[Footnote 150: Oliveriana MSS. In 1602 the Duke instructed his resident at Venice to procure for Gian Battista Leoni access to its archives for the life of Francesco Maria I. he had commissioned him to write, which was published three years later.] Had Baldi lived among our fathers, he would have dwelt in Grub Street, and become, by his powers of application and memory, a successful book-maker; among ourselves, he would have proved valuable as a penny-per-line scribe. In Italy, his renown was, for a time, more brilliant, but it has now passed into comparative, and not unmerited, neglect. Yet his is a name of which his native city may justly be proud, and may cherish with respectful approbation this epitaph, once proposed for his tomb:-- "Ah! happy he who spent a lengthened span, Not in the vulgar dreams of grovelling man, But passed his days in living truly well; Urbino's honour! Passenger, farewell." Among the literary labourers of this age GIROLAMO MUZIO[*151] is entitled to a prominent place, more from the variety and volume of his writings than from their actual worth. The epithet Giustinopolite, usually applied to him, is latinised from Capo d'Istria, the adopted home of his family, who were originally emigrants from Udine, and spelt their name Nuzio. He, however, was born at Padua, in 1496, and, after receiving a good education, finding himself dependent upon his own exertions, was fain to sell his services of sword or pen to the highest bidder. The same rule of self-interest that actuated Italian condottieri was too often followed by literary adventurers in that country, conscience and glory being generally made subservient by both to a livelihood. Girolamo had a double chance, in his twofold capacity of soldier and author, and tells us "that it was ever his fate to earn his bread by serving in the armies and courts of popes, emperors, kings, or petty princes; sometimes with one Italian commander, sometimes with another; now in France, then in Upper, again in Lower Germany." Through these vicissitudes it were needless to follow him. For a time he was rival or successor of Bernardo Tasso in the promiscuous affections of Tullia d'Aragona, a lettered courtezan, and, without her sanction, published, in 1547, her Dialogue on the Infinitude of Love. In the preface he avowed a connection which occasioned him neither compunction nor shame, and which, in days when love was a science as well as a passion, was openly shared by Varchi, Speroni, Strozzi, and Molza. Four years later a dangerous illness taught him reflection on his past ways, and brought him to a devotional frame of mind. It was about the same time that he became an inmate of the court of Urbino, receiving from Duke Guidobaldo the ample pension of 400 scudi, with permission to "attend to his studies, appearing only when he chose." The Duchess Vittoria countenanced him much, and he spent a good deal of time in her society, probably in consequence of