[151] To obtain funds for the exchequer exhausted by the war against Milan in 1426 recourse was had to a curious financial scheme. A _Monte_, or special fund, was created for granting marriage portions to young men and maidens. Every contributor had the right to name a male or female child, to whom at the expiration of fifteen years a sum five times that subscribed was paid when they married. Should the nominee die the money became the property of the _Monte_. As far as I understand these _Monti_ gradually developed into State pawnbrokers’ establishments. [152] _Istorie di Giovanni Cambi_, Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani, xxi. 64. Firenze, 1785. [153] I have followed the Ashburnham Codex, now in the Laurentian Library, published by Sigr. Gugliemo Volpi in the _Atti della R. Academia della Crusca_, 1907-1908. There the poem has only twenty octaves instead of fifty, and I think most people will agree that this is the real version and that the other mentioning _quella trista Becca_, evidently alluding to Luigi Pulci’s poem _La Becca di Dicomano_, written later in imitation of Lorenzo’s poem _Nencia_, has interpolations by an inferior hand. Sigr. Volpi has published the poem in a small pamphlet, _Un Nuovo Testo della Nencia_, da G. Volpi. Tipografia Gallileiana, Firenze, 1908. [154] Heinrich Isaak, a Bohemian composer. [155] It is probable that the French ambassadors who so often came to Florence found their journey was profitable. This was certainly the case with Philippe de Comines. See p. 312. [156] _A History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome_, by M. Creighton, D.D. Oxon. and Cam., Lord Bishop of London, iv. 162. Longmans, Green & Co., 1897. [157] _Istorie di Firenze_, Marchese Gino Capponi. [158] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza 63. [159] Marsuppini. [160] _Florentia_, Isidoro del Lungo, p. 119.