FILICAIA, Vincenzo da, a celebrated Italian poet, descended of a noble family of Florence, was born in that city on the 30th of December 1642. He commenced his studies under the Jesuits at Florence, and completed them in the university of Pisa. Grecian and Roman antiquity, philosophy, theology, and jurisprudence, were successively the objects of his study; poesy served merely as a relaxation from severer pursuits. Like most young devotees of the muses, he began with amatory verses; but the lady whom he loved and celebrated having died in the flower of her age, he burned all the verses which he had inscribed to her, and resolved henceforth to sing only heroic or sacred themes, a resolution which he most religiously observed. Having returned to Florence, after a residence of about five years at Pisa, he was received into the academy Della Crusea, and, in a short time, married a daughter of the senator Scipio Caponi; but as this lady brought him little fortune, and his own means were limited, he withdrew entirely from the world, on the death of his father, and established himselí in the country, where he divided his time between his studies, the education of his children, and the contemplation of the wonders of nature and its author. He every day composed verses either in Latin or Italian, which he submitted to the judgment of his friends, and improved according to the advice which they gave, without any desire for publication, or indeed any other object than that of exercising his own powers. But a memorable occurrence drew him from the voluntary obscurity in which he had buried himself. Vienna, besieged by an army of two hundred thousand Turks, was delivered by John Sobieski, king of Poland, and by the Duke of Lorraine, afterwards Charles V. This great event, which saved Christendom from the most imminent danger, excited the enthusiasm of Filicaia, who, in a magnificent canzone or ode, celebrated the victory of the Christian armies; he also addressed a second to the Emperor Leopold I., a third to the King of Poland, a fourth to the Duke of Lorraine, and a fifth to the god of armies; and the Ottomans, having been entirely defeated in another battle, he celebrated this new triumph in a sixth ode, which is perhaps the most beautiful of all. These six triumphal odes excited universal admiration. The grand duke, of his ow n accord, sent copies of them to the princes whose exploits were commemorated, and from the latter the author received the most flattering acknowledgments. But as the copies of his odes became daily deformed by new errors, in proportion as they were multiplied, his friends at length obtained permission to print them. They accordingly appeared at Florence, in 1684, in 4to; and Filicaia was, almost in spite of himself, placed in the first rank of Italian lyric poets. Another great ode, which he addressed the same year to Queen Christina of Sweden, fully supported the reputation which he had gained by his former productions. This princess, who then exhibited in private life the generosity of a sovereign, did not confine herself to a mere expression of her satisfaction, or corresponding with the author, or admitting him into the academy, which she had formed at Rome, of men most distinguished in poetry and letters; being informed of the depressed state of his circumstances, she in some sort adopted his two sons, undertook to defray the expense of their education, and exacted from their father, as the only expression of his gratitude, that he would maintain the most profound silence, not chusing, as she said, to have to blush before the public for having done so little to serve a man who had so many claims to her esteem. But a severe malady with which he was seized some years afterwards, was followed by another subject of affliction, which he felt much more sensibly; he lost his eldest son, who had been appointed page to the grand duke after the death of the queen his benefactress. This bereavement, which he bore with Christian fortitude, fixed on him the particular attention of the prince, who, interested in his fortune, conferred on him the dignity of senator, and soon afterwards appointed him ducal commissary of Volterra, then commissary of Pisa, and, lastly, secretary au tirage to the magistrates, an important office, which gave him immediate access to the prince, and initiated him in the secrets of the government. Filicaia, in all his employments, secured at once the gratitude of the public, the attachment of those under him, and the esteem of his sovereign. Neither the multiplicity of his occupations, nor the progress of age, however, prevented him from dedicating several hours each day to the cultivation of letters and the exercise of his poetical talent; but as his piety, which had always been great, increased with his years, he at length confined his reading to religious books, and treated only of sacred subjects. Nevertheless, he had resolved to collect all his pieces, to revise and correct them of new, and to publish himself a complete edition of his lyrical composition; but, whilst occupied with this undertaking, in which he had made considerable progress, he was seized with a violent affection in the chest, which in a few days put a period to his life· He died at Florence, on the 24th of September 1707, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and was interred in the famι y vault in the church of St Peter, where his son Scipio erected a monument to his memory. The edition of his poetica works in Italian, which he was preparing, and had even begun to print at the time of his death, was also spee J published by the same son, who dedicated it to the Cran Duke Cosmo III. under the title of Poesie Toscane fe υ f ccnzo da Eilicaja, senatore Fiorentino et aceadc m f 0 . Crusea, Florence, 1707, in 4to. They were reprinte [7:9:579]1720, with a life of the author, by Thomas Bonaventuri, a Florentine; which life had previously appeared in the second volume of the Vite degli Arcadi Illustri. But a more valuable though less beautiful edition, from which all the subsequent editions have been taken, is that of Venice, 1762, in two volumes 8vo; the first of which contains the Poesie Toscane, and the second, the Latin verses of the same author, there for the first time collected from the different publications in which they had been previously scattered. There are subjoined some pieces in prose of inferior interest, if we except a literary correspondence of Filicaiawith Francesco Redi, Menzini, and Gori, who shared with him the glory of having, in a corrupt age, remained faithful to the principles of good taste and sound literature. The canzoni, to which we have above referred, are perhaps the most remarkable compositions in this collection; but some of the other pieces are not inferior to these either in the dignity of the subject or the majesty and force of the style; and several of his Sonnets are worthy of these beautiful odes. Is there an Italian heart that can be insensible to the deep patriotic feeling, expressed with such a mournful and affecting sublimity, in the well-known sonnet commencing

Italia, Italia, 0 tu cui feo la sorte Donno infelice di Bellezza, etc; one of the most perfect compositions of the kind in existence, and which, though it consists of only fourteen verses, will sustain a comparison with the most celebrated lyrical effusions, ancient or modern?