The only detail regarding his personal occupations, which I have been able to discover, is derived from a letter, dated November 30th, 1811,[349] to his friend Pezzana, at Parma, which exhibits him again engaged in the drudgery of compiling a catalogue—that of the library of Count Marescalchi. Pezzana had published, some time before, a short bibliographical essay on two very rare editions of Petrarch, which are still preserved in the Parma Collection. Mezzofanti, while engaged in cataloguing the Marescalchi library, discovered a copy of one of these editions, and at once wrote to communicate the fact to Pezzana. I may also mention, what, in a life so uneventful, must claim to be regarded as an event—a short journey which he made to Modena and Mantua. Joseph Minarelli, the eldest of his sister’s sons, was summoned to Modena in 1813, to ballot in the conscription which followed the terrible campaign of 1812, so fatal to the armies of France. Signora Minarelli was naturally much alarmed at the chance of her son’s being drawn in the conscription, and in consideration for her anxiety, his uncle accompanied him to Modena upon the occasion. It becomes especially difficult henceforward to follow the history of his studies. The literary friends of this part of his career;—his colleagues in the University; Ranzani; Caturegli, the astronomer; the eminent botanist, Felippo Re; his fellow-pupil and fellow-teacher, Clotilda Tambroni; Schiassi; Magistrini; and others of less note, who could have supplied information, not only as to his habits and pursuits, but as to the actual stages of his progress, are long since dead. The letters of Pietro Giordani,[350] however, recently published, may, in some measure, fill up the blank; not, it is true, as to the details of his biography, but at least in so far as regards the opinion entertained in Bologna of his character and acquirements. Indeed the testimony of Giordani is less open to exception than any which could have emanated from the personal friends of Mezzofanti. Giordani had entered the Benedictine congregation, and had even received the order of sub-deaconship; but on the outbreak of the Revolution, he had renounced the monastic life, cast aside the Benedictine habit, and thrown himself into the arms of the revolutionary party in Italy. Under the French rule at Bologna, he obtained as the reward of his principles, the place of Assistant Librarian, and also that of Deputy Professor of Latin and Italian Eloquence. Hence it will easily be believed that his relations with the Papal party in the University were by no means friendly; and, as he had had with the Abate Mezzofanti himself (as I learn from an interesting letter of M. Libri which shall be inserted hereafter,) some personal misunderstandings, he may be presumed to have been but little disposed to over-rate the qualifications of an antagonist. It is no mean evidence of Mezzofanti’s merit, therefore, that