In one respect, however, poor Tullia was assuredly wronged by the wealthy and libertine Florence banker. He says that she was not beautiful. Now, the testimony of a dozen enamoured poets might be adduced in favour of her rare and fascinating beauty. And if it should be thought that evidence of this kind, however abundant and concurrent, needs confirmation, it has been supplied by the sister art. There is an admirable portrait of her by Bonvicini, a contemporary of Raphael, more generally known as Il Moretto da Brescia, which was engraved very tolerably at Milan, in 1823, by Caterina Piotti. It represents a very lovely face of the genuine regal type of Roman beauty. The brow is noble; and the magnificently cut, but rather large and statuesque features might perhaps seem somewhat hard in the firmness of their rich contour, were not the expression softened by an eye eloquent of all the tenderer emotions. Laurel branches fill the whole background of the picture, in token of the lady's rank as a poetess. How long after the date of the above–mentioned letters Tullia continued her residence in Rome, there remain no means of ascertaining. Zilioli says that she left it "after the death of her husband." And this one phrase is the only intimation of any sort we meet with, that such a person as Tullia's husband ever existed. It is true that such an appendage is not of a nature likely to be dwelt much on in love verses addressed to a lady. And to this category belong the greatest number of the notices of her, which have come down to us. Yet it seems strange that a wife should be celebrated from one end of Italy to the other, and recorded, or at least mentioned, in the pages of every literary historian of her country, and that she should have a husband whose name even was never, as it should seem, alluded to by his cotemporaries, and who has not left the slightest trace of his existence. It must be supposed that, if ever spoken of at all, he was only known as "La Tullia's" husband, a member of society discharging functions somewhat analogous to those of a Ballerina's mama. It is, at all events, certain that the lady was never known either among her contemporaries, or subsequently, by any other name than that of Tullia d'Aragona, and more commonly simply "La Tullia." And the strangeness of the view of sixteenth century society offered to us by an examination of the position "La Tullia" occupied in it, is not a little increased by the fact of her having had a sort of behind–the–scenes husband, who appears to have exercised about as much influence on her social standing as her waiting–maid. [Sidenote: HER HUSBAND.]