This idea being approved by the Duchess and her deputy, the latter called upon Count Ludovico Canossa to begin the theme. Its discussion (our observations upon which must be reserved for a future portion of these pages) is represented by Castiglione as having been prolonged during successive evenings; Federigo Fregoso, Giuliano the Magnificent, Cesare Gonzaga, Ottaviano Fregoso, and Pietro Bembo, following the cue with which Canossa had opened. At the close of the fourth sitting, an argument on love was interrupted by daylight. "Throwing open the eastern windows of the palace, they saw the summit of Monte Catri already tipped with rosy tints of the radiant Aurora, and all the stars vanished except Venus, the mild pilot of the sky, who steers along the limits of night and day. From these far-off peaks there seemed to breathe a gentle breeze, that tempered the air with bracing freshness, and, from the rustling groves of the adjacent hills, began to awaken sweet notes of wandering birds." The same golden sun continues to dawn upon Urbino, but, ere many months had passed, the bright galaxy of satellites that circled round Duke Guidobaldo was scattered, for their guiding star had gone to another sphere. * * * * * During fifteen years his fine form and robust constitution had been wasted by gout, for such was the name given to a disease hereditary in his family. Physiologists may decide upon the accuracy of this term, and say why, in an age of incessant exposure to severe exercise under all weather, and when luxuries of the table were little known or appreciated, the ravages of that malady should have been more virulent than in our days of comparative indulgence and effeminacy.[55] At first he struggled against the symptoms, continuing his athletic sports; but in a few years he was reduced to a gentle pace on horseback, or to a litter. At length, about the time of which we are now speaking, his intervals of ease rarely extended to a month, during which he was carried about in a chair; but, when under a fit, was confined to bed in great agony. Yet, ever tended by his wife, his fortitude never forsook him, and his mind, gathering strength in the decay of nature, sought occupation in the converse of those able men who made his palace their home, or, in the moments of most acute suffering, fell back for distraction upon the vast stores of his prodigious memory, whiling away long hours of agony by repeating passages from his favourite authors. The palliations of medicine lost their effects; his enfeebled frame became more and more sensitive to acute pain; in his emaciated figure few could recognise the manly beauty of his youthful person; life had prematurely become to him an irksome burden. [Footnote 55: Sanuto strangely ascribes his death to _mal Francese_, an example of the way in which that ill-understood scourge was then assumed as the origin of many fatal maladies.]