Note 113 — THE ITALIAN HISTORIANS.

My friend, Mr. Merivale, whose critical research is only equalled by the elegance of his taste, has supplied me with a note which proves but too well that even writers who compose uninfluenced by party feelings, may not, however, be sufficiently scrupulous in weighing the evidence of the facts which they collect. Mr. Merivale observes, “The strange and improbable narrative with which Varchi has the misfortune of closing his history, should not have been even hinted at without adding, that it is denounced by other writers as a most impudent forgery, invented years after the occurrence is supposed to have happened, by the ‘Apostate’ bishop Petrus Paulus Vergerius.” See its refutation in Amiani, “Hist. di Fano,” ii. 149, et seq. 160.