“Seeing Foreign Parts” 1638–1639and discussions on such topics as Torricelli’s experiments, distributive justice, the
qualities of a saintly prince, paraphrases of the Psalms, a new treatise on music, and
recent scholarship on Galileo, Tacitus, and Guicciardini.^13 Milton may have at-
tended some sessions of that academy and of the Accademia della Crusca, whose
major concern was the purity of the Tuscan language and whose major work was a
great dictionary, the Vocabulario, first published in 1612. But his most intimate asso-
ciations were with smaller, private academies, especially the Svogliati (the Will-
less), and the Apatisti (the Passionless).^14 These groups had a strongly literary cast,
though the latter had a scientific branch as well. They met frequently, the Svogliati
weekly, on Thursdays, to listen to presentations and original works by members
and visitors: poems, plays, theological essays, moral “characters,” and lives of the
saints.^15 The Svogliati books record Milton’s attendance and performance on Sep-
tember 6/16: “To the members of the Academy gathered in considerable numbers
some compositions were read, and particularly John Milton, an Englishman, read a
very learned Latin poem [multo erudita] in hexameters” (LR I, 389). Most likely,
he read “Naturam non pati senium” – certainly an erudite philosophical work with
which to impress academicians.^16 Later, he describes reciting “some trifles which I
had in memory, compos’d at under twenty or thereabout (for the manner is that
every one must give some proof of his wit and reading there)” – a description
which would best fit “Naturam” (CPW I, 809–10). It is very likely that he attended
other meetings of the Svogliati during his first stay in Florence – several meetings
are recorded but not a list of attendees – as he did on at least three occasions during
his second visit. He may have been admitted to membership, as foreign scholars
sometimes were. On June 28/July 8 the Svogliati minutes make tantalizing refer-
ence (without name attached) to “an English man of letters who wanted to enter
the academy,” and on July 5/15 to the acceptance of one Mr.... (name omitted,
perhaps to be added later) into the society.^17 The first date seems rather early for
Milton’s arrival in Florence, but it is possible, since he stayed only “some days” in
Paris. Though the minutes are not extant, a later manuscript list of Apatisti mem-
bers in 1638 includes “Giovanni Milton inglese.”^18 The secretary of the Apatisti
was Milton’s friend Carlo Dati, and that academy was known for attracting foreign
members and encouraging multilingual presentations.
Jacopo Gaddi was a prime mover on the Florentine intellectual scene: himself a
noted poet and scholar, he founded the Svogliati, which reportedly included the
best wits of Florence.^19 A generous patron of learning and the arts, he was also
famous for his hospitality to foreign men of letters. His academy met in his new
palazzo (now the Hotel Astoria) in Via del Giglio, with its extensive collection of
antiquities, paintings and books, and at the Villa Camerata near Fiesole, whose
botanical gardens held plants from all Europe and Egypt.^20 Benedetto Buonmattei,
priest, scholar, and professor at Pisa, was a chief pillar in all the Florentine acad-
emies. Author of a commentary on Dante and several other works, his chef-d’oeuvre
was a two-volume account of Tuscan grammar, Della Lingua Toscana (1643).^21 Milton