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As yet the plains of Pisa had not been reduced to marsh-lands by the combined negligence and jealousy of the Florentine Republic, neither had the rich country that lay around Rome been converted into a barren desert by the wars of the Colonna and Orsini families; not yet had the Marquis of Marignan razed to the ground a hundred and twenty villages in the republic of Siena alone; and though the Maremma was unhealthy, it was not yet a poisonous marsh: it is a fact that Flavio Blando, writing in 1450, describes Ostia as being merely less flourishing than in the days of the Romans, when she had numbered 50,000 inhabitants, whereas now in our own day there are barely 30 in all.
MR. WILTON. "There are silver mines in Norway; but the iron mines are the most profitable. We have to thank Norway for the magnet, of such inestimable value to the navigator." GEORGE. "Papa, who found out the use of the magnet?" MR. WILTON. "Flavio Gioia was the author of the great discovery of the property of the magnet, about the year 1302. He was a citizen of Amalfi, a town in Naples."
THE COMPASS. The properties of the magnetic needle were not first applied to navigation, as has been thought, by Flavio Gioja, but long before his time, as early as the twelfth century, the compass came into general use. Navigation was no longer confined to the Mediterranean and to maritime coasts. The sailor could push out into the ocean without losing himself on its boundless waste.
And Pierre could well understand that she should be adored, that she should fill the life of the man she chose with passion, and that to his own eyes she should appear like the younger sister of that lovely, tragic Cassia who, unwilling to survive the blow that had rendered self-bestowal impossible, had flung herself into the Tiber, dragging her brother Ercole and the corpse of her lover Flavio with her.
And to Pierre that escutcheon recalled another memory, that of the portrait of Cassia Boccanera the /amorosa/ and avengeress who had flung herself into the Tiber with her brother Ercole and the corpse of her lover Flavio.
She loved Flavio Corradini, the scion of a rival and hated house, whose alliance her father, Prince Boccanera, roughly rejected, and whom her elder brother, Ercole, swore to slay should he ever surprise him with her. Nevertheless the young man came to visit her in a boat, and she joined him by the little staircase descending to the river.
His name was Flavio Artelan, but his straight black hair, dark russet complexion, beady eyes, and hawk nose gave him such a resemblance to a fowl that he was known among his fellows as the Black Minorca, regardless of the fact that this sobriquet was scarcely fair to a very excellent breed of chicken. "That offer's good enough for me," he remarked in businesslike tones. "Come on everybody.
There are no numbers on the doors, but it will be impossible for you to mistake his room. All day and night he sits playing an accordion." Flavio Minetti took a cigarette from his pocket. "Remember, my young friend, I gave you fair warning." "I shall not forget," replied Suvaroff. Suvaroff climbed back to his room. He sat upon his bed holding his head in his hands.
Through his friendship with Flavio Biondo, the famous Roman antiquary, Alberti received an introduction to Nicholas V. at the time when this, the first great Pope of the Renaissance, was engaged in rebuilding the palaces and fortifications of Rome. Nicholas discerned the genius of the man, and employed him as his chief counsellor in all matters of architecture.
Her uncle Flavio seemed quickly to guess at my wishes, and with a frankness, yet at the same time a stately dignity, which greatly raised the old gentleman in my estimation, took an early opportunity to acquaint me with the fact that, though some of Italy's best blood flowed through his niece's veins, she was absolutely penniless.