33 
‘of the employment of secretary to the se- 
mate. : j 
These various occupations, and the 
small income which his press, though it 
hac latterly declined, stil] afforded, would 
have enabled him to live respectably in 
his own country, had not the hope: of 
Better fortune, determmed him in 1585, 
to quit his house and his printing office, 
and to bid his country an eternal adyeu. 
€. Sigonio who had so long been profes- 
sor of cloguence at Bologna, died the 
preceding year, and the Bolognians were 
desiauus that Aldus should be his succes- 
so, /Advantageéous offers were mage and 
atlength accepted. The first of his “Le 
tere Volgari,” dated May 25th, 1585,ad- 
dressed to Monsig. Gio. Angelo Papio de 
Salerne, who had greatly exerted Hinself 
on this occasion, proves that at this pe- 
viod he was already at Bologna. 
The last work which he published at 
Venice, was his collection entitled ‘¢ Lo- 
eutioni di Terentio, 1585, 8vo. an author 
whom he had Jong and attentively stu- 
died; and the first which appeared at 
Bologna, was a Commentary upon the 
Ode of Horace, “ De Laudibus Vitz 
Rustice, 1586,4to. which hededicated to 
Julius, the son of George Cuntarini. 
I the same year he printed in folio 
very elegantly, “ La Vita di Cosimo de’ 
Medici,” the tirst of the grand Dukes of 
Tascany, and dedicated it to Philip IT. 
king of Spain. It appears that this work 
was very much esteemed by Francisco de’ 
Medici, the reigning duke, and son of 
Cosmo the Great, and that Aldus was 
-midebted to its publication for the offer 
which this prince made him of the pro- 
fessorship of belles-lettres in the Univer- 
sity of Pisa, an offer which was accom- 
_panicd by so many advantageous condi- 
tions, that he thought it not prudent to 
refuse it. But he had scarcely accepted 
this appoiitment, when he received an 
invitation not less honourable from Rome; 
it Was a nomination to the professorship 
which had so long been enjoyctl with de- 
served renown by the famous Mare. Ant. 
Muretus, who had been his own and his 
father’s faithful friend, and who died in 
June 1585, in his sixtieth yeat But 
Aldus, determining to continue at Pisa, 
refused the offer of the Romans: yet 
such was the reputation he had acquired, 
and so great was the respect paid to his 
talents and person, that, notwithstanding 
his refusal, his name was inserted in their 
hst of professors and the vacant chair was 
not supplied by any other person. 
Tn Aptil 1587, he quitted Bologna, re- 
Memoirs of Aldus the Younger. 
[Aec. 1, 
paired to Florence, and from thence to 
Pisa, where he took the degree of Dod 
tor * in utrogue jure,” and in November 
following he delivered the funeral osa- 
tion on Francisco, Dake of Tuscany, who 
died the preceding October. This has 
been printed under the title: ‘ Oratio de 
Prancisci Medices Magni Etrurie Ducis 
laudibus, habita ab Aldo Mannuccio in’ 
augustissima aede Pisana XI. Kal. De- 
cembris, 1587, 4to.” 
About this ume, he was received, into 
the Academy at Florence, and was in- 
vited to meke a public harrangue, at the 
ensuing carnival, which he did on the 
28th of February 1586, in the hall of 
the Medici. This oration has also been 
printed. 
In the following autumn he passed the 
holidays at Lucca, that he might be en- 
abled to collect the necessary materials 
for the Life of the famous Castruccio 
Castracani, who, at the commencement 
of the 14th century, was only a private 
individual, but who succeerted in render- 
ing limself the sovereign or rather the 
tyrant of Lucca and the adjacent coun~ 
ty. "3 
His history had been written in Latin 
by Nic. Tegri:ni, and in Italian, by Nic, 
Machiavelli; but Aldus being dissatis- 
fied with these two works, had for some 
years meditated the design of writing 
upon the same subject. With this view, 
in 1588, he undertook his joarney to 
Lucca, where from the public archives, 
and from Bernardo’ Antelininelli, one of 
the descendants of this family, he re- 
ceived ample and satisfactory documents. 
With this assistance, he published a_his- 
tory of this extraordinary man, who, by 
some has been styled a great prince, and 
by others a perfidious and cruel usurper. 
It appeared at Rome 1590, under the 
title: “Le Azionidi Castruccio Castracane 
degli Antelmineili signore di Lucca, con 
Ja genealogia della famiglia, estratta dalla, 
nuova Descrittione d’ Italia, di Aldo Man- 
nucci.” j ; 
The professorship at Rome, which had 
been offered to Aldus in June 1585, had, 
since his refusal, been snffered to remain 
vacant, from the hope that he would de- 
etermine to accept it; at length, after 
having resided at Pisa about two years 
and ‘being intreated by his friends and 
even by Pope Sixtus V. he resolved to’ 
accept this oflice, the emoluments of 
which were far more considerable, while 
its celebrity gave him the prospect of ex- 
tending his reputation. Upon his arrival 
at Rome the new professor delayed re 
. the 
