. a ment of his death to the present hour, have, it ne bowed, a better chance of authenticity than the ***Paryan_memorials of Stratford-upon-Avon. 4- as for the last syilable is accented in pronun-tainly not an indispensable, trait of superior genius. ugh the analogy of the English language capacity, extensive erudition, and refined taste, joined to that engaging simplicity of manners which has been so frequently recognised as the surest, though it is cer Every footstep of Laura's lover has been anxiously served in the verse), is twelve miles from traced and recorded. The house in which he lodged is Fai about three miles on the right of the high shown in Venice. The inhabitants of Arezzo, in order at Rizo, in the bosom of the Euganean hills. to decide the ancient controversy between their city and Arawak of twenty minutes, across a flat well-wooded the neighbouring Ancisa, where Petrarch was carried wy come to a little blue lake, clear but fathom- when seven months old, and remained until his seventh em, a to the foot of a succession of acclivities and year, have designated, by a long inscription, the spot - with vineyards and orchards, rich with fir where their great fellow-citizen was born. A tablet has granate trees, and every sunny fruit-shrub. been raised to him at Parma, in the chapel of St. Agatha, Frinton wanks of the lake, the road winds into the hills, at the cathedral,' because he was archdeacon of that w2w church of Arquà is soon seen between a cleft society, and was only snatched from his intended sepul**eriges slope towards each other, and nearly ture in their church by a foreign death. Another tablet Levi age. The houses are scattered at intervals with a bust has been erected to him at Pavia, on acreep sades of these summits; and that of the count of his having passed the autumn of 1368 in that tems, a in the edge of a little knoll overlooking two de-city, with his son-in-law Brossano. The political con1s, and commanding a view not only of the glowing dition which has for ages precluded the Italians from the dales immediately beneath, but of the the criticism of the living, has concentrated their a, above whose low woods of mulberry and attention to the illustration of the dead. *ackened into a dark mass by festoons of vines, 1. 16, ers presses, and the spires of towns are seen #ace, which stretches to the mouths of the Po Amores of the Adriatic. The climate of these is warmer, and the vintage begins a week an in the plains of Padua. Petrarch is laid, be said to be buried, in a sarcophagus of mare, raised on four pilasters on an elevated base, d from an association with meaner tombs. rands conspicuously alone, but will be soon overBawed by four lately-planted laurels. Petrarch's fexas, fe here every thing is Petrarch's, springs and &is teef beneath an artificial arch, a little below thema, and abounds plentifully, in the driest season, * dat s water which was the ancient wealth of E aan huls. It would be more attractive, were Its me seasons, beset with hornets and wasps. Xeber mancidence could assimilate the tombs of Pra and Archilochus. The revolutions of centu have spared these sequestered valleys, and the mittence which has been offered to the ashes of Prah, was prompted, not by hate, but veneration. A: tempt was made to rob the sarcophagus of its bra, and one of the arms was stolen by a Floren rough a rent which is still visible. The injury is * irợ đơn, bot has served to identify the poet with Semetry where he was born, but where he would A peasant boy of Arquá being asked who Pages was, replied, "that the people of the parwage knew all about him, but that he only knew that de was a Florentine.” Mr. Forsyth I was not quite correct in saying, that Per te ver returned to Tuscany after he had once Tate a when a boy. It appears he did pass through Here on his way from Parma to Rome, and on his earn in the year 1350, and remained there long enough to see acquaintance with its most distinguished atants. A Florentine gentleman, ashamed of the w of the poet for his native country, was eager to > this trivial error in our accomplished traveller, tus be knew and respected for an extraordinary 1 Remarks, etc. on Italy, p, 95, note, 2d edit. Note 17. Stanza xxxiv. The struggle is to the full as likely to be with demons as with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilderness for the temptation of our Saviour. And our unsullied John Locke