against dysentery, op. cit., 294.

10 Chamaerops hwnilis, Linn., fam. Palmae, the only palm native to Europe. A notable modern work on the palm tree mentions many uses of the dwarf palm but fails to suggest what Gaspar has in mind for lords and princes: von Martius, K. F. P., Historia naturalis palmarutn, n (Munich, 1850), 248–250 Google Scholar; nor do the ancient writers Dioscorides (Gunther, Greek Herbal, 79 [1. 149]), Theophrastus Hist. Plant, n, 6, 11, and Pliny Hist. Natur. XIII, 6-9, 26-41 (mostly about the date-palm).

11 Potentilla tormentilla, Neck., fam. Rosaceae (also septfoil): its gummy exudation is used as a demulcent and cough remedy: Wren, Cyclopaedia, 304-305.

12 Nerium oleander, Linn., fam. Apocynaceae (also rose-bay), a very poisonous plant indeed, for all its wide distribution. Another member of the Apocynaceae, or dogbane family, is Rauwolfia, the source of many modern tranquillizing drugs: de Wit, H. C. D., Plants of the World, II (London, 1965), 123 Google Scholar.

Gaspar almost certainly is referring to a roasting process for extracting quicksilver from its ore, the third of five described by Agricola, Georg, De Re Metallica, trans. Herbert Clark Hoover and L. H. Hoover (London, 1912), pp. 430–431 Google Scholar: the metal is reduced in a vaulted chamber in which ‘between the dome and the paved floor they arrange green trees, then they close the door and the little windows, and cover them on all sides with moss and lute, so that none of the quicksilver can exhale from the chamber’. It collects as vapor on the leaves of the trees and drops or is shaken to the concave floor; the oleander has tough leathery leaves that would seem to be ideal for this process. See illustration, op. cit., p. 430, taken from the Latin edition of 1657 Basel: Emm. König), p. 347. Gaspar's use oijigo seems appropriate if this process is what he is describing. No ancient or later writer seems to use the verb in such a connection, but cf. du Cange: ‘Figere, est desponsare, solvere et congellare.’ Agricola published his work in 15 56, but the techniques he describes are certainly of long standing: cf. Singer, Charles J. et al., A History of Technology, n (Oxford, 1956), 33 Google Scholar, 42, 51.

13 See Introduction, above, p. 18, n. 45.

14 Onorato had to wait until 1473 for the castello, and Sixtus IV kept the rocca in his own hands and forbade rebuilding or repopulating the town. A later bull in the Caietani archives, perhaps one of Sixtus’, finally allowed the place to be restored. Alfonso had destroyed San Felice in 1441 and it had been occupied by Antonio Piccolomini after the Angevin victory at Sarno in July 1460. Pius II turned it over to Onorato later in the year on condition that it not be rebuilt, and took it back after seven months to show his displeasure at Onorato's continuing to fight on behalf of the Angevins. Paul II was thought to have been cold to Onorato's early requests for the place on account of his friendship with the pope's old rival Scarampo, but San Felice was one of the keys to the defense of the Patrimony and the pope seemed to need no excuse to want to keep it: G. Caetani, Domus Caietana, n, 48, 114-117, 122, 157.

15 Pope Paul paid 17,300 ducats for Tolfa in June 1469: Pastor, Hist. Popes, iv, 159.

16 E.g., in Bk. I, RISS, III, pt. 16, II .

17 Gaspar had claimed to be on intimate terms with the bishop and describes how he cured him of a stomach upset, op tit., 14. Born Angelo Fasolo, he was a canon of Treviso, bishop of Cattaro in 1457 and of Modon in 1459, and was translated to Feltre in 1464: Eubel, Hierarchia, n, 217.

18 Gaspar brings up Francesco's peculations in previous books, RISS, III, pt. 16,48, 58. Zippel describes him as a ‘construction administrator’ and, in particular, not the architect of S. Marco as has been widely supposed: ‘Per la storia del Palazzo di Venezia’, Ausonia [Rivista della Società Italiana di Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte], an. n (1907), fasc. 1, 118. On a contract of 1466 to make improvements to the palace and, for the church, to vault the two side aisles and construct a portico, the architect is Bernardo Lorenzi; ‘F. de Burgo' appears as ‘scriptore apostolico et Serenissimi domini nostri pape familiare, ac pro prefato Serenissimo domino nostro papa presente, agente, stipulante et recipiente:’ Theiner, Codex Dip!., in, 445. G. Marini makes Francesco's position quite clear in his edition of Bk. 1, Archiatri, 11, 199, n. 8.

