Cantu, an Italian historian, was born at Brivio on the Adda,
December 2d, 1805. The eldest of ten children, he belonged to an old
though impoverished family. To obtain for him a gratuitous education
his parents destined him for the priesthood. On the death of his
father in 1827 he became the sole support of his mother, brothers, and
sisters. In 1825 he had made his appearance as a writer with a poem
entitled 'Algiso and the Lombard League.' His 'History of Como,'
following in 1829, gave him a standing in the world of letters.

Although not a member of the revolutionary society 'Young Italy,' he
was the confidant of two of its leaders, Albera and Balzetti, a
circumstance which led to his arrest in 1833. Seized by the Austrian
officials in the midst of his lecture at the Lyceum in Milan, he was
incarcerated in the prison in the Convent of Santa Margherita.
Although deprived of books and pen, he beguiled the time by writing
with a toothpick and candle-smoke on the back of a map and on scraps
of paper, 'Margherita Pusteria,' with one exception the most popular
historical novel in the Italian language.

Liberated at the end of a year, but deprived of his professorship, he
and his family would probably have starved had he not chanced to meet
a publisher who wanted a history of the world. The result of this
meeting was his 'Universal History' in thirty-five volumes (Turin,
1836 _et seq._), which has gone through forty editions and been
translated into many languages. It brought the publisher a fortune and
Cantu a modest independence.

Up to the time of his death in 1895, Cantu wrote almost without
intermission. Besides the books already mentioned, the most notable
are the 'History of a Hundred Years, 1750-1850' (1864), and the 'Story
of the Struggles for Italian Independence' (1873). His masterpiece is
the 'Universal History,' the best work of its kind in Italian and
perhaps in any language for lucidity and rapidity of narration, unity
of plan, justness of proportion, and literary art. It is however
written from the clerical point of view, and is not based on a
critical study of documentary sources. The political offenses for
which Cantu suffered persecution were his attempts to secure a federal
union of the Italian States under the hegemony of Austria and the
Papacy.

THE EXECUTION

From 'Margherita Pusterla'

The beautiful sunshine which one sees in Lombardy only at the season
of vintage, spread its white ligh