As far as school-work went, however, there was little need for punishment. The enthusiasm for letters which had seized on all Italy had taken possession of the little people of the “Casa Giocosa” in an extraordinary degree; and in some cases, especially that of Gianlucido, the master’s care was rather to restrain than to urge them on. That great scholar, Ambrogio Traversari, General of the Camaldolese Order, writing to his friend, the celebrated Niccolò Nicoli, mentioned the boy’s marvellous achievements in Latin and Greek. On the occasion of a later visit, which he described for the great Cosimo de’ Medici, he listened to a Latin poem of about two hundred verses, wherein Gianlucido celebrated the coming of the Emperor Sigismund to Mantua. That same letter to Cosimo makes mention of Cecilia, whom, perhaps, my readers think I have left too long undistinguished, among the band of merry children, playing by the Mincio. “There is also a daughter of the Marquis[12] at the school,” writes Ambrogio, “who, though only ten years’ old, writes Greek with such elegance that, I am ashamed to acknowledge, scarcely any of my own pupils can approach it.” This tribute, indeed, hardly does full credit to Cecilia’s astonishing attainments. At eight years old, we are told, she read the works of Saint John Chrysostom, and wrote elegant Latin verses. She had begun the study of Greek at the mature age of six. Nor did she excel less in the feminine arts, on which her master’s educational system laid such stress. Those little, high-born, Italian girls learned to dance almost as soon as they learned to walk, and a suggestion of the music which accompanied their early dancing lessons lingered in every graceful movement. Music, too, was as general as speech, and the child learned it as naturally. But, general as it was, it was never cheapened by being wedded to unworthy words. When a little girl learned to sing, there was food for her intellect in the lesson, too; for, in those days, men set sonnets of Petrarch and passages from Virgil to music, and the lute made a charming accompaniment. The “speaking” voice was even more carefully trained than the “singing” voice. To quote from the delightful “Life of Vittorino da Feltre” in the Saint Nicholas Series: “the greatest trouble was taken with the cultivation of the voice, the manner of breathing, pronunciation, and all the other details which go to make up an easy and elegant delivery.... Like the ancient Romans, the master attached to this exercise a certain hygienic value.” It was a rare treat to hear Cecilia, in that golden voice of hers, declaim some of her own verses. It is worth while to examine, in some detail, the system which led to such astonishing results.