Notes to Chapter 1“Third Mind,” and to what seems like vague pantheism in the final lines. But Milton is
simply using the vocabulary of fashionable Italian Neoplatonism as a vehicle for com-
pliment and as a means to figure the divine power of music and poetry. See Diane
McColley, “Tongues of Men and Angels,” in Urbane Milton, 127–48.
71 LR I, 408. The main business of this meeting was the reading and explication of the
seventh chapter of Aristotle’s Ethics by G. Bartolommei; Antinori and Girolami also
read verse (Masson, I, 823–4).
72 CPW I, 335. He was told that nothing could be copied without previous permission,
and that no one could even bring a pen to the table when examining the manuscripts.
He passed along to Holste the suggestion made to him, that the manuscript could be
copied by Giovanni Battista Doni, a brilliant scholar then at Rome but expected soon at
Florence.
73 They were most likely offered to Milton on his second visit, since he apparently made
no response to them (as he did to Salzilli in Rome and Manso in Naples) until he wrote
Epitaphium Damonis, after returning to England.
74 For the Latin text see Poemata, p. 16, in Poems, 1645. My translation.
75 For Italian text see Poemata, p. 5–9, in Poems, 1645. My translation.
76 “Ad Salsillum,” ll. 9–16: “Haec ergo alumnus ille Londini Milto; / Diebus hisce qui
suum linquens nidum / Polique tractum, (pessimus ubi ventorum, / Insanientis
impotensque pulmonis / Pernix anhela sub Jove exercet flabra) / Venit seraces itali soli
ad glebas, / Visum superba cognitas urbes fama / Virosque doctaeque indolem juventutis.”
Translation, Hughes.
77 Susanne Woods, “‘That Freedom of Discussion Which I Loved,’” Milton in Italy, ed. Di
Cesare, 9–18.
78 It was ruled by a gonfaloniere, nine ancients, and self-perpetuating councils, and was under
the protection of the Grand Duke of Florence. Salvatorelli, Concise History of Italy, 425.
79 Collinson-Morley, Italy after the Renaissance, 22; Evelyn, Diary, II, 192–3.
80 Cf. CPW IV.1, 619. Gordon Campbell speculates plausibly (Chronology, 66) that many
of the Italian books later cited in Milton’s Commonplace Book were probably included
in this shipment. See note 28 for some possible purchases in Florence. In Rome Milton
may have picked up George Conn’s De Duplici Statu Religionis Apud Scotis (Rome,
1628), which he later cited in Areopagitica. Books published in Venice (though perhaps
bought elsewhere) include Francesco Berni’s revision of the Orlando Innamorato,
Boccalini’s De’ Ragguagli, Dante’s Divina Commedia with Daniello’s exposition,
Savonarola’s Oracolo della Rinovazione, Tassoni’s Pensieri, Tasso’s Goffredo (the pirated
1580 version of the Gerusalemme Liberata), and a five-volume collected Works of
Chrysostom. For the editions Milton used, or may have used, see bibliography.
81 Arthos, Milton and the Italian Cities, 109.
82 Thomas Coryat, Coryats Crudities, 2 vols (London, 1611), I, 326; cf. Evelyn, Diary, II,
446–50.
83 Diane McColley, Poetry and Music in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1999),
200–1, 271, summarizes the kinds of music they produced, much of it traditional and
choral. Luca Marenzio (1553–99) wrote 18 books of madrigals setting texts by Sannazaro,
Petrarch, Tasso, and Guarini, as well as motets for the church year. Orazio Vecchi
(1550–1605) directed the choirs at the cathedrals of Reggio and Modena and at the
court of Modena, producing entertainments such as the comedy L’Amfiparnaso (1594);
Notes to Chapter 4