[Footnote 99: Te longinqua dedit tellus et pascua Rheni,
says Petrarch; and, in 1417, a duke of Guelders and Juliers
acknowledges (Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom.
ii. p. 539) his descent from the ancestors of Martin V.,
(Otho Colonna:) but the royal author of the Memoirs of
Brandenburg observes, that the sceptre in his arms has been
confounded with the column. To maintain the Roman origin of
the Colonna, it was ingeniously supposed (Diario di
Monaldeschi, in the Script. Ital. tom. xii. p. 533) that a
cousin of the emperor Nero escaped from the city, and
founded Mentz in Germany]