suck like a leech. The complexion is dazzlingly fair, the perfect
transparent rosette lily of a red-haired beauty; the head, with hair
elaborately curled and plaited close to it, and adorned with pearls,
sits like that of the antique Arethusa on a long, supple, swan-like
neck. A curious, at first rather conventional, artificial-looking sort
of beauty, voluptuous yet cold, which, the more it is contemplated, the
more it troubles and haunts the mind. Round the lady's neck is a gold
chain with little gold lozenges at intervals, on which is engraved the
posy or pun (the fashion of French devices is common in those days),
"Amour Dure--Dure Amour." The same posy is inscribed in the hollow of
the bust, and, thanks to it, I have been able to identify the latter as
Medea's portrait. I often examine these tragic portraits, wondering
what this face, which led so many men to their death, may have been
like when it spoke or smiled, what at the moment when Medea da Carpi
fascinated her victims into love unto death--"Amour Dure--Dure Amour,"
as runs her device--love that lasts, cruel love--yes indeed, when one
thinks of the fidelity and fate of her lovers.

_Oct. 13th._--

I have literally not had time to write a line of my diary all these
days. My whole mornings have gone in those Archives, my afternoons
taking long walks in this lovely autumn weather (the highest hills are
just tipped with snow). My evenings go in writing that confounded
account of the Palace of Urbania which Government requires, merely to
keep me at work at something useless. Of my history I have not yet been
able to write a word.... By the way, I must note down a curious
circumstance mentioned in an anonymous MS. life of Duke Robert, which I
fell upon today. When this prince had the equestrian statue of himself
by Antonio Tassi, Gianbologna's pupil, erected in the square of the