From all these facts I am inclined to draw an inference.  It is remarkable that the first Italian academies were only distinguished by the simple name of their founders.  One was called the Academy of Pomponius Laetus, another of Panormita, &c.  It was after the melancholy fate of the Roman academy of Laetus, which could not, however, extinguish that growing desire of creating literary societies in the Italian cities, from which the members derived both honour and pleasure, that suddenly we discover these academies bearing the most fantastical titles.  I have not found any writer who has attempted to solve this extraordinary appearance in literary history; and the difficulty seems great, because, however frivolous or fantastical the titles they assumed, their members were illustrious for rank and genius.  Tiraboschi, aware of this difficulty, can only express his astonishment at the absurdity, and his vexation at the ridicule to which the Italians have been exposed by the coarse jokes of Menkenius, in his Charlatanaria Eruditorum.[308] I conjecture that the invention of these ridiculous titles for literary societies was an attempt to throw a sportive veil over meetings which had alarmed the papal and the other petty courts of Italy; and to quiet their fears and turn aside their political wrath, they implied the innocence of their pursuits by the jocularity with which the members treated themselves, and were willing that others should treat them.  This otherwise inexplicable national levity, of so refined a people, has not occurred in any other country, because the necessity did not exist anywhere but in Italy.  In France, in Spain, and in England, the title of the ancient Academus was never profaned by an adjunct which systematically degraded and ridiculed its venerable character and its illustrious members.

Long after this article was finished, I had an opportunity of consulting an eminent Italian, whose name is already celebrated in our country, Il Sigr.  Ugo Foscolo;[309] his decision ought necessarily to outweigh mine; but although it is incumbent on me to put the reader in possession of the opinion of a native of his high acquirements, it is not as easy for me, on this obscure and curious subject, to relinquish my own conjecture.

Il Sigr.  Foscolo is of opinion that the origin of the fantastical titles assumed by the Italian academies entirely arose from a desire of getting rid of the air of pedantry, and to insinuate that their meetings and their works were to be considered merely as sportive relaxations, and an idle business.

This opinion may satisfy an Italian, and this he may deem a sufficient apology for such absurdity; but when scarlet robes and cowled heads, laureated bards and Monsignores, and Cavalleros, baptize themselves in a public assembly “Blockheads” or “Madmen,” we ultramontanes, out of mere compliment to such great and learned men, would suppose that they had their good reasons; and that in this there must have been “something more than meets the ear.”  After all, I would almost flatter myself that our two opinions are not so wide of each other as they at first seem to be.