Practical Manual of Artillery

added the Lordship of Borgo, and of Val di Taro, of Venafro, and Mileto with the twelve Baronies with the title of Count. And omitting the descending successors, who also possessed Varese, Rivalta, Zavatarello, and many other places in the Piacenza and Milanese territories, which would be too long to name them all; a more worthy status was given to the Dominion of Your Excellency in the same three initial good Castles, which have a very long stretch of Territory among most pleasant hills producing whatever the Earth can yield that is desirable; when the Most Invincible Emperor CHARLES V invested Your Excellency's great-grandfather AGOSTINO as PRINCE OF VAL DI TARO, making him at the same time PRINCE OF THE SACRED ROMAN EMPIRE, also erecting Bardi into a Marquisate and Compiano into a County, besides the Lordship of the Parish of Bedonia annexed to them, all Imperial Feudal estates; to which, through the inheritance of the COUNTESS PORTIA GALERATI his aunt, Your Excellency has added the Fief of Turbigo in the State of Milan; And having had for a Mother LADY GIOVANNA D'ARAGONA, descended from the true stock of DON GIOVANNI II KING OF ARAGON, you also remain, for the quartering of the same, no less remarkable for this—than the learned admire you for having united with royal blood the qualities required of a Prince through the knowledge you possess of Mathematics; And for that which Knights praise you for, in the judgment you possess in feats of Chivalry, knowing as well how to give a determination upon them as how to perform them; This, on the eighteenth of this same month, Your Excellency demonstrated completely in Milan, while you were one of the Judges of the famous Joust of DON SANCIO SALINA; And in the other of COUNT FRANCESCO D'ADDA, after having protected him in the clashes on horseback and on foot, as Godfather, fighting with him, armed in most shining gold armor, at the three lance strokes and five sword strokes established in the open field with every grace; you made your experience clearly appear in every Chivalrous exercise; With which good opportunity, holding the management of the Artillery, for this reason so much