1 



202 Epitome of the Progress of JVatural Science, 



edifices in Florence, Genoa, and other cities, standing in * majes- 

 tic amplitude,' and whose harmony of proportion and ornament, 

 as the late lord Byron has most poetically expressed it, " affect 

 the mind, as if it were inaudible music." These palaces were so 

 many castles in the midst of a city ; for the factions which so 

 often divided the cities, raged frequently from the opposite sides 

 of the streets; and many of their edifices, as their exterior denotes, 

 were constructed for purposes of defence. Nor has the 13th cen- 

 tury its architecture alone to boast of, it being still more illus- 

 trious for the revival of painting under Giotto and Cimabue, both 

 of them celebrated by Dante. These artists have left produc- 

 tions, which, notwithstanding the general hardness of outline per 

 culiar to the art at this period, breathe the genius and grace of 

 that great school of painting, of which they were the founders. 

 Although the power of the Itahan princes, had been raised at 

 the expence of many of the privileges of the people, still their 

 authority was beneficently exercised in favour of letters and the 

 arts. The Visconti at Milan, the Carrara at Padua, the Gonzaga 

 at Mantua, and the family of Este at Ferrara, were all patrons 

 of merit. To their courts, eminent men — banished by the turbu- 

 lence of the times from their own country, or travelling from vo- 

 luntary motives, — resorted ; and there they were entertained in 

 the most hospitable and munificent manner. Men of letters were 

 especially honoured, and the most important embassies frequently 

 entrusted to them. Such was the court of Verona, under the 

 great Cane della Scala, the patron of Dante, in his exile. Yet 

 honoured as he was, there was a bitterness in his dependent state, 

 that his lofty mind revolted at. " You do not know," he wrote 

 to a friend, " how hard it is to eat another man's bread." It 

 was this invincible feeling, that dissolved the connection between 

 him and the princes of the house of Scala. His pride never 

 abandoned him, and his growing dissatisfaction ended, perhaps, 

 by indisposing them against him. "What is the reason," said 

 one of them, before a pumber of his courtiers, to him, " that 

 many people prefer the stupidest buffoon about the court, to 

 yourself, who have so much genius and wisdom Dante proudly 

 replied, " that ought not to surprise you,^who know that friend- 

 ships are the result of mutual sympathies, and affinities of cha- 

 racter." 



The great poem of Dante, had probably much influence in 



