Muzio and Baldi impute to Federigo's munificence many other palaces in his state, such as Fossombrone, Cagli, Casteldurante, La Carda, Mercatello, &c.; but most of these were probably forts, of which Francesco di Giorgio speaks as having one hundred and thirty-six under his charge at once, for this prince. At the two first-named places, there still remain residences dating from this reign, and the parks or game-preserves which formerly surrounded them, embracing circuits of seven and five miles respectively, were walled in by the Count, and stocked with fallow-deer.[133] These have long ago run to waste, and the palaces, with their ample halls, "Shadowy with remembrances Of the majestic past," are now desolate and rapidly falling to ruin.[*134] [Footnote 133: We have very few notices of his sporting tastes; but the Vatican collection of his letters includes one of the King of France, on sending, at his request, a brace of dogs.] [Footnote *134: The palace of Urbino was indeed the wonder of the age. Dennistoun, however, tells us little or nothing about Federigo's villas. The gardens of Lorenzo de' Medici at Poggio a Caiano were provided with every vegetable, both for ornament and use, which the most diligent search could supply. Indeed, his was one of the first collections of plants made in Europe. Alessandro Braccio, in a Latin poem addressed to Bernardo Bembo, gives a graphic account of it. Laurentian Library, Plut. LXXXVI., sup. cod. 41. Band. Cat., III., 787. The poem is given by Roscoe, _Lorenzo de' Medici_, App. XXV.] * * * * *