in the
Archiv. Stor. iii. p. 432.
108
Discorsi, i. 17, on Milan after the death of Filippo Visconti.
109
De Incert. et Vanitate Scientiar. cap. 55.
110
Prato, Archiv. Stor. iii. p. 241.
111
De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, l. ii. cap. 15.
112
Discorsi, iii. 6; comp. Storie Fiorent. l. viii. The description of conspiracies has been a favourite theme of Italian writers from a very remote period. Luitprand (of Cremona, Mon. Germ., ss. iii. 264-363) gives us a few, which are more circumstantial than those of any other contemporary writer of the tenth century; in the eleventh the deliverance of Messina from the Saracens, accomplished by calling in Norman Roger (Baluz. Miscell. i. p. 184), gives occasion to a characteristic narrative of this kind (1060); we need hardly speak of the dramatic colouring given to the stories of the Sicilian Vespers (1282). The same tendency is well known in the Greek writers.
113
Corio, fol. 333. For what follows, ibid. fol. 305, 422 sqq. 440.
114
So in the quotations from Gallus, in Sismondi, xi. 93. For the whole subject see Reumont, Lorenzo dei Medici, pp. 387-97, especially 396.
115
Corio, fol. 422. Allegretto, Diari Sanesi, in Murat. xxiii. col. 777. See above, p. 41.
116
The enthusiasm with which the Florentine Alamanno Rinuccini (b. 1419) speaks in his Ricordi (ed. by G. Aiazzi, Florence, 1840) of murderers and their deeds is very remarkable. For a contemporary, though not Italian, apology for tyrannicide, see Kervyn de Lettenhove, Jean sans Peur et l’Apologie du Tyrannicide, in the Bulletin de l’Académie de Bruxelles, xi. (1861), pp. 558-71. A century later opinion in Italy had changed altogether. See the condemnation of Lampugnani’s deed in Egnatius, De Exemplis Ill. Vir., Ven. fol. 99 b; comp. also 318 b.
Petr. Crinitus, also (De honestâ disciplinâ, Paris, 1510, fol. 134 b), writes a poem De virtute Jo. Andr. Lamponiani tyrannicidæ, in which Lampugnani’s deed is highly praised, and he himself is represented as a worthy companion of Brutus.
Comp. also the Latin poem: Bonini Mombritii poetæ Mediol. trenodiæ in funere illustrissimi D. Gal. Marie Sfor (2 Books—Milan, 1504), edited by Ascalon Vallis (sic), who in his dedication to the jurist Jac. Balsamus praises the poet and names other poems equally worthy to be printed. In this work, in which Megæra and Mars, Calliope and the poet, appear as interlocutors, the assassin—not Lampugnano, but a man from a humble family of artisans—is severely blamed, and he with his fellow conspirators are treated as ordinary criminals; they are charged with high treason on account of a projected alliance with Charles of Burgundy. No less than ten prognostics of the death of Duke Galeazzo are enumerated. The murder of the Prince, and the punishment of the assassin are vividly described; the close consists of pious consolations addressed to the widowed Princess, and of religious meditations.
117
‘Con studiare el Catalinario,’ says Allegretto. Comp. (in Corio) a sentence like the following in the desposition of Olgiati: ‘Quisque nostrum magis socios potissime et infinitos alios sollicitare, infestare, alter alteri benevolos se facere cœpit. Aliquid aliquibus parum donare: simul magis noctu edere, bibere, vigilare, nostra omnia bona polliceri,’ etc.
118
Vasari, iii. 251, note to V. di Donatello.
119
It now has been removed to a newly constructed building.
121
Related by a hearer, Luca della Robbia, Archiv. Stor. i. 273. Comp. Paul. Jovius, Vita Leonis X. iii. in the Viri Illustres.
122
First printed in 1723, as appendix to Varchi’s History, then in Roscoe, Vita di Lorenzo de’ Medici, vol. iv. app. 12, and often besides. Comp. Reumont, Gesch. Toscana’s seit dem Ende des Florent. Freistaates, Gotha, 1876, i. p. 67, note. See also the report in the Lettere de’ Principi (ed. Venez. 1577), iii. fol. 162 sqq.
123
On the latter point see Jac. Nardi, Vita di Ant. Giacomini, Lucca (1818), p. 18.
124
‘Genethliacum Venetæ urbis,’ in the Carmina of Ant. Sabellicus. The 25th of March was chosen ‘essendo il cielo in singolar disposizione, si come da gli astronomi è stato calcolato più volte.’ Comp. Sansovino, Venezia città nobilissima e singolare, descritta in 14 libri, Venezia, 1581, fol. 203. For the whole chapter see Johannis Baptistæ Egnatii viri doctissimi de exemplis Illustrium Virorum Venetæ civitatis atque aliarum gentium, Paris, 1554. The eldest Venetian chronicler, Joh. Diaconi, Chron. Venetum in Pertz, Monum. S.S. vii. pp. 5, 6, places the occupation of the islands in the time of the Lombards and the foundation of the Rialto later.
125
‘De Venetæ urbis apparatu panagiricum carmen quod oraculum inscribitur.’
126
The whole quarter was altered in the reconstructions of the sixteenth century.
127
Benedictus Carol. VIII. in Eccard, Scriptores, ii. col. 1597, 1601, 1621. In the Chron. Venetum, Murat. xxiv. col. 26, the political virtues of the Venetians are enumerated: ‘bontà, innocenza, zelo di carità, pietà, misericordia.’
128
Many of the nobles cropped their hair. See Erasmi Colloquia, ed. Tiguri, a. 1553: miles et carthusianus.
129
Epistolæ, lib. v. fol. 28.
130
Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. pp. 377, 431, 481, 493, 530; ii. pp. 661, 668, 679. Chron. Venetum, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 57. Diario Ferrarese, ib. col. 240. See also Dispacci di Antonio Giustiniani (Flor. 1876), i. p. 392.
131
Malipiero, in the Archiv. Stor. vii. ii. p. 691. Comp. 694, 713, and i. 535.
132
Marin Sanudo, Vite dei Duchi, Murat. xxii. col. 1194.
133
Chron. Venetum, Murat. xxiv. col. 105.
134
Chron. Venetum, Murat. xxiv. col. 123 sqq. and Malipiero, l. c. vii. i. pp. 175, 187 sqq. relate the significant fall of the Admiral Antonio Grimani, who, when accused on account of his refusal to surrender the command in chief to another, himself put irons on his feet before his arrival at Venice, and presented himself in this condition to the Senate. For him and his future lot, see Egnatius, fol. 183 a sqq., 198 b sqq.
135
Chron. Ven. l. c. col. 166.
136
Malipiero, l. c. vii. i. 349. For other lists of the same kind see Marin Sanudo, Vite dei Duchi, Murat. xxii. col. 990 (year 1426), col. 1088 (year 1440), in Corio, fol. 435-438 (1483), in Guazzo Historie, fol. 151 sqq.
137
Guicciardini (Ricordi, n. 150) is one of the first to remark that the passion for vengeance can drown the clearest voice of self-interest.
138
Malipiero, l. c. vii. i., p. 328.
139
The statistical view of Milan, in the ‘Manipulus Florum’ (in Murat. xi. 711 sqq.) for the year 1288, is important, though not extensive. It includes house-doors,
