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tun extent, effected by allowing them to take as food for their merriment even the very feasts and ceremonials of the church itself. The same thing had even been done at earlier periods, but nerer before to the same extent. In an illu- minated manuscript in the Bodleian library there is a representation of the fool's dance from a religioos mummery held at Christmas. At the mnmmeries practised by the lower classes of the people on these occasions, such persons as ceold not procure masks rubbed their faces over with soot, or painted them; hence Sebastian Brant, in his Skip of FooU, alluding to this custom, says —
- T1ie one bath a Tisor aglcy set on his fwce.
Another hath on a rile coonterfaite vesture. Or pttintcth bis Tisage with fume in such caaCt That what be is hinudf is scantiljr sure "
It appears that many abuses were committed nnder the sanction of these disguisemcnt';; and for this reason an ordinance was established, by which a man was liable to punishment who ap- peared in the streets of London with " a painted visage." In the third year of the reign of Henry Til. it was ordained that no persons should appear abroad like mummers, covering their noes with vizors, and in disguised apparel, under pain of imprisonment for three months. The act enforced the penalty of twenty shillings against such as kept vizors in their houses for the purpose of mumming.
1539. Having in the early part of this work tmted on the apparent origin of the Newspaper, (see Acta Diuma, page 34) we have to encounter an immense interregnum, before we can again trace the object of our inquiry. About this period, the republic of Venice, being engaged in an important war with the Turks, the expedient was resorted to of supplying the inhabitants of the city with occasional accounts of the naval and mUitary operations of the republic, by means of written sheets, which were deposited at par- ticclar places, where they were accessible to any one desirous of learning the news, upon the pay- ment of a small piece of coin, called the gazeta, a name which, by degrees, was transferred to the newspaper itself.* That jealous government, however, would not permit printed intelligence
- In BloQDt's Glotmgraphia (pablished at the eaily part
tt the serenteenth century), the word Otuielte Is defined as "acertain Venetian coin, scarce worth one faitlilnK; also a bin of news, or siwrt relation of the general occor- rcDcea of the time."
The title of their Kazettas was perhaps derived from Cazzeras, a magpie orcliatterer; or more probably born a ttztMns coin peculiarto the city of Venice, called gazetta, vliich was the common price of the newspapers. Another etymologist is for deriving it from the Latin gaza, which would colloqniaUy lengthen into gazetta, and signify a little treasury of news. The Spanish derive it from the Latin gaza, and likewise their gazetors and our gazetteer for a writer of the gazette, and, what is peculiar to them- ■dves, gazetlsta, for a lover of the gazette.
Those who first wrote newspapers were called by the Italians menanti; l>ecause says Vessius, they intended commonly by these loose papers to spread about defama- tocy reflections, and were therefore prohibited in Italy by Greg or y XIII. by a particular bull, nnder the name of mcnantes, from the Latin minantes, threatening. Manage, however, derives it from the Italian menare, which signt- Ac* totaedat Urge, or spread afar.
to be circulated, and the Venetian gazeta con- tinued to be distributed in manuscript, at a period when printing had been invented upwards of a century. The extension of this species of knowledge at length excited the jealousy of the holy see; for, in the time of pope Gregory XIII. written newspapers having appeared in several cities in Italy, they were formally prohibited in that country, by a papal bull issued by the above named pontiff.*
In the Magliabecchianf library at Florence, are to be seen thirty volumes of the gazeta from the commencement. In the frontispiece of each paper it is called the gazeta of such a year; and some of the most ancient printed newspapers may be seen, in good preservation, in the puolic libraries at Venice.
In I/>dge's Itliutratunu of History, there is a letter from lord Burleigh, to lord Talbot, dated Oct 23, 1590, in which he savs, " I pray your lordship esteem my news as those which in Ve- nice are fraught in the gazeta,'" which would seem to imply a character of correctness to this ancient paper. Upon the application, however, of the art of printing to the Venetian gazeta, all Christendom became indebted to that republic for political information, — a circumstance which will excite the less surprise, when we call to mind, that the period under consideration, her ships traversed every known sea, and her mara- time power gave her a prominent place in the list of nations.
1640. Died, Robeet Redman, who styled himself "stationer and freeman of London." The dispute between Pinson and Redman has already Deen noticed, but whether it arose solely from the interference of Redman with the same line of printing as that which occupied Pinson, or whether his having assumed Pinson's device were not in a great part the cause of it, it is now difficult to determine. In 1623, Redman com- menced his typographic labours by the following work entitled Diuersile de Courtz, octavo. In 1 527, he carried on business in the same house where Pinson had formerly resided, the George, in St. Clement's parish, without Temple-bar, which might perhaps contribute to strengthen their animosity; but to all the revilings of his antagonist, Redman's onlv answer, which he added to the colophons ot some of his books, appears to have been in the words of St. Paul, "If God be with tis, who is against us?" About 1532, it is imagined that Redman came into the possession of the whole of Pinson's business and stock in trade; but he had previously removed his sign into Fleet-stieet, since in a work dated April 18, 1627, he dates it "in parochia St. Dunstani." At the end of Cocke't Art of Rheto- ryke, 1532, is "imprynted at London in Flete-
- Hugh Buoncompagno, pope Gregory XIII. established
the Gregorian, or nnv ttylt in the ralendar, which com- menced in Spain, Portugal, and part of Italy, on the Jth of October, accounting the I5th, 168a, Comitting ten days.) He died February nth, 1S«5.
t MagUabecchi, the founder of this library, was born at Florence, in l6ss : he was a great bibliopoUit, and had a wonderful memory.
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