Note 23 — CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EDINBURGH REVIEW (continued 9)

‘Among the women were the Signorine Leonora and Caterina, who were never heard but with rapture’ (says Della Valle, a contemporary of Salvator, in speaking of the female musicians of this time) ‘particularly the elder who accompanied herself on the arch lute. I remember their mother in her youth, when she sailed in her felucca near the grotto of Pausilippo, with her golden harp in her hand; but in our times these shores were inhabited by syrens, not only beautiful and tuneful, but virtuous and beneficent.’