Among the traits of literary taste displayed by Duke Federigo, we learn from his biographer Muzio, that it was his custom to repair weekly to the Franciscan convent, and to encourage among its learned society debates and discussions on subjects analogous to their studies. Upon this somewhat loose foundation, he has been claimed as founder of the _Assorditi_, and it has been ranked among the earliest academies in Italy. We need not pause to investigate their respective titles to honours so questionable, now that such associations are generally recognised as prolific of two enormous literary nuisances, pedantry and puerility. From their antipathic contact genius long has fled, leaving the field open to triumphant mediocrity. Pretending to no original efforts, it was their narrow aim to imitate standard productions, or to ring the changes upon them in prosing and pointless commentaries. To indite two tomes of scholia on a sonnet of Petrarch was the dreary task that qualified for admission into the Florentine Academy; to string Platonic nothings into rhyme was the high ambition which numbered votaries by hundreds. The _Assorditi_ were no exception from the usual category of mediocrity; and whether they were first associated under Federigo's protection, or, as Tiraboschi alleges, sprang into existence under Guidobaldo II., is of little moment to the literary history of Urbino. In times when letters flourished chiefly at courts, patronage was the grand end of authorship, every work being inscribed to at least one high personage. The character and position of Federigo subjected him to a large share of such incense; but among the many dedications laid at his feet none perhaps was more fulsome, and at the same time more ingenious, than that prefixed by Marsilio Ficino to his Latin version of Plato's _Essay on Monarchy_. It narrates that Jupiter, willing to found on earth a model sovereignty, resolved to send down the beau-ideal of a ruler for its guidance. He, therefore, summoned the gods in full convocation, and presented to them his new creation, under the title _Fideregum Orbinatem Ducem_, which may be literally interpreted "Royal faith, ruler of the world," but which was corrupted by human idiom into _Federigo Urbinate Duce_. Pallas and Mercury thereupon, in presence of Truth, endowed the new prince with crown and sceptre; and the Academy, as a humble handmaid of these deities, inscribed to him Plato's work upon mundane sovereignty. Although we have had occasion to notice in our tenth chapter this Duke's taste for the graver studies of theology, philosophy, history, and Grecian literature, and to commemorate the fruit it produced in a variety of other dedications, yet few who distinguished themselves in these pursuits are sufficiently identified with Urbino to authorise our dwelling at any length upon their names. Guarino of Verona, Poggio Bracciolini, Donato Acciaiolo, Poliziano, and others of mark,