{1} Question of Machiavelli. Whether “The Prince” was written in earnest, with a wish to serve the Devil, or in irony, with a wish to serve the people, is still in dispute. {2} Michelangelo. {3} Galileo. {4} Newton. {5} Florence. {6} It is the opinion of many historians that the _Divina Commedia_ was commenced before the exile of Dante.--_Foscolo_. {7} Petrarch was born in exile of Florentine parents.--_Ibid_. {8} Alfieri. So Foscolo saw him in his last years. {9} The poet, quoting Pausanias, says: “The sepulture of the Athenians who fell in the battle took place on the plain of Marathon, and there every night is heard the neighing of the steeds, and the phantoms of the combatants appear.” The poem ends with the prophecy that poetry, after time destroys the sepulchers, shall preserve the memories of the great and the unhappy, and invokes the shades of Greece and Troy to give an illusion of sublimity to the close. The poet doubts if there be any comfort to the dead in monumental stones, but declares that they keep memories alive, and concludes that only those who leave no love behind should have little joy of their funeral urns. He blames the promiscuous burial of the good and bad, the great and base; he dwells on the beauty of the ancient cemeteries and the pathetic charm of English churchyards. The poem of _I Sepolcri_ has peculiar beauties, yet it does not seem to me the grand work which the Italians have esteemed it; though it has the pensive charm which attaches to all elegiac verse. De Sanctis attaches a great political and moral value to it. “The revolution, in the horror of its excesses, was passing. More temperate ideas prevailed; the need of a moral and religious restoration was felt. Foscolo's poem touched these chords ... which vibrated in all hearts.”