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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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Introduction<br />

ii<br />

tian brothers. He stood in the relation <strong>of</strong> preceptor or<br />

mentor to Alonso Carillo, Bishop <strong>of</strong> Pamplona, and to<br />

Jorge da Costa, Archbishop <strong>of</strong><br />

Braga, two personages <strong>of</strong><br />

rank, who did but follow the prevailing fashion that<br />

decreed the presence <strong>of</strong> a humanist scholar to be an indispensable<br />

appendage in the households <strong>of</strong> the great.<br />

read and commented the classics<br />

was the arbiter <strong>of</strong> taste, their friend, the companion <strong>of</strong><br />

He<br />

to his exalted patrons,<br />

their cultured leisure, and their confidant. Replying to<br />

the praises <strong>of</strong> his disciples, couched in extravagant language,<br />

he administered a mild rebuke, recalling them to<br />

moderation in the expression <strong>of</strong> their sentiments: "<strong>The</strong>se<br />

are not the lessons you received from me when I explained<br />

to you the satire <strong>of</strong> the divine Juvenal; on the contrary,<br />

you have learned that nothing more shames a free man<br />

than adulation."'<br />

<strong>The</strong> year i486 was signalised in Rome by the arrival<br />

<strong>of</strong> an embassy from Ferdinand and Isabella to make the<br />

usual oath <strong>of</strong> obedience on behalf <strong>of</strong><br />

the Catholic sovereigns<br />

<strong>of</strong> Castille and Leon to their spiritual over-lord,<br />

the<br />

Pope. Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, Count <strong>of</strong> Tendilla, a<br />

son <strong>of</strong> the noble house <strong>of</strong> Mendoza, whose cardinal was<br />

termed throughout Europe tertius rex, was the ambassador<br />

charged with this mission.^ Tendilla shone in a family<br />

in which intellectual brilliancy was a heritage, the accomplishments<br />

<strong>of</strong> its members adding distinction to<br />

a house <strong>of</strong> origin and descent exceptionally illustrious.<br />

Whether in the house <strong>of</strong> his compatriot, the Bishop <strong>of</strong><br />

Pamplona, or elsewhere, the ambassador made the<br />

acquaintance <strong>of</strong> <strong>Peter</strong> <strong>Martyr</strong> and evidently fell under<br />

' Epist. X. Non hcEC a me pr<strong>of</strong>ecto, quam ambobus Juvenalis aliquando<br />

dwinant illam, qucs proxima est a secunda, satiram aperirem, sed adulatione<br />

nihil esse ingenuo fwditis dedicistis.<br />

' From Burchard's Diarium, 1 483-1 506, and from the Chronicle <strong>of</strong> Pulgar<br />

we learn that Antonio Geraldini and Juan de Medina, the latter afterwards<br />

Bishop <strong>of</strong> Astorga, accompanied the embassy.

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