Part 51

P. 255:

◆Ferdinando Francesco Avalos, Marquis de Pescaire, of a well-known Neapolitan family, began his career as a soldier in 1512 at the battle of Ravenna. Distinguished himself by the capture of Milan (1521) and numerous other brilliant feats of arms. Took an important part in the battle of Pavia, where François I. of France was taken prisoner. Wounded in that battle, and died in the same year, 1525. His wife was the celebrated Vittoria Colonna.

P. 257:

◆Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Bk. XV., Chap. vii. Herod the Great; died B. C. 4. He put to death his wife Mariamné, as well as her grandfather and his own sons by her.

P. 258:

◆Shiraz, a town of Persia, capital of the Province of Fars, famous for its roses, wine and nightingales, sung by the Persian poets Hafiz and Saadi.

◆Plutarch, Alexander, Chap. XXXIX.

◆It is in his Observations de plusieurs singularités (Paris, 1554) that Belon reports this fact. (Liv. III., chap. x., p. 179.)

P. 261:

◆The usual form is Ortiagon. The woman is the beautiful Queen Chiomara. (Cf. Livy, XXXVIII., cap. xxiv., and Boccaccio, De claris mulieribus, LXXIV.) Chiomara, wife of Ortiagon, King of Galatia, was taken prisoner by the Romans when Cn. Manlius Vulso invaded Galatia, B. C. 189. The story is told by Polybius (XXII., 21).

P. 262:

◆Suetonius, Cæsar, LII.

P. 263:

◆Livy, XXX., cap. xv.

◆Plutarch, Cato the Elder. Brantôme attributes the anecdote to Scipion.

P. 265:

◆Charles de Lorraine, Cardinal de Guise, known as Cardinal de Lorraine, died in 1574. He played an important rôle at the Council of Trente. Brantôme refers to the truce of Vaucelles between Henri II. and the Emperor, which Cardinal Caraffa had succeeded in breaking in 1556. This passage had evidently been written before 1588, the year of the death of another Cardinal de Guise, the brother of Balafré.

◆The beautiful Venitians are described by Vecellio as wearing exquisite gowns on holidays. (See Vecellio, Habiti antichi, Venice, 1590.)

P. 266:

◆This passage is not in the Dies geniales by Alessandro, but in Herodotus, II., chap. ix.

P. 267:

◆What Brantôme says of Flora is not true. The woman in question was not called Flora, but Acca Taruntia.

P. 269:

◆Pausanius, Suetonius, and Manilius have not written special works on women. Brantôme is no doubt referring to the anecdotes that are found in their works.

P. 273:

◆This princess was Catherine de’Medeci.

P. 275:

◆The same story has been told of Mademoiselle, cousin german of Louis XIV., with this addition that she was in the habit of giving any of her pages who were tempted by her charms a few louis to enable them to satisfy their passion elsewhere.