After some deliberation, and at the risk of offending the sensibility
of scholars, I have adopted the old English spelling of Michael
Angelo's name, feeling that no orthographical accuracy can outweigh the
associations implied in that familiar title. Michael Angelo has a place
among the highest with Homer and Titian, with Virgil and Petrarch, with
Raphael and Paul; nor do I imagine that any alteration for the better
would be effected by substituting for these time-honoured names Homêros
and Tiziano, Vergilius and Petrarca, Raffaello and Paulus.
I wish here to express my heartiest thanks to Signore Pasquale Villari
for valuable assistance kindly rendered in the interpretation of some
difficult passages of Campanella, and to Signore V. de Tivoli for
calling my attention to the sonnet of Michael Angelo deciphered by him
on the back of a drawing in the Taylor Gallery at Oxford.
Portions both of the Introduction and the Translations forming this
volume, have already appeared in the 'Contemporary Review' and the
'Cornhill Magazine.'