evidence: LEONARDO DA VINCI "...ONE OF THE FIRST PAINTERS OF THE WORLD..." [...] "Of the same sort also seems to be what Lorenzo de’ Medici said to a dull buffoon: ‘You would not make me laugh if you tickled me.’ And in like fashion he answered another simpleton who had found him abed very late one morning, and who had reproved him for sleeping so late, saying: ‘I have already been at the New Market and the Old, then outside the San Gallo gate and around the walls for exercise, and have done a thousand things besides; and you are still asleep?’ Then Lorenzo said: ‘What I dreamed in one hour is worth more than what you accomplished in four.’ 71.—"It is also fine when in a retort we censure something without apparently meaning to censure it. For instance, the Marquess Federico of Mantua,[263] father to our lady Duchess, being at table with many gentlemen, one of them said after eating an entire bowl of stew: ‘Pardon me, my lord Marquess;’ and so saying he began to gulp down the broth that remained. Then the Marquess said quickly: ‘Ask pardon rather of the swine, for you do me no wrong at all.’ [...] GIULIANO DELLA ROVERE 1443-1513