"This is to inform you that, on your return with his Excellency, our Lord and Consort, you must by all means bring as much of the finest and most beautiful scarlet serge, such as is made on purpose for the cardinals, as may suffice to make us a petticoat, taking care that it be at once handsome, good, and _distingué_. You can ascertain the necessary quantity. Here they tell us that if the stuff be two _braccie_ [a yard and a quarter] wide, at least eight _braccie_ will be required, and more if narrower, say nine or ten. See that you get full measure, and let the quantity be ample rather than deficient, so that we may not have to mar it for want of cloth. And if you cannot find such serge, bring some beautiful, good, and thin Venice cloth, being careful that it be light in texture, and that the colour be of the most bright and lively scarlet that can be found. Use all diligence that we be well suited and satisfied, if you would do us a grateful service. Bring also some of those books and rosettes, as they are called, which are commonly made there of thin white wax tapers; and so good health to you. From Fossombrone, the 6th of October, 1541. "JULIA DUCHESS OF URBINO." The Duchess had given birth to a son in 1544, but was survived only by a daughter Virginia: her marriage had been interested, and her lord lost no time in contracting another from similar motives, on the excuse of requiring a male heir. In August he went to kiss the Pope's feet at Rome, on occasion of negotiating a new matrimonial alliance with his granddaughter, Vittoria Farnese. On the 30th he returned home, and next month again met his Holiness at Perugia. The nuptials were interrupted by the assassination of the bride's father, Duke Pier-Luigi, whose son had supplanted Guidobaldo at Camerino, and whose tyranny in his new state of Parma sharpened the daggers of his outraged nobles. The ceremony, however, took place on the 30th of January, 1548, when Vittoria, who had been previously affianced to Duke Cosimo I., was twenty-eight years of age. On the 2nd of February she visited Urbino, amid many demonstrations of respect, among which was a muster of forty lads in her livery of yellow velvet, to each of whom an allowance of seven scudi had been voted by the city; but it was the Duke's pleasure that they should pay for their own dress. Art, too, had contributed its honours, and Vasari narrates how Battista Franco aided in decorating the triumphal arches designed by Girolamo Genga for her reception. Similar welcome was given her at Gubbio, where the youths wore purple velvet with white sleeves and white lilies.[*54] Coincident with, and in consequence of, this marriage, the Duke received from Paul a new investiture of his states, and a cardinal's hat, with the title of S. Pietro in Vinculis, for his brother Giulio, who, though but in