In absence of native sculptors of eminence, the plastic art never was much cherished in our duchy, and few commissions were given, except for decorative or monumental purposes. The festive arches on Duchess Vittoria's marriage were probably designed by Tiziano Aspetti, a bronzist of Upper Italy. Her husband having acquired a Leda by Bartolomeo Ammanati of Florence, he was called to Urbino, to construct a memorial for Francesco Maria I. It does not, however, appear to have been successful, and being quite disproportioned to the little octangular church of Sta. Chiara, of which it occupied the centre, it was removed after the Devolution, and probably destroyed. SEBASTIANO BECIVENNI of Mercatello, was celebrated as a decorative sculptor, and his dexterity is attested by two pulpits in the duomo at Arezzo, dated 1563. In 1581, Francesco Maria II. commissioned two small statues from John of Bologna, and in the following year his minister at Rome wrote, proposing to send him a miniature painter from thence, at a monthly salary of ten golden scudi, besides board and travelling expenses. Late in life, he had his own and his father's portraits executed in mosaic by Luigi Gaetano at Venice. The statue of Duke Federigo, which we have already mentioned as modelled by Baroccio, was executed for this Duke by Girolamo Campagna of Venice, and one of his grandfather, attired as a Roman warrior, leaning on his baton of command, and resting upon a stump, was the work of Giovanni Bandini of Florence, an eminent scholar of Bandinelli. After his sovereignty had virtually passed from the bereaved Duke, he disposed of this memorial of its brighter days in a touching letter to the Doge of Venice, which finely illustrates the resignation beautifully exemplified in all the correspondence of his latter years:-- "Most serene Prince,