During the past ten years the history, geography, and topography of the biblical countries have been studied with immense activity, and the best travellers and scholars of Germany, France, Italy, and England have contributed their offerings to the common fund of our knowledge concerning these most interesting regions. Successful research on the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris, the Nile and the Jordan, not to speak of many other points, have all in turn confirmed the perfect veracity of the writers of the Old and of the New Testament. And to these, the broken walls, the palaces, the towers, and the sculptures of Babylon, of Nineveh, of Persepolis, of Jerusalem, and of Samaria, rising in testimony of the truth from the gathered ruins of ages, bear also their testimony. A learned German ecclesiastic, Dr. Gratz, uniting and fusing all the information on this subject, composed an admirable geographical history of oriental and occidental countries, with special reference to the biblical period. Dr. Allioli, the celebrated scriptural commentator, recommended the work of Dr. Gratz as marked by so much erudition and exactness that the readers of his commentary are recommended to it for information on all points touching biblical localities. An excellent French translation of Dr. Gratz's work has just been published: Théâtre des Evénements racontés dans les divines Ecritures, ou l'ancien et le nouvel Orient étudié au point de vue de la Bible et de L'Eglise. 2 vols. 8vo.
Here are two new works on the Council of Trent: Histoire du Concile de Trente, par M. Baguenault de Puchesse; 1 vol. 8vo. Journal du Concile de Trente, rédigé par un secrétaire Vénitien présant aux sessions de 1562 à 1563. This Venetian secretary was Antonio Milledonne, attached to the embassy sent to the Council of Trent by the republic of Venice. To the diary of the secretary, which forms the body of the latter publication, are added several original documents of the period heretofore unpublished, among them a summary of the dispatches of the Venetian ambassadors to the council. M. Baschet, the editor, suggests that the publication of the French diplomatic dispatches relative to the council would be of the highest interest. These dispatches would certainly form one of the most curious literary monuments of the sixteenth century, and, in point of fact, the history of the latter period of the council cannot well be written without them.
Baron Hübner, formerly Austrian Ambassador at Paris and at Rome, and well known in the diplomatic and literary world, has just presented the fruit of many years' labor among the state archives of Paris, Vienna, Florence, Venice, Simancas, and the Vatican, in the shape of a work entitled Sixte Quint; 3 vols. 8vo. Written on an epoch already well investigated, and upon a life which has been the subject of many pens, Baron Hübner's life of Pope Sixtus V. is by far the most remarkable and the most trustworthy we have had. And yet it is not perhaps exact to call his work a life of Sixtus V. The author does not so style it, and takes up Cardinal Montalto at the conclave where he is elected pope. He scarcely refers retrospectively to the early years of his life, and pays not the slightest attention to the semi-fabulous stories which tradition has interwoven with the name of the great Sixtus. If he finds documentary evidence for any part of them, he gives it. If not, silence falls upon them. At the outset of his work he merely mentions the three great names connected with histories of Sixtus—Leti, Tempesti, and Ranke. But he merely mentions them, and in no case quotes them. As to more modern historians of Sixtus—Segretain and Dumesnil, for instance—he does not appear to have the slightest idea of their existence. Baron Hübner has written his work exclusively from original materials, and appears to have used them conscientiously and with excellent judgment.
For nearly ten months an animated historico-ecclesiastical discussion has been going on in France, which, according to the reports of literary journals, has passed the stage of "vive polémique," and reached that described as "la controverse passionée." The subject matter of the discussion is Pope Honorius. Father Gratry (of the Oratory) led off with a pamphlet entitled, Mgr. l'Evêque d'Orléans et Mgr. l'Archevêque de Malines, and gave the texts of three councils which condemned Honorius, and the confirmation of their sentence by Pope St. Leo II. To this came a reply by M. Chantrel, Le Pape Honorius, Première Lettre à M. l'Abbé Gratry, in which he presented an abridged text of the letters of Honorius and testimony in his favor. Archbishop Dechamps also answered Father Gratry in La Question d'Honorius, citing an interesting passage from St. Alphonse de Liguori. Then, in its numbers of the 10th and 25th January, and 10th February, Le Correspondant gave an extract from the fourth volume (not yet published) of the Histoire des Conciles, by Bishop Héfelé, in which the prelate-author is severe on Honorius. Father Colombier, on the contrary, defends the orthodoxy of the incriminated letters of Honorius in a series of articles published in the Etudes Religieuses, Historiques, et Littéraires. Dom Guéranger also treated the question in his Défense de l'Eglise Romaine contre les Erreurs du R. P. Gratry, published in the Revue du Monde Catholique. Then comes L'Univers with a letter from M. Amédée de Margerie, Professor at Nancy, in defence of Honorius. We can merely enumerate other defenders of Honorius who have entered the lists. They are the Abbé Constantin, (Revue des Sciences Ecclesiastiques,) the editors of the Civilta Cattolica, Canon Lefebre, (Revue Catholique de Louvain,) Abbé Larroque, Abbé Bélet, Father Roque, and Father Ramière. The Avenir Catholique endeavors to demonstrate that Honorius wrote the letters in dispute not as pope, but as a simple doctor. M. Léon Gautier published a series of articles on the question of infallibility, the last of which is specially devoted to Honorius. These articles collected have lately been published by Palmé in a pamphlet, entitled L'Infaillibilité devant la Raison, la Foi et l'Histoire. Then comes a second letter from Bishop Dechamps, and, finally, the Bishop of Strasburg issues an energetic condemnation of the letters of Father Gratry.
The history of the city of Milan is, in Italian history, one of great importance; for it is the history of Lombardy, and of nearly all of the north of Italy. Of chronicles and histories of the great Lombard city there were many, but none so good in its day as the four large and beautiful volumes of the Chevalier Rosmini de Roveredo, which is now in its turn surpassed and superseded by the admirable work of Cusani, Storia di Milano, dall' origine ai nostri giorni. Vols. I. à V. à 8vo, Milano, 1861-1869.