Note 668 — Chapter II · NATURAL SCIENCE IN ITALY.

See the extract from Ægid. Viterb. in Papencordt, Gesch. der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, p. 367, note, with an incident of the year 1328. Combats of wild animals among themselves and with dogs served to amuse the people on great occasions. At the reception of Pius II. and of Galeazzo Maria Sforza at Florence, in 1459, in an enclosed space on the Piazza della Signoria, bulls, horses, boars, dogs, lions, and a giraffe were turned out together, but the lions lay down and refused to attack the other animals. Comp. Ricordi di Firenze, Rer. Ital. script. ex Florent. codd. tom. ii. col. 741. A different account in Vita Pii II. Murat. iii. ii. col. 976. A second giraffe was presented to Lorenzo the Magnificent by the Mameluke Sultan Kaytbey. Comp. Paul. Jov. Vita Leonis X. l. i. In Lorenzo’s menagerie one magnificent lion was especially famous, and his destruction by the other lions was reckoned a presage of the death of his owner.