ootnote 55: David.]

[Footnote 56: The Trinity.]

[Footnote 57: The Incarnation.]

[Footnote 58: In the Variorum edition of Dante, ut sup. vol. iii. p.
845, we are informed that a gentleman of Naples, the Cavaliere Giuseppe
de Cesare, was the first to notice (not long since, I presume) the
curious circumstance of Dante's having terminated the three portions of
his poem with the word "stars." He thinks that it was done as a happy
augury of life and renown to the subject. The literal intention,
however, seems to have been to shew us, how all his aspirations
terminated.]

PULCI:

Critical Notice

of

PULCI'S LIFE AND GENIUS.

Pulci, who is the first genuine romantic poet, in point of time, after
Dante, seems, at first sight, in the juxtaposition, like farce after
tragedy; and indeed, in many parts of his poem, he is not only what he
seems, but follows his saturnine countryman with a peculiar propriety
of contrast, much of his liveliest banter being directed against the
absurdities of Dante's theology. But hasty and most erroneous would be
the conclusion that he was nothing but a banterar. He was a true poet
of the mixed order, grave as well as gay; had a reflecting mind, a
susceptible and most affectionate heart; and perhaps was never more in
earnest than when he gave vent to his dislike of bigotry in his most
laughable sallies.

Luigi Pulci, son of Jacopo Pulci and Brigida de' Bardi, was of a noble
family, so ancient as to be supposed to have come from France into
Tuscany with his hero Charlemagne. He was born in Florence on the 3d of
December, 1431, and was the youngest of three brothers, all possessed of
a poetical vein, though it did not flow with equal felicity. Bernardo,
the eldest, was the earliest translator of the Eclogues of Virgil; and
Lucca wrote a romance called the _Ciriffo Calvaneo_, and is commended
for his _Heroic Epistles_. Little else is known of these brothers; and
not much more of Luigi himself, except that he married a lady of the
name of Lucrezia degli Albizzi; journeyed in Lombardy and elsewhere; was
one of the most intimate friends of Lorenzo de Medici and his literary
circle; and apparently led a life the most delightful to a poet, always
meditating some composition, and buried in his woods and gardens.
Nothing is known of his latter days. An unpublished work of little
credit (Zilioli _On the Italian Poets_), and an earlier printed book,
which, according to Tiraboschi, is of not