A. Panizzi.”
“P.S.—I know Lord Clarendon is staying with you. Please show him this: I am sure he will see that it is done—I mean for you.”
The hopes thus expressed were realized, as, on the 27th of February of the following year (1857), Sir George C. Lewis was appointed one of the Trustees of our famous Institution.
And here may be given an extract from a letter of J. A. Carlyle (Thomas Carlyle’s brother), also on the topic of Dante’s poems, which deserves recognition, as a proof of the esteem in which Panizzi was universally held, in especial by Englishmen.
“20th December, 1848.
“I really wish you could find leisure to write something expressly concerning the times in which Dante lived. You could do it better than any other person, and it has now become very necessary.”
And now, let us proceed to another publication. In the year 1858 Panizzi issued, for his friends, a charming little work, beautifully printed, also by Charles Whittingham.
Written in Italian, and dedicated to H.R.H. the Duke d’Aumale, only 250 copies were printed, under the title of Chi era Francesco da Bologna?—proving, so far as the question could be then proved, that the said Francesco da Bologna was no other than the celebrated painter. Francesco Raibolini, born about 1450, and commonly called il Francia. The name of Francia he derived from his master, a goldsmith, die, and niello engraver. According to Vasari and a document discovered by Calvi, his death took place on the 6th of January, 1517.[[N]] Francesco Raibolini was at once, in common with many of his compeers, goldsmith and type-cutter, as well as a painter, and to his skilful hands, Aldus, whose name they bear, was indebted for his characters. From Panizzi, we learn that, “at the end of the short Preface prefixed by Aldus to his first edition of Virgil (1501), printed in the cursive or secretarial characters manum mentientes, afterwards generally known by the name of Aldine, are the following three verses:—
In Grammatoglyptæ