(Vol. iv., p. 440.)
U. U. will be extremely sorry to hear that he has not any reason for
persuading himself that his copy of this Index belongs to the original
edition. On account of the difference of spaces observed in the reprint,
each page, though containing only the same matter that appears in the
earlier impression, has been elongated to the extent required for three
lines. The Ratisbon octavo is generally about an inch taller, and a
third part thicker, than the Roman volume. The woodcuts are totally
distinct, and are better in the authentic book; and the _beau papier_,
of which Clement speaks, at once eliminates the modern pretender.
I have been able to obtain two copies of the genuine Vatican Index as
well as its Serpilian rival; and with respect to what your correspondent
calls "the _Bergomi_" (more properly the _Bergamo_) "edition" of 1608, I
beg to assure him that there is an "undoubted" exemplar likewise
producible, and that I have dispersed a thousand facsimiles of it since
the ear 1837.
U. U. has charged Mr. Mendham with having imagined that "Brasichellen"
was a "complete" word. I happen to know very well, and many of your
readers also know, that my excellent friend is not altogether such a
simpleton; but he will most probably not take the trouble on this
occasion to defend himself. The fact is, that the Serpilian counterfeit
alone is without the full stop in the case of this word, which in the
Bergamo titlepage ends at "Brasichell." The master of the sacred palace,
with whom we are now concerned, is very rarely mentioned as Giovanni
Maria da _Brisighella_, the designation which he rightly gives to
himself in his Italian edicts; and the Latinized forms _Brasichellanus_
and _Brasichellensis_ easily arrive at English abridgments. In 1607,
when the Vatican Expurgatory Index was first published, the
Commissary-General of the Roman Inquisition was Agostino Galamini da
_Brisighella_, and his name is sometimes found recorded, unstopped, as
"Augustinus Galaminius _Brasichellen_."