preferred the presence of a child to complete solitude. Note 18. Stanza xxxviii. In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire; Perhaps the couplet in which Boileau depreciates The biographer Serassi,2 out of tenderness to the reputation either of the Italian or the French poet, is eager to observe that the satirist recanted or explained away this censure, and subsequently allowed the author of the Jerusalem to be a "genius sublime, vast, and happily born for the higher flights of poetry." To this we will add, that the recantation is far from satisfactory, when 1 D. O. M. Parentibus præclaris genere perantiquo Africa ob carmen hac in urbe peractum regibus accito Tanti Viri Juvenilium juvenis senilium senex Comes Nicolaus Canonicus Cicognarus Divæ Januariæ cruento corpore Sed infra meritum Francisci sepulchro Si Parmæ occumberet 2 La vita del Tasso, lib. iii. p. 284. tom. ii. edit. Bergamo, 1790. Note 19. Stanza xli. The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust The iron crown of laurel's mimick'd leaves. Before the remains of Ariosto were removed from the Benedictine church to the library of Ferrara, his bust, which surmounted the tomb, was struck by lightning, and a crown of iron laurels melted away. The event has been recorded by a writer of the last century. The transfer of these sacred ashes on the 6th of June, 1801, was one of the most brilliant spectacles of the shortlived Italian Republic, and to consecrate the memory of the ceremony, the once famous fallen Intrepidi were revived and re-formed in the Ariostean academy. The large public place through which the procession paraded we examine the whole anecdote as reported by Olivet. in Scrassi's life of the poet. But Tiraboschi had before The sentence pronounced against him by Bohours 2 is laid that rivalry at rest,' by showing, that between recorded only to the confusion of the critic, whose pa- Ariosto and Tasso it is not a question of comparison, linodia the Italian makes no effort to discover, and but of preference. would not perhaps accept. As to the opposition which the Jerusalem encountered from the Cruscan academy, who degraded Tasso from all competition with Ariosto, below Bojardo and Pulci, the disgrace of such opposition must also, in some measure, be laid to the charge of Alphonso, and the court of Ferrara. For Leonard Salviati, the principal and nearly the sole origin of this attack, was, there can be no doubt, influenced by a hope to acquire the favour of the House of Este: an object which he thought attainable by exalting the reputation of a native poet at the expense of a rival, then a prisoner of state. The hopes and efforts of Salviati must serve to show the cotemporary opinion as to the nature of the poet's imprisonment; and will fill up the was then for the first time called Ariosto Square. The measure of our indignation at the tyrant jailor. In author of the Orlando is jealously claimed as the Hofact, the antagonist of Tasso was not disappointed in the mer, not of Italy, but Ferrara.3 The mother of Arireception given to his criticism; he was called to the osto was of Reggio, and the house in which he was court of Ferrara, where, having endeavoured to heighten born is carefully distinguished by a tablet with these his claims to favour, by panegyrics on the family of his words: "Qui nacque Ludovico Ariasto il giorno 8 di sovereign,' he was in his turn abandoned, and expired Settembre dell' anno 1474." But the Ferrarese make in neglected poverty. The opposition of the Cruscans light of the accident by which their poet was born was brought to a close in six years after the commence- abroad, and claim him exclusively for their own. They ment of the controversy; and if the academy owed its first renown to having almost opened with such a para-ink-stand, and his autographs. possess his bones, they show his arm-chair, and his dox, it is probable that, on the other hand, the care of his reputation alleviated rather than aggravated the imprisonment of the injured poet. The defence of his The house where he lived, the room where he died, are father and of himself, for both were involved in the designated by his own replaced memorial, and by a censure of Salviati, found employment for many of his recent inscription. The Ferrarese are more jealous of solitary hours, and the captive could have been but little their claims since the animosity of Denina, arising from