1810.] 
@f Santa Justina, near Padua, for his 
brother Gualbertinus. 
When Henry VII. who had recently 
assumed the title of King of the Romans, 
was at Milan, recetving the homage of 
the Italian states, Mussato was deputed 
to wait upon him in the name of his 
countrymen, and obtained a promise of 
peculiar privileges and favour for them, 
At the coronation of the emperor and 
empress in 1341, he tells us he had the 
honour to bear the train of the latter, 
Notwithstanding the Paduans had swora 
fidelity to Henry, they frequently en- 
xleavoured to shake off his authority, but 
were reconciled and had their pardon ob. 
tained by the influence of Mussato, who 
dias left an account of these his missions 
and his addresses to the king. 
The resistance of the Paduans lest them 
¥irst Vicenza and its dependencies, which 
revolted to Heury in 4312. Mussato, 
on his return from his last mission, laid 
efore the senate of Padua the result of 
his embassy ; but so strony a party was 
formed against the prudent measures 
which he recommended, that, inflamed 
by an harangue, in a truly republican 
style, from Rolando de Plaziola, two- 
thirds of the senate voted for the rejection 
of the terms offered them by the empe- 
ror, and Mussato in vain endeavoured to 
atem the torrent, 
The Paduans having thus defied the 
resentment of Henry, Canis Grandis 
della Scala, to whose government of Ve- 
tona the emperor had annexed Vicenza, 
proceeded to hostilities against Padua. 
We find Mussato(A. D. 1812) preferring 
still his country to, the favour of the moe 
narch, which he certainly possessed ina 
high degree, and acting iv a skirmish as 
standard-bearer for the division of the 
city in which he lived. The events of 
this war, and his own share in it, he relates 
in his History of the Transactions of Italy, 
Warton, in his History of English Poetry, . 
vol. 2, p. 409, says, that the three books 
written by Mussato in heroic verse, on 
the subject of this war, are among his 
inedited works; but they are evidently 
the 9th, 10th, and 41th, of the history 
Jast mentioned, the rest being written 
in prose. . 
On the death of Henry in 1348, 4 ne- 
gociation for peace was set on foot be- 
tween the Paduans and Canis Grandis 
della Scala; but the latter refusing to 
comply «vith the demand made by Muse 
sato, on behalf of his cc. ntrymen, for the 
restoration of Vicenza to Padua, the con- 
tereuce was soon terminated, and the war 
Memoirs of Albertinus Mussaius. 
renewed. arly in the year 1914, @ vi0~ | 
lent tumult of the populace took’ place, 
in Padua; the house of Mussato, was 
plundered, and he himself narrowly €3= 
caped, on horseback, with’life, from th 
city. Of this event he gives a fulleagms, oy 
count, De Gest, post Hen. Lib. iv. Rub. 4. 
But his fellow-citizens were goon. sen= 
' sible of the injustice of this outrage ofered “ 
» 
toa man who was an ornanrent to his 
country; and it was voted »by all Tear 
that he should be invited to assist agaim » 
« 
no 
% 
* 
at the public and private councils of the a 
e « ie 
state; and that, to compensate in some 
measure for the indignities offered hin), 
he should be honoured with new testis 
monies of the public gratitude and esteem. 
Preterea A. Mussatum, ignare plebis 
prolapsu indigne molestatum, secretis 
publicisque consiliis evocandum, haber 
dum, conciliandum, | proque accepts 
contumelid prestantioribnus honoribus €x- 
tullendum, memori& rerum gestarum @ 
Sacubo de Carrarié et gravioribus mult 
elegantid commendatum, Hac omnis 
ex plesbicito senatdsque consulto paribus 
votis constituta sunt A. D. ni, 1914- 
Maias Kalendas. . ~ : 
Thus honourably invited back to. his 
country, in a public address he enume- 
rates his services, and represents how 
little he had merited the injurious treat- 
ment which he had so lately experienced. 
He thus concludes his harangue: “0 
fratres, O tribuni plebis, O civium, mei 
visendi gratia, consolandi, amplectanda 
aggregata concio! non eam “ignavam 
turbam alloguor, que eum, gm Bonila- 
cium Papam VIII. virnm nostri tem- 
poris mundo formidabilem, sibi placabilem 
ac munificum,—qui magnanimum Henrie 
cum VII, orbis terrarem principem suis 
consiliis acquiescentem fecit,-—qul sume 
mz Imperatricis purpureum paludamen 
tum sustulit in incessu, quem intimo cum 
caris admisit in thalamo ;—gqui Vicentiam 
Paduse municipem fecerat; qui patrie 
libertatem in asperrimis anfractibus vine 
dicaverat, turba ijla infesta non accepite 
Dign® equidem aurate pecudis vellus 
grex inquinatus abhorret. Absit avobis, 
O tribuni, vilium belluarim fertas, san- — 
guinem sitiens innocentium., Salutem, 
fortunasque meas, et si quid restat, quod 
niea possint ingenia, facultates, salvatus 
evovéo patribus, proceribus, et populo 
saniori.” 
We learn from Ferretus Vicentinus, a 
contemporary historian and poet, (of 
considerable merit, though now almost 
wholly unknown) that Mussato bad nots 
in the year 1311, been crowned as poet 
saureaip 
fs 
