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De Orbe Novo, The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr d'Anghera Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Francis Augustus MacNutt

by Francis Augustus MacNutt

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DE ORBE NOVO<br />

INTRODUCTION<br />

DISTANT<br />

I<br />

a few miles from the southern extremity<br />

<strong>of</strong> Lago Maggiore, the castle-crowned heights <strong>of</strong><br />

Anghera and Arona face one another from opposite<br />

sides <strong>of</strong> the; lake, separated by a narrow stretch <strong>of</strong> blue<br />

water. Though bearing the name <strong>of</strong> the former burgh, it<br />

was in Arona, ' where his family also possessed a property,<br />

that Pietro Martire <strong>d'Anghera</strong> first saw the light, in the<br />

year 1457.^ He was not averse to reminding his friends<br />

' Ranke, in his Zur Krilik neuerer Geschichtsschreiber, and Rawdon Brown,<br />

in his Calendar <strong>of</strong> State Papers relating to England, preserved in the Archives<br />

<strong>of</strong> Venice, mention Anghera, or Anghiera, as the name is also written, as<br />

his birthplace. Earlier Italian writers such as Piccinelli {Ateneo de'<br />

Letterati Milanesi) and Giammatteo Toscano {Peplus Italice) are perhaps<br />

responsible for this error, which passages in the Opus Epistolarum, that<br />

inexplicably escaped their notice, expose. In a letter addressed to Fajardo<br />

occurs the following explicit statement: . . . cum me utero mater gestaret<br />

sic volente patre, Aronam, ubi plosraque illis erant prcedia domusque . . . ibi<br />

me mater dederat orbi." Letters 388, 630, and 794 contain equally positive<br />

assertions.<br />

" MazzuchelU (Gli Scrittori d' Italia, p. 773) states that <strong>Peter</strong> <strong>Martyr</strong><br />

was born in 1455, and he has been followed by the Florentine Tiraboschi<br />

{Storia delta Letteratura Italiana, vol.vii.) and later historians, including even<br />

Hermann Schumacher in his masterly work, Petrus <strong>Martyr</strong> der Geschichtsschreiber<br />

des Weltmeeres. Nicolai Antonio (Bibliotheca Hispana nova, app.<br />

to vol. ii) is alone in giving the date as 1559. Ciampi, amongst modern

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