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from there, their learning spread into Southern France, and into Sicily. Frederick II was especially friendly to the Saracens, and Arab learning flourished in his court in Sicily. Among the distinguished savants surround-ing him were the two sons of Averrhoes of Cordova. Their father was one of the great lights of erudition at that period. Among other things he was learned in astronomy and is said to have been the first to have observed a transit of Mercury across the sun. He was also a commentator upon the works of Plato and Aristotle. He was furthermore a total disbeliever in all revelation.

"Pietro of Abano" may be taken as a type of this medieval learning. Pietro lived from 1249 to 1315, just at the time when Italy's intellectual aspiration was gaining in power. He was called Petrus Aponensis, Aponon being the name of the famous medi-cinal Springs of Abano, near Padua (a, with-out, and ponos, pain), near which Peter was born. According to all accounts he was profoundly learned in science and magic. He had studied at Paris, at Constantinople and in the Orient and was said to keep the seven spirits of philosophy, alchemy, astrol-ogy, physic, poetry and music in seven crys-tal vases tamed to his will.

It is needless to say that a man of this caliber was persecuted by the Church. He was accused of being a heretic and an atheist by the Inquisition, but escaped his fate of burning by his own able defense of himself. Accused again later, he died before he was convicted, but his body was condemned to be burned, and had it not been for the devo-tion of a friend the sentence would have been carried out. The friend, however, hid the body, and it was burned only in effigy.

He did not, however, wait as long as other illustrious men for recognition. The Duke of Urbino had his statue put up among other statues of distinguished men in Padua, and the Senate honored it by placing it upon the gate of the Senate-house. .Still other honors were accorded him, for in 1560 a tablet with a Latin epitaph was put up in his memory in the Church of St. Augustine. The Rev. John Sharpe, who wrote about this poem in The London Browning Society Papers, found an early inscription in the wall of the Vestibüle of the Sacristy of the Church of the Eremitani to this effect: "Petri Aponi (Cineres) Ob. an. 1315: aet. 66."

Browning brings into connection with this historic personage, versed in the lore derived from the Saracens, a Greek without a name,

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who is anxious to become as learned as Pietro in magic lore. In exchange for his learning, the Greek offers Pietro the love he is supposed to lack. In reply to his dem and s, Pietro gives him a magic powder. This causes him in an instant of time, between the begin-ning and ending of Pietro's pronouncing the word "Benedicity," to live through all the successive stages of the career he would like to win by means of Pietro's magic: a man of wealth, a statesman, a churchman. As he advances by means of the magic powder, instead of giving Pietro the love promised, he treats him with more and more scorn and finally tries to drive him from his presence, thus showing what a pretense his ambition to rule men for their good had been.

This legend, as is usually the case with such stories, occurs in various forms in the Middle Ages, but what we are more concerned with now is the glimpse of the Greek character and the relation of the Greeks to Itahan culture which it gives us.

At this time the Greeks, according to one of their own countrymen, Gemistos Plethon, were a thoroughly degenerate people. The first appearance of Gemistos in Italy was at a Council held in Florence of the Latin Church and the Greek Church, looking toward some

sort of union between them. At this Council it was natural that the Greeks should attract much attention, as the fervor for Greek studies had already taken hold of the Floren-tine mind. But on the whole these Greeks were not quite what the Florentines expected of the descendants of Homer and Plato. "While honoring them," says Symonds, "as the last scions of the noblest nation of the past, as the authentic teachers of Hellenic learning and the Masters of the Attic tongue, they despised their empty vanity, their facile apostasy, their trivial pedantry, their personal absurdities." Their erudition finally resolved itself into the meager accomplish-ment of being able to speak their mother tongue, an " emasculated" Greek. There was, however, a noble exception among these visiting Greeks. Gemistos had all the lore that the hungry Florentines craved. "From the treasures of a memory stored with Piatonic, Pythagorean and Alexandrian mysti-cism, he poured forth copious streams of erudition. The ears of his audience were open; their intellects were far from critical. They accepted the gold and dross of his dis-course alike as purest metal. Hanging upon the ups of the eloquent, grave, beautiful old man, who knew so much that they desired to

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learn, they called him Socrates and Plato in their ecstacy."

This delightful old fellow, of whom Symonds draws such a charming picture, had a phi-losophy that reminds us strongly of the wily Greek in this poem, and an opinion of his own countrymen's character that chimes in well with Browning's portrayal of the Greek. He lived in the Peloponnesus, upon the site of the ancient Sparta, for the greater part of his life. He drew a terrible picture of the anarchy and immorality of the decadent Hellenic race, and being a learned man and a philosopher he concocted a scheme of life and religion which was to regenerate not only his race but the world. The soul of Plato was believed by his disciples to be re-incarnate in him, and his followers called him "the mystagogue of sublime and celestial dogmas." His scheme included metaphysics, a new religion, an elaborate psychology, a theory of ethics and a theory of political administra-tion. It is impossible here to go into its recondite ramifications, in which the old Greek gods and goddesses and human quali-ties seem to masquerade in each other's like-nesses. It has been described as a "Sort of Neoplatonism — a mystical fusion of Greek mythology and Greek logic." The work in

which he set forth his ideas was called "The Laws," the name itself being reminiscent of Plato's "Laws."

Such a plan of ruling men for their good might have emanated from Browning's Greek if he had been clever enough, and it is more than likely that our poet when he speaks in the poem of Plato's Tractate had in mind this latter day mystical Neoplatonism and feit much as Symonds does about it when he exclaims, "There is something ludi-crous as well as sad in the spectacle of this sophist, nourishing the vain fancy that he might coin a complete religious system, which would supersede Christianity and restore vigor to the decayed body of the Greek empire."

For a sudden and rapid rise from obscurity to the Papal throne one does not need to go to legend, for history supplies the remarkable instance of Pope Nicholas V who, however, was true to his word that if ever he obtained wealth he would devote it to books and buildings. He flourished in the hey-day of the revival of learning. Born at Pisa in 1398, he was taken while yet an infant to Sarzana, whither his parents were exiled. Though very poor this young Tommaso Parenturelli managed to attend the University of Bologna,

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where he studied theology and the seven liberal arts. Next we hear of him totally destitute, seeking work in Florence, where he was engaged first as house tutor to the children of Rinaldo degli Albizzi and afterwards to those of Palla degli Strozzi. With the money obtained here he returned