"Quid de Valerio Chimentellio, homine omni literatura perpolita, dicam? Quid de Joanne Pricæo? qui ingens civitati vestræ ornamentum ex ultima nuper accessit Britannia."
One feels some decree of disappointment at not meeting here with the name of Milton.
Of the distinguished men mentioned by Milton, some interesting notices occur in that curious little volume, the _Bibliotheca Aprosiana_. Benedetto Buommattei and Carlo Dati are well known from their important labours; and of the others there are scattered notices in _Rilli Notizie degli Uomini Illustre Fiorentine_, and in _Salvini Fasti Consolari dell' Accademia Fiorentina_. I have an interesting little volume of Latin verses by Jacopo Gaddi, with the following title _Poetica Jacobi Gaddii Corona e Selectis Poematiis, Notis Allegoriis contexta_, Bononiæ, 1637, 4to.
There is a good deal of ingenious and pleasing burlesque poetry extant by Antonio Malatesti. I have before mentioned his _Sphinx_: of this I have a dateless edition, apparently printed about the middle of the last century at Florence: the title is _La Sfinge Enimmi del Signor Antonio Malatesti_. Commendatory verses are prefixed by Chimentelli, Coltellini, and Galileo Galilei. The last, from the celebrity of the writer, may deserve the small space it will occupy in your pages. It is itself an enigma:
"DEL SIGNOR GALILEO GALILEI SONETTO. Mostro son' io più strano, e più difforme, Che l'Arpià, la Sirena, o la Chimera; Nè in terra, in aria, in acqua è alcuna fiera, Ch' abbia di membra così varie forme. Parte a parte non hô che sia conforme, Più che s' una sia bianca, e l' altra nera; Spesso di Cacciator dietro hô una schiera, Che de' miei piè van ritracciando l' orme. Nelle tenebre oscure è il mio soggiorno; Che se dall' ombre al chiaro lume passo, Tosto l' alma da me sen fugge, come Sen fugge il sogno all' apparir del giorno, E le mie membra disunito lasso, E l' esser perdo con la vita, è l nome."
Three more sonnets by this illustrious man are printed by Salvini in his _Fasti_, of which he says:
"I quali esendo parto di si gran mente, mi concederà la gloria il benigno lettore, che io, ad honore della Toscana Poesia, gli esponga il primo alla publica luce."
Dr. Fellowes was not singular in confounding Dati and Deodati; it has been done by Fenton and others: but that Dr. Symmons, in his _Life of Milton_ (p. 133.), should transform _La Tina_ into a _wine-press_, is ludicrously amusing. _La Tina_ is the rustic mistress to whom the sonnets are supposed to be addressed; and every one knows that _rusticale_ and _contadinesca_ is that naïve and pleasing rustic style in which the Florentine poets delighted, from the expressive nature of the patois of the Tuscan peasantry; and it might have been said of Malatesti's sonnets, as of another rustic poet: