Ricotti's great work on the history of the Piedmontese monarchy still approaches completion. The sixth volume, just out, brings the work down to the end of the seventeenth century. The Storia della Monarchia Piemontese is no mere dry record of dates; but presents an animated picture of the legal, intellectual, social, and artistic life of Piedmont at the different epochs of its existence.
Professor Ferdinando Ranalli's new work on the history of the fine arts, Storia delle Belle Arti in Italia, 3 vols., attracts much attention.
Professor Ciavarini, of Florence, has published an interesting work on the philosophy of Galileo, Della Filosofia del Galilei, and on his scientific method. The Italian press does not vomit forth the flood of yellow-covered literature with which some countries are afflicted; but the number of serious and meritorious works in history, literature, and science constantly published would surprise most persons who suppose that the Italian mind is at a stand-still.
Almost simultaneously in Germany and in England appear two works on the Epistles to the Corinthians by St. Clement of Rome. They are Clementis Romani ad Corinthios Epistola, by J. C. M. Laurent, published at Leipsic; and S. Clement of Rome: the Two Epistles to the Corinthians, a revised text with introduction and notes, by J. B. Lightfoot. They are mainly valuable for their discussion as to the merits of the texts of the various MSS.
The most interesting archæological discovery of our age, incomparable for its antiquity and its historic and philological interest, is unquestionably the one lately made by M. Clermont-Ganneau, dragoman of the consulate of France at Jerusalem. It is that of a Hebrew inscription of the year 896 before Christ, cut on a monolith by order of Mescha, King of Moab, a contemporary of the kings Joram and Josaphat. The stone on which the inscription is graven is in dimension three feet four inches by about two feet. The inscription itself is in thirty-four lines, each line containing from thirty-three to thirty-five letters. It is said that there is no known Hebrew monument comparable in antiquity with this. M. le Comte de Vogüé lately presented a memoir concerning it to the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, which is now published by Baudry, Paris: La Stèle de Mesa, Roi de Moab, 896 avant Jésus Christ.