Note 205 — Chapter XIV

Vasari, Life of Valerio Vicentino, ix. 236, et seq. G. Pelli, in his Saggio istorico della R. Galeria di Firenze (Flor. 1779), i. 8, et seq., ii. 9, et seq., gives some account of the Medici collections. In the Museum of Naples alone (formerly in the palace of Capodimonte) are preserved more than twenty cameos with Lorenzo’s name, and a great number of gems set as rings. They came from a Bourbon-Parma inheritance, many of the family treasures having passed, through Margaret of Austria, wife of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, to her son by her second marriage, Alessandro Farnese, and, at the extinction of the Farnese family, to the Spanish Bourbons. The question whether all the stones marked with Lorenzo’s name or with the initials L. M. are modern, or whether the name or initials were also engraved on antique gems to indicate the owner, cannot be discussed here. The epigram: