[Footnote 46: The convent of St. Silvester was founded,
endowed, and protected by the Colonna cardinals, for the
daughters of the family who embraced a monastic life, and
who, in the year 1318, were twelve in number. The others
were allowed to marry with their kinsmen in the fourth
degree, and the dispensation was justified by the small
number and close alliances of the noble families of Rome,
(Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 110, tom. ii. p. 401.)]