THE
CABINET CYCLOPÆDIA.
CONDUCTED BY THE
REV. DIONYSIUS LARDNER, LL.D. F.R.S. L. & E.
M.R.I.A. F.R.A.S. F.L.S. F.Z.S. Hon. F.C.P.S. &c. &c.
ASSISTED BY
EMINENT LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.
EMINENT
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN
OF ITALY, SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW;
AND JOHN TAYLOR,
UPPER GOWER STREET.
1835.
CONTENTS
DANTE
PETRARCH
BOCCACCIO
LORENZO DE' MEDICI, &c.
BOJARDO
BERNI
ARIOSTO
MACHIAVELLI
LIVES
OF
EMINENT
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.
DANTE ALIGHIERI
ITALY. 1265-1321.
Of spirits of my order to be rack'd
In life; to wear their hearts out, and consume
Their days in endless strife, and die alone:
—Then future thousands crowd around their tomb,
And pilgrims come from climes where they have known
The name of Him,—who now is but a name;
And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone,
Spread his, by him unheard, unheeded, fame."
Among the illustrious fathers of song who, in their own land, cannotcease to exercise dominion over the minds, characters, and destinies ofall posterity,—and who, beyond its frontiers, must continue toinfluence the taste, and help to form the genius, of those who shallexercise like authority in other countries,—Dante Alighieri is,undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable.
This poet was descended from a very ancient stock, which, according toBoccaccio, traced its lineage to the Roman house of Frangipani,—oneof whose members, surnamed Eliseo, was said to have been an early settler,if not a principal founder, of the restored city of Florence, in the{Pg 1}reign of Charlemagne, after it had lain desolate for several centuries,subsequently to its destruction by Attila the Hun. From this Eliseosprang a family, of which Dante gives, in the fifteenth and sixteenthcantos of his "Paradiso," such information, as he thought proper; makingCacciaguida (one of its most distinguished chiefs, who fell fighting inthe crusade under the emperor Conrad III.,) say, rather ambiguously, ofthose who went before him, that "who they were, and whence they came, itis more honest to keep silence than to tell,"—probably, however,intending no more than to disclaim vain boasting, but not by