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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 13<br />

time his merits should not lack recognition, <strong>Martyr</strong> replied<br />

that the disturbed state <strong>of</strong> Italy, which he apprehended<br />

would grow worse, discouraged him; adding that he was<br />

urged on by an ardent desire to see the world and to make<br />

acquaintance with other lands. To <strong>Peter</strong> Marsus, he<br />

declared he felt impelled to join in the crusade against the<br />

Moors. Spain was the seat <strong>of</strong> this holy war, and the<br />

Catholic<br />

sovereigns, who had accomplished the unity <strong>of</strong><br />

the Christian states <strong>of</strong> the Iberian peninsula, were liberal<br />

in their <strong>of</strong>fers <strong>of</strong> honours and recompense to foreigners <strong>of</strong><br />

distinction whom they sought to draw to their court and<br />

camp. Spain may well have seemed a virgin and promising<br />

field, in which his talents might find a more generous<br />

recognition than Rome had awarded them. Upon his<br />

arrival there, he showed himself no mean courtier when he<br />

declared to the Queen that his sole reason for coming was<br />

to behold the most celebrated woman in the world—herself.<br />

Perhaps the sincerest expression <strong>of</strong> his feelings is<br />

that contained in a letter to Carillo. (Ep. 86. 1490)<br />

Formosum est cuique, quod maxime placet: id si cum patria<br />

minime quis se sperat habiturum, tanta est hujusce rei vis, ut<br />

extra patriam quceritet patria ipsius oblitus.<br />

Ego quam vos<br />

deservistis adivi quia quod mihi pulchrum suaveque videbatur<br />

in ea invenire speravi. <strong>The</strong> divine restlessness, the<br />

Wanderlust had seized him, and to its fascination he<br />

yielded. <strong>The</strong> opportunity <strong>of</strong>fered by TendiUa was too<br />

tempting to be resisted. Summing up the remonstrances<br />

and reproaches <strong>of</strong> his various friends, he declared that<br />

he held himself to deserve rather their envy than their<br />

commiseration, since amidst the many learned men in<br />

Italy he felt himself obscure and useless, counting himself<br />

indeed as passerunculus inter accipitres, pygmeolus inter<br />

gigantes.<br />

Failing to turn his friend from his purpose. Cardinal<br />

Ascanio Sforza exacted from him a promise to send him<br />

regular and frequent information <strong>of</strong> all that happened at

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