BETTINÉLLI, Xavier, one of the most celebrated Italian literati of the eighteenth century, was born at Mantua on the 18th of July 1718. After studying under the Jesuits in his native city and at Bologna, he entere in 1736 upon the noviciate of this society. He then undertook a new course of study; and afterwards taught t e belles lettres, from the year 1739 to 1744, at Brescia, [7:4:605]where the Cardinal Quirini, Count Mazzuchelli, Count Duranti, and other scholars, formed an illustrious academy. He there began to distinguish himself by some pieces of poetry, composed as scholastic exercises. Being sent to Bologna to pursue his divinity, he continued, at the same time, to cultivate his poetical talent, and wrote also, for the theatre of the college, his tragedy of Jonathan. The number of learned and literary persons collected in this city exceeded by far what he had met with at Brescia. The Institute, recently founded by the Count Marsigli, the Clementine Academy of Design, the school of the astronomical poet Manfredi, the growing reputation of his ingenious and learned pupils Zanotti, Algarotti, and others, at this time fixed the attention of the literary world on Bologna. It was in the midst of this society, to which he was admitted, that Bettinelli completed his education, and attained the age of thirty. He went in 1748 to Venice, where he became professor of rhetoric. He left it for various missions, and returned to it often. We may see by his epistles in free verse, or sciolti, that he was connected on friendly terms with all that this city and state could boast as most illustrious. He was destined by the superiors of his order for the oratorical department; but the weakness of his chest compelled him to relinquish it. The superintendence of the college of nobles at Parma was intrusted to him in 1751; and he principally directed the studies of poetry and history, and the entertainments of the theatre. He remained here eight years, but not without visiting, at intervals, different cities of Italy, either on the affairs of his order, or for pleasure, or for health. In 1755 he undertook a longer journey, traversed part of Germany, proceeded as far as Strasburg and Nancy, and returned by way of Germany into Italy, taking with him two young princes, sons or nephews of the prince of Hohenlohe, who had requested him to take charge of their education. He made, the year following, another journeyinto France, along with the eldest of these two young princes, and lodged, while at Paris, at the College of Louis le Grand. It was during this excursion that he wrote the famous Letters of Virgil, which were published at Venice with his sciolti verses, and those of Frugoni and Algarotti. The opinions, and we may add without much hesitation, the literary heresies, maintained in these letters against the two great luminaries of Italian poetry, and particularly against Dante, created him many enemies, and, what was still more unpleasant to him, embroiled him with Algarotti. Willing to know something more of France than Paris, he made several excursions into Normandy and other provinces; he went also into Lorraine, to the court of King Stanislaus, and thence proceeded to Lyons, and afterwards to Geneva. Soon after his arrival he went to visit Voltaire. This celebrated writer sent to his inn an edition of his works, upon which he inscribed this stanza, in allusion to Bettinelll’s Letters of Virgil:
Compatriote de Virgile,
Et son secretaire aujourd’hui,
C’est à vous d’e'crire sous lui;
Vous avez son âme et son style.

From Geneva, where he consulted Tronchin the physician, Bettinelli proceeded to Marseilles, from thence to Nismes, and returned by Genoa to Italy and Parma, where he arrived in 1759. The same year he took a journey to Venice, and afterwards to Verona, where he meant to settle. Ŗc resided here till 1767. Having resumed the occupations of preaching and teaching, he, according to the Chevalier Pindemonti, in his Poesie Campestri, converted the youth to God in the church, and to good taste in his own ιouse. He afterwards lived for some years at Modena, and he had just been appointed professor of rhetoric there, Mien, i∏ 1773 the or d er 0 f Jesuits was abolished in Italy.

He then returned into his own country, where he resumed his literary labours with new ardour. He there published several works, and regretting, as it appears, that he had written so much in his life without having been able, till then, to write any thing to please the women, perhaps in consequence of the habit which he wore, he determined to make up for lost time by publishing, one after the other, his Correspondence between two Ladies, his Letters to Lesbia on Epigrams, his Letters on the Fine Arts, and, lastly, his Twenty four Letters on Love. These he published in 1796, when the war raged in all parts of Italy, and when the siege laid by the French to Mantua had compelled him to leave it. He retired to Verona, and there formed the most intimate friendship with the Chevalier Hippolito Pindemonti, notwithstanding the disproportion of their age. In 1797, after Mantua had surrendered, he returned thither. Though nearly eighty years old, he resumed his labours and his customary manner of life. He began in 1799 a complete edition of his works, which was finished at Venice in twenty-four volumes duodecimo. Arrived at the age of ninety years, he still retained the gaiety and vivacity of his mind, and died on the 13th of∙September 1808, after fifteen days of illness, with the firmness of a philosopher and the sentiments of a believer. Without giving a list of all his works, or specifying the separate editions, it will be sufficient to refer to them in the order in which they are placed in this last edition.

