there are not provisions for so many people. In the English story I think he asks lodgings. 46. Is the most obscene story in Bandello, or perhaps in the whole series of Italian novels, yet. it is said in the introduction, to have been related by Andrea Navagero to the princess of Mantua. and duchess of Urbino. Part IV. 17. Marquis of Ferrara prepares a mock execution, and the victim of this villainous jest expires from apprehension. The ancestors of NICOLAO GRANUCCI, being of the Guelph faction, were expelled from Lucca in the beginning of the 14th century, but afterwards returned and spread out into numerous branches, through the various states of Italy. It is from the circumstances of his family that this novelist deduces the origin of his stories, as he informs the reader, that being at Sienna in 1568, he went to the neighbouring town of Pienza, to en 1 La piacevol notte e lieto giorno, opera morale di Nicolao Granucci di Lucca. quire if there were any descendants of the Granucci settled there. He was conducted by two of the inhabitants to an abbey in the vicinity, and having arrived there, was carried in the evening to see the Villa de Trojano, by one of the monks, who, on the way, related a number of tales, of which at parting he presented a compendium in writing; and from this MS. Granucci asserts, that he afterwards formed his work, which was published at Venice 1574. The 5th story of Granucci is from the first of Petrus Alphonsus. A son boasts of the number of his friends to a father, who advises him to try them, by putting a dead calf in a sack, and pretending it is the corpse of a person he had murdered. When he asks his friends to assist him in concealing it, they unanimously decline doing any thing in the matter, but the service is undertaken by the sole friend of whom the father boasted. This story is older even than Alphonsus; I think it is of classical origin, and has been somewhere told of Dionysius of Syracuse and his son. Another story of Granucci is from the fabliau Du curé qui posa une pierre. ASCANIO MORI DA CENO was a Mantuan, and passed his life in the service of the princes of Gonzaga, one of whom he followed to Hungary, when he went to attend the Emperor Maximilian in the wars against Solyman. Ceno's novels, which are fifteen in number, are dedicated to Vicenzo Gonzaga, prince of Mantua, noted as the assassin of Crichton and the patron of Tasso. The first part of his work was printed at Mantua 1585, 4to. From the title it would appear that a second part was intended to have been added, but it was never written, or at least never published. The 3d novel is the common story of a messenger coming express with a pardon to a criminal, but who, having his attention diverted by the execution, which was commencing, does not deliver his orders till all was concluded. The 13th is the still better known story of two young men, who, during their father's absence, pretend that he is dead: they sit in deep mourning and apparent distress, and in consequence receive his country rents from the steward, who arrives with them. 'Prima parte dell' novelle di Ascanio Mori da Ceno. CELIO MALESPINI,' during his youth, was in some public employment at Milan, but afterwards resided at Venice, and finally passed into the service of Duke Francis of Medici. His novels, which amount to two hundred, were published at Venice in 1609, 4to. He introduces them, by telling that a party of ladies. and gentlemen, who had fled from Venice during the plague in 1576, met in a palace in the Conta do di Trevizi, where they chiefly amused themselves with relating stories. In N. 41, of the first part, there is a curious account of the amusements of the Compagnia della Calza, so called from a particular stocking the members wore. This society, which existed in Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries, was neither, as some have imagined, a chivalrous nor academic institution, but merely an association for the purposes of public and private entertainments, as games, feasts, and theatrical representations. In course of time this university became divided into different fraternities, as the Com 1 Ducento novelle del Signore Celio Malespini, nel quale si raccontano diversi avvenimenti; così lieti, come mesti e stravaganti. pagnia dei Floridi, Sempiterni, &c., each of which was governed by particular laws and officers, and the members were distinguished by a certain habit. 57. Has been imitated by Fontaine, in his Paté d'Anguille, through the medium of the Cent Nouvelles. 59. Is from a fabliau of the Trouveurs (Le Grand, 3, 107), where a curate having buried his ass in a church-yard, is threatened with punishment by his superior. Next day he brings the prelate twenty livres, which he says the ass had saved from his earnings, and bequeathed to the priest in his testament. 61. part 2. A husband shuts his wife's gallant into a large chest, and goes to bring her relations, in order to convince them of her infidelity. Before their arrival she had found out her lover, and substituted an ass in his place. See above, p. 272. ANNIBAL CAMPEGGI lived in the beginning of the seventeenth century. His first tale is as old as the Heeotopades, and is the story of the jealous husband who tied his wife to a post. His second is that of the widow of Ephe |