49 



FOR DEBT IMPROVVISATORI. 



)* (Ogned) V. K. ; and, finally. Imprimatur, 

 by the chancellor of the holy office, in Flo- 



IM PRISON MENT FOR DEBT. See Debtor and 

 Cbwiitor ; also Capita. 



1 M I'ROMPTU (from the Latin plirase in promptu 

 Jkatxre. to have in readiness) ; properly, sometliing 

 which is done or said without preparation, on the 

 l ur of the moment. It is used particularly to signi- 

 fy extemporaneous poetical effusions. 



I.WROPRIATIONS, in the English church; 

 benefices in the possession of laymen, those annexed 

 to ecclesiastical corporations being called appropria- 

 tion*, though they are sometimes identified. Black- 

 stone gives the following account of them. Bene- 

 fices are sometimes appropriated, that is, perpetually 

 annexed to some spiritual corporation, either sole or 

 aggregate, which the law esteems as capable of pro- 

 viding for the service of the church as any single 

 clergyman. This contrivance sprang from the po- 

 licy of the monastic orders, who begged or bought all 

 the advowsons within their reach, and then appro- 

 I rialrd the benefices for the use of their own corpo- 

 ration. Such appropriations could not be completed 

 without the king's license, and the consent of the 

 bishop. When it was once made, the appropriators 

 and their successors became the perpetual parsons of 

 the church. Blackstone is of opinion that appropri- 

 ations may still be made in this way. Those formerly 

 made, were originally annexed to bishoprics, pre- 

 bends, religious houses, manories, and certain mili- 

 tary orders ; but on the dissolution of the monasteries 

 in the reign of Henry VIII., the appropriations of the. 

 several parsonages belonging to them were given to 

 the king, and were afterwards granted out, from time 

 to time, by the crown. The appropriator deputed 

 some person to perform divine service in such parish, 

 who, being merely his deputy or vicegerent,was called 

 vicar, whose stipend was at the discretion of the ap- 

 propriator. The distinction, therefore, of a parson 

 and vicar, is that the former is entitled to all the 

 ecclesiastical dues of his parish, while the vicar is, 

 in effect, only the curate of the real parson (the ap- 

 propriator), and receives but a part of the profits. 

 It is computed that there are 3845 impropriations in 

 England. 



IMPROVVISATORI; the name given, in Italy, 

 to poets who compose and declaim, extemporaneously, 

 a poem on any given subject, or sing it, accompany- 

 ing their voice with an instrument. Among barbarous 

 nations, where fancy is strong, lively, and unrestrain- 

 ed, the gift of extemporaneous poetry, especially 

 when assisted by music, is not uncommon (for instance, 

 among several of the African and American tribes) ; 

 and, from several passages in the ancients, we may 

 infer that the oldest Greek poets extemporized. In 

 modern Europe, this talent appears a natural produc- 

 tion of the Italian soil. Spain too, and especially, 

 Minorca and Valencia, appear not to be without 

 traces of a similar poetic character. After this art 

 had been introduced into Italy, with the Proventjal 

 poetry, in the twelfth century, Petrarch appears to 

 have practised it ; at least, he is known to have in- 

 troduced the custom of the improvvisatori accom- 

 panying their song with the lute. Since the revival 

 of letters, there have been, in Italy, persons of both 

 sexes who have composed, in this manner, poems of 

 considerable length. The Latin language was at first 

 used, which, until the end of the fifteenth century, 

 was the language of the learned. The love of this 

 poetry was quite a passion under Leo X., at the 

 coortsof Urbino, Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, and Naples. 

 One of the oldest poets was Serafino d'Aquila (born 

 n 1466, died in 1500), a poet now forgotten, but, in 

 Ins own time, the rival of Petrarch. He was sur- 



passed by his contemporary Bernardo Arrolti, called 

 I u nirt> Aretino. It is said that, when lie repeated 

 his verses in a public place, every tiling was in mo- 

 tion, the shops were shut, occupation ceased, and 

 learned and ignorant all rushed towards him. Of 

 nearly equal fame was the Florentine improvvisafore 

 Cristoforo, surnamedthe Highest (dltissimo). Among 

 the improvvisatori, towards the end of the fifteenth 

 and at the beginning of the sixteenth century, were 

 Nicolo Leoniceno, Giammario Filelso, Parofilo Sassi, 

 Ippolito of Ferrara, Battista Strozzi, Pero, Nicolo 

 Franciotti, Cesare da Fano. Three poets of this 

 time were blind Cristoforo Sordi, Aurelio Brando, 

 lini, and his brother Rafaello. 



The learned Greeks, who, at the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century, fled from Constantinople to Italy, 

 there spread their customs, together with a taste for 

 their language and literature. In different cities of 

 Italy, they introduced the symposia, in which were 

 united the pleasures of the table and the pleasures 

 of the mind. Leo X. was very fond of them, and 

 willingly invited learned men to his table. Among 

 them was his favourite Andrea Marone, a great im- 

 provvisatore. The contemporary authors relate won- 

 derful things of his talent. Adrian VI., who looked 

 upon poets as a sort of idolaters, banished him from 

 the Vatican, where Leo had assigned him a lodging; 

 but Clement VII. recalled him. Another poet, 

 Querno by name, was a sort of court fool to Leo. 

 Being very fond of wine, he obtained permission to 

 drink from the pope's own glass at table, on condi- 

 tion that he would make at least two Latin verses 

 on every subject proposed to him, and, if they were 

 bad, his wine was mixed with at least an equal 

 quantity of water. Leo called him, in jest, the arch 

 poet. 



After the death of Leo, learned men wrote in the 

 lingua volgare, and the improvvisatori followed their 

 example. We may suppose from this that their 

 numbers increased. We will mention only a few 

 of the most famous. The first is Silvio Antoniano, 

 born at Rome in 1540, of an obscure family, and 

 raised by his talents to the dignity of cardinal. He 

 was well acquainted with the ancient languages, and 

 skilled in all the sciences. On account of his power 

 of improvisation, he was surnamed Poetino. On a 

 fine evening in the spring, he once began to re- 

 cite to a numerous circle, in a little grove in the 

 country, when a nightingale, apparently attract- 

 ed by his song, perched upon a neighbouring 

 tree, and, emulating him, as it were, began to sing 

 with extraordinary vivacity. The astonishment of 

 the hearers at this unexpected contest, gave a new 

 impulse to the spirit of the poet, and, excited by 

 these circumstances, he left his former subject, ad- 

 dressed the nightingale, and praised the melody of 

 her voice and the beauty of her song, in verses so 

 full of harmony and feeling, as to draw tears from 

 those around him. 



One of the most celebrated of the improvvisatori. 

 was Perfetti, born in 1680, at Sienna, died 1747, at 

 Rome. We have from Fabroni a biography of this 

 poet : two volumes of his extemporaneous poetry 

 appeared in 1748. He could throw a peculiar 

 charm over every subject, and possessed such a 

 wonderful memory, that in his last verses he recapi- 

 tulated all that he had said before. He had the ap- 

 pearance of an inspired man, and when he had 

 finished, he was generally exhausted and overcome 

 with fatigue. He recited his verses singing, that he 

 might gain time to think, and might better follow 

 the metre, and was very willing to be accompanied 

 by the guitar. His favourite metre was the octo- 

 syllabic. The most glorious day of his life was that 

 upon which (during the papacy of Benedict XIII.), 



