There is no other circumstance in the work that can lead us to
guess at the period in which the scene is laid: the names of the
actors are evidently fictitious, and probably disguised on purpose:
yet the Spanish names of the domestics seem to indicate that this
work was not composed until the establishment of the Arragonian
Kings in Naples had made Spanish appellations familiar in that
country. The beauty of the diction, and the zeal of the author
(moderated, however, by singular judgment) concur to make me think
that the date of the composition was little antecedent to that of
the impression. Letters were then in their most flourishing state
in Italy, and contributed to dispel the empire of superstition, at
that time so forcibly attacked by the reformers. It is not
unlikely that an artful priest might endeavour to turn their own
arms on the innovators, and might avail himself of his abilities as
an author to confirm the populace in their ancient errors and
superstitions. If this was his view, he has certainly acted with
signal address. Such a work as the following would enslave a
hundred vulgar minds beyond half the books of controversy that have
been written from the days of Luther to the present hour.

This solution of the author's motives is, however, offered as a
mere conjecture. Whatever his views were, or whatever effects the
execution of them might have, his work can only be laid before the
public at present as a matter of entertainment. Even as such, some
apology for it is necessary. Miracles, visions, necromancy,
dreams, and other preternatural events, are exploded now even from
romances. That was not the case when our author wrote; much less
when the story itself is supposed to have happened. Belief in
every kind of prodigy was so established in those dark ages, that
an author would not be faithful to the manners of the times, who