MILTON AND MALATESTI.

(Vol. ii., p. 146.; Vol. viii., p. 237.)

When I gave some account of La Tina of Antonio Malatesti, and its dedication to Milton, two years since, I was not aware that it had been printed, as I had no other edition of Gamba's Serie dell' Edizioni de' Testi di Lingua, than the first printed in 1812. That account was derived from the original MS. which formerly passed through my hands. I fear that my friend Mr. Bolton Corney will be disappointed if he should meet with a copy of the printed book, for the MS. contained no other dedication than the inscription on the title-page, of which I made a tracing. It represents an inscribed stone tablet, in the following arrangement:

"LA

Tina Equiuoci Rusticali

di Antonio Malatesti cō-

posti nella sua Villa di

Taiano il Settembre dell'

L'Anno, 1637.

Sonetti Ciquanta

Dedicati all' Ill^mo Signore

Et Padrone Oss^mo Il Signor'

Giouanni Milton Nobil'

Inghilese."

I copied at the time eight of these equivocal sonnets, and in my former notice gave one as a specimen. They are certainly very ingenious, and may be "graziosissimi" to an Italian ear and imagination; but I cannot think that the pure mind of Milton would take much delight in obscene allusions, however neatly wrapped up.

Milton seems to have dwelt with pleasure on his intercourse with these witty, ingenious, and learned men, during his two-months' sojourn at Florence; and it is remarkable that Nicolas Heinsius has spoken of the same men, in much the same terms, in his dedication to Carlo Dati of the second book of his Italici Componimenti:

"Sanctum mehercules habebo semper Jo. Bapt. Donij memoriam, non tam suo nomine (et si hoc quoque) aut quod Frescobaldos, Cavalcantes, Gaddios, Cultellinos, alios urbis vestræ viros precipuos mihi conciliarit, quorum amicitiam feci hactenus, et faciam porrò maximi, quam quod tibi me conjunxerit, mi Date; cujus opera in notitiam, ac familiaritatem plurimorum apud vos hominum eximiorum mox irreperem."

And, after mentioning others, he adds:

"Quid de Valerio Chimentellio, homine omni literatura perpolita, dicam? Quid de Joanne Pricæo? qui ingens civitati vestræ ornamentum ex ultima nuper accessit Britannia."

One feels some decree of disappointment at not meeting here with the name of Milton.

Of the distinguished men mentioned by Milton, some interesting notices occur in that curious little volume, the Bibliotheca Aprosiana. Benedetto Buommattei and Carlo Dati are well known from their important labours; and of the others there are scattered notices in Rilli Notizie degli Uomini Illustre Fiorentine, and in Salvini Fasti Consolari dell' Accademia Fiorentina. I have an interesting little volume of Latin verses by Jacopo Gaddi, with the following title Poetica Jacobi Gaddii Corona e Selectis Poematiis, Notis Allegoriis contexta, Bononiæ, 1637, 4to.

There is a good deal of ingenious and pleasing burlesque poetry extant by Antonio Malatesti. I have before mentioned his Sphinx: of this I have a dateless edition, apparently printed about the middle of the last century at Florence: the title is La Sfinge Enimmi del Signor Antonio Malatesti. Commendatory verses are prefixed by Chimentelli, Coltellini, and Galileo Galilei. The last, from the celebrity of the writer, may deserve the small space it will occupy in your pages. It is itself an enigma:

"Del Signor Galileo Galilei

Sonetto.

Mostro son' io più strano, e più difforme,

Che l'Arpià, la Sirena, o la Chimera;

Nè in terra, in aria, in acqua è alcuna fiera,

Ch' abbia di membra così varie forme.

Parte a parte non hô che sia conforme,

Più che s' una sia bianca, e l' altra nera;

Spesso di Cacciator dietro hô una schiera,

Che de' miei piè van ritracciando l' orme.

Nelle tenebre oscure è il mio soggiorno;

Che se dall' ombre al chiaro lume passo,

Tosto l' alma da me sen fugge, come

Sen fugge il sogno all' apparir del giorno,

E le mie membra disunito lasso,

E l' esser perdo con la vita, è l nome."

Three more sonnets by this illustrious man are printed by Salvini in his Fasti, of which he says:

"I quali esendo parto di si gran mente, mi concederà la gloria il benigno lettore, che io, ad honore della Toscana Poesia, gli esponga il primo alla publica luce."

Dr. Fellowes was not singular in confounding Dati and Deodati; it has been done by Fenton and others: but that Dr. Symmons, in his Life of Milton (p. 133.), should transform La Tina into a wine-press, is ludicrously amusing. La Tina is the rustic mistress to whom the sonnets are supposed to be addressed; and every one knows that rusticale and contadinesca is that naïve and pleasing rustic style in which the Florentine poets delighted, from the expressive nature of the patois of the Tuscan peasantry; and it might have been said of Malatesti's sonnets, as of another rustic poet:

"Ipsa Venus lætos jam nunc migravit in agros

Verbaque Aratoris Rustica discit Amor."

I may just remark that the Clementillo of Milton should not be rendered Clementini, but Chimentelli. As Rolli tells us,—

"Clementillus fu quel Dottore Valerio Chimentelli di cui leggesi una vaghissima Cicalata nel sesto volume delle Prose Fiorentine."

S. W. Singer.

Mickleham.