the _Cortegiano_, wherein the Duchess Elisabetta, in chastity the mirror of her age, listens approvingly with her courtly dames to long passages of prurient twaddle, ever skirting and often overstepping the limits of decency. Nor were the morals around her conformable to her own pure example, and that of the immaculate Emilia Pia.[*32] One sad instance in the ducal family we shall have to note, while narrating the early life of Duke Francesco Maria I.; another, remarkable from the subsequent status of the personage to whose birth the scandal attaches, will immediately be mentioned in connection with Giuliano de' Medici.[33] [Footnote *32: This lady was the inseparable companion of the Duchess Elisabetta. She was the daughter of Mario Pio, of the Lords of Carpi. Early the widow of Antonio of Montefeltro, natural brother of Guidobaldo, she remained at Urbino. She died, as it seems, a true lady of the Renaissance. "Senza alcun sacramento di la chiesa, disputando una parte del Cortegiano col Conte Ludovico da Canosso." Cf. Rossi, _Appunti per la storia della musica alla Corte d'Urbino_, in Rassegna Emiliana, Ann. I. (fasc. VIII.), p. 456, n. 1.] [Footnote 33: See below, p. 57.] But it would not be just, after adorning our narrative with flattering sketches from Castiglione's pencil, to exclude one or two anecdotes of the manners actually permitted among the polished society he professes to portray, although their coarseness and vulgarity, scarcely redeemed by their humour, may be considered as staining our pages. They occur in some memorials of the conversation of Francesco Maria, noted by a contemporary from personal observation.[34] [Footnote 34: Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, art. 21. There is a copy of this MS. in the library of Newbattle Abbey, Scotland.] The subject of discussion happening to be Mark Antony's weakness in permitting Cleopatra to accompany him to the fight of Actium, the Duke said, "My father-in-law, the Marquis of Mantua, being at Mortara, in the service of France, Ludovico il Moro was in the camp with his Duchess, and one day, seeing the Marquis suffering from violent pain in the shoulder, said to him, 'Sir, I have the Duchess here, what shall I do with her?' The Marquis, being otherwise occupied, and suffering great pain, replied, 'How can I tell? send her to a brothel!' an answer quite off-hand, and truly appropriate"--from the brother of our paragon Duchess Elisabetta.