The Ursine Rose, or the Sun

line of descendants, with the glory of the URSINI FAMILY not interrupted. Furthermore, what should I mention about the Kings brought into blood-kinship, and about the related scepters? Having encompassed most of EUROPE, it so surrounded itself with the light of almost all Kingdoms that it shared its own with them no less generously. Wherefore, here through Germany and France, there through Spain and all Italy, it became famous through illustrious kinship of Kings or affinity; it bound to itself the crowns of Bohemia and Pannonia; having advanced beyond the Ocean, it inserted itself into the British Kings, and the Swedes, and the Danes; it even associated with its family the Thessalians and the Greeks, once the most powerful dynasts, who did not refuse.

Finally, it escaped to such a height, by its light and virtue, that (which was the fortune of a few, even of Princes) it possessed great authority and favor among the greatest Emperors; and having been adopted into the AUGUST KINSHIP, it almost surpassed itself. Although I do not quite know whether it should be said to have brought back greater glory from this than from the REJECTED DIADEM OF THE EMPIRE (which had been offered to its VIRTUE, and almost imposed). For what it had refused to wear by itself, it did not refuse to fight for, for the sake of PROTECTING AND ASSERTING its LIBERTY (which had been in imminent danger): and for that most illustrious merit of its own, it brought back INSIGNIA for itself, on one side BEAMS VARIED IN GOLD AND BLACK; on the other, a GARLAND OF RUE original: "RVTA SERTVM" (of which the Princes of the Saxons and the Allobroges today boast), for the sake of honor, from the ASSERTED AND VINDICATED EMPIRE. But whither am I carried, imprudent? Having begun to speak of the Glory of the URSINI FAMILY, I am led down to the MERITS of the same, bestowed upon the World. Obviously, just as the color and scent of the ROSE, or the splendor and heat of the SUN, are brought together, so the Glory of Your Ancestors cannot be narrated alone without their MERITS being proclaimed at the same time.

HOWEVER, these decorations of the URSINI race, although they were the greatest, and entirely such that it seems nothing was lacking for the fortune of the highest Princes: they were certainly still PROFANE (if it is permitted to speak thus) and civil. Wherefore, raised further to SACRED dignities as well, it held many of every kind in such a way that it scarcely had a family, except itself, with which to compete: so many Bishops, so many Archbishops, so many other Prelates emerged from one ROSE. For indeed, what is familiar to ROSES above all—that they provide CROWNS for adorning the HEAD—that I see to have been a duty of the URSINI PRINCES, gentle and proper: that they perpetually surrounded the HIGHEST HEAD OF THE CITY AND THE WORLD with a purple crown, while the ROSE of one family provided Cardinals, almost innumerable in number, in fertile harvest; of whom, if others are to be silent, there is a memory of more than THIRTY AND THREE surviving; whose purple, seen repeatedly for so many centuries, caused the Majesty of the Roman Church to shine forth further and more widely through the World. Nor did the happiness of the URSINI ROSE stop here: but the same (which is the sum of mortal prayers) often produced its own HEAD for the World, adored by so many peoples, from the gentile Rose-garden; lest, forsooth, the FAMILY which had given its own to so many nations in a most fertile birth, be said to have been exhausted and sterile in generating only Princes of the Church—that is, the Best and Greatest Popes.