1. Ragionamenti Filosofici, con Annotaziom. These philosophical discourses, which occupy the first two volumes, form a system of religious morality, in which the author endeavours to exhibit man under all his relations, and in all states, following the order of the sacred writings, and treating, first, of man as created, as reasonable, as lord of the other creatures, and in all the different states of solitude, society, innocence, error, repentance, &c. He only finished ten of these discourses. The notes arc themselves little philosophical treatises on beauty in general, on beauty of expression, on physiognomy, &c.

2. Dell ’ Entusiasmo delle Belle Arti, two volumes, in three parts, of which the last is an appendix to the two others, and treats of the history of enthusiasm in different nations, and the influence which climates, governments, and all the modifications of society, have had on enthusiasm. In the first two parts the author, who was not very subject to enthusiasm, sometimes writes a little obscurely on it, becomes turgid when he endeavours to be sublime, and remains a stranger to the warmth which he affects.

3. Dialoghi d' Amore, 2 vols. The object of the author is to point out the influence which the imagination, vanity, friendship, marriage, honour, the love of glory, the study of the sciences, and fashion, have on the passion of love; and afterwards to trace the influence which it exercises on the productions of the arts of genius, and of the dramatic arts in particular. The last dialogue, which is entitled On Love and on Petrarch, is followed by the Eulogy of Petrarch, one of the author’s best pieces.

4. Risorgimento negli Study, nelle Arti e nd Costumi dopo il Mille, 3 vols.; a work regarded in Italy as superficial, but which, nevertheless, contains some enlightened sentiments, and in which facts are often presented under a philosophical point of view, which is not destitute either of novelty or justness.

5. Delle Lettere e delle Arti Mantouane: Lettere ed Arti Modenesi, 1 vol.; almost entirely filled with anecdotes of literary history, tending to the glory of Mantua, the country of the author.

6. Lettere dieci di Virgilio agli Arcadi, 1 vol. These letters, which have been translated into French by Μ. de Pommereul, Paris, 1778, are, of all the works of Bettinelli, [7:4:606]that which has attracted most notice. They are followed in this volume by Letters from an Englishman to a Venetian, which treat somewhat vaguely on different topics of literature.

7. Italian Letters from a Lady to her Friend on the Fine Arts, and Letters from a Friend, copied from the Originals, 3 volumes, of which the letters on the fine arts occupy only the first.

, 8. Poetry, 3 vols., containing seven small poems, sixteen epistles in easy verse, sonnets, canzonets, &c. Without ever showing himself a great poet, the author is always elegant and ingenious. These three volumes are preceded by a well-written discourse on Italian poetry. Several of the epistles and smaller poems are seasoned with Attic salt. Such is the poem in four cantos entitled Le Pac-colte, in which Bettinelli very happily turns into ridicule those insipid collections of verses which in his time appeared on every occasion in Italy.

9. Tragedies, 2 vols. These tragedies are Xerxes, Jonathan, Demetrius Poliorcetes, and Pome Delivered, a translation from Voltaire. Prefixed to them are some letters written in French, and a discourse in Italian on the Italian tragedy. Some letters on tragedy, among others one on the tragedies of Alfieri, follow; and the second of these two volumes concludes with a eulogy on Father Granelli, a Jesuit, a preacher, and a poet, author of some tragedies, which are in much esteem, particularly for the elegance and beauty of the style.

10. Lettere a Lesbia Cidonia sopra gli Epigrammi, 2 vols. consisting of twenty-five letters, intermixed with epigrams, madrigals, and other light pieces, translated and original.

11. Lastly, an Essay on Eloquence, to which are added, some letters, discourses, and other miscellanies. It would be hazardous to pronounce a judgment on so great a diversity of productions. It should seem, in general, that the author is distinguished more for wit and talent than for warmth and genius; that his writings contain literary opinions dictated by a taste not always correct, and which, having been publicly declared early in life, have often reduced the author to the unpleasant dilemma, either of retracting, or of persisting, in spite of his better judgment, in what he must have perceived to be the errors of his youth; that his philosophy, of which the morality is pure, wants, when it aspires to metaphysical questions, both determinate principles and just conclusions, and is too often verbose and declamatory; but that, though his ideas are not always entitled to praise, his style is so almost always; that having been to blame, according to the Italian critics, in paying too little respect to the great writers of the fourteenth century, he has the merit of having remained constantly attached to those of the sixteenth, and to the authors who were his contemporaries, and who have taken him for their guide; and also of having defended to the last, both by his opinions and his example, the finest of the modern languages against the corruption which threatens, or rather which overwhelms, it on all sides. See Biographie Universelle, tome iv. (d. d.)