322 HERALDIC SCIENCE. 



fashion during the sixteenth century. The house of Medicis had in its arms 

 a. diamond and three ostrich feathers, with the motto forming a Latin pun, 

 " Super adamas in pennis " (Above the diamond, in the wing feathers), and this 

 strange device is only to be understood by translating it thus : Ahcayx 

 iuriiK-ible in trouble. 



The art of devices for it had become an art, as heraldry had become a 

 science was often used for the composition of enigmas which defied the 

 sagacity of the solvers of riddles (Fig. 276). Pierre de Morvilliers, first 

 President of the Paris Parliament, had as his device a portcullis connected 

 with a Y, and his name was expressed by this figure (Mort Y lies), because 

 the portcullis is the emblem of death, which makes all things equal. 



Several hereditary devices perpetuated the memory of some historic event. 

 Charles VIII., during the battle of Fornova (July loth, 1495), when surrounded 

 by a mass of the enemy, was saved by the Seigneur de Montoison, whose 

 heroic valour soon changed the fate of the battle, and the King, after it was 

 over, recompensed his deliverer by giving him as his motto the words which 

 he had uttered in calling him to his assistance, "A la rescousse, Montoison ! " 

 Catherine de' Medicis, after the death of Henry II., who was killed by the 

 thrust of a lance at a tournament (1559), changed her device and took a 

 broken lance, with the motto, " Hinc dolor, hinc lacrimse " (Hence my woe, 

 hence my tears). Christopher Columbus, who discovered America, left to his 

 descendants the noble Spanish motto 



" Por Casttlle ot por Leon 

 Nuevo mundo hallo Colomb." 



(For Castile and Leon, Columbus discovers a new world.) 



At about the time that devices of all kinds were becoming numerous, the 

 custom was introduced of adding to coats-of-anns supporters, or tenants (Fig. 

 262). The first of these names was given to the animals which supported the 

 shield ; the second to the men of human form who held it up the angels, 

 chevaliers, heralds, moors, savages, &c. This was the most brilliant period 

 of heraldry, but it was also the most confused and the most fatal to this 

 ancient institution, which had done so much for the chivalry and the nobility, 

 as the excessive exaggeration of heraldic signs was, as a matter of course, 

 favourable to fraud and usurpation of armorial bearings (Fig. 263). This 



