ABSTRACT
Cosmo (Cosimo) the Third, of the family of Medicis, had succeeded to the authority of Grand Duke of Florence in 1670, which station he continued to hold till 1723, the year of his death. a He was at that time eighty-one years of age. He had been for many years exclusively under the direction of priests and friars; and, during the whole of this period, the character of Tuscany had been so altered, that it could scarcely in any way be recognised / for the same principality that had shone with so peculiar lustre under the reign of his predecessors. All public amusements, and that free and unrestrained intercourse of society, the parent of wit, gaiety, and the sports of poetry and intellectual rivalry and contention, so eminently adapted to the Italian taste, laboured under the most rigorous discountenance; and severe and frequently capital punishments abounded in the administration of criminal justice.
