According to a Spanish decree, “from ancient times it has been lawful for mimes or jesters to reside in princes’ households, for the execution of their office is a provocative to gladness. Wherefore, we will and ordain that in our Court there shall always be five jesters, of which five two may be trumpeters, and a third our letter-carrier.” Martin of Aragon had a favourite jester in the famous Borra, who, however, killed his royal patron by a joke. The story goes that, as the King lay on his bed groaning from indigestion through eating an entire goose, Borra rushed into the room laughing. On his inquiring whence he came, Borra replied, “Out of the next vineyard, where I saw a young deer hanging by his tail from a tree, as if some one had so punished him for stealing figs”--a joke which caused the King to die of laughter. And Luis Lopez, the fool of Alfonso, King of Aragon, lies buried in the cathedral of Cordova. Amongst the fools that figured at the Italian Court may be mentioned Fagotto, who was officially associated with Alboin, King of the Lombards; and Bertoldo, of whom, writes Dr. Doran, little mention has been made by those who have dealt with the subject of Italian jesters. He is said to have been “hideously ugly,” with “hair as red as carrots,” but possessed of no ordinary wit. When asked by the King if he could contrive to bring him water in a sieve without spilling it, he answered, “In a hard frost I could bring any quantity.” All manner of questions were put to him to try his wit, and one day the King thought he had outwitted him by asking him to demonstrate--as he had asserted--that daylight was whiter than milk. He accepted the challenge, and having entered the King’s bedchamber at night, and closed the blinds, he placed a pail of milk in the middle of the room. Alboin rising in the dark, overturned the pail, and on calling for light, was answered by Bertoldo, who triumphantly remarked that “if the milk had been clearer than daylight, he would have seen the former without the aid of the latter.” Another well-known fool was Gonella, jester of Borso, Duke of Ferrara, whose post seems to have been a profitable one, from the fact of his betting a hundred crowns with his master that there were more doctors in Ferrara than there were members of any other profession. “Fool,” said Borso, “there are not half-a-dozen to be found in the ‘City Directory.’”