Weird Tales. Vol. I (of 2)

  PART VI.

  [Footnote 6.1: This was Ferdinand II., a member of the illustriousFlorentine family of the Medici. He upheld the family tradition by hisliberal patronage of science and letters.]

  [Footnote 6.2: Evangelista Torricelli, the successor of the greatGalileo in the chair of philosophy and mathematics at Florence, isinseparably associated with the discovery that water in a suction-pumpwill only rise to the height of about thirty-two feet. This paved theway to his invention of the barometer in 1643.

  Other members of the Accademia de' Percossi were Dati, Lippi, Viviani,Bandinelli, &c.]

  [Footnote 6.3: An allusion to the well-known nepotism of the Popes. Theman here mentioned is one of the Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII.]

  [Footnote 6.4: _Cetonia aurata_, L., called also the gold-chafer; it iscoloured green and gold.]

  [Footnote 6.5: The painter Salvator Rosa did really play at Rome the_role_ of Pasquarello here attributed to him; but it was on theoccasion of his second visit to the Eternal City about 1639. On theother hand, it was after 1647 (the year of Masaniello's revolt atNaples) that Salvator again came to Rome (the third visit), where hestayed until he was obliged to flee farther, namely, to Florence, inconsequence of the two pictures already mentioned. It seems evidenttherefore that Hoffmann has not troubled himself about his dates, orstrict historical fidelity, but seems rather to have combined theincidents of the painter's two visits to Rome--_i.e._, his second andhis third visit.]