PART VI.
Footnote [6.1] This was Ferdinand II., a member of the illustrious Florentine family of the Medici. He upheld the family tradition by his liberal patronage of science and letters.
Footnote [6.2] Evangelista Torricelli, the successor of the great Galileo in the chair of philosophy and mathematics at Florence, is inseparably associated with the discovery that water in a suction-pump will only rise to the height of about thirty-two feet. This paved the way to his invention of the barometer in 1643.
Other members of the Accademia de' Percossi were Dati, Lippi, Viviani, Bandinelli, &c.
Footnote [6.3] An allusion to the well-known nepotism of the Popes. The man here mentioned is one of the Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII.
Footnote [6.4] Cetonia aurata, L., called also the gold-chafer; it is coloured green and gold.
Footnote [6.5] The painter Salvator Rosa did really play at Rome the rôle of Pasquarello here attributed to him; but it was on the occasion of his second visit to the Eternal City about 1639. On the other hand, it was after 1647 (the year of Masaniello's revolt at Naples) that Salvator again came to Rome (the third visit), where he stayed until he was obliged to flee farther, namely, to Florence, in consequence of the two pictures already mentioned. It seems evident therefore that Hoffmann has not troubled himself about his dates, or strict historical fidelity, but seems rather to have combined the incidents of the painter's two visits to Rome—i.e., his second and his third visit.