Thus much regarding the various manufactories of majolica connected with Urbino. The forms and purposes to which it was turned were very various. The first plates of Pesaro, chiefly of great size [_bacili_], were probably for table use, but a variety of them, called _amatorii_, were either tender souvenirs or marriage gifts. These usually had the lady's portrait, with the complimentary epithet of Bella, as in this example now in my possession; at other times united hands and a transfixed heart, with a motto of affection, moralising, or banter. Several such have been described by Passeri, Marryat, and others, but I shall add a few which have come under my observation. 1. At Florence: _Francesca bella a paragon di tutti_, "Frances, of beauty comparable to any one." 2. At Rome: _Nemo sua sorte contentus erat_, "Each has something to grumble about." 3. Sir Thomas B. Hepburn; a lady holding a gigantic pink: _Non è sì vago el fiore che non imbiacca o casca_, "There is no flower so lovely but fades or droops." 4. Rome; a dame of rueful countenance: _Sola miseria caret invidia_, "Only the miserable escape envy." 5. Pesaro, Massa collection: _Per dormire non si acquista_, "The indolent get nothing." 6. Florence: _Chi bien guida sua barcha sempre emporto_, "Who steers well his bark, always makes the harbour." 7. Pesaro:-- _S'il dono è picolo e di pocho valore, Basta la fedel povere se redore._ "If small the gift and scant of merit A poor slave's faith,--enough, you share it."[247] [Footnote 247: The rules of syntax are in these often overstepped, and conjecture left to eke out the sense. My reading is literal, of _basta la fe del povere sevedore_, which is intelligible, and rhymes, as is not the case with _basta la fede, e 'l povere se vedo_, the version of Passeri. This author tells us of a certain coy or mischievous Philomela who pierced her lover's present with holes and made of it a mouse-trap! Also of an exquisite Gubbian plate, portraying the _Daniella Diva_, who displays a wounded heart with the legend _Oimè!_ "Ah me." A drug-bottle in Mr. Marryat's collection, and engraved in his work, has the portrait of a lady whose squint is given to the life.] [Illustration: MAIOLICA _Plate of Castel Durante ware about 1540, with a portrait medallion within a border of oak leaves. This pattern was called "Cerquata" or "al Urbinata," the oak being the badge of the Rovere house_]