SANUTO'S DOGES OF VENICE.
Sir,--The high value of your Journal as a repertory of interesting literary information, which without it might be lost to the world, is becoming daily more apparent from the number and character of your correspondents. You have my best wishes for its success.
The communication of Sir FREDERICK MADDEN respecting the singular and obvious error in Marin Sanuto's Lives of the Doges of Venice, has renewed in me a desire for information which I have hitherto been unable to obtain; and I will, therefore, with your permission, put it here as a Query.
Who was the foreigner who gave to the world the very interesting book respecting Sanuto under the following title?--Ragguagli sulla Vita e sulle Opere di Marin Sanuto, etc. Intitolati dall' amicizia di uno Straniere al nobile Jacopo Vicenzo Foscarini.--Opera divise in trè perti, Venezia, 1837-8. in 8vo.
The able writer has noticed that the very mutilated and incorrect manner in which Muratori has printed all that he has given of Sanuto, and especially Le Vite de' Dogi, of which the original copy still remains inedited in the Estensian Library at Modena. There can be no doubt that some ignorant or indolent transcriber made the mistake of iudeo for richo, so satisfactorily and happily elucidated by SIR FREDERICK MADDEN. How much it is to be regretted that the Diary of Sanuto, so remarkable for it simplicity and ingenuous truthful air, should still remain inedited. It relates to an epoch among the most interesting of Modern History, and the extracts given in the Ragguagli only make us wish for more.
From this Diary it appears that the Valori were among the most distinguished citizens of a state which could boast that its merchants were princes. The palace they inhabited is no known by the name of the Altoviti, its more recent owners, and many of the tombs of the Valori are to be found in the church of St. Proculus. Macchiavelli mentions Bartolomeo Valori among the Cittadini d' autorita, and, according to Nardi, he was Gonfaloniere in the first two months of the years 1402, 1408, and 1420. He was also one of the Platonic Academy that Ficino assembled around him. In this Diary of Sanuto will be found many minute and interesting details respecting Savonarola, and the relation of the tragical death of Francisco Valor, who had also been several times Gontaloniere, and whom Savonarola, in his confession, said it was his intention to have made perpetual Dictator.
I would have given a specimen of this very interesting diary, but that I scrupled to occupy space which your correspondents enable you to fill so effectively, for I fully subscribe to the dictum of the Ragguagliatore, "Il Sanuto si presenta come la Scott degli Storiei, compincendosi come Sir Walter delle giostre, delle feste, e delle narrazioni piacevole e di dolce pietà.
S.W.S.
Mickleham, Nov. 23, 1849.