papal keys and tiara. Each of the ten books has a heading in burnished
gold in which the dedication to Pius II. is repeated, and an initial of
like character to that of the preface, with a marginal ornament. The
occasional marginal subject-headings and the book-number at the top of
each leaf are likewise in gold.

The Latin text has thus far been printed only in Muratori's Rerum
Italicarum Scriptores (of which a new edition is now in progress), vol.
xix, Milan, 1731, from a MS. then, and still, preserved in the library
of the Episcopal Seminary at Padua. This MS., the only one which he was
able to discover, Muratori describes in the following language: "Codex
autem Patavinus quamquam pervetustus a non satis docto Librario
profectus est ac proinde occurrunt ibi quaedam parum castigata, quaedam
etiam plane vitiata. Mutilus praeterea est in fine, ubi non multa quidem
sed tamen aliqua desiderantur." Muratori's text breaks off in the middle
of a sentence at the end of the nineteenth (i.e. the last full) quire of
our MS., and accordingly lacks only the seventeen lines contained on the
next leaf, which is the last. If, as seems quite possible, the quiring
of the two MSS. is the same, the loss of the single unprotected leaf at
the end is the more readily explained.

In 1591 there was published at Bergamo an abridged Italian version, made
from an illuminated MS. which had once belonged to the famous library of
Matthias Corvinus, but was then in the possession of Caterino Zeno,
governor of Bergamo. It had been among the spoils carried to
Constantinople after the capture of Buda by the Turks in 1526. There,
seven years later, it had been bought and carried back to Italy by
Caterino's father, the younger Nicolo, who, in 1558, first gave to the
world the narrative of his ancestors' voyages. For no better reasons
than that the Paduan MS. also was illuminated in gold and colors, and