NOTES TO THE SECOND BOOK OF THE COURTIER upon him in 1514. In the briefs he is designated as a priest of the diocese of Foglino, and is given certain benefices there, which had fallen vacant on the death of another priest. We thus infer that Torello must have been familiar with the subject referred to in the text. He was made a Roman citizen.in 1530. Note 292^ page 151. These two hunchbacks have not been identified. "The Wheel " [la Ruota or Rota della Giustisia, or simply la Rota) was the highest civil and criminal court of Rome prior to 1870. Its name may have originated in the circular arrangement of the judges' (auditors') seats (compare the hemi- cyclium of Cicero's time), or possibly in a wheel-shaped porphyry figure set in the pavement of the hall where they sat. The play is of course on the double meaning of the word torto, crooked, wrong. Note 293, page 151. Latino Giovenale de' Manetti, (born i486; died 1553). was a native of Rome, and a canon of St. Peter's, but being of minor rank he had a wife and children. He held various offices, including that of Com- missary General of Roman Antiquities, and was employed in several papal embassies. A writer of Latin and Italian verse, he was a friend of Castiglione, Bembo and Bibbiena, and is mentioned in the autobiography of Cellini, who says that he "had a pretty big dash of the fool in him," — apparently because he presumed to improve one of the sculptor's designs for a crucifix. Note 294, page 152. Peralta is regarded by Cian as probably identical with a certain Captain Luijse Galliego de Peralta, who bore a letter (1521) from Cas- tiglione at Rome to the Marquess Federico of Mantua, then fighting against the French. In this letter Castiglione speaks of having known Peralta for years as " a man of character and a valiant." Cian regards him as identical also with a certain Colonel Peralta, whose death at the battle of Frosinone is mentioned (in a letter of 1526) among those of other Spaniards. MOLART is identified by Cian as the French soldier of fortune, " Molard," who commanded a battalion of Gascons at the battle of Ravenna (11 April 1512), and who fell there bravely fighting by the side of Gaston de Foix. Aldana afterwards served under the Marquess of Mantua at Pavia in 1522, having been summoned (as was Castiglione also) from Rome at the head of his company. Note 295, page 152. The duel in question is thus described by Branthome in his Discourse on Duels: "The Grand Master de Chaumont, the King's Lieutenant in the State of Milan, also allowed a duel to two Spaniards who had asked it of him. The name of one was Signor Peralta, who had formerly been in the King of France's service, . . . and the other Spaniard was called Captain Aldana. Their combat was on horse, a la genette (jennet), with rapier and dagger and three darts to each man. Peralta's second was another Spaniard, and Aldana's was the gentle Captain Molart. It had snowed so much that their encounter took place in the Piazza at Parma, from which the snow had been cleared, and there being no other barriers than the 379
