“Seeing Foreign Parts” 1638–1639Although I can remember (and often do) many courteous and cordial favors which I
have received in my hasty journey through Italy, still, I do not know whether I can
rightly say that I have had greater tokens of kindness from anyone on such short
acquaintance than from you. (CPW I, 333)The Vatican library, with its magnificent collections of European and Oriental
books and of precious, ancient manuscripts, would have impressed Milton as it did
Evelyn and numerous later visitors, as “the most nobly built, furnish’d, and beauti-
fied in the world.”^62 Holste had also honored Milton with a commission to copy for
him portions of a Medici manuscript at the Laurentian library in Florence, and gave
him as a gift his recently published edition of the Sententiae of several ancient phi-
losophers.^63 Acknowledging that Holste may treat all Englishmen well because he
himself studied in England, Milton nevertheless hopes and thinks that he has been
specially favored: “if you have distinguished me from the rest and esteemed me
enough to want my friendship, I both congratulate myself on your opinion and at
the same time consider it due more to your generosity than to my merit” (CPW I,
334).
A few days after this meeting Milton attended a public musical entertainment put
on by Cardinal Francesco Barberini in the newly completed Palazzo Barberini at
the Quattro Fontane – apparently the comic opera Chi soffre speri by Cardinal Giulio
Rospigliosi (later to be Pope Clement IX), with music by Virgilio Mazzocchi and
Marco Marazzuoli and stage design by Bernini. It was performed there on February
17/27, 1639 to an audience of around 3,500, including Cardinal Mazarin.^64 Milton
was surprised and gratified by the attention Cardinal Barberini paid him at that
event and the next day at a private audience, attributing these gestures to the good
offices of Holste:
When... he gave that public Musical entertainment with truly Roman magnifi-
cence, he himself, waiting at the door, singled me out in so great a throng and, almost
seizing me by the hand, welcomed me in an exceedingly honorable manner. When
on this account I paid my respects to him the following day... no one of highest rank
could be more kindly nor more courteous. (CPW I, 334)In fact, other traveling Englishmen reported comparable hospitality from Cardinal
Francesco, who acted as “Protector” of the traveling nationals of England, Portu-
gal, Scotland, Aragon, and Switzerland.^65 Milton was clearly impressed by Barberini’s
graciousness of manner, intelligence, and culture, praising him to Holste in terms
that might seem surprising from the militantly Protestant Milton. Partly this is courtesy
and decorum: to such exalted and gracious personages Milton can offer appropriate
gratitude and deference. Yet he constructs his praises carefully, eliding the cardinal’s
ecclesiastical role and portraying him rather as welcoming host and true heir to the
great Italian Renaissance patrons of learning and the arts: