The flower of angels and the spirits blest,
    Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she
    Who is my lady died, around her pressed
    Fulfilled with wonder and with piety. 
  What light is this?  What beauty manifest? 
    Marvelling they cried:  for such supremacy
    Of splendour in this age to our high rest
    Hath never soared from earth’s obscurity. 
  She, glad to have exchanged her spirit’s place,
    Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed;
    At times the while she backward turns her face
  To see me follow—­seems to wait and plead: 
    Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise,
    Because I hear her praying me to speed.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

     [Footnote 1:  We may compare with Venice what is known about
     the ancient Hellenic city of Sybaris.  Sybaris and Ravenna
     were the Greek and Roman Venice of antiquity.]

[Footnote 2:  His first wife was a daughter of the great general of the Venetians against Francesco Sforza.  Whether Sigismondo murdered her, as Sansovino seems to imply in his Famiglie Illustri, or whether he only repudiated her after her father’s execution on the Piazza di San Marco, admits of doubt.  About the question of Sigismondo’s marriage with Isotta there is also some uncertainty.  At any rate she had been some time his mistress before she became his wife.]

     [Footnote 3:  For the place occupied in the evolution of
     Italian scholarship by this Greek sage, see my ’Revival of
     Learning,’ Renaissance in Italy, part 2.]

[Footnote 4:  The account of this church given by AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pii Secondi, Comment., ii. 92) deserves quotation:  ’AEdificavit tamen nobile templum Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, verum ita gentilibus operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam infidelium daemones adorantium templum esse videatur.’]

[Footnote 5:  Almost all the facts of Alberti’s life are to be found in the Latin biography included in Muratori.  It has been conjectured, and not without plausibility, by the last editor of Alberti’s complete works, Bonucci, that this Latin life was penned by Alberti himself.]

[Footnote 6:  There is in reality no doubt or problem about this Saint Clair.  She was born in 1275, and joined the Augustinian Sisterhood, dying young, in 1308, as Abbess of her convent.  Continual and impassioned meditation on the Passion of our Lord impressed her heart with the signs of His suffering which have been described above.  I owe this note to the kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I here thank.]

[Footnote 7:  The balance of probability leans against Isabella in this affair.  At the licentious court of the Medici she lived with unpardonable freedom.  Troilo Orsini was