Note 9 — V ITALY

Coryat notices this bust, and gives the inscription written by Paolo Giovio: “Petri Bembi Cardinalis imaginem Hieronymus Quirinus Ismerii filius in publico ponendam curavit: ut cujus ingenii monumenta æterna sint, ejus corporis quoque memoria ne a posteris desideretur. Vixit annos 76, M. 7, D. 29. Obiit 15 Calend. Februarii anno 1547.” Writing of the other tombs Coryat says: “Amongst others in the Cloyster I observed one that made me even lament, the monument of a certaine English Nobleman, namely, Edward Courtney, Earle of Devonshire, who was buried here in the time of Queen Mary; he died there in his youth, and was the sonne of Henry, Earle of Devonshire and Marquesse of Exceter, who was beheaded in the time of King Henry the Eighth. This Edward Courtney was afterward restored by Queen Mary. Truely it strooke great compassion and remorse in me to see an Englishman so ignobly buried, for his body lieth in a poore woodden Coffin placed upon another faire monument, having neither epitaph nor any other thing to preserve it from oblivion, so that I could not have knowne it for an Englishman’s Coffen, except an English gentleman, Mr. George Rooke, had told me of it.”—Crudities (1776), vol. i. p. 176.