The following work was found in the library of an
ancient Catholic family in the north of England.
It was printed at Naples, in the black letter, in
the year 1529. How much sooner it was written
does not appear. The principal incidents are
such as were believed in the darkest ages of Christianity;
but the language and conduct have nothing that savours
of barbarism. The style is the purest Italian.
If the story was written near the time when it is
supposed to have happened, it must have been between
1095, the era of the first Crusade, and 1243, the
date of the last, or not long afterwards. There
is no other circumstance in the work that can lead
us to guess at the period in which the scene is laid:
the names of the actors are evidently fictitious,
and probably disguised on purpose: yet the Spanish
names of the domestics seem to indicate that this
work was not composed until the establishment of the
Arragonian Kings in Naples had made Spanish appellations
familiar in that country. The beauty of the
diction, and the zeal of the author (moderated, however,
by singular judgment) concur to make me think that
the date of the composition was little antecedent to
that of the impression. Letters were then in
their most flourishing state in Italy, and contributed
to dispel the empire of superstition, at that time
so forcibly attacked by the reformers. It is
not unlikely that an artful priest might endeavour
to turn their own arms on the innovators, and might
avail himself of his abilities as an author to confirm
the populace in their ancient errors and superstitions.
If this was his view, he has certainly acted with
signal address. Such a work as the following
would enslave a hundred vulgar minds beyond half the
books of controversy that have been written from the
days of Luther to the present hour.
This solution of the author’s motives is, however,
offered as a mere conjecture. Whatever his views
were, or whatever effects the execution of them might
have, his work can only be laid before the public
at present as a matter of entertainment. Even
as such, some apology for it is necessary. Miracles,
visions, necromancy, dreams, and other preternatural
events, are exploded now even from romances.
That was not the case when our author wrote; much
less when the story itself is supposed to have happened.
Belief in every kind of prodigy was so established
in those dark ages, that an author would not be faithful
to the manners of the times, who should omit all mention
of them. He is not bound to believe them himself,
but he must represent his actors as believing them.
