ENDNOTES

^*This expression of taking Italy “as it were with merely a piece of chalk” (col gesso) was made use of by Alexander VI., and means that Charles VIII. had merely to send a quartermaster ahead with “a piece of chalk” to mark the houses in which the French troops were to be quartered.

^*John Sharpe, an English soldier of fortune.

^* “My cruel fate,
And doubts attending an unsettled state,
Force me to guard my coasts from foreign foes.”

Dryden.

^*“Few kings descend to the dark abode of Ceres without wounds or slaughter, and tyrants never die a natural death.”

^*Marzocco was the name familiarly given by the people of Florence to the marble lion supporting the arms of Florence, at the door of the Palazzo Vecchio. Thence the party supporting the government of Florence was called the party of Marzocco. The marble lion is attributed to the chisel of Donatello.

^*Francisci Petri del Nero, An. 1522.