NOTES TO THE SECOND BOOK OF THE COURTIER "fiat" money are but a slight modification of the method proposed by the worthy Florentine. Note 209, page 131. Bucentaurwas the name of the state galley of the Venetian Republic, used (among other occasions) in the symbolic ceremony of wedding the Adriatic, which was enjoined upon the Venetians by Alexander III (pope 1159-1181) to commemorate their victory over the fleet of Frederick Barbarossa. On each Ascension Day a ring was dropped from the Bucentaur into the Adri- atic, with the words, " we espouse thee, sea, in token of true and lasting do- minion." The vessel bore the image of a centaur as figure-head. Of the last of several successive Bucentaurs (demolished in 1824), a few fragments are preserved in the Arsenal at Venice. In the 15th and i6th centuries the name was applied to state vessels of ceremony elsewhere. By some the word is supposed to be derived from the Greek fiovg (ox) and K^vravpog (centaur); by others it is regarded as a corruption of the Latin ducentorum (of two hundred oars), or of the Italian husino d'oro (golden bark). Note 210, page 133. This tale, not unworthy of Munchausen, may have been suggested to Castiglione by a passage in one of the minor works of Plutarch, who relates that Antiphanes (a friend of Plato) said that " he visited a certain city where words froze as soon as spoken, by reason of the great cold; and later, sounds uttered in winter melted in the spring and were heard by the inhabitants." Although Plutarch represents the story as told in illustration of the way in which " those who came as young men to listen to Plato's talk, understood it only long afterwards, ■when they had grown old," it is worth noting that an Antiphanes, of Berga in Thrace, is known as a writer on the marvellous and incredible. Note 211, page 133. Vasco da Gama rounded the southern extremity of Africa and reached India nine years before the date of the Courtier dialogues. Note 212, page 133. This must have been Emanuel I, who was King of Portugal from 1495 until his death in 1521, and who promoted the expeditions of da Gama and other Portuguese navigators. Note 213, page 134. Taffety was a very light soft silk fabric. There is ex- tant a letter of Bembo's (1541), in which the aged cardinal orders two cushions filled with swan's down and covered with crimson taffety. The word is said to be derived from the Persian taftah (twisted, woven). Taft is the name of a town in central Persia. Note 214, page 134. Annibal Paleotto, (died 1516), belonged to an ancient and honourable Bolognese family (with which Castiglione is known to have been on friendly terms), and was the son of an eminent jurist, Vincenzo Pale- otto, who died in 1498. Leo X made Annibale a senator of Bologna in 1514, the brief being written by Bembo. 364
