wings of desire that are customary, also chased by six cavaliers who resembled Virtue, or the Virtues; which Virtues, so it was said, chasing her, were aspiring to obtain the due and well-deserved reward of honour. Upon the sixth, then, was seen coming a very rich Mercury, who was shown being goaded and urged on no less than the others by six other similar figures of Mercury; and upon the seventh was seen the nurse of Romulus, Acca Laurentia, with six of her Fratres Arvales, who were not only urging her lazy animal to a run with their goads, but seemed almost to have been introduced to keep her company with much fittingness and pomp. Upon the eighth, next, was seen coming with much grace and richness a large and very natural owl, with six cavaliers in the form of bats most natural and marvellously similar to the reality, who with most dexterous horses, goading the buffalo now from one side and now from another, were seen delivering a thousand joyous and most festive assaults. For the ninth, with singular artifice and ingenious illusion, there was seen appearing little by little a Cloud, which, after it had held the eyes of the spectators for some time in suspense, was seen in an instant as it were to part asunder, and from it issued the seafaring Misenus seated upon the buffalo, which at once was seen pursued and pricked by six Tritons adorned in a very rich and most masterly fashion. And for the tenth and last there was seen coming, almost with the same artifice, but in a different and much larger form and in a different colour, another similar Cloud, which, parting asunder in like manner at the appointed place with smoke and flame and a horrible thunder, was seen to have within it infernal Pluto, drawn in his usual car, and from it in a most gracious manner was seen to come forth in place of a buffalo a great and awful Cerberus, who was chased by six of those glorious ancient heroes who are supposed to dwell in peace in the Elysian Fields. All those companies, when they had appeared one by one upon the piazza, and presented the due and gracious spectacle, and after a long breaking of lances, a great caracoling of horses, and a thousand other suchlike games, with which the fair ladies and the multitude of spectators were entertained for a good time, finally made their way to the place where the buffaloes were to be set to race. And there, the trumpet having sounded, and each company striving that its buffalo should arrive at the appointed goal before the others, and now one prevailing and now another, all of a sudden, when they were come within a certain distance of the place, all the air about them was seen filled with terror and alarm from the great and deafening fires that smote them now on one side and now on another, in a thousand strange fashions, insomuch that very often it was seen to happen that one who at the beginning had been nearest to winning the coveted prize, the timid and not very obedient