On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    i 6 ; d £ atK with hifc M own hand . It seems veryprobable ; but tl ^ ere is no proof . . de Sismon ct i endeavours , to " heijghteii | '' or rather to loweri the scene by translating it ; ipto tlie Vulgate , —laying " We are assured that Cosmo revenged Giovanni by stubbing Garcia / ' — and thinks proper to add that tJits was done " in the arms of his mother , who died of grief in

    consequence . " He quotes De Thou , as his authority . De Thou says nothing like this , either in the spirit or the letter : he gives a very different version .. But the circumstantial account rendered by De Thou is an equally startling specimen of what " an historian" can do when he has a mind

    suited to the occasion . He actually gives the speech that Cosmo made over his son before he slew him—although they were alone , and—there is no proof that either the speech or the deed ever occurred . All other coternporaries affirm that the Princes died of a pestilence , as the Duke himself gave out . The speech , however , invented by De Thou , is very fine , and has been literally rendered in the fifth act ^> f the work to which allusion has previously been made . The difference , therefore , between dramatic and historical

    authenticity is not a lways quite so apparent , when closely examined , as generally imagined . Although De Thou is the onl y contemporary who relates the story of this fearful tragedy , Vasari is said to have confirmed its truth , by his silence and downcast eyes , when questioned concerning it . But to anybody who may have the patience to search through all the historians , it will be quite evident that none of them are acquainted with the details or circumstances , although they might think

    proper to hazard conjectures or unauthorized assertions . Historians are all agreed as to the character of the Prince Giovanni , and they probably have grounds for their statements . He had attained the age of about eighteen , at the period of his death , and possessed , like almost all the

    rest of the Medici family , natural talents and elegant and elaborate attainments . Being of a studious disposition he was continually in the society of men of letters , authors , &c . and lience it is probable that the estimate that has been rendered of him is authentic . Historians seem also , For

    the most part agreed , as to the character of Prince Garcia ; b \ it probably they have little or no grounds for their opiniop , except that he Was passionate , and intractable towards his teachers , tie seems to have shunned the society of the learned ^ which is no great wonder in a boy of the a ^ e of between fifteen and sixteen , when he died . Historians , evidently knowing nothing ot his character , attempt tp jestimate it entirely by one act of passion , and are so far prejudicate

    Untitled Article

    Cosmo de MtiicL 247

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 1, 1837, page 247, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1830/page/57/