Note 218 — BOOK THE SEVENTH.

Cecco or Francesco Simoneta was a native of Calabria, whose integrity and activity had recommended him to the patronage of Duke Francesco Sforza. He afterwards became prime minister of Duke Galeazzo Maria. On the 11th of September, 1479, he was arrested and conveyed to the Castle of Pavia, where he was beheaded on the 30th of October, 1480. He was brother to Giovanni Simoneta, whose elegant Latin history of the life of Francesco Sforza is one of the best records of the transactions of that period.