His progeny were all illegitimate, and several of them came to violent ends. The sole redeeming trait of human kindness that seems to have softened his harsh and treacherous nature was his affection for Isotta, whom he raised from obscurity to participate in his affections, or as some say his rank. However that may have been, she shares such celebrity as has been conferred on him by the creations of art and literature which he sedulously patronised, and in which chiefly his name survives, although their humanising influences left no impress on his haughty and cruel nature. Mariotti remarks, that "an Italian prince in those days durst not be a barbarian. A murderer, perhaps, stained with the most flagitious crimes, he might be; but he must seek his absolution in works of munificence, he must atone for his outrages against public morality by his devotion to the cause of learning and homage to the public taste." So was it with Sigismondo.[*147] Valturio tells us that he read a great deal, and often took part in discussions and disputations upon philosophy, letters, and arts, with a patience of contradiction which honourably contrasted with his usual outbreaks of temper. At his court were entertained Porcellio, Basinio, Trebanio, and other Latinist poetasters, who repaid such hospitality by a meed of fulsome and long-forgotten doggerel, and celebrated the beauty and accomplishments of his mistress. Italy could boast of no architect superior to Leon Alberti, no military engineer more skilful than Valturio: he employed the former on the church of S. Francesco at Rimini, which marks an era in the revival of art; the latter, under his auspices, wrote on the science of war, and exemplified its practice in constructing the castle of that town: both of these buildings enshrine the name and munificence of Sigismondo Pandolfo. But the most pleasing memorials of a prince by name and by nature chief of the _wrong-heads_ (if we may be pardoned a pun upon Malatesta) are the medallions in bronze struck for him by Pisani, Di Pastis, and other celebrated medalists, one of which we here introduce. Zanetti's publication on the mint of Rimini gives twelve of these without exhausting their number; they preserve his manly bust and Isotta's matronly features, whilst the sculptures of S. Francesco familiarise us with the elephant and negro-heads borne as their respective cognisances.