[437] See the series of the Gazzetta di Bologna; see also Spalding’s “Italy and the Italian Islands,” for a compendious but accurate summary of the facts.
[438] See the official announcements in the Diario di Roma in March and April.
[439] Diario di Roma, May 9, 1831.
[440] Mijne Reis naar Rome in het voorjaar van 1837. II. p. 35.
[441] The Memoirs of Father Ripa have enjoyed great popularity in the abridged form in which they are published in Murray’s Home and Colonial Library. This abridgment, however, gives but little idea of the work itself.
[442] This Bull is in the Bullarium of the Propaganda.
[443] Epistola Innocent III. vol. II. 723.
[444] According to my informant at Naples, the affection under which Mezzofanti laboured is described by the local phrase “rompergli le chiancarelle,”—a Neapolitan idiom which expresses something like our own phrase that “his brains were addled.” It was ascribed to the excessive difficulty of the Chinese, and to his own immoderate application. My informant also states that, at his worst moments, his mind was recalled at once from its wandering by the mere mention of the name of the Holy Father, to whom he was most tenderly attached.
[445] Fleck’s Wissenschaftliche Reise, I. p. 94.
[446] After the Revolution of 1848-9 the Chinese students for a time ceased to be sent to the Propaganda. Their entire course was completed in the Neapolitan College. They have again resumed their attendance.