The following passage, often quoted from the commencement of Castiglione's _Cortegiano_, has given rise to considerable misapprehension:--"Among other laudable actions, Federigo erected, on the rugged heights of Urbino, a residence, by many regarded as the most beautiful in all Italy, and so amply provided with every convenience, that it appeared rather a palatial city than a palace. He furnished it not only with the usual plenishings of rich brocades in silk and gold, silver plate, and such like, but ornamented it with a vast quantity of ancient marble and bronze sculptures, of rare pictures, and musical instruments in every variety, excluding all but the choicest objects." Now, it so happens that, with every desire to verify what ought to be a valuable authority for a fact in itself most interesting, and especially probable of that prince, we have not been able to trace a single piece of sculpture, and hardly an easel picture, to his possession (a few portraits, of course, excepted), nor does one contemporary distinctly mention anything of the sort at Urbino. But whilst truth compels us to an admission calculated to impair his traditional reputation as an amateur of the fine arts, there was one branch of them which found in him a most zealous patron; and among the adornments of his palace was a treasure rivalling in beauty and excelling in importance all coeval museums of art. To the right and left of the carriage entrance into the great court-yard are two handsome saloons, each about forty-five feet by twenty-two, and twenty-three in height. That on the left contained the famous library of manuscripts collected by Count Federigo; the corresponding one received the printed books, which, gradually purchased by successive dukes, became, under the last sovereign, a copious collection. Baldi, in his description of the palace, printed in Bianchini's work, dwells on the judicious adaptation of the former, its windows set high against the northern sky, admitting a subdued and steady light which invited to study; its air cool in summer, temperate in winter; its walls conveniently shelved; the character and objects of the place fittingly set forth in a series of rude hexameters inscribed on the cornices.[124] Adjoining was a closet fitted up with inlaid and gilded panelling, beneath which Timoteo della Vite, a painter whose excellence we shall attest in our thirtieth chapter, depicted Minerva with her ægis, Apollo with his lyre, and the nine muses with their appropriate symbols. A similar small study was fitted up immediately over this one, set round with armchairs encircling a table, all mosaicked with _tarsia_, and carved by Maestro Giacomo of Florence, while on each compartment of the panelling was the portrait of some famous author, and an appropriate distich. One other article of furniture deserves special notice--a magnificent eagle of gilt bronze, serving as a lectern in the centre of the manuscript room. It