upon the sacred college as complete a delusion, as the wag practised upon the people of Bologna.—_Poggii Opera, p. 435._ [44] _Platina, tom. i. p. 386, 388._ [45] _Leon. Aret. Epistolæ, l. iii. ep. iii._ [46] _Ibid, ep. iv. vii._ [47] Leonardo Aretino, in his oration against Niccolo Niccoli, asserts, that Niccolo’s grandfather was a tavern-keeper at Pistoia. “Avi autem tui caupona Pistorii primum floruit non dignitate aliquà, sed fronde illâ festivâ quâ ad vinum et popinas meretrices et ganeos invitabat. Inde nocturnâ ebriorum cæde conterritus Pistorio demigravit, cauponam et serta Florentiam transtulit. Hic tandem pater tuus cauponâ egressus vino abstinuit, oleo se ac lanificio perunxit, sedens ad scamnum a matutino tempore quasi vile mancipium, sordido ac prope miserabili exercitio defamatus. Profer igitur insignia nobilitatis tuæ, qui alios tam insolenter contemnis. Habes enim præclarissima: ab avo quidem frondes et cyathos; a patre vero lanam et pectines.”—_Mehi Vita Ambrosii Traversarii, p. xxx._ So little regard did the learned men of the fifteenth century pay to truth in their invectives, that the assertion of Leonardo Aretino is not sufficient evidence of the history of Niccolo’s progenitors. But this is indisputably certain, that by endeavouring to throw ridicule upon his former friend, by a reference to the occupation of his ancestors, he only disgraces himself. The _frons festiva_, to which he alludes in the passage quoted above, is the laurel, which it was then customary to hang by way of a sign over the doors of taverns. From a similar custom is derived our English proverb, “Good wine needs no bush.” [48] _Mehi Vita Ambrosii Traversarii, p. lxxvi._ Lodovico Marsilio was an ecclesiastic of the Augustine order, of which fraternity he became the superior in the province of Pisa. His literary reputation caused him to be employed in the chancery of the republic of Florence, and in the year 1382 he was appointed of the number of the ambassadors sent by that state, to negociate a peace between Carlo, the Hungarian prince, and the duke of Anjou. In so great estimation was he held by the Florentines, that the administrators of their government applied to Boniface IX., requesting his holiness to promote him to the dignity of bishop of their city. The letter which was written on this occasion, and which details his various merits in very flattering terms, is preserved by Mehus in his life of Ambrogio Traversari. Lodovico carried on a correspondence with Coluccio Salutati; and also with Petrarca, on a few of whose sonnets he wrote a commentary. Several of his letters occur, but in a mutilated state, in a collection of the epistles of the Tuscan Saints, published at Florence, in 4to. A. D. 1736. He died on the 21st of August, 1394.—_Mehi Vita Ambrosii Traversarii, p. xxx. cclxxxv. ccxxxix. cclxi._