FOOTNOTES:
Corpo gigante, e gambe di fanciulla
Ha il nuovo Perseo: sicchè tutto insieme
Ti può bello parer, ma non val nulla.
[2] Con le ginocchia della mente inchine.
Passi chi vuol, tre carte, o quattro, senza
Leggerne verso.
[4] Segni, vol. ii., p 337.
[5] Essay on the Knight L. Salviati, read before the Florentine Academy by Pier F. Cambi.
[6] Bernardo Davanzati. Oration on the Death of Cosimo.
[7] Segni, History; books 14 and 15.
[8] Manuzio; Life of Cosimo dei Medici.
[9] Ammirato. Florence Edition, 1827. Last volume.
[10] Aldo Manuzio.
[11] Segni's History, pp. 159, 184. Ed. of Milan.
[12] All the Academicians of La Crusca took some nom de plume, by which they were always known.
[13] The Prisoner of Chillon. Byron.
[14] Abrégé de Mézeray.
[15] Montaigne, Voyage en Italie, t. i.
[16] Sismondi, Literature of the South, vol. i.
[17] Sunt lacrymæ rerum, et mentes mortalia tangunt.—Æneid.
[18] The young Cardinal Giovanni dei Medici died suddenly, at Rosignano, a castle of the Maremma, while hunting with his brother, Don Garzia, in 1562. It was said, however, that the Cardinal had been murdered by his brother, for very soon after, Don Garzia himself died suddenly, and it was reported that he was killed by his father, Cosimo, in order to avenge the Cardinal's death.
[19] Galluzzi, History of the Grand Duchy, vol. ii. p. 271.
[20] Galluzzi, ibid., vol. ii, and Ammirato, last vol.
[21] Galluzzi, ibid., vol. ii.
[22] Morbio, History of the Italian Communalities, p. 27.
[23] Machiavelli, On the Nature of the French.
[24] Machiavelli, Sketches on French Affairs.
[25] Che fortuna "qualunque estolle, il tuffa prima in Lete."—Ariosto, Satires.
Martirio in terra appellasi,
Gloria si appella in cielo.
Beatrice Tenda, by Tedaldi-Fores, a young poet who died in the flower of his youth.
[27] Suetonius, Life of Claudius.
[28] Candles of yellow wax were used at court until the time of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I.: he changed them to white, as we learn from a letter by Soderini.
[29] Montaigne, being invited to dinner by the Grand Duke Francesco, observed that he put a great deal of water into his wine, while Bianca drank it almost entirely without: "On porte à boire à ce duc et à sa femme dans un bassin où il y a un verre plein de vin descouvert, et une bouteille de verre pleine d'eau; ils prennent le verre de vin, et en versent dans le bassin autant qu'il leur semble, et puis le remplissent d'eau eux-mêmes, et rasséent le verre dans le bassin que leur tient l'échanson. Il mettoit assez d'eau; elle quasi point. Le vice des Allemands de se servir de verres grands outre mesure est ici au rebours, de les avoir extraordinairement petits."—Voyage, t. ii. p. 59.
Porque dixo la venganza
Lo que la offensa no dixo?
Calderon de la Barca.
[31] These last words of Francesco were heard when he dismissed the Duke, after the secret colloquy between them.—MSS. Capponi and my own.
[32] It was one of the chief passions of Francesco to manufacture most elegant porcelain vases, which he then presented to princes and great barons.—Galluzzi's Hist., vol. iii.
[33] Francesco, with a company of merchants, carried on this commerce of pepper, and employed his galleys in it. This company had the exclusive privilege of selling it throughout the world.—Galluzzi's History.
[34] Their escutcheon was a Moor's head.
[35] In fact it is thus registered in a book of mercantile records.
Non fu sì savio, nè benigno Augusto,
Como la tuba di Virgilio suona:
L'avere avuto in poesia buon gusto
La proscrizione ingiusta gli perdona.
[37] "The atrocity," narrates Galluzzi, in his History of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, "the atrocity of the deed was hidden from the public, and veiled with the report that she had died suddenly of disease of the heart, to which the physicians asserted she had always been subject. It was confided, however, to King Philip through the Florentine ambassador, by means of a private letter, of the 16th of July, in the following words: 'Although in the letter mention is made of the accident that happened to Donna Eleonora, nevertheless you will state to His Catholic Majesty, that Don Pietro, our brother, has himself taken her life on account of her treasonable behavior, unworthy of a lady, and we notified Don Pietro of it through our secretary, and begged him to come here, but he did not come, nor did he allow our secretary to speak to Don Garzia. We have desired that his Majesty should know the whole truth, and every act of our house, and particularly this, for if we had not removed this disgrace from before us, we should not have thought that we served his Majesty well, to whom, at the first opportunity, we shall send the process whereby he may learn with what just cause Don Pietro acted.' King Philip was pleased with this mark of confidence, etc."
