of the Della Rovere family, is a curious manifestation of the family feeling, which was so intense in Sixtus, and was the ever-present motive of all his crimes. [Sidenote: A HUNTING PARTY.] But the most pleasing of the doings in honour of the Elector recorded by the old diarist, is a grand hunting party given him by our Count Girolamo. It took place on the 10th of April, 1480, a day remembered by the people of Rome long afterwards, says Jacopo of Volterra. For the hunting took place only eight miles from the city, in the neighbourhood of the Fonte Malliane, to the south-west of Rome, and all classes of the citizens made holiday. Even the boys were able to join and enjoy the sport. The foreign princes themselves, with their retinue, all mounted on splendid horses, holding the hounds in leash, and shining, says the diarist, with gold and jewels, were the most interesting part of the sight to the populace. A very great quantity of stags and deer were taken, "and some beasts were captured by the hands of the princes themselves, _as if the creatures suffered themselves to be caught from the wish to contribute to the happiness of so great an occasion_"—a somewhat left-handed compliment to a sportsman, friend Jacopo, and savouring more of the antechamber than the greenwood. A more joyous scene, adds the diarist, cannot be imagined than that afforded by those hill-sides and woods thronged with eager sportsmen, and resounding far and near with the notes of the horns, the halloes of the hunters, the barking of the dogs, and the voices of singing and rejoicing. Then at the Fonte Malliane a magnificent banquet was prepared under the ilex woods of a shady hill-side, not for the invited guests only, but for all present. The Roman dames, with Catherine mistress of the revel, mingling in their brilliant and gorgeous-coloured[84] costume among the carousing knights, amid the dark-green verdure that shaded the hill-side, give what was wanted in colour to make the gay scene perfect. At respectful distance amid the surrounding woods, the Roman citizens are making the most of the rare opportunity; not less loud in their mirth, or less jovial over the good things provided at the cost of taxes drawn by the good Count from faraway provinces, than their masters. Their stalwart forms, clad in russet jerkin or hempen frock, mingled with hounds in leash, and richly-caparisoned horses, group well as seen among the trunks of the trees against the dark background of the ilex woods. "It is not to be told," says Jacopo, thus winding up his unusually detailed description, "how much those German chiefs, rejoicing after their own fashion, enjoyed themselves on that memorable day!" Is it intended, good Jacopo, by those words of yours, "_Germani illi proceres lætantes more suo_," that we should catch a glimpse of our Teuton friends riding back the eight miles into Rome rather less steadily than they sat on those tall horses of theirs in the morning?