her entertainment.[4] The square was partitioned into chambers communicating with the palace of the Cardinal.  The ordinary hangings were of velvet and of white and crimson silk, while one of the apartments was draped with the famous tapestries of Nicholas V., which represented the Creation of the World.  All the utensils in this magic dwelling were of silver—­even to the very vilest.  The air of the banquet-hall was cooled with punkahs; ire mantici coperti, che facevano continoamemte vento, are the words of Corio; and on a column in the center stood a living naked gilded boy, who poured forth water from an urn.  The description of the feast takes up three pages of the history of Corio, where we find a minute list of the dishes—­wild boars and deer and peacocks, roasted whole; peeled oranges, gilt and sugared; gilt rolls; rosewater for washing; and the tales of Perseus, Atalanta, Hercules, etc., I wrought in pastry—­tutte in vivande.  We are also told how masques of Hercules, Jason, and Phaedra alternated with the story of Susannah and the Elders, played by Florentine actors, and with the Mysteries of San Giovan Battista decapitato and quel Giudeo che rosfi il corpo di Cristo.  The servants were arrayed in silk, and the seneschal changed his dress of richest stuffs and jewels four times in the course of the banquet.  Nymphs and centaurs, singers and buffoons, drank choice wine from golden goblets.  The most eminent and reverend master of the palace, meanwhile, moved among his guests ‘like some great Caesar’s son.’  The whole entertainment lasted from Saturday till Thursday, during which time Ercole of Este and his bride assisted at Church ceremonies in S. Peter’s, and visited the notabilities of Rome in the intervals of games, dances, and banquets of the kind described.  We need scarcely add that, in spite of his enormous wealth, the young Cardinal died 60,000 florins in debt.  Happily for the Church and for Italy, he expired at Rome in January 1474, after parading his impudent debaucheries through Milan and Venice as the Pope’s Legate.  It was rumored, but never well authenticated, that the Venetians helped his death by poison.[5] The sensual indulgences of every sort in which this child of the proletariat, suddenly raised to princely splendor, wallowed for twenty-five continuous months, are enough to account for his immature death without the hypothesis of poisoning.  With him expired a plan which might have ended in making the Papacy a secular, hereditary kingdom.  During his stay at Milan, Pietro struck a bargain with the Duke, by the terms of which Galeazzo Maria Sforza was to be crowned king of Lombardy, while the Cardinal Legate was to return and seize upon the Papal throne.[6] Sixtus, it is said, was willing to abdicate in his nephew’s favor, with a view to the firmer establishment of his family in the tyranny of Rome.  The scheme was a wild one, yet, considering the power and wealth of the Sforza family, not so wholly impracticable as