Aonio Paleario. from the French - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864. Excerpt: ... AONIO PALEARIO. CHAPTER I. YOUTH OF PALEARIO. In the abode of one of the most noble families of Florence, not far from the Pitti Palace and all its marvels of art, there stands a monument consecrated to the memory of a man, whose name, celebrated in the days of the Renaissance, but since forgotten, scarcely wakes up an echo now in the world of learning. This man, born (so to say) with the age of the Medici, brought up in the twofold school of sacred and profane antiquity, and loved by his most illustrious contemporaries,--Sadoleto, Bembo, Maffei, who admire his talents without suspecting his opinions,--is associated at first with them in those paths of literary reform, of which he himself supplies one of the most ingenious and elegant representatives. He comments on Cicero, refutes Lucretius, and propagates in the Universities of Tuscany a generous B intellectualism, which it might be hard to distinguish from the inspiration of a free and Christian faith. When the Reformation, preached triumphantly at Wittemherg and Zurich, crosses for the first time the barrier of the Alps, and assails Catholic doctrine in its most august sanctuary, he writes a book breathing the aspirations of the new faith, the unheard of success of which will speedily mark him out for the rigours of the Inquisition. Quitting thenceforward the paths of learning for that of the apostolate, he dreams of a church purified, of a reform without a schism, of the regeneration of Italy by the gospel and by freedom. Serious enmities threaten him. He passes successively from Siena to Lucca, from Lucca to Milan, everywhere prosecuting his generous design; and, that nothing may be wanting to mark his destiny, he is cited before the tribunal of the Holy Office, and dies at the stake, in the pontifi...