I ragguagli di Parnasso, or, Advertisements from Parnassus in two centuries : with the politick touch-stone / written originally in Italian by that famous Roman Trajano Bocalini ; and now put into English by the Right Honourable Henry, Earl of Monmouth.

The Spanish Monarchy visits the Queen of Italy, and there passe between them Complements full of kinde∣nesse.

SO great was the affright which the most illustrious Queen of Italy was in, when she perceived that the most puissant Kings of France, at that time become Lords of the Kingdom of Naples, pretended to the Soveraignty over the Dutchy of Millan: And though they made a shew of continuing in their antient amity, yet did they very cruelly lay snares, both against her life and reputation; and all this with such bitterness of minds enraged, that what with the machinations of money, what with the crafty wiles of the pen, they held up, even in peace, a cruel war for many years.

Now whilst the heart-burnings and jealousies betwixt these two Queens were at the fiercest, and their minds were observed to be poysed with the most deadly feud; the Monarchy of Spain, beyond all expe∣ctation, went with a Train worthy her greatness, to give the Queen of Italy a visit; who entertained her with such demonstrations of honour, and of intimate affection, that all the Literati, who in the face both of the one and the other Princess, took more notice of the motions and dispositions of the mind, then of their fine verbal Complements, knew for certain, that there was grown between them a perfect and real recon∣ciliation. Nay, never since the memory of man, did there happen in Pernassus any peace or concord, which did more astonish the Vertuosi there, and make them more curious to know the true cause of so strange a thing.

And because the Philosophers, the Poets, and other Literati, of what∣soever Science, are but dim-fighted in the art of discovering the true ends of those wary resolutions which great Princes take, they made their recourse to the University of the Politicians, whose peculiar pro∣fession it is, by the light of that knowledge which they have of all Po∣tentates interests to know how to penetrate into the abditos Princip•…•…m recessus, & quicquid occultius habent. From whom they received this answer; That the Queen of Italy, to secure her Liberty from the Arms of so potent a Nation, was inforced to joyn with the Spanish Monar∣chy; but that perceiving how she also having gotten into her hands the Kingdom of Naples and the Dutchy of Millan, did with more ear∣nest ambition, with more profound artifices, and with more fraudulent machinations, than the French themselves, put in for the Soveraignty of all Italy, and that to compass this end in the minority of Henry the second's Sons, she endeavoured to embroil France, and how for the base Panders of her vast ambition, and for Agents for the common bondage of Italy, she made use of some principal (but indiscreet) Itali∣an Princes, she began to hate her so extreamly, that by every sort of flight, the one sought the ruine of the other: but that since, by the unfortunate end which at last the business of Savioneda came to, the Monarchy of Spain plainly perceived that the purchase of all Italy was not feasible, and a business utterly to be despaired of, she gave over that ambition of being Mistress of it all, to wh•…•…h she was before wholly ad∣dicted;

and observing that the greater part of her troubles in Flanders, and elsewhere, had sprung from those ambitious thoughts, she perceiv∣ed there was no better way for the setling of her own affairs, then to let others live in quiet: And because she palpably found, that without the friendship, the favour and aid of the Italian Princes, it was not pos∣sible for her quietly to possess the Kingdom of Naples, and the Dutchy of Millan, she was desirous with that visit, to pacify the troubled mind of that Queen. A Policy, which the •…•…oliticians called a very good one: For what manner of men would begin to rouse up themselves, if the Spaniards should but make as if they would fall upon Brescia, B•…•…rgamo, Turino, and Genoua, when for offering to take in that poor petty Town of Savioneda, there were contrived against them (and that by those from whom it was least expected) such machinations, that the Quail •…•…ad bin caught in the Trammelli, and could not have avoided falling into the Spaniels mouth, had she not couragiously resolved to make a breach in the net, and so to save her life by getting out at a torne mesh.