In the Vatican is preserved a MS. of this history in two volumes folio, of 1210 pages, in twenty-five books, ending with the death of James IV. of Scotland in 1512. The narrative is preceded by a dedication in Latin to Francesco Maria II., from Antonio Vergilio Battiferri, grand-nephew of the author, which is dated in 1613, and mentions the MS. as autograph. Yet on the last leaf is this colophon, apparently in the same hand: "Rogo ut bene conserventur, simul cum aliis in cenobio venerand. monalium Sce. Clare de Urbino, quousque bella, Deo favente, cessabunt. Ego Federicus Ludovici Veterani Urbinus scripsi totum opus." But though not the original, that transcriber's name guarantees the accuracy of this copy. An extract from it in II. of the Appendix proves that the Leyden edition of 1651 is in fact a loose paraphrase of the work.[73] [Footnote 73: The MS. is No. 497-8 of the Vat. Urb. MSS. An edition in folio was published at Bâle in 1546.] * * * * * VESPASIANO FILIPPI[*74] was a Florentine bibliopole, in an age when that commerce was carried on by persons of learning, whose business it was to transcribe, collate, and critically master the MSS. which formed its staple. He was thus in familiar intercourse not only with the literary men of the age, but with such princes and prelates as turned their attention to the promotion of reviving letters by multiplication and preservation of books. Of many such he has left us biographical notices, recently given to the world by Cardinal Mai from three MSS. in the Vatican library,[75] and in the Riccardiana of Florence. His collection of lives of illustrious ladies remains unedited. In the former work no memoir is so fully extended as that of Duke Federigo of Urbino, upon which we have in part drawn in our Second Book. It was inscribed to Duke Guidobaldo I., in a dedication which not only testifies to his father's martial skill, and a prowess that never knew defeat, but also to the prudence of his sway, and assures us that the great powers of Italy had frequent recourse to his judicious counsels. Unlike the pedantic writers among whom he lived, Vespasiano composed these memoirs in the language of the people for whose information he intended them; but the long interval that elapsed before they saw the light has necessarily prevented them from becoming in any degree popular. Muratori, though unable to give an account of their author, has printed his lives of Eugene IV. and Nicholas V., and characterises his style as possessing a simplicity more precious than eloquence. [Footnote *74: For Vespasiano da Bisticci, consult (1) his own charming and exquisite work, _Vite degli uomini Illustri_ (Firenze, 1859), with an excellent preface by Bartoli; FRATI, _Lettere_ (Bologna, 1892-93). ROSSI writes of these in _Giornale Stor. d. Lett. Ital._ (1892), vol. XX., p. 258, and vol. XXIV., p. 276. (2) FRIZZI, _Di Vespasiano da Bisticci e delle sue biografie_ (Pisa, 1887).]