"Primus et in Martem quæ sint pia fata Tonantis, Et manibus nati monstra parenta refert; At liber et bellis laudatque et honore secundus, Et gestis magnum rebus in orbe Ducem." [Footnote 82: TIRABOSCHI, _Storia della Letteratura Italiana_, VI., ii., p. 317-30; SHEPHERD'S _Life of Poggio Bracciolini_, _passim_; ROSCOE'S _Lorenzo de' Medici_, ch. i.] [Footnote *83: Cf. FLAMINI, _Versi inediti da G.M. Filelfo_ (Livorno, 1892, per nozze).] The very moderate anticipations raised by this proemium, which we leave in its rugged original, are not surpassed in the context, dull and common-place as it is in sentiment, prosaic and unpolished in style. Losing sight of his avowed object of keeping apart the deeds of Mars, the ancient divinity, from those of Federigo, his living type, in order to illustrate the parallel which it is his plan to draw between them, he strangely jumbles both; and, following the new-born classicism of the day, he has crammed his rough verses with nearly every name that heathen mythology, history, or geography can muster, in senseless and jarring confusion. With a view to exalt his hero as a second Hercules, he enumerates a series of labours and achievements from his childhood, when he sprang from bed and strangled a snake that had frightened all his attendants. This is followed by a farrago of allegorical struggles, combats, and triumphs over temptations or evil principles, anticipating somewhat the idea of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, but with this important difference, that the motives, arms, and aids are all borrowed from pagan mythology. So entirely is Federigo lost among the gods and demigods who crowd the stage, that his character or actions are seldom brought on the foreground at all, and never with sufficient idiosyncracy to avail for the development of either. Finally, we find him deified in Olympus, and the epic closes with an empty bravado that none ever more worthily emulated Alcides. The other MS. of Gian Maria Filelfo which demands a passing note is No. 804 of the same library, and is dated seven years later than the _Martiados_. It contains some six thousand Italian verses, consisting for the most part of minor poems on a variety of subjects; the volume is dedicated to Federigo, but many of the _Canzoni morali_ are inscribed to distinguished personages, not omitting the Duke's rancorous foe Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, to whose vanity such incense could not have been unpalatable. In treating of religious topics, the author, for the time, and by an effort, lays aside the pagan strain which prevails in his other lays, and though generally selecting the sonnet or _terza rima_, he thus affects to disclaim all rivalry with their mighty masters:-- "To these rude rhymes, alas, nor Petrarch's style Is given, nor the good Dante's pungent file."