Their point of union, and their means of affecting the popular mind,
was for twelve years the critical journal entitled the _Antologia_,
founded by that Vieusseux who also opened those delightful and
beneficent reading-rooms whither we all rush, as soon as we reach
Florence, to look at the newspapers and magazines of our native land.
The Antologia had at last the misfortune to offend the Emperor of
Russia, and to do that prince a pleasure the Tuscan government
suppressed it: such being the international amenities when sovereigns
really reigned in Europe. After the Antologia there came another
review, published at Leghorn, but it was not so successful, and in
fact the conditions of literature gradually grew more irksome in
Tuscany, until the violent liberation came in '48, and a little later
the violent reenslavement.
Giambattista Niccolini, like nearly all the poets of his time and
country, was of noble birth, his father being a _cavaliere_, and
holding a small government office at San Giuliano, near Pistoja. Here,
in 1782, Niccolini was born to very decided penury. His father had
only that little office, and his income died with him; the mother had
nothing--possibly because she was descended from a poet, the famous
Filicaja. From his mother, doubtless, Niccolini inherited his power,
and perhaps his patriotism.
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