Questa madonna è el mar' de tutto el senno Renchiuso, e posto dentro da bel ciglio, Chi vuol vecchio consiglio Recinga ai teneri anni di costei. Mille viole e fiore Sparge sopra la neve el suo bel viso; E dolce del suo riso Faria piatoso Silla a la vendetta, E spontaria de Giove omne saetta." FEDERIGO VETERANI has been repeatedly mentioned as a transcriber of MSS. for Duke Federigo, whom he also served as librarian and secretary, besides being one of the judges at Urbino. Those who have had occasion to examine the library formed by that prince, are well acquainted with his beautiful autograph, and might imagine his whole life to have been spent upon its fair volumes. One of them, containing the Triumphs of Petrarch, No. 351, is subscribed by him, with a memorandum that it was the last of about sixty volumes he had written out before the death of Federigo, which he thus deplores:-- "Fedrico Veterano fui, che scripse Questo e molti altri, cum justa mercede, Usando diligentia, amore et fede Al Duca Federigo in sin ch'el vixe: Le cui memorie sempre al mondo fixe Sonno e seranno; e ben certo si crede, Mentre sta el mondo e la natura in pede Ch'ogni virtù dal cielo in lui venisse. Quello mi piango, e mai ho 'l viso asciutto; Quel chiamo, quel mi sogno, e quel mi stringo Ai labri, sculpto in cara tavletta; La qual, così machiata del mio lucto, Adoro, honoro in verso, e vivo el fingo, Per lenimento di mia vita abiecta."[90] [Footnote 90: See a translation of these lines, vol. I., p. 269.] But, in addition to his miscellaneous avocations, Veterani was a copious versifier. Besides an epic, De Progenie Domus Feretranæ, there are other volumes of poetry, apparently his, remaining unedited in the library,[91] of which he continued custodian until the reign of Francesco Maria I. One of those beautiful manuscripts, the fair vellum and gem-like illuminations of which have been the theme of many a eulogy, contains the collected verses of Cristoforo Landini and six other less-known poets of the fifteenth century. On the concluding page, in a trembling and blotted hand, we read these touching lines, the tribute of its lettered scribe to the temporary eclipse of his sovereign's dynasty:[92]-- "1517. "FEDERICUS VETERANUS, URBINAS BIBLIOTHECARIUS, AD REI MEMORIAM. "Ne careat lacrymis liber hic, post fata Feretri, Hic me subscripsi, cumque dolore gravi. Hunc ego jamdudum Federicus, stante Feretro, Transcripsi, (gratus vel fuit ille mihi Quem modo vel semper fas est lugere parentem, Et dominum qui me nutriit,) atque diu Pagina testis erit, lacrymis interlita multis, Hæc tibi, qui moesta hæc carmina pauca legis. Et si dissimilis conclusit littera librum, Scriptorem ignarum me dolor ipse facit." [Footnote 91: Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1293, 303, 699.]