Page:Matteo Bandello - twelve stories (IA cu31924102029083).pdf/18

 deputy, Giovanni Valerio, Bishop of Grasse, while enjoying to the full the pecuniary and social advantages of his new position. Being thoroughly worldly by nature, he preferred to remain to the last a citizen of the world, a literary courtier for whom the austere seclusion of the cloister had no charm.

The date of his death is uncertain. The first set of his novels, in three parts, appeared at Lucca in 1554. He had originally intended the renowned Aldus to bring them out, but the printer's death prevented this. In 1573 the fourth part of his novels was published, this time at Lyons, as the Lucca edition had caused no small outcry in Italy. This final instalment may have appeared after his death, which certainly did not occur until 1561, if not later. In this fourth part Bandello prints the tale of Simone Turchi, which his kinsfolk in Lucca had suppressed, when it was intended to include it in the 1554 edition. Indeed there is no doubt that many of the stories, all founded, as their author delights to inform us, upon actual facts, gave grievous offence to many Italian families of rank, who could read between the lines and identify the actors in many a romance of passion and treachery, bloodshed and revenge; and, but for the fact that he remained on