“The latter part of this story is differently told by Boardo and Ariosto, who relate that she was exposed alone in an open boat by her brothers, and cast on the coast of Africa.” ↩
Marullus Tarchoniata, a Greek, no less skilled in arms than letters; he served in Italy, and married Florentina, daughter of Bartolomeo Scala, a lady of erudition. He lost his life by a fall into a deep pit, and died the same day that Ludovico Sforza fell into the power of the French. Pontano was born at a castle belonging to the duke of Spoleto; his father being killed in an insurrection of the people, he fled, when a youth, to Naples in great poverty, and was received by Antonio Panchernita, secretary to Alphonso of Arragon; he succeeded Panchernita in his office, and married a rich Neapolitan lady: he wrote well in prose and verse, and died at seventy-seven years of age at Napies.
Tito Vespaniaso Strozzi and Hercules his son. Tito wrote many things, but was excelled by his son Hercules, who was also a great improver of the theatre: he was much addicted to women, which passion at last ended in his death. They both lived at Mantua. Hercules wrote in praise of Isabella, wife to the duke of Mantua.
Capello, a Venetian gentleman and an excellent Tuscan poet. Bembo, afterwards cardinal; he wrote in prose and verse, and excelled in amorous subjects; which was objected to him when Paul III raised him to the cardinalship.
That writer, in verse 3, is Count Baldassar Castiglione, who excelled in all the qualities of an accomplished courtier: he wrote a treatise entitled Il Cortigiano (The Courtier).
Alamanni. Luigi Alamanni, an excellent poet: he lived some time in banishment in France, like another Ovid, where he wrote many things, particularly his Girone il Cortese (Girone the Courteous), a poetical romance.
Those two, in verse 5, are two of the name of Luigi: Gonzaga, cousin to the duke of Mantua; and Gonzaga, called of Gazalo, for his intrepidity surnamed Rodomont, who afterwards married Isabella. ↩
The mighty city is Mantua. ↩
This Isabella was daughter of Vespasian Gonzaga, and being promised to signor Luigi of the same family, Pope Clement, exasperated with Luigi for being in arms with the Imperialists at the sack of Rome, endeavoured by every means to make her marry another; but she, neither by threats nor promises, would be ever induced to break the faith that she had plighted. ↩
Alluding to her name, Colonna. ↩
The castle of this lord of Gazalo was situated not far from the river Oglio. By the neighbouring stream he means the Mincius. Hercules Bentivòglio. Son of Annibale: he wrote eclogues and comedies, and likewise excelled in music: he lived at Ferrara.
Reynet Trivultio—Giudecco. Renato Trivultio of Milan: he composed in octave stanzas on amorous subjects. Francesco, a Florentine, a good writer in Tuscan verse.
Molza. Excelled both in Latin and Tuscan verse. ↩
Hercules II, then only duke of Carnuti, afterwards duke of Ferrara.
Mention has already been made of the lord of Guasto: but it should be added, that he too was a poet. ↩
Victoria Colonna, a marchioness of Pescara, daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, a commander of great courage and conduct: she was wife to Francesco Davolo, marquis of Pescara; she was a lady of consummate genius and piety, and composed many elegant poems in praise of her husband, and other works on religious subjects. ↩
Laodamia, wife to Protesilaüs who went to the siege of Troy. He was the first who landed, and fell by the hand of Hector: his dead body being sent home to Laodamia, she expired upon it.
Evadne, wife of Capaneus, who went to the siege of Thebes: her husband being dead, she threw herself on the funeral pile, and was consumed with him.
Argìa, daughter of Adrastus, king of Argos, and wife to Polynices. Polynices and his brother, Eteocles, being dead by the hands of each other, Creon forbade them to be buried; but Argìa, accompanied by her sister, Antigone, went in the night to the field of battle, and finding the body of her husband, gave it burial; on which the tyrant commanded Argìa and Antigone to be put to death.
Arria, wife to Poetus, who was condemned to death for being privy to a conspiracy against the emperor Claudius. Arria, with great intrepidity, drew a dagger, and plunging it into her bosom, presented it to her husband with this expression, “that she died without pain, but the agony she felt was for the death which he must suffer.” ↩
Ericthonius, the son of Vulcan, was born with the feet of a dragon, and was given by Pallas, shut up in a chest to be kept by the three daughters of Cecrops, king of Athens, Pandroso, Erse, and Aglauros, with strict orders not to look therein; but Aglauros, through curiosity, opened the chest, and discovered the infant, on which they were all three punished. Ericthonius, when he was grown up, invented the use of the chariot, in order, when he rode therein, to conceal his deformity. ↩
The women of the island of Lemnos being jealous that their husbands meant to forsake them for other wives, formed a conspiracy against the men, and at their return massacred them all in one night: Hypermnestra only saved the life of her old father, king Thöas, and sent him in safety from the island. Jason afterwards arriving thither, found with surprise the kingdom only held by women. See Ovid’s Ep. Hypsipile to Jason. ↩
In a curious little poem, in which Saladin is made to
