DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7597#0067
38
PAPILLON'S ACCOUNT OF
[chap. i.
form together, such a phalanx of corroborative evidence in support
of the story, as, in my opinion, those who would impeach the truth
of Papillon's statement, can never break through.
The objections, on the other hand, which oppose themselves to
our belief of the story, are, it must be allowed, sufficiently formidable
in their appearance ; but they are not conclusive or unanswerable.
They are chiefly as follow:
First.—The relation of Papillon, it may be said, goes to establish
the practice of engraving in wood, and of taking impressions from
engraved blocks of wood in Italy, as early as the thirteenth cen-
tury ; whereas no satisfactory ground for the belief that such a prac-
tice prevailed in Europe, even so early as the fourteenth century,
had hitherto been produced; and it is scarcely to be credited that
such an art should have been known in Europe at so early a period
" Alberico Cunio the younger; and, at fol.
" xlix. he places in the list of the Podesta,
" the Consuls, and the Governors of Faenza
" for the year 1315, a Count Bernardino
" Cunio.
" In the notices which I have here col-
" lected," continues Zani, " there is nothing,
" it is true, respecting the two twins of the
" family of Cunio; nevertheless, we may,
" I think, conjecture from these documents,
" that that Count Alberico, who, in regard of
" his wife Beatrice, was desirous to avenge
" the death of his father-in-law and his bro-
■
" ther-in-law, might have been the father of
" the amiable twins Alessandro Alberico and
" Isabella.
" Tonduzzi asserts, that, in the same year
" in which Honorius IV. was elected Pope,
« the enmity between the murderers and the
" Count Alberico Cunio was renewed; and
" Papillon has told us, that the troubles of
" Italy occasioned the Count Cunio to take
" up arms; and that the two twins dedicated
" their work to Honorius IV. We read in
" the Italian writer, that Beatrice, the wife
" of Count Alberico, was of the House of
" Manfredi; that is, one of the first families
" of Faenza ; and we learn from the French
" author, that the father of the Count Cunio
" obliged his son to divorce the Veronese
" lady, whom he had clandestinely married,
" and to take for his consort one of a higher
" class of nobility. It is not improbable that
" this was Beatrice.
" Let not the lovers of art in Imola,
" Faenza, and Ravenna," adds Zani, " omit
" to consider and compare that which has
" been written by the two authors whom
" I have cited; and let them use their most
" strenuous endeavours to establish a point so
" conducive to the glory of their country, by
" illustrating the history of the two twins of
" the family of Cunio, and placing so interest-
" ing a discovery in a clear light."
PAPILLON'S ACCOUNT OF
[chap. i.
form together, such a phalanx of corroborative evidence in support
of the story, as, in my opinion, those who would impeach the truth
of Papillon's statement, can never break through.
The objections, on the other hand, which oppose themselves to
our belief of the story, are, it must be allowed, sufficiently formidable
in their appearance ; but they are not conclusive or unanswerable.
They are chiefly as follow:
First.—The relation of Papillon, it may be said, goes to establish
the practice of engraving in wood, and of taking impressions from
engraved blocks of wood in Italy, as early as the thirteenth cen-
tury ; whereas no satisfactory ground for the belief that such a prac-
tice prevailed in Europe, even so early as the fourteenth century,
had hitherto been produced; and it is scarcely to be credited that
such an art should have been known in Europe at so early a period
" Alberico Cunio the younger; and, at fol.
" xlix. he places in the list of the Podesta,
" the Consuls, and the Governors of Faenza
" for the year 1315, a Count Bernardino
" Cunio.
" In the notices which I have here col-
" lected," continues Zani, " there is nothing,
" it is true, respecting the two twins of the
" family of Cunio; nevertheless, we may,
" I think, conjecture from these documents,
" that that Count Alberico, who, in regard of
" his wife Beatrice, was desirous to avenge
" the death of his father-in-law and his bro-
■
" ther-in-law, might have been the father of
" the amiable twins Alessandro Alberico and
" Isabella.
" Tonduzzi asserts, that, in the same year
" in which Honorius IV. was elected Pope,
« the enmity between the murderers and the
" Count Alberico Cunio was renewed; and
" Papillon has told us, that the troubles of
" Italy occasioned the Count Cunio to take
" up arms; and that the two twins dedicated
" their work to Honorius IV. We read in
" the Italian writer, that Beatrice, the wife
" of Count Alberico, was of the House of
" Manfredi; that is, one of the first families
" of Faenza ; and we learn from the French
" author, that the father of the Count Cunio
" obliged his son to divorce the Veronese
" lady, whom he had clandestinely married,
" and to take for his consort one of a higher
" class of nobility. It is not improbable that
" this was Beatrice.
" Let not the lovers of art in Imola,
" Faenza, and Ravenna," adds Zani, " omit
" to consider and compare that which has
" been written by the two authors whom
" I have cited; and let them use their most
" strenuous endeavours to establish a point so
" conducive to the glory of their country, by
" illustrating the history of the two twins of
" the family of Cunio, and placing so interest-
" ing a discovery in a clear light."