rand-Perigord. It would be fatiguing, if not useless, to dwell on a period concerning which so much has lately been published. In 1492, Lorenzo dei Medici died: morte, says Guicciardini, acerba a lui per l'età; acerba alla patria, la quale per la reputazione, e prudenza sua, e per l'ingegno attissimo a tutte le cose onorate, ed eccellenti, fiorina maravigliosamente di ricchezze, e di tutti quei beni, ed ornamenti, da' quali suole essere nelle cose umane la lunga pace accompagnata.

The seventh chapter examines the pontificate of Leo X, and marshals, in grand procession, a long and various train of literary combatants:-Bembo, whose paganizing phraseology brought a charge of heresy on the official papers of the Pope; Sadolet, scarcely remembered even for his description of the Laocoon; Belzani, who affected to bewail the infelicity of men of letters; Vida, whose Poetics, whose Chess, and whose Christiad, are better known than his Silk-worm; Sannazarius, whose piscatory eclogues are still read with pleasure; Fracastorius, whose Siphylis passes for the triumph of modern latinity; Battista, who composed spiritual eclogues; Devisio, an attempter of Italian comedy; Macchiavelli, the genius or dæmon of statesmanship; Ariosto, whose hippogriffon so few have since been able to govern; Querno, a buffoon poet laureate; Maro, a fluent improvisator; Caro, the diffuse translator of the Æneid, Paulus Jovius, a hireling historian; Castiglione, the prolix author of urbane dialogues on courtesy; and Nyphus, the Calabrian mortalist.

The eighth chapter describes the progress of painting. Rafaello is first characterised: he is ranked by Mengs as the greatest among the painters, but by Sir Joshua Reynolds as second to Michelagnolo. Truth of design, beauty more than Grecian, exquisite grace, and purity of expression, characterise his figures. His countenances have the physiognomy of nature, not the vague lineless face of the statuaries. In forward colouring, he does not excel; his objects have rarely much apparent prominence or distance. In composition he is very aukward: his School of Athens is a confused crowd; his Transfiguration seems to consist of two distinct pictures sown together by mistake. The battle of Constantine, in the Vatican apartments, was painted wholly by Julio Romano and Polydore Caravaggio: if, as has been

*M. Tenhove (I. 330) and Mr. Roscoe (II. 111.) praise Mirandula for attacking judicial astrology; his book censures the vulgar astrology only to recommend a more refined species of it. Over the death of Boccolino, both glide with incurious prudence.

asserted, Rafaello furnished the design, this is his best piece of composition.

Sebastian del Piombe coldly imitated Rafael; Giulio Romano more than rivalled him in composition, fire, and sublimity; as did Polydore Caravaggio in variety and invention. Titian excelled in the colouring of flesh. Leonardo da Vinci received from Nature a power of body and mind, which fitted him for greatness in all things:-a naturalist, a mathematician, a poet, a sculptor, a painter, his only defect was the subdivision of his attention. Bartolomeo della Porta has scarcely left works enough to merit the praise of approaching the sublimity of Michelagnolo and the beauty of Rafael.-Pietro di Cosimo first painted a Dance of Death: the subject was suggested by a carnival masquerade of the Florentines, and became very popular in the north of Europe.

Bramante, an expeditious architect, produced the first design for the church of St. Peter: a profuse employment of columns gives to his original model an inviting spaciousness, not attained in the edifice of Michelagnolo.-Perucci obeyed the antient architects with classical precision.-Sansovino delighted to accumulate beautiful ornaments.

Rustici produced, under Leonardo da Vinci, some fine statues. Finiguerra had invented engraving; Marco Antonio first brought it to perfection, and consecrated his labors to the diffusion of a knowlege of his master's (Rafael's) excellencies. Ugo di Carpi engraved on wood; Anichini of Ferrara, and Alessandro Cesare, on precious stones; an art now cultivated in considerable perfection by the present Empress of Russia.

The ninth chapter is chiefly occupied with political history, and introduces several characters connected with the Reformation. Peter Martyr is well known in England. Bernardo Ochino quitted the order of Capuchins, that he might marry: but having, in one of his dialogues, defended polygamy, he was expelled from the Swiss ministry. Paoli Sarpi is charged with maxims of statesmanship not less exceptionable than those of Macchiavel. Aretino seems to have sought an apotheosis from the Jacobins, by the virulent invectives which obtained for him the surname, " scourge of princes:" but his pen was venal. He merited for his epitaph the following epigram: "Condit Aretini cineres lapis iste sepultos Mortales acro qui sale perfricuit. Intactus Deus est illi, causamque rogatus

Hanc dedit, ille, inquit, non mihi notus erat."

Trissino added to the Orestes and Rosamonda of Rucellai a third cold classical tragedy: he also wrote a tedious epopea, of which Belisarius is the hero, entitled Italia liberata,-Berni

is remarked for a refaccimento of the Orlando inamorato of Boiardo.

The tenth chapter, with inconvenient anachronism, first introduces Michelagnolo to circumstantial notice. It were much to be wished that a biography, accompanied with outlined engravings of their leading works, were composed for each of the great artists: philosophers might then, with some confidence, compare and appreciate opposite censures. Artists are the only trustworthy critics in many departments of art, but not in all; a Lessing or a Heyne may have important remarks to make, after a Vasari or a Mengs have exhausted their animadversions. Michelagnolo, however, is one of those artists who may court the severity of every sort of penetration. His complete knowlege of myology caused him to prefer the representation of muscular figures in exerted attitudes; hence he is supposed to excel in energy rather than in grace; yet his Ganymede, his Leda, the Eves both of his pencil and his chizel, the anecdote concerning his sleeping Cupid, (which now probably passes for an + antique) and many of his angels, prove his talents to have comprehended the beautiful. His statue of Moses, and his painting of the last judgment, (which abounds with traces of the perusal of Dante,) are the most known of his sublime productions. He advised his pupils in the carving-shop perpetually to use the compasses: but his own impetuosity of temper led him frequently to chip too deep. He was wholly wrapt in enthusiasm for his profession; and he possessed, to the highest degree, (as in a sonnet he himself beautifully expresses it:)

