and art, a true lover of beauty and a protector of scholars and poets. As for the "deification of his paramour" (p. 194), I do not know what it means; but if it refers to the "Divine" Isotta, it was a common mode of address in that age: and for the decoration of the Tempio, they are not pagan gods (alas!), but the planets we see there; they illustrate a poem Sigismondo wrote in his youth. Dennistoun (note, p. 194) insists that Sigismondo had three wives before Isotta, though Sismondi would have put him right there. He has been misled probably by an early betrothal of Sigismondo to the daughter of Carmagnuola, who, on her father's execution by the Venetians, was repudiated.] It is remarkable how entirely his virtues and vices, his talents and tastes, were formed upon the standards of paganism, and one circumstance alone was wanting to place him on a level with the heroes of classic times,--that he had been born a heathen. Thus, his selfish daring, his reckless waste of human life and welfare, needed but the name of Mars to sanctify them; his unscrupulous and insatiable lust had been welcome incense at the shrine of Venus; the murder of his wives and the deification of his paramour found orthodox precedents in many demigods. So too was it with his encouragement of letters and art. The verses of his laureates were modelled after the most approved classical adulation. His architects were employed in the art of war, his sculptors upon heroic medals and devices commemorative of himself and his favourite mistress; the church which he built as a monument of his magnificence is covered with ornaments, emblems, and tombs so profane in character, that but for its dedication to St. Francis, it might scarcely have been taken for a Christian shrine. The latter scenes of his life have a touch of romantic interest altogether wanting to its more prosperous days. When deprived of substantial sovereignty, he left the scene of his humiliation, and turning against the Crescent those arms which had often been arrayed against the Keys, as a captain of adventure he led the Venetian troops to encounter the Infidel in the Morea. There he distinguished himself in 1464-5, and then returned to Italy, bringing, it is said, the dry bones of Themistios, a Byzantine philosopher, to a court no longer open for living celebrities of literature. His haughty spirit spurned all overtures from the Pontiff, who sought to anticipate the devolution of Rimini to the Holy See by bribing him into a quiet surrender of it during his life; but abject in misfortune as he had been arrogant in prosperity, and disgusted at the contrast of his fallen fortunes, he pined and died before completing his fifty-second year.[148]