embarrassed to reply to accusations, where, amongst a cause which their apologists mysteriously hint is not other delinquencies, he was charged with invidiously unknown to them, ventured to degrade their soil and omitting, in his comparison between France and Italy, climate to a Baotian incapacity for all spiritual produc to make any mention of the cupola of St. Maria del tions. A quarto volume has been called forth by the Fiore at Florence. The late biographer of Ariosto detraction, and this supplement to Baretti's Memoirs seems as if willing to renew the controversy by doubting of the illustrious Ferrarese, has been considered a trithe interpretation of Tasso's self-estimation, related umphant reply to the "Quadro Storico Statistico dell' 1 Histoire de l'Académie Française, depuis 1652 jusqu'à 1700, par l'abbé d'Olivet, p. 181. édit. Amsterdam, 1730. 'Mais, ensuite, venant à l'usage qu'il a fait de ses talens, j'aurais montré que le bon sens n'est pas toujours ce qui domine chez lui," p. 182. Boileau said he had not changed his opinion: "J'en aisi peu changé, dit-il," etc. p. 181. 2 La manière de bien penser dans les ouvrages de l'esprit, sec. dial. p. 89. édit. 1692. Philanthes is for Tasso, and says, in the outset, "de tous les beaux esprits que l'Italie a portés, le Tasse est peut-être celui qui pense le plus noblement." But Bohours seems to speak in Ecdoxus, who closes with the absurd comparison, "Faites valoire le Tasse tant qu'il vous plaira, je m'en tiens pour moi à Virgile," etc. ib. p. 102. 3 La Vita, etc. lib. iii. p. 90, tom. ii. The English reader may see an account of the opposition of the Crusca to Tasso, in Dr. Black, Life, etc. cap. xvii. vol. ii. 4 For further, and, it is hoped, decisive proof, that Tasso was neither more nor less than a prisoner of state, the reader is referred to "Historical Illustrations of the IVth Canto of Childe Harold," p. 5, and following. 5 Orazioni funebri. . . . Delle lodi di Don Luigi Cardinal d'Este.... Delle lodi di Donno Alfonzo d'Este. Seo La Vita, lib. iii. pag. 117. Alta Italia." 6 hic illius arma, Hic currus fuit. Note 20. Stanza xli. 4 For the true laurel-wreath which glory weaves The eagle, the sea-calf, the laurel, and the white vine, were amongst the most approved preservatives against lightning: Jupiter chose the first, Augustus Csar the second, and Tiberius never failed to wear a wreath of the third when the sky threatened a thunderstorm. These superstitions may be received without a 1 Storia della Lett., etc. lib. iii. tom. vii. par. iii. p. 1990. sect. 4. 2 "Mi raccontarono que' monaci, ch' essendo caduto ua fulmine nella loro chiesa schiantó esso dalle tempie la corona di lauro a quell' immortale poeta." Op. di Bianconi, vol. i p. 176. ed. Milano, 1802; lettera al Signor Guido Savini Ar cifisiocritico, sull' indole di un fulmine caduto in Dresda l' anno 1759. Omero Ferrarese." The title was first given by Tasso, and 3 "Appassionato ammiratore ed invitto apologista dell' is quoted to the confusion of the Tassisti, lib. i. pp. 26, 6 It was founded in 1582, and the Cruscan answer to Pel-265. La Vita di M. L. Ariosto, etc. legrinol's Caraffa or epica poesia, was published in 1584. 7 "Cotanto poté sempre in lui il veleno della sua pessima volontà contro alla nazion Fiorentana." La Vita, lib. iii. pp. 96. 98. tom. ii. 8 La Vita di M. L. Ariosto, scritta dall' Abate Giro lamo Baruffaldi giuniore, etc., Ferrara, 1807. lib. iii, page 262. See Historical Illustrations, etc. p. 26. " 4 "Parva, sed apta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia, sed non Sordida, parta meo sed tamen ære domus." 5 Aquila, vitulus marinus, et laurus, fulmine non feriuntur. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ii. cap. Iv. 6 Columella, lib. x. 7 Sueton. in Vit. August. cap. xc. mer country where the magical properties of the Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if ng are tot lost all their credit; and perhaps the any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose may not be much surprised to find that a com-life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble Suetonius has taken upon himself gravely cities lie here exposed before me in one view.” 1 ave the imputed virtues of the crown of Tibe- Know that the lightning sanctifies below. and the memory of the accident was preserved putru, or altar, resembling the mouth of a well, are chapel covering the cavity supposed to