It is believable that Zambeccari was born in Venice, for he reports that his father, Giovanni, spent his whole life there. Both parents died while he was in early childhood ('infantia’). His birth year is a matter of conjecture, but it could be about 1443, for in 1473 he refers to himself as ‘iuvenis'. The Zambeccari line was known especially for its lawyers. Their fortunes were generally connected with those of the Bentivoglio house. Specifically remembered were Pellegrino, Cambio, and Tommaso. Our Francesco says his father was a lawyer ('iuris scientissimus’); likely he belonged to a branch of the Zambeccaris exiled for politics. As will appear, there were member of the clan enjoying citizenship in Bologna in our Francesco's time.

It was the opinion of Sabbadini that the year 1528 was the year of decision with respect to the controversy over the imitation of Cicero as a writer. In that year Erasmus published his Ciceronianus. In this book the extreme Ciceronian is burlesqued in the person of Nosoponus. Scholars like Scaliger sputtered answers, but so great was Erasmus’ reputation as arbiter of letters and so laughable was Nosoponus that thenceforth there was a relaxation in the anxious imitation of Cicero's style. No major Ciceronian work was published subsequently, saving the Cicero-lexicon (1535) of Marius Nizolius, and even he became a moderate.

The purpose of this essay is to bring another candle to an understanding of John Calvin as a theologian, by way of a look at some rhetorical traits in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. That Calvin was an eminent theologian or that the Institutes is a classic of theological literature is not examined, for neither is generally disputed. Our specific concern is with the question of what happens to theological subject matter when it is put in rhetorical form. Accordingly, this essay is divided into three parts: I—The proper marks of a style suitable to theology, and how the humanists, including Calvin, felt about this; II—A look at some rhetorical traits in the Institutes; and III—Some conclusions.

Nizolius' Observationes is a lexicon of Latin based exclusively on the writings of Cicero. It was one of the best-known dictionaries from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Pagani has counted nearly seventy printings of various editions between 1535 to 1630. An edition was printed in England as late as 1820. Leibnitz wrote that the lexicon would last as long as Cicero. The historian Arnold Toynbee has remarked that he was brought up on Nizolius in the Latin school.

This work has today been all but forgotten. The light of recognition is now begining to fall upon Nizolius' De veris principiis… philosophandi (Parma, 1553); the notice given to it is deserved, but the continuing almost total neglect of the lexicon is not justified. The De veris principiis has substance to contribute to our understanding of Renaissance philosophy; the Observationes offers a thread for a history of Ciceronianism in modern times.

Celio Calcagnini's active career falls in a period marked by many men of note and by a number of significant events. He touched some of these directly or indirectly. He was involved in an imperial and in a papal war, in an imperial election, in the controversy stirred up by Luther, in the divorce question precipitated by Henry VIII. He fanned into flame the conflict over the imitation of Cicero. He took an interest in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Independently of Copernicus, Calcagnini made a curious and not altogether ridiculous contribution toward creating an attitude of mind favorable to the new conception of the solar system for which Copernicus was to become famous. He was personally acquainted with the painter Raphael, with Jovius, with Manardi the physician, with Ziegler, the poet Ariosto, the humanist Erasmus. In his home-town of Ferrara he enjoyed a place of honor as university professor, as apostolic prothonotary, as an excellent dinner host. He was considered to be one of the most learned men of Italy. Yet his importance was always that of a bridesmaid rather than of a bride. It has its uses, however, to look at a wedding from a bridesmaid's angle. To see an era reflected in the career of a minor actor may prove rewarding.