PALLAVICINI Ferrante, a noted Italian writer, descended from a noble family in Piacenza, was born about the close of the sixteenth century. He soon gave proofs of an extraordinary genius, and improved rapidly in classical erudition. He was afterwards sent to complete his education in the monastery of Augustinian friars at Milan, where he took the habit, lived much esteemed for piety and learning, and raised great expectations of future fame; but being somewhat amorously inclined, he engaged in an intrigue with a young woman of Venice, whose charms proved irresistible; and in order to enjoy them without restraint, he obtained leave from his general to make the tour of France. Accordingly he pretended to seCout for that country; but it was only a blind to cover his real design. He never left Venice, where he lived privately, enchanted with the attractions of his Venus; and having too ready a talent for invention, he imposed upon his friends, by often sending them, in letters, feigned accounts of his travels through France, and also informing them of several things respecting that court, which he learned from the advices of many considerable persons with whom he corresponded.

His finances were in the mean time greatly reduced; and in this exigency he naturally had recourse to his wits for supplies. He wrote for the booksellers, and composed several pieces, more for the sake of gain than out of any fondness for authorship. Amongst other things, he wrote a collection of letters, mostly satirical, which he called The Courier Robbed of his Mail. The work appeared at first in such a cast as could not give great offence, except to the Spaniards, against whom he had some grudge, and the piece was accordingly licensed by the inquisitors; but when it fell into the hands of the secretary[7:16:772] of the republic of Venice, who was at that time licenser of books, he refused his imprimatur, though great interest was employed for that purpose; neither would he return the manuscript. This enraged Pallavicini so much, that had not his friends restrained him, he would have pursued the affair to his ruin.

At length he found an opportunity of travelling into Germany with the Duke of Amalfi, as his grace’s chaplain. But this journey had no good effect either on his wit or his morals. On the contrary, finding himself, from the manners of the Germans, more at liberty, he indulged his genius and passions with greater freedom; and after a residence of more than a year in that country with the duke, he returned to Venice. He was now resolved to have his full measure of revenge against the secretary of the republic for keeping back his manuscript, and also to attack the family of Barberini, Urban VIII. and his nephews, because they had also endeavoured to get all his manuscripts prohibited. In this rancorous spirit he cast liis Courier into a new model, and enlarged % it with many letters and discourses. Thus new modelled, he offered it to a bookseller, who undertook to get it printed; but our author was betrayed by a pretended friend, who acted the part of a spy, and informed the Archbishop of Vitelli, then the pope’s nuncio at Venice, just as the work was finished at the press; and upon the complaint of the nuncio, Pallavicini was imprisoned. In this miserable condition he found a friend in one of his mistresses, who, seeing him abandoned by most of his patrons, not only supported him, but conveyed letters to him, by which she gave him such information as enabled him to make a proper defence, and to recover his liberty.

But a war having in the mean time broken out between the Barberini and the Duke of Parma, Pallavicini, in order to revenge himself upon the supposed instruments of his imprisonment, wrote a piece entitled Buccinata, owero Eutarella, per le api Barberini, and dedicated it, in terms of the profoundest contempt, to the nuncio Vitelli. The nuncio, finding that little notice was taken of his complaints on the occasion, procured by bribery one Charles Morfu, a Frenchman, who pretended to pass for a gentleman, to ensnare Pallavicini; and with this view the traitor used his utmost endeavours to insinuate himself into the friendship of Pallavicini, and at length exhorted him to accompany him to France. He declared that his fortune would be made by the extraordinary encouragement which was given to men of letters by Cardinal Richelieu; and the better to favour the deceit, he produced feigned letters from the cardinal, inviting our author to France, and expressing a desire he had to establish in Paris an academy for the Italian tongue, under the direction of Pallavicini. The snare took; and Pallavicini, fascinated by the prospect of gain, suffered himself to be led like an ox to the slaughter. He left Venice much against the advice of his friends, and went first to Bergamo, where he spent a few days with some of his relations, by way of entertaining Morfu. They then set off for Geneva, to the great satisfaction of Pallavicini, who proposed to get some of his works printed there, which he had not been able to do in Italy. Morfu, however, instead of conducting him to Paris, took the road to Avignon, where, crossing the bridge of Soraces, in the county of Venaissin, they were seized by a gang of sbirri, on pretence of carrying contraband goods, and confined. Morfu was quickly discharged, and very liberally rewarded; but Pallavicini, being carried to Avignon, was imprisoned; and notwithstanding he made a very skilful defence, it was all in vain. The sentence had already been brought from Rome, and he was to undergo trial, merely for form’s sake. Being now put into a dark dungeon, he made an abortive effort to escape. He managed matters so well with his keeper as to procure wax-candles to be allowed him, under pretence of amusing himself with reading, and when he had got a number of these, he one night set fire to the prison door, in order to get off by that means; but the stratagem did not succeed, and he was of course subjected to closer confinement, and treated with greater inhumanity than before. After a year’s suffering, he was brought to trial, in which he made an excellent defence, and flattered himself with hopes of relief. He had even begun a whimsical piece on the subject of melancholy; but, contrary to his expectations, he was sentenced to die, and lost his head on a scaffold, in the flower of his age.

Pallavicini was of so heedless and profuse a disposition, that had he possessed an immense estate he would have spent it all. On the other hand, no one could be more sincere and faithful in his friendships, nor was there ever a greater victim to treachery; yet, when released from prison in Venice, being told that a wretch had betrayed him, he could not be prevailed upon to believe it, saying, “How can this be, since he declared himself my friend, and I made him privy to all my concerns ?” Whilst he wore a religious habit, he used to study or write two or three hours in bed every morning. The rest of the day he spent either in the company of idle persons, or else with the ladies; but after he had wholly left the monastic life, upon pretence of securing himself from the snares of his enemies, he lived in a very irregular manner. He was possessed of a fine genius, had a great facility in writing, and, till he was corrupted by the commerce of lewd women, wrote pieces^worthy of immortality.