Words in _italics_ are marked with underscores.
Words in smallcaps are shown in UPPERCASE.
The title page was printed surrounded by a red decorative border. The
description “{A circle of asterisks}” of the publisher’s colophon is
the transcriber’s own.
All other illustrations show the shield associated with the
inscription. The descriptions in braces are the transcriber’s own.
Originally the number of each inscription, e.g. the “1” in “N. 1” on
Page 1, was printed in bold.
Possible older spellings have been retained, e.g. “Macchiavelli”,
“dowery” and “descendents”; as has inconsistent hyphenation.
Quotation marks that occur at the end of quotations from poetry have
been left as printed, other missing end quotation marks have been added
silently.
The indentation of lines of poetry have been left as printed.
Other changes that have been made are:
Pages 20 and 50 “knighthood” changed from “knigthood”.
Page 25 “Cacciaguida” changed from “Caccioguida”.
Page 33 Comma removed from “Villani, says”.
Page 36 Comma added after “DANTE” in “DANTE, _Paradiso_”
Page 59 “Julius Caesar” changed from “Julius Ceasar”.
Page 66 “worldly” changed from “wordly” in “a worldly man”.
Page 72 “friendship” changed from “frienship”.
Page 77 “sovereignty” changed from “sovreignty”.