United States or Sri Lanka ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The concluding words of the Florentine exiles produced the utmost excitement among the Venetian senators, and they resolved to send Bernardo Coglione, their general, to attack the Florentine territory. The troops were assembled, and joined by Ercole da Esti, who had been sent by Borgo, marquis of Ferrara.

"The saint is blessing us!" said the credulous old women, the children and the young maids. It is thus that we are often deceived in our adorations. The superior man mocks those who compliment him, and compliments those whom he mocks in the depths of his heart. When the Abbot, bowing low before the altar, chanted: "'Sancte Johannes, ora pro nobis'!" he heard distinctly: "'O coglione'!"

It was the Italian word coglione which he used, and I observed that as his feelings overcame him his French became more and more that of a foreigner. For a moment he seemed to be about to slash the sailor across the face with his whip. The latter took a step back, and clapped his hand to his sword. 'Have a care, Sire, said he. For a few instants the tension was terrible.

When the King showed himself at the windows overlooking the garden, with the red cap, which one of the mob had put on his head, he could no longer repress his indignation. "Che coglione!" he loudly exclaimed. "Why have they let in all that rabble! They should sweep off four or five hundred of them with the cannon; the rest would then set off fast enough."

Coglionare is itself a derivative form from coglione, and the radical meaning is to be sought in cogliere, to gather, to take in, to pluck. Hence a coglione is a sharper, one who takes in, plucks. Mr. Wedgwood's derivation of cozen is ingenious, and perhaps accounts for the doubtful Germ, kosen, unless that word itself be the original.

When the King showed himself at the windows overlooking the garden, with the red cap, which one of the mob had put on his head, he could no longer repress his indignation. "Che coglione!" he loudly exclaimed. "Why have they let in all that rabble! They should sweep off four or five hundred of them with the cannon; the rest would then set off fast enough."

When the King showed himself at the windows overlooking the garden, with the red cap, which one of the mob had put on his head, he could no longer repress his indignation. "Che coglione!" he loudly exclaimed. "Why have they let in all that rabble! They should sweep off four or five hundred of them with the cannon; the rest would then set off fast enough."

Winter having arrived, and with it the usual time for armies to retire into quarters, Bartolommeo Coglione withdrew to Ravenna, the Florentine forces into Tuscany, and those of the king and duke, each to the territories of their sovereign.

And note how often we are deceived in the homage we pay; the great man scoffs at those who praise him, and pays compliments now and again to those whom he laughs at in the depths of his heart. Just as the Abbot, prostrate before the altar, was chanting "Sancte Johannes, ora pro noblis!" he heard a voice exclaim sufficiently distinctly: "O coglione!"

"He thought it better to choose the man who is esteemed than the man who is merely liked." "I don't know whether the Pope esteems me, but I am sure he knows I don't esteem him. I both liked and esteemed him before he was pope, and I concurred in his election, but since he has worn the tiara it's a different matter; he has shewn himself too much of a 'coglione'."