But Zippel identifies this Francesco with a ‘Franciscus de Borgo’ who is ‘v. j . diocesis et Patrimonii locumtenens [Viterbo]’ in a MS. letter in the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, of 2 August 1498, which seems unlikely. Perhaps he was a grandson.

19 Muntz, Eugène describes this tiara in ‘La Tiare Pontificale du VHIe au XVIe siècle’, Mémoires de I'lnstitut National de France, Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, xxxvi (Paris, 1898), 294 Google Scholar. ‘Le vénitien Paul 11 (1404 [sic]-i4yi) a droit a son place à part dans les annales de la tiare.’ It is in this reign that the term regnum originates. One may recall, among other tales, Platina's assertion that Pope Paul died of apoplexy brought on by the weight of his crown: RISS, III, pt. 1, 391.

20 The Spanish philosopher may not be readily identified. Some candidates may be suggested by the Xavier Llampillas, Abate Don, Ensayo historico-apologetico de la literature española, Sp. transl. Dona Josefa Amary Borbon, 2 ed., III (Madrid, 1789), 68 Google Scholar, who begins by complaining that ‘el Abate Tiraboschi ha omitido la parte que tuvieron los Españoles en la restauracion de las sagrades letras en Italia en el siglo X V . Among the many names he mentions are Juan Marquesini, who wrote among other things an exposition of the Psalms dedicated to Pius II; Juan Moles de Margarit of Gerona, whom Sixtus IV made a cardinal; Gabriel Casafages of Barcelona, O. P., who was professor of theology at Bologna and later Regent of Studies at the Minerva and was much involved in the controversy over the Precious Blood; and, finally and most likely, Pedro Ferrici of Valencia, who ‘se distinguio mucho en Roma por su sapiduria y santidad. Los Papas Paulo II, y Sixto IV, se valieron de el en los negocios mas graves de la Iglesia’, op. cit., in, 82-83. But all these men received great rewards, and none of them seem to have been distinguished for modesty.

21 Canensi mentions Girolamo's work on several occasions, calling him ‘viro impigro ac solerti’, RISS, III, pt. 16, 147. He was in charge of the powder and other munitions in the Castel S. Angelo and conducted the festival illuminations of the fortress, which took place three times a year—which may have something to do with Gaspar's remark: Pagliucchi, Pio, I Castellani del Castel S. Angelo, 1 (Rome, 1909), 8 Google Scholar. He was probably a cleric. 22 Maffeo had been bishop of Zara since 1450; see Eubel, Hierarchia, n, 184. He appears to have been a p ersonal friend of Gaspar's: Zippel in RISS, III, pt. 16, 82 n. 3.

23 Most of Cardinal Torquemada's contributions to the adornment of S. Maria sopra Minerva have been destroyed. See Berthier, J.-J., L'église de la Minerve à Rome (Rome, 1910), pp. 94–105 Google Scholar, 371; Armellini, Mariano, Le Chiese di Roma dal secolo IV al XIX, ed. C. Cecchelli and P. Tacchi Venturi (Rome, 1942), II, 1361–1364 Google Scholar; R. Spinelli, S. Maria sopra Minerva [coll. ‘Le Chiese di Roma illustrate’, no. 39] (Rome, n.d.): good bibliography; De Gregori, L., Il chiostro della Minerva e le Meditationes delCardinale Turrecremata (Rome, 1927)Google Scholar, passim.

24 This statement is clearly the source of the notation in the Magliabecchiana incipit, to the effect that Caspar has written a life of Torquemada. Gaspar is of course remarking on what he has already written in this work: he mentions the donations to the pope and to the church in Bk. rv, RISS, III, pt. 16, 53.

25 See Zippel, RISS, III, pt. 16, n. 4.