[38] When reproached for so easily changing his religion, Henry IV. is said to have replied: "Paris vaut bien une messe."
[39] This figure needs a word of explanation for foreign readers. The two opposing principles are monarchy and democracy; the intervening wall represents the nobility, which was virtually destroyed when the power of the barons was taken away, thus bringing the monarch and the people, as it were, face to face. The devouring of the first of these principles by the second alludes to the decapitation of Louis XVI., but monarchy, though destroyed, revived again in the person of Napoleon, a man of the people, and may thus be said to have caused sickness and weakness in that principle from which it sprang.—Translator.
[40] Napoleon.
[41] The writings of Ariosto were at that time as "familiar as household words" throughout Italy; now, even his name is hardly known in the rural districts. Montaigne, who travelled through Italy in the time of the Grand Duke Francesco, writes in the third volume of his Travels: "I wondered particularly at three things, first, to see the people here working on Sunday, threshing, preparing grain, cooking, and spinning. The second, to see these peasants, with lutes in their hands, and even the shepherds singing the verses of Ariosto. This is common throughout all Italy. The third, to see how they leave their cut grain in the fields for ten days or a fortnight, without fear of their neighbors." It would seem that in those times the French were greater thieves than the Italians.
Vaghe le montanine pastorelle,
Donde venite sì leggiadre e belle?
Vegnam dall' alpe presso ad un boschetto:
Piccola capannella è il nostra sito,
Col padre e con la madre in piccol letto,
Dove natura ci ha sempre nutrito.
Torniam la sera dal prato fiorito,
Che abbiam pasciute nostre pecorelle, &c.
Poliziano.
[43] Mettigli l'ale, è un angiolel di amore.—Perticari.
[44] The wherefore.
[45] Ahasuerus is said to be a Jew, who, while Christ was ascending Golgotha, denied Him water to quench his thirst, and would not let him rest beneath the shadow of his house; he was therefore condemned to wander, for ever cursed and despised. This legend, very common in Germany, is only a fable, as any one may see. Edgar Quinet composed a drama on this subject, the personages represented being sphinxes, winds, trophies of arms, ruins, rivers, and even the ocean. It cannot be denied, however, that among so many and so strange fancies, this drama contains some noble passages of splendid poetry.
[46] Achille della Volta stabbed severely the satirical poet Pietro Aretino in Rome, and on this account his arm was lame daring his lifetime. Tintoretto, the painter, hearing that Aretino spoke very badly of him, meeting him one day near his studio, invited him very courteously to walk in, and look at his pictures. Aretino went, and Tintoretto, after bolting the door, without saying a word went to a closet and took out a cutlass, and advanced with threatening aspect towards Aretino. "Alas! Tonio," exclaimed Pietro, trembling, "what do you mean to do? Do not allow yourself to be tempted by the devil! Would you kill me without sacrament, like a dog?" Tintoretto quietly approached him, who was trembling from head to foot, and measured him with the cutlass, and seeing he was almost ready to die with fright, said: "Fear not, Sir Pietro; for taking a fancy to paint your portrait, I wanted to measure you: you can go now; you are exactly three cutlasses and a half high!" and opening the door he dismissed him. Aretino always spoke well of Tintoretto after that. Aretino having been very intimate with John dei Medici of the black-bands, continued his attachment to the Grand Duke Cosimo his son, from whom he received many presents, as shown by his letters; therefore, adverse to Piero Strozzi at the time of the war with Siena, he wrote a humorous sonnet upon him, which began thus:
E, Piero Strozzi arma virumque cano, etc.
Piero, after that, warned him to carry the extreme unction in his pocket, for he would cause him to be murdered even were he in his own bed. Aretino, frightened, dared not go out of his house for a year or more. I cannot conclude this note without recording the epitaphs or epigrams, in the true meaning of the word (since the ancients meant by epigrams those funeral inscriptions, full of contumelies, written for men yet living), which Paolo Giovio and Pietro Aretino exchanged.
Giovio said:
Qui giace l'Aretin, poeta Tosco:
Di tutti disse mal, fuorchè di Cristo,
Scusandosi col dir: non lo conosco.
Here Aretino lies, in many a poem
Who railed at all mankind save Jesus Christ,
And this was his excuse: I do not know him.
And Aretino replied with this:
Qui giace il Giovio, storicone altissimo,
Di tutti disse mal, fuorchè dell' asino,
Scusandosi col dur, egli è mio prossimo.
