There is reason to suppose that her residence in Rome must have continued till 1540 or 1541. For among the "Strozziane"[13] MSS. preserved in the Magliabecchian library at Florence, there is a volume containing the rules, members' names, transactions, &c. of the Academy of the "Humidi," in which are entered three or four sonnets sent from Rome to the Society by Tullia. They are not dated; but the Academy was founded in 1540, and the volume bears at the end the date of 1541. Nothing can be conceived more insipid and dry, than the lucubrations of these "Humid" Academicians; and in truth the effusions despatched to them by Tullia, and honoured by the Academy with insertion in their solemn Archives, are quite worthy of their place in the Humid annals. One is a sonnet in praise of Cosmo I. It begins "Almo pastor," and attributes to that lowminded debauchee and cruel tyrant all the virtues that can possibly be packed into fourteen lines. And this was written a couple of years after Filippo Strozzi (the very particular friend and protector, by whose side it was a pleasure to sit, while he wrote long business letters in 1531) put himself to death in despair, in preference to remaining in the power of Cosmo, his mortal and vindictive enemy. One might suspect that the fair Tullia had had an opportunity of looking over his shoulder also when he was writing that second letter, in which he had dared to say that she was not beautiful! Another of the sonnets sent by Tullia, and preserved by the "Humidi," is inscribed to Maria Salviati, and begins— "Soul pure and bright, as when thou cam'st from God!" Whence it may be inferred that there was in those days no such yawning abyss between the "monde" and "demi–monde," as to prevent a lady highly placed in the former from being addressed acceptably by one who, according to nineteenth century notions, must be deemed a denizen of the latter. It must be understood, however, that any such phrase applied to Tullia's social position in her own sixteenth century, would give a very erroneous idea of what that in reality was. The classic Hetaira seems more akin to this Apollo–chartered libertine of an age bent on being equally classical. Accordingly we find that the house of La Tullia—_her_ house! no mention or hint of that Junius–like individual (Il Tullio, shall we call him?), who must nevertheless be supposed to have been at home there under hatches somewhere, or acting perhaps as groom–porter, and shouting the names and titles of the Monsignori and Eminences, as they arrived;—the house of La Tullia was frequented by the "best society" in Rome. Ludovico Domenichi of Piacenza, himself a poet and a curious specimen of a sixteenth century professional literary man, who must have known Tullia at Florence in the latter years of her life, has recorded some of the sayings and doings of a company assembled at her house in Rome.[14] [Sidenote: A PARTY AT HER HOUSE.]