be by the thunderbolt. Bodies scathed and persons dad were thought to be incorruptible; and a sra a fatal conferred perpetual dignity upon the manguished by Heaven.3 Note 24. Stanza xlvi. The skeleton of her Titanic form. It is Poggio, who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation, "Ut nunc omni decore nudata, prostrata jacet, instar gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque undique exesi."2 Note 25. Stanza xlix. There, too, the goddess loves in stone, The view of the Venus of Medicis instantly suggests the lines in the Seasons, and the comparison of the object with the description proves, not only the correctness of the portrait, but the peculiar turn of thought, and, if the term may be used, the sexual imagination of the descriptive poet. The same conclusion may be deduced from another hint in the same episode of Musilove must have been either very primitive, or rather dora; for Thomson's notion of the privileges of favoured deficient in delicacy, when he made his grateful nymph inform her discreet Damon that in some happier moment he might perhaps be the companion of her bath: "The time may come you need not fly." Tamed by lightning were wrapped in a white paat buried where they fell. The superstition confined to the worshippers of Jupiter: the Loniarts beaeved in the omens furnished by lightning, me a Christan priest confesses that by a diabolical skill asting thunder, a seer foretold to Agilulf, duke Tza, un event which came to pass, and gave him a and a crown. There was, however, something rain this sign, which the ancient inhabitants of & cat not always consider propitious; and as the The reader will recollect the anecdote told in the fears are Lakely to last longer than the consolations of life of Dr. Johnson. We will not leave the Florentine , is not strange that the Romans of the age gallery without a word on the Whetter. It seems strange of LeX. should have been so much terrified at some that the character of that disputed statue should not be reted storms as to require the exhortations of entirely decided, at least in the mind of any one who & war, who arrayed all the learning on thunder and has seen a sarcophagus in the vestibule of the Basilica A to prove the omen favourable; beginning with of St. Paul without the walls, at Rome, where the whole Such struck the walls of Velitra, and includ- group of the fable of Marsyas is seen in tolerable hat which played upon a gate at Florence, and servation; and the Scythian slave whetting the knife the pontificate of one of its citizens. is represented exactly in the same position as this celebrated masterpiece. The slave is not naked: but it is easier to get rid of this difficulty than to suppose the knife in the hand of the Florentine statue an instrument for shaving, which it must be, if, as Lanzi supposes, the man is no other than the barber of Julius Cæsar. Winkelmann, illustrating a bas-relief of the same subject, follows the opinion of Leonard Agostini, and his authority might have been thought conclusive, even if the resemblance did not strike the most careless observer.3 Note 22. Stanza lxii. Italia, oh Italia, etc. The two stanzas, XLII. and XLIII., are, with the exof a hne or two, a translation of the famous t of Furaja: **kala, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte." Note 23. Stanza xliv. Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, The or ebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero, on death of tus daughter, describes as it then was, and a path which I often traced in Greece, both by wa and land, in different journeys and voyages. pre Amongst the bronzes of the same princely collection, is still to be seen the inscribed tablet copied and commented upon by Mr. Gibbon.4 Our historian found U my return from Asia, as I was sailing from some difficulties, but did not desist from his illustrag towards Megara, I began to contemplate the tion: he might be vexed to hear that his criticism has et of the countries around me: Ægina was behind, been thrown away on an inscription now generally reMara before me; Piraeus on the right, Corinth on the cognised to be a forgery. which towns, once famous and flourishing, now 1 Nov 2 ng 409. edit. Lugd. Bat. 1667. Η νέες στρατωθεὶς ἄτιμος ἐστὶ, ὅθεν καὶ ὡς θεὸς Note 26. Stanza li. -his eyes to thee upturn, Feeding on thy'sweet check. ὀφθαλμοὺς ἐστιν. "...Atque oculos pascat uterque suos."