Overview: The English Della Cruscan School, although its nucleus was formed in 1785 by the publication of The Florence Miscellany, existed neither in the consciousness of the group which formed it nor in that of the pu blic until it was so dubbed as a term of reproach by William Gifford in his bitter satire The Baviad (1791). As has already been mentioned Merry, the leader of the group, claimed to be a member of the Real Accademia Fiorentina which had swallowed up the Crusca and the two other Floren tine Academies in 1783; but it was not until the summer of 1787, when during his lingering voy
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