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He did not, however, neglect his Lombard language, but composed in it a treatise on the art of defending towns. The Mantuan historian, Volta, says that some of Sordello's Provençal poems exist in manuscript in the Vatican and Chigi libraries at Rome, in the Laurentian at Florence, and the Estense at Modena.

In that reposeful kingdom, which could in miniature offer to Caterina's courtiers all the pomp and charm without the drawbacks of sovereignty, Pietro Bembo wrote for "Madonna Lucretia Estense Borgia Duchessa illustrissima di Ferrara," and caused to be printed by Aldus Manutius, the leaflets which, under the title Gli Asolani, ne' quali si ragiona d' amore, soon became a famous book in Italy.

The name has not been met with again between the Estense document and Scipione Maffei's well-known description, written in 1711, of Cristofori's "gravecembalo col piano e forte." My view of Cristofori's invention allows me to think that the Estense "piano e forte" may have been a hammer cembalo, a very imperfect one, of course.

Again, it is usual to identify Elpino with Giovanbattista Pigna, secretary of state at the Estense court, and one with whom, though no friend of the poet's, it was yet to his advantage to stand well. The flattery bestowed is not a little fulsome: And this Elpino, whose pipe elsewhere His flattery had not shielded the unhappy poet against the ill-will of the minister .