The tyranny of the libertine Alessandro dei Medici is not de picted in these Memoirs with adequate abhorrence: nor is the joy with which his assassination by Lorenzino was received, and which induced Michelagnolo to make a bust of the murderer with the attributes of Brutus, proclaimed in all its plenitude. Neither are the exertions of the noble Filippo Strozzi, to render this catastrophe subservient to the emancipation of his country, narrated with that glow of praise which an undertaking so pure deserves from every friend to freedom. A stripling of the house of Medici was imposed by the Emperor on the

* The sculptured Eve of Florence is by some ascribed to Bandinelli.

The quantity of modern statues imposed on purchasers as antique is immense: the Belvidere Apollo, being of Carrara marble, has been thought to be of this number.

6

feebleness

feebleness of the Florentines, as their hereditary sovereign. The patriot Strozzi was arrested, cast into a dungeon, and twice put to the torture. Having obtained a poignard, he determined to avoid the repetition of his sufferings. A paper was found near the gash in his bosom, on which he wrote: "I recommend my soul to God the deliverer; and I humbly beseech him, if I be unworthy to be admitted into his glory, graciously to allot me an existence with Cato of Utica and those other virtuous men, whose deaths have been like mine." Piero Strozzi, a marechal of France, who was killed at the siege of Thionville, and boasted of his atheism at the point of death, is thought by the Abbé Terrasson to have composed the Greek translation of Cæsar's Commentaries, which appeared at Frankfort in 1608. Alessandro, Lorenzo, and Giovanni Battista Strozzi, also distinguished themselves by publications. The family long continued fertile in genius: Piera excelled in architecture so much as to excite the envy of the profession; Carlo wrote on antiquities; Leone on precious

stones.

Chapter XI. digresses into the affairs of France, and describes the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Among the literary characters protected by Catharine dei Medici, is named Luigi Alamanni, a poet known by Madrigals, by a didactic poem Della Coltivazione, and by two heroic poems-the Avarchide, and Girone il Cortese, which last is spun out to the tedious length of twenty-four books. The assassination of Alessandro is again discussed in this chapter:-such discontinuity of narrative would offend even in Ariosto.

The twelfth chapter is occupied with genealogical memoirs of the Medici The extract from Filelfo, at p. 396, gives a terrible idea of the state of society at a period on which some would have us look back as the glory of the human race. Scarcely enough is said of the important voyages of discovery made by the Florentine Americo Vespuccio. The character of Cosmo, who obtained from the pope the title of Grand-duke, is not censured with sufficient severity: it may be a satire on Augustus to compare these enslavers of their country, yet there are many traits of radical resemblance,

The thirteenth chapter reckons up many satellites of this artful despot. Guicciardini is highly praised. In what does the merit of his history consist? Long thoughtless periods, tiresome harangues, indifference to religion, dislike of liberty, habitual depreciation of human motives, and want of skill in selecting for prominence the events of superior relative importance, are surely not among the unfounded objections which have been made to his voluminous account of an interesting

half

half-century. Adriani's continuation fully equals his model. The work of Benedetto Varchi deserves, perhaps, a higher praise. The critic Vettori, as Balzac well observed, ennobled pedantry. Giannotti wrote concerning the Italian governments, with a spirit of independence which his life did not belie. Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, whose oration during the siege of Florence in 1528 has been much celebrated, left also a Treatise on the best form of a Republic. Nardi, Segni, Cini, Nerli, Baldini, and Settimanni, have left contributions to the history of their country. Ughelli and Borghini were obscure antiquarians. The archbishop Dellacasa composed the manual of politeness entitled Galateo.-Gelli wrote dialogues; Grazzini, novels. Vidi, on medicine; Verini, and Tolomei, on philosophy; Danti, on geography; and Taurello, on civil law; acquired some distinction. Primerani, Cicognini, and Landi, wrote with dull indecency for the stage of Florence. Vasari, a good architect and a productive painter, composed a history of Italian artists, which is more remarkable for commendation than discrimination, for panegyric than criticism.

Volterra obtained celebrity as a painter by a descent from the cross, of which Michelagnolo is thought to have furnished the design. Benvenuto Cellini is well known by the improbable romance of his life: Bandinelli, by many fine statues: if he carved the celebrated Eve, he made her taller than his Adam. Montorsoli and Amanati were his most distinguished pupils. Galeotti and Leone d'Arezzo were excellent medallists.

Cosmo apparently became insane, and surrendered his illgotten sovereignty to his son Francesco, chiefly celebrated for his attachment to Bianca Capello. On the history of this fascinating woman, we offered some remarks in vol. xxiv. N. S. P. 371. M. Tenhove has not been careful to sift the improbable circumstances of the received story. Indeed, his history should have been closed with the death of Cosmo; as the Socini, and other characters eminent in literature, were already conspicuous under Francesco-Maria, though not noticed at all in this work. It is much to be wished that the translator, who has shewn himself eminently qualified for the undertaking, would continue the suspended task, and give us in a third volume a history of the remaining princes of the house of Medici, which became extinct in the person of Giovanni Gaston, in 1737. The subsequent annals are by no means indifferent to the friends of science: they embrace the period at which the great Galilei was forming, by his instructions, Castelli and Michelini, the founders of hydrometry and hydraulics; Torricelli, the inventor of the barometer; Cavalieri, who improved the doctrine of infinitesimals; Viviani, who systematized experi

mental