we read concerning Caravaggio: “In hoc enim oppido inclytæ stirpis Sfortiadum antiquo feudo ortum habuit Io. Franciscus Straparola cujus liber sæpe editus circumfertur italice hoc programmate: ‘Le tredici piacevolissime notti overo favole ed enimmi.’ Liber vetitus a sacra indicis congregatione et jure quidem merito cum obscenitates sordidas contineat moribus plerumque obnoxias et pluribi vulgatas. Optime quippe animadvertit Possevinus S. J. de cultura ingeniorum cap. 52, quod expediens esset homines potius nasci mutos et rationis expertes, quam in propriam et aliorum perniciam divinæ providentiæ dona convertere, imo ante eum ejusdem sententiæ fuisse M. F. Quintilianum licet gentilem, ipse Possevinus confirmat.” On reading even the most severely castrated edition of the “Notti,” one may be at first a little surprised to find that some of the most indecent stories (in spite of the care of public morals) have been left almost untouched, and it is not until one realizes the fact that expurgation has been held to mean the cutting out of every word concerning religion and its professors, that one fully understands the principle upon which “Possevinus S. J.” and his colleagues worked. The presence of matter injurious to public morals had evidently less to do with the action of these reformers than certain anecdotes describing the presence of priests and nuns in certain places where, by every rule of good manners, they ought not to have been found. In plain words, the book was prohibited and castrated on account of the ugly picture of clerical morals which was exhibited in its pages.[18] A glance at any of the editions issued “con licenza de’ superiori” will show that the revisers went to their work with set purpose, caring nought as to the mangled mass of letterpress they might leave behind them. In some fables bits are cut out so clumsily that the point of the story is entirely lost; in others the feelings of orthodoxy are spared by changing the hero of amorous intrigue from a _Prete_ to a _Giovene_. In one a pope is reduced to a mere initial (of course standing for a layman), and the famous story of Belphegor is left out altogether. It was surely little short of impertinent to ask for a condemnation of the “Notti” on the ground of offence to public decency from a generation which read such books as “Les facétieuses journées” of Chapuys and “Les contes aux heures perdues;” which witnessed the issue of Morlini’s novels and of Cinthio degli Fabritii’s book, “Dell’ origine delli volgari proverbii,” printed “cum privilegio summi pontificis et sacræ Cæsareæ majestatis;” a generation for which Poggio’s obscene fables were favourite reading, and which remembered that Pietro Bembo had been a cardinal and Giovanni di Medici a pope.