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Updated: May 10, 2025
On the wall below the painting, the following motto was inscribed: "Per Italia nettar d'ogni bruttura." "Take care, my lord duke," the Florentine ambassador is reported to have said, when Lodovico graciously explained the meaning of the allegory "take care the negro who is so busy brushing Italy's skirts does not cover himself with dust in his turn!"
He tells us that Lodovico was not so called on account of any swarthiness of complexion, as is supposed by Guicciardini, because, on the contrary, he was fair; nor yet on account of his device, showing a Moorish squire, who, brush in hand, dusts the gown of a young woman in regal apparel, with the motto, "Per Italia nettar d'ogni bruttura"; this device of the Moor, he tells us, was a rebus or pun upon the word "moro," which also means the mulberry, and was so meant by Lodovico.
A motto ran beneath, Per Italia nettar d' ogni bruttura. He adopted the mulberry because Pliny called it the most prudent of all trees, inasmuch as it waits till winter is well over to put forth its leaves, and Lodovico piqued himself on his sagacity in choosing the right moment for action.
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