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    posed with great moderation , on account of the liberal and rational spirit it breathes , is included in the numerous and invaluable catalogue of prohibited books in Italy , a catalogue which , as it daily increases in size , bids fair to contain everything that man has freely thought arid nobly said , awaiting from just posterity the reversal of the sentence of interested contemporaries . 5 . The Life of Scipio De Ricci , 3 vols . 8 vo ., by De Potter , Brussels , 1825 ,

    in French , and comprising , in the original Italian , nearly entire , —4 . The MS . Life of the Prelate , written by himself , but which he did not think it prudent to publish in his lifetime ; and , 5 . Memoirs of Ricci , by one of his secretaries , designated by De Potter as the % * Abb 6 X . now living in Florence . "

    The two last articles are of undoubted genuineness , the originals being to be seen in the Archives of the Ricci family in this city . The most jealous concealment of names is adopted by those who publicly speak well of Ricci even in the present day , and the copies of De Potter ' s work are most eagerly sought for by the government to be destroyed . It is printed at Brussels ( though intended for circulation in Italy ) in order to elude the censorship , which , by a fortunate inconsistency , permits the importation of books , the printing of which , in the Tuscan states , would be visited with the severest penalties .

    Scipio De Ricci was born at Florence , January 9 , 1741 ; he was the third son of P . F . Ricci , President of the Senate , and of one of the most ancient and distinguished families in Tuscany , so that the paths of preferment were open to him in any profession he might have adopted . Being destined for the church , he was , * at the age of fifteen , sent to Rome to pursue his studies under the Jesuits , of which society some of his distinguished relatives ( his father being dead ) were warm partizans or eminent members . His father ' s cousin or near relation , Lorenzo De Ricci , and who treated the young Scipio

    as his nephew , was the last General of that order . At the expiration of two years of diligent study , being of a pious and even enthusiastic disposition , he became enamoured pf the shades of the cloister , and expressed the wish to be admitted to spend his days in a monastery of that society , in what he deemed the service of the Deity . The reason assigned by himself in his posthumous memoirs , published by De Potter , furnishes a striking proof of the simplicity of his character and the sincerity of his attachment to the Romish superstitions : " I assured myself that by this means I should secure

    a place in Heaven , since this recompence had been promised , in a prophecy of St . Francis Borgia , to all the members without distinction of the Society of Jesus , for no other merit than that of being Jesuits . " Another proof of the same simple-hearted credulity occurs in the same memoirs , where he relates , that while at Rome , " being afflicted with a tumour in the knee which resisted all the efforts of art , and for which the operation of amputation had already been decided on by the surgeons , he applied with fervour

    and confidence to the part affected an image of the Venerable Hypolitus Galantini , and the leg was immediately cured . " The Protestant reader may well be surprised that a young man , a native of so enlightened and cultivated a city as Florence , and while pursuing his studies at college , at a period of life when the understanding first begins to jpride itself in proving the strength of its pinions and the expansion of its wings in bolder flights , heedless of the warning voice of those who would restrain its impetuosity , should manifest such an extreme of credulousness . Yet the surprise will cease , as it respects Ricci in particular , when it is remembered that at the

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    440 Memoir of Scipio de Ricci .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1828, page 440, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2562/page/8/