Notes to Chapter 1Cabalistica, Oratoria, Mixta Sepulcralia (Florence, 1636) – the last containing historical
essays and occasional poems in Latin and Italian.
20 Chronology 61–2; Masson, I, 773–4; Arthos, Italian Cities, 6, 19–20. Evelyn observed
among his collections “one bust of marble as much esteemed as the most antique in Italy,
and many curious manuscripts; his best paintings are, a Virgin of del Sarto, mentioned by
Vasari, a St. John, by Raphael, and an Ecce Homo, by Titian” (Diary, II, 186–7).
21 Benedetto Buonmattei, Della Lingua Toscana (Florence, 1643).
22 Carlo Dati, Vite de Pittori Antichi (Florence, 1667). Other works include an edition of
Tuscan prose writers, Prose Fiorentine raccolte dallo Smarrito Accademico della Crusca (Flor-
ence, 1661), and Discorso dell’Obbligo di ben parlare la propria lingua (Florence, 1657).
23 Coltellini was about 25 years old in 1638, a lawyer of repute, and devoted to the study
of ancient languages and the purity of Tuscan. Later he published Endecasillabi, 2 parts
(Florence, 1641, 1652), and was four times president or consul of Florence. Chimentelli
studied law, was a member of several academies, and was later appointed professor of
Greek at Pisa. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1662 and associated with the Della
Crusca’s Italian dictionary project. Fioretti was a grammarian and student of poetry.
Frescobaldi belonged to an old Florentine family and was an original member of the
Apatisti (Masson, I, 776–9). Francini was a young Italian poet who left many poems in
manuscript.
24 CPW II, 765. He may have excluded Malatesti from the list of Italian friends men-
tioned in the Defensio Secunda, because this writer of risqué verse would not help the
rhetorical defense of himself that he there undertakes.
25 The manuscript entitled La Tina: Equivoci Rusticali di Antonio Malatesti, compositi nella sua
Villa di Taiano il Settembre dell’ anno 1637: Sonetti Cinquanta: Dedicati all’Illmo. Signore et
Padrone Ossmo Signor Giovanni Milton, nobile Inghlese, was discovered on a bookstall in
London in 1757 and copied. It has since disappeared, but it was published in London
that year by one Thomas Brand with the title La Tina. Equivoci Rustici. The title page
records the dedication “al Grande Poeta Inghilesi Giovanni Milton.” Cf. LR I, 375–6.
26 Harris, “Galileo as Symbol,” 3–29.
27 CPW II, 715. See Marjorie Hope Nicholson, “Milton and the Telescope,” ELH 11
(1935), 8–10.
28 See chapter 13, pp. 478–9, for discussion of Milton’s uses of Galileo and of this text in
Paradise Lost. He may also have purchased Bernardo Davanzati’s just-published Scisma
d’Inghilterra (Florence, 1638), a history of the English Schism whose “ducking imprima-
turs” he holds up to scorn in Areopagitica (CPW II, 503–4, 518). See William
Shullenberger, “ ‘Imprimatur’: The Fate of Davanzati,” Milton in Italy, ed. Di Cesare,
173–96. Other books perhaps purchased in Florence include Giovanni Villani’s Croniche
... nelle quali si tratta dell’origine di Firenze (Venice, 1637), which he later used in teach-
ing Italian to his nephews, and Guicciardini’s Historia d’Italia (Florence, 1636). See
Chronology, 61.
29 See articles by Neil Harris, Charles Huttar, and Edward Chaney in Milton in Italy, ed.
Di Cesare, 71–146. Given the time-frame of Milton’s departure for Rome, if this visit
occurred at all it could not have been when the leaves were falling.
30 Arthos, Italian Cities, 67.
31 Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini), Poesie Toscane (Rome, 1637) and Poemata (Paris, 1620).
32 Masson, I, 795.
Notes to Chapter 4