-Ovid. Amor. lib. il. 1 Dr. Middleton-History of the Life of M. Tullius Cicero, sect. vii. pag. 371, vol. ii. Shiro de zestis Langobard. lib. iii. cap. xiv. fo. descriptio, ap. Sallengre, Thesaur. tom. i. pag. 501. 2 De fortuna varietate urbis Romæ et de ruinis ejusdem de fulminum significationibus declamatio, $ 47 Rom Majolar of Medica m. v. p. 503. The declamation is 3 See Monim. Ant. ined. par. i. cap. xvii. n. xli. pag. 50; and Storia delle arti, etc. lib. xi. cap. i, tom. ii. p. 314. not. B. 4 Nomina gentesque Antiquæ Italiæ, p. 204. edit. oct. Note 27. Stanza liv. In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie. This name will recall the memory, not only of those whose tombs have raised the Santa Croce into the dience, for the most part in silence, or with laughter; but when the assistant, unfolding one of the papers, ex claimed, "The apotheosis of Victor Alfieri," the whole theatre burst into a shout, and the applause was continued for some moments. The lot did not fall on Al Alfieri is the great name of this age. The Italians, centre of pilgrimage, the Mecca of Italy, but of her without waiting for the hundred years, consider him as whose eloquence was poured over the illustrious ashes," a poet good in law."-His memory is the more dear and whose voice is now as mute as those she sung. to them because he is the bard of freedom; and because, CORINNA is no more; and with her should expire the as such, his tragedies can receive no countenance from fear, the flattery, and the envy, which threw too daz- any of their sovereigns. They are but very seldom, and zling or too dark a cloud round the march of genius, but very few of them, allowed to be acted. It was ob and forbad the steady gaze of disinterested criticism. served by Cicero, that nowhere were the true opinions We have her picture embellished or distorted, as friend- and feelings of the Romans so clearly shown as at the ship or detraction has held the pencil: the impartial theatre. In the autumn of 1816, a celebrated improv portrait was hardly to be expected from a contempo- visatore exhibited his talents at the Opera-house of Mirary. The immediate voice of her survivors will, it is lan. The reading of the theses handed in for the subprobable, be far from affording a just estimate of her jects of his poetry was received by a very numerous ausingular capacity. The gallantry, the love of wonder, and the hope of associated fame, which blunted the edge of censure, must cease to exist.-The dead have no sex; they can surprise by no new miracles; they can confer no privilege: Corinna has ceased to be a woman-she is only an author: and it may be foreseen fieri; and the Signor Sgricci had to pour forth his exthat many will repay themselves for former complaisance, by a severity to which the extravagance of previous praises may perhaps give the colour of truth. The latest posterity, for to the latest posterity they will assuredly descend, will have to pronounce upon her various productions; and the longer the vista through which they are seen, the more accurately minute will be the object, the more certain the justice of the decision. She will enter into that existence in which the great writers of all ages and nations are, as it were, associated in a world of their own, and from that superior sphere shed their eternal influence for the control and consolation of mankind. But the individual will gradually disappear as the author is more distinctly seen some one, therefore, of all those whom the charms of involuntary wit, and of easy hospitality, temporary commonplaces on the bombardment of Algiers. The choice, indeed, is not left to accident quite so much as might be thought from a first view of the ceremony; and the police not only takes care to look at the papers beforehand, but, in case of any prudential after-thought, steps in to correct the blindness of chance. The proposal for deifying Alfieri was received with immediate enthusiasm, the rather because it was conjectured there would be no opportunity of carrying it into effect. Note 29. Stanza liv. Here Machiavelli's earth return'd to whence it rose. The affectation of simplicity in sepulchral inscrip tions which so often leaves us uncertain whether the structure before us is an actual depository, or a ceno taph, or a simple memorial not of death but life, has the place or time of the birth or death, the age or parentage, of the historian. given to the tomb of Machiavelli no information as to TANTO NOMINI NVLLVM PAR ELOGIVM attracted within the friendly circles of Coppet, should rescue from oblivion those virtues which, although they are said to love the shade, are, in fact, more frequently chilled than excited by the domestic cares of private life. Some one should be found to portray the unaffected graces with which she adorned those dearer relationships, the performance of whose duties is rather discovered amongst the interior secrets, than not have been put above the sentence which alludes seen in the outward management, of family inter- to it. There seems at least no reason why the name should course; and which, indeed, it requires the delicacy of It will readily be imagined that the prejudices which genuine affection to qualify for the eye of an indiffer- have passed the name of Machiavelli into an epithet ent spectator. Some one should be found, not to proverbial of iniquity, exist no longer at Florence. His celebrate, but to describe, the amiable mistress of an memory was persecuted as his life had been for an atopen mansion, the centre of a society, ever varied, and tachment to liberty, incompatible with the new system always pleased, the creator of which, divested of the of despotism, which succeeded the fall of the free govambition and the arts of public rivalry, shone forth only eruments of Italy. He was put to the torture for be to give fresh animation to those around her. The moing a "libertine," that is, for wishing to restore the re ther tenderly affectionate and tenderly beloved, the public of Florence; and such are the undying efforts friend unboundedly generous, but still esteemed, the charitable patroness of all distress, cannot be forgotten their liberties. Titus, the friend of Antony, presented 1 The free expression of their honest sentiments survived by those whom she cherished, protected, and fed. Her with games in the theatre of Pompey. They did not suffer the loss will be mourned the most where she was known brilliancy of the spectacle to efface from their memory that the man who furnished them with the entertainment had the best; and, to the sorrows of very many friends and dered the son of Pompey. They drove him from the thear more dependants, may be offered the disinterested re-expressed, is never wrong. Even the soldiers of the trum with curses. The moral sense of a populace, spontaneou gret of a stranger, who, amidst the sublimer scenes of joined in the execration of the citizens, by shouting round the the Leman lake, received his chief satisfaction from brothers, De Germanis non de Gallis duo triumphant Com chariots of Lepidus and Plancus, who had proscribed their contemplating the engaging qualities of the incompa-sule. C. Vell. Paterculi Hist. lib. ii. cap. lxxix, pag. 78. edit. sules; a saying worth a record, were it nothing but a good Elzevir. 1639. Ibid. lib. ii. cap. lxxvii. rable Corinna. 1 e who are interested in the perversion not only the injustice of his fellow-citizens. His appeal to Flo are of actions, but the meaning of words, rence was accompanied by another to the Emperor was once patriotion, has by degrees come to Henry, and the death of that sovereign, in 1313, was mg of "berality," which is now another word for had before lingered near Tuscany, with hopes of recall, wach. We have ourselves outlived the old the signal for a sentence of irrevocable banishment. He in one country and for infatuation in all. It then travelled into the north of Italy, where Verona Phave been a strange mistake to accuse the au- had to boast of his longest residence, and he finally Safe Prince, as being a pander to tyranny; and settled at Ravenna, which was his ordinary but not that the inquisition would condemn his work constant abode until his death. The refusal of the Veterade inquency. The fact is, that Machiavelli, netians to grant him a public audience, on the part of a with those against whom no crime can be Guido Novello da Polenta, his protector, is said to have expected of and charged with atheism; been the principal cause of this event, which happened first and last most violent opposers of the Prince in 1321. He was buried (" in sacra minorum æde,") Jesuts, one of whom persuaded the inqui- at Ravenna, in a handsome tomb, which was erected wache fosse tardo," to prohibit the treatise, by Guido, restored by Bernardo Bembo in 1483, pretor eber quafied the secretary of