Notes to Chapter 1Renaissance, 7–9. There were also reports that Jesuits had poisoned John Tovey, the
father of Milton’s tutor, for immoderate zeal (Nugae Antiquae [1792], III, 158–9). And
Wotton’s letter had warned Milton about speaking out too freely (CPW I, 342–3).
59 LR III, 322. The statement appears in a private letter to his friend Vossius (February 19,
1653), commenting on the Salmasius–Milton controversy. Anthony à Wood also heard
this rumor, probably from the circles of English Roman Catholics who traveled in
Rome: “I have heard it confidently related, that for his said Resolutions... the English
Priests at Rome were highly disgusted, and it was question’d whether the Jesuits his
Countrymen there, did not design to do him mischief ” (EL 38). See Pritchard, “Milton
in Rome,” 95.
60 In the Pro Se Defensio (1655) Milton calls Alexander More a liar for claiming “that I
wrote ‘I was a candidate for martyrdom at Rome; that plots on my life were laid by the
Jesuits’” (CPW IV.2, 774). His general remarks about Jesuit plots implied some danger,
but he was not willing to see them read as a claim of threatened martyrdom.
61 Masson, I, 801. The details of this visit are set out in Milton’s letter to Holste (CPW I,
333–6), dated March 29, 1639 in the holograph original in the Vatican library, but one
day later (March 30) in Milton’s Epistolarum Familiarium (1674). See Joseph McG. Bottkol,
“The Holograph of Milton’s Letter to Holstenius,” PMLA 68 (1953), 617–27.
62 Evelyn, Diary, II, 300. Evelyn remarks also on the striking prospect from the library
into the Belvedere Garden.
63 Leo Miller, in “Milton and Holstenius Reconsidered,” Milton in Italy, ed. Di Cesare,
573–87 has identified the gift book as Holste’s Demophili Democratis et Secundi Veterum
Philosophorum Sententiae Morales (Rome, 1638). It has, on facing pages, the Greek text
and Holste’s Latin text of the ancient authors. This explains Milton’s often misunder-
stood description of the gift as “quorum et unius duplici,” which refers to one book
bipartite in language and format. The date of the dedication to Carolus and Maphaeus
Barberini (December 5, 1638) makes clear that Milton met Holste and the cardinal on
his second visit to Rome. Holste also edited Athanasius (Paris, 1627), Porphyry (Rome,
1639), and some axioms of the later Pythagoreans (Rome, 1638).
64 It is not a certainty that Milton saw this performance, but comments about it from
several travelers square with his, and the dates fit. For other possibilities see Arthos,
Italian Cities, 81–6.
65 See Arthos, Italian Cities, 68–70. One Thomas Windebank wrote on September 10,
1636: “I have been to visit the Cardinal Barberino... who, having notice of my arrival
here, sent to visit me first. He is so obliging and courteous to all our nation that I have
less wonder at the honour he doth me” (Masson, I, 799).
66 See Byard, “Milton and the Music of Rome,” in Milton in Italy, 321–4.
67 Applausi Poetici alle glorie della Signora Leonora Baroni, ed. Vincenzo Costanzuli (Rome,
1639).
68 See Frederick Hammond, Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome (London, 1994), 86.
69 André Maugars, Response... de la Musique d’Italie, ed. Ernest Thoinan (Paris, 1865),
37–8. He dated this note October 1, 1639.
70 The first epigram, ll. 4, 9–10, “Nam tua praesentem vox sonat ipsa Deum. /... Quod
si cuncta quidem deus est, per cunctaque fusus, / In te una loquitur, caetera mutus
habet,” Poemata, p. 42, in Poems, 1645; translations of the Leonora epigrams are from
Hughes. Critics have been puzzled by references to a personal guardian angel, to the
Notes to Chapter 4