leave of our hosts, those stately shades of forceful men belonging to Renaissance Pistoja, who worked and wrought in these streets, whose prowess and policy, wit and learning, are so vivid in men's minds to-day. Pistoja entered with characteristic zest into the spirit of the Renaissance in all its varied aspects; she espoused the new learning, her libraries were filled with Greek and Latin manuscripts; she was famed for her able jurists and historians, her singers and poets were welcome at the proudest courts of Italy. We read that Antonio da Pistoja was invited by Lodovico il Moro to Milan, "in hope of refining and polishing the rude Lombard diction," and that the charming and learned Isabella d'Este, Marchesa of Mantua, wrote to her envoy: "Find out Messer Tebaldeo (of Pistoja), and beg him to send twenty or twenty-five sonnets, as well as two or three _capitoli_, which would give us the greatest possible pleasure." [Illustration: _Alinari_ _Della Robbia School_ COAT OF ARMS OF THE HOSPITAL, PISTOJA] No more typical family can be found, perhaps, than the Forteguerri of Siena and Pistoja, which was noted for its brave and learned sons and daughters, and beloved and honoured for devotion to their country, for their benevolence, learning, and poetic genius. As early as 1179 we find a Forteguerra as consul of Pistoja; in the fifteenth century Cardinal Forteguerra was not only conspicuous in the Church, but a constant friend and benefactor to his native city, founding and endowing a college and library. His grateful city erected a monument to his memory in the Piazza del Duomo, and called Verrocchio to design and carve a fitting tomb in the cathedral; but the work was not concluded by the master's hand, nor in accordance with his clay model, which we see to-day in the South Kensington Museum; and looking at the tomb, evidently the work of many diverse hands, one can but wish that the good Cardinal might have at Pistoja at least a replica of the one, by Mino da Fiesole, in the Church of St. Cecilia, Rome. Besides Cardinal Niccolò, there was more than one bishop, many jurists and historians in the Forteguerri family, and no less than six poets. The fifteenth Forteguerra, of the Pistoja branch, was another Niccolò (1674-1735), a well-known and cultured church-man at the court of Pope Clement XI, and author of a long, satirical poem, "The Ricciardetto," besides verses called "_capitoli_," and various translations from the Latin. This Niccolò was evidently conversant with Roman society, and a close observer of men and politics; he shows himself, also, at the age of fifty, a good lover, not only singing his lady's praise in verse, but sending her frequent vivacious and friendly letters, half in jest, but often dangerously near earnest affection; and the name of some Arcadian maiden of his muse, some Daphne or Phyllis, thinly conceals the identity of the noble young Roman lady, Marianna Cenci Bolognetti.