the Florentine for that republic which had refused to hear him, again as no better than a fool. The father Possevin restored by Cardinal Corsi in 1692, and replaced by a was never to have read the book, and the father more magnificent sepulchre, constructed in 1780 at the Laat to have understood it. It is clear, how-expense of the Cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga. The matrach entics must have objected not to the offence or misfortune of Dante was an attachment to a of the doctrines, but to the supposed tendency defeated party, and, as his least favourable biographers fe which shows how distinct are the interests allege against him, too great a freedom of speech and amarch from the happiness of mankind. The haughtiness of manner. But the next age paid honours best re-established in Italy, and the last chapter almost divine to the exile. The Florentines, having in Prace may Bg the minds of the rising generation, so as to one of the idols of their cathedral. They struck medals, Te de impressions of despotism. The chapter they raised statues to him. in thee who are employed once more in crowned his image in a church,' and his picture is still The cities of Italy, not "Esortazione a liberare la Italia dai Bar- being able to dispute about his own birth, contended bar, und er udes with a libertine excitement to the for that of his great poem, and the Florentines thought memotion of Italy. "Non si deve adunque it for their honour to prove that he had finished the wo pare questa occasione, acciocchè la Italia seventh Canto, before they drove him from his native wars epo tanto tempo apparire un suo redentore. city. Fifty-one years after his death, they endowed a exprimere con qual amore ei fusse ricevuto in professional chair for the expounding of his verses, and misterns, con che hanno patito per queste il-Boccaccio was appointed to this patriotic employment. qual sete di vendetta, con che os- The example was imitated by Bologna and Pisa, and the de, com che lacrime. Quali porte se li serre- commentators, if they performed but little service to Qual populi ti negherebbeno la obbedienza? literature, augmented the veneration which beheld a WZIA QUESTO BARBARO DOMINIO." I Note 30. Stanza Ivii. De was born in Florence in the year 1261. He gr a two battles, muse. His birth and his infancy were discovered to have been distinguished above those of ordinary men ; the author of the Decameron, his earliest biographer, relates that his mother was warned in a dream of the importance of her pregnancy; and it was found, by others, that at ten years of age he had manifested his Ces of Anjou triumphed over the Bianchi, he was precocious passion for that wisdom or theology which, and to two bassy to Pope Boniface VIII. and was under the name of Beatrice, had been mistaken for a years' banishment, and to a fine of substantial mistress. When the Divine Comedy had and are; on the non-payment of which he been recognised as a mere mortal production, and at water pushed by the sequestration of all his the distance of two centuries, when criticism and comThe republic, however, was not content with petition had sobered the judgment of Italians, Dante reaction, for in 1772 was discovered in the was seriously declared superior to Homer, and though at Florence a sentence in which Dante is the the preference appeared to some casuists" a heretical w of a ast of fifteen condemned in 1302 to be blasphemy worthy of the flames," the contest was vighe; Talis perveniens igne comburatur sic quod orously maintained for nearly fifty years. In later The pretext for this judgment was a proof times, it was made a question which of the lords of tar barter, extortions, and illicit gains: Baracte-Verona could boast of having patronized him, and the quran, extorsionum, et illicitorum lucro-jealous scepticism of one writer would not allow RaEven and with such an accusation it is not strange that venna the undoubted possession of his bones. Date said have always protested his innocence, and the critical Tiraboschi was inclined to believe that the 1 So relates Ficino, but some think his coronation only an allegory. Se Storia, etc., ut sup. p. 453. 2 By Varchi, in his Ercolano. The controversy continued from 1570 to 1616. See Storia, etc., tom. vii. lib. iii. par. ii. p. 10. 3 Gio. Jacopo Dionisi canonico di Verona. Serie di Aneddoti, n. 2. See Storia, etc,, tom. v. lib. i. par. i. p. 24. |