174 



NERLI NERO. 



receive or.lers until the year 1551, having consider- 

 ril himself until then unworthy of them. Soon 

 after, he entered the community of St Jerome, and 

 instructed children, and finally also young ecclesi- 

 n>tic<, who \vt-re called oralorians,* because they 

 placed themselves before the church to call the 

 people to prayer. In 1564, Neri collected these 

 disciples into a community, and gave them regular 

 statutes, but imposed no vow, wishing that they 

 should always remain united by the bonds of charity 

 only. Gregory XIII. approved of this congregation 

 in 1575, and gave them the church Sfa. Maria di 

 f'allicelia. The congregation soon spread over 

 Italy. Baronius, one of his most distinguished 

 disciples, assisted him in his last sickness. He died 

 May 26, 1595. His letters were published at Padua 

 in 1751. He wrote several other works; also poems, 

 to be found in vol. i. of Rimi Oneste. A number of 

 the poems of his youth he ordered to be burned 

 shortly before his death. His life was written by 

 Ant. Gallonio, his disciple, and the eye-witness, as 

 he says, of most of the extraordinary deeds he de- 

 scribes. His life is also to be found in vol. v. of the 

 Acta Sanctorum, (q. v.) Baronius succeeded him 

 as general of the society in 1593. 



NERLI, PHILIP, a Florentine historian, was born 

 in 1485, in Florence, of a patrician family, and early 

 prepared himself, by various studies, for the duties to 

 which his birth called him. Cosmo I. made him a 

 senator. He died in 1556. He left in manuscript, 

 Commentary de 1 fatti civili occorsi nella Citta di Firenze 

 dull Anno 1215 al 1537, not printed until 1728, 

 though the nephew of the author had presented it to 

 Francis Medici II., requesting his opinion respecting 

 the propriety of publishing it. Francis of Medici 

 therefore seems to have preferred not to see it pub- 

 lished. To appreciate a history, we must always 

 know the character of the historian, particularly if 

 he treats of times much agitated by party struggles, 

 which affected him personally. Nerli, though not 

 desirous of a monarchy, was, in his disposition, aris- 

 tocratic. His ancestors had been consuls 300 years 

 before him ; women of his family are mentioned by 

 Dante. His uncle had the first Homer printed. To 

 himself, when young, Horace was dedicated, " because 

 he allowed no day to pass without reading him." He 

 formed himself in the gardens of the Rucellai, in the 

 society of Macchiavelli, who dedicated a chapter to 

 him. He says, in the preface of his work mentioned 

 above, that his endeavour is to show why the citizens 

 of the great republic have subjected it to one single 

 house (the Medici). Some have reproached him as 

 guilty of flattery; but Ranke, in his excellent work 

 Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtschreiber (Leipsic and 

 Berlin, 1824), says, that he treats that branch of the 

 Medici family, at least, which ruled to the death of 

 Clement VII., without hatred indeed, but without 

 partiality. 



NERO, Lrcics DOMITIDS AHENOBARBCS (after his 

 adoption, called Claudius Drusus), the son of Caius 

 Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina, the daughter 

 of Germanicus, was born at Antium, A. D. 37. 

 When Agrippina afterwards married the emperor 

 Claudius, he was adopted by him, and succeeded him 

 in the government, A. D. 54. Augustus, the first 

 Rctoan emperor of the family of the Caesars, com- 

 menced his reign with cruelty, but ended with cle- 

 mency. Nero, the last, began mildly, but ended 

 cruelly. He was excellently educated. Burrhus 

 instilled into his mind all the knowledge and prin- 

 ciples necessary to the formation of a great general 

 and statesman, while Seneca made him familiar with 



The followers of this saint are called, in Italy, also Filip- 

 pini, Philippians, from their founder. 



philosophy and elegant literature. The beginning 

 of his reign even surpassed the expectations founded 

 upon the union of his great talents with such an 

 education. A sentence of death being presented to 

 him for his signature, he expressed a wish that he 

 had never learned to write. But the flattery and the 

 seductions of his courtiers, particularly of his freed 

 man Narcissus, soon brought to light a character 

 which till this time had slumbered. At the age of 

 seventeen years, Nero gave himself up to the greatest 

 excesses of sensuality and cruelty. He first poisoned 

 Britannicus, to whose prejudice he had ascended the 

 throne by the assistance of Agrippina, and afterwards, 

 fearing his mother's ambition, put her to death also. 

 The ridiculous desire of being esteemed a great per- 

 former in music, ruled in his bosom superior to all 

 other passions. He performed in public, and placed 

 soldiers, as spies, to observe those who did not appear 

 inclined to admire his voice or his execution. He 

 wished also to be distinguished in the chariot race. 

 He traversed all Greece with a retinue of artists, and, 

 of course, won the first prizes in all the celebrated 

 contests and games. Sensuality made him ingenious 

 in gluttony and in the gratification of his natural pro 

 pensities ; extravagance made him covetous, and 

 danger made him cruel. The most distinguished 

 victims to his cruelty, besides Britannicus and Agrip- 

 pina, were his instructers Burrhus and Seneca, the 

 poet Lucan, and his wives Octavia (daughter of 

 Claudius and Messalina, whom he divorced on pre- 

 text of barrenness, and then banished to the island 

 of Pandaleria, where he soon after caused her to kill 

 herself by opening her veins), and Poppasa Sabina. 

 " My predecessors," said he, " did not know the 

 rights of monarchy. People may hate me, if they 

 only fear me." For the gratification of an insane 

 caprice, he set fire to Rome, merely, as it is reported, 

 tnat he might have a real representation of the con- 

 flagration of Troy. The most beautiful monuments 

 of art and of history were burned to the ground in 

 this fire, which lasted nine days. He transferred the 

 guilt of this action to the Christians, and caused them 

 to be cruelly persecuted for it throughout the empire. 

 As his passion for building was very strong, he caused 

 that part of the city which was burned to be rebuilt 

 in a manner more splendid and magnificent than 

 before. The most remarkable of his buildings was 

 the palace which he erected for himself in Rome, and 

 which was known under the name of the golden house. 

 His extravagance in other things clothes, hunting, 

 furniture, &c.- was as boundless as his munificence 

 to the people of Rome, whom he enriched by great 

 largesses (largitiones , common in the republic only 

 under certain circumstances), while the provinces 

 were oppressed by the weight of taxes. Several 

 conspiracies were formed against him in Rome, which 

 ended in the destruction of the conspirators them- 

 selves. At last, the revolt of Galba, his governor in 

 Spain, whose cause the senate also espoused, suc- 

 ceeded. The tyrant anticipated the punishment 

 which awaited him, by committing suicide, A. D. 

 Although the manifestations of joy were great at his 

 death, yet persons were not wanting who still ad- 

 mired, deified, and lamented him. They strewed h 

 grave with flowers, and placed his statue near the 

 rostrum. In short, his memory was so precious to a 

 great part of the people, and the soldiers, whom he 

 had endeared to him by liberality and indulgence, 

 that many impostors succeeded, for a time, in passing 

 themselves off for Nero. Nero was less inimical to 

 ingenious raillery because possessed of much wife 

 himself, notwithstanding he was the first Roman 

 emperor who made use of speeches prepared by 

 another. It is much to be lamented that that part of 

 Tacitus which contains a particular description of the 



