Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume I.djvu/397

Rh at Paris in 1313, being the (illegitimate) son of a wealthy merchant of Florence. He died 1375 at Certaldo, a village near Florence, the original seat of the family.

P. 28: Does the following chanson refer to the same woman?

P. 28: This is indeed one of the most curious passages of the book, and I am glad to remove one of Lalanne's doubts. Brantôme is really talking of a statue, an antique piece which was found July 21, 1594, in a field near the Saint-Martin priory. It had been admirably conserved. Unfortunately, Louis XIV. having claimed it later, it was placed on a barge which sank in the Garonne, and was never recovered. (O'Reilly, History of Bordeaux, 1863, Vol. II.) The statue is described as having had one breast uncovered and curled hair, a description that agrees only partly with Visconti's type (Iconographie romaine, t. II., planche 28), in which Messalina is not décolleté and carries her son. Was the Bordeaux statue indeed a Messalina?


 * Brantôme is mistaken; Nero caused Octavia to be killed. (See Suetonius, Nero, Chap. XXXV.)


 * Nero, fifth Roman Emperor, A. D. 54-63.


 * Domitian succeeded his father Titus on the Imperial throne; reigned from A. D. 81 to 96.


 * Pertinax, a man of peasant birth, but who had carved out for himself a distinguished career as soldier and administrator, was elected Emperor by the Prætorian Guards on the murder of Cornmodus, A. D. 193. Himself murdered after a two months' reign.


 * Septimius Severus, Emperor from A.D. 193 to 211. He was a great general and conducted successful campaigns in Britain, where he died,—at York.


 * Philippe Auguste, King of France 1180-1223. Philip