Here Giovio lies, historian widely known,
All he defamed, except the Ass alone;
And when his friends, astonished, asked him why?
He is my next of kin, was his reply.
O ciechi: il tanto affaticar che giova?
Tutti torniamo alla gran madre antica,
E il nome vostro appena si ritrova.—Petrarca.
Ormai convien che tu cosi ti spoltre,
Disse 'l Maestro, chè, seggendo in piuma,
In fama non si vien, nè sotto coltre;
Sanza la qual chi sua vita consuma,
Cotal vestigio in terra di sè lascia,
Qual fumo in aere od in acqua la schiuma.
Inferno XXIV.
"Now needs thy best of man;" so spake my guide:
"For not on downy plumes, nor under shade
Of canopy reposing, fame is won;
Without which whosoe'er consumes his days,
Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth,
As smoke in air, or foam upon the wave."
Cary's Translation.
[49] Anaxarchus, a philosopher of Abdera, one of the followers of Democritus, and the friend of Alexander. When the monarch had been wounded in a battle, the philosopher pointed to the place, adding, that is human blood, and not the blood of a god. This freedom offended Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus, who ordered him to be pounded in a stone mortar, with iron hammers. While the executioners were performing the sentence, he exclaimed, as long as his strength lasted; "Pound the body of Anaxarchus; but thou canst not pound his soul."
Ma del misero stato ove noi semo
Condotte dalla vita altra serena,
Un sol conforto, e della morte, avemo:
Che vendetta è di lui ch' a ciò ne mena;
Lo qual in forza altrui, presso all' estremo,
Riman legato con maggior catena.
[51] It is foolish to enjoy sleep and to be terrified at death, for eternal sleep would be death.
[52] In the Memoirs of the Maréschal de Bassompierre, occurs the following remarkable passage: "Maria dei Medici, when her authority as regent was on the decline, intended to refuse the request of some of her barons to recall several exiles, which they were urging upon her with great persistency; but she did not dare to pronounce her refusal until she knew her actual condition. So, on some pretence she called Bassompierre aside, and asked him what means of resistance remained to her. Bassompierre replied, 'None, especially since some of her friends, such as the Marquis d'Ancre, had abandoned her.' Lors la reine ne peut se tenir de jeter quatre ou cinq larmes, se tournant vers la fenêtre afin qu'on ne la vit pas pleurer, et, ce que je n'avois jamais vu, elles ne coulèrent point comme quand on a accoutumé de pleurer, mais se DARDÈRENT hors des yeux sans couler sur les joues."
[53] The arms of the Medici family were six balls.
[54] As Lamoignon Malesherbes, the aged defender of Louis XVI., was being dragged to the scaffold, he struck his foot against a step in the prison, and remarked: "A Roman would have turned back."
[55] It was not long before they received notice of the death of Don John of Austria, caused by fever and the deep vexation of excessive care.
[56] i. e. The liberation of Lombardy and the kingdom of Naples from the Spanish yoke.
[57] Flagship.
[58] But no one counted them. This was the expression used by that judicious Ludovico Muratori narrating in his Annals the Battle of Lepanto.
God of the lyre, and goddesses of song
In vain for gold your faithful votaries sigh,
Small need and recompense to them belong;—
E'en a poor cloak I have not means to buy.
Apollo, tuo mercè, tuo mercè santo
Collegio delle Muse, io non mi trovo
Tanto per voi, ch'io possa farmi un manto.
Ariosto—Satire.
[60] Those were the very words spoken by Isabella to Lucrezia, as the records of the time report them precisely.
Gli abbracciamenti, i baci, e i colpi lieti,
Tace la casta Musa vergognosa,
E dalla congiunzion di quei pianeti
Ritorce il plettro, e di cantar non osa.
Sol mormora tra se detti secreti,
Che......................................
Tassoni.
[62] Botta, History of Italy, book XIV.
[63] The notices given to the Courts of Europe contained these words; "that this unhappy Lady, while washing her head with cold water, struck by apoplexy, fell into the arms of her attendants, and died before any assistance could be given her."—Galluzzi's History.
[64] "Not only did the Grand-Duke and the Cardinal keep their good relationship with Orsini, but also interested themselves in appeasing his creditors, and gave some system to his embarrassed economy. All this would prove that, either the death of Donna Isabella was not violent, or that the Grand-Duke and his brothers, being in the secret with Orsini, with their dissimulation rendered the crime more detestable."
[65] Settimanni. MSS. Chronicle.
Transcriber's note:
Minor inconsistencies of spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been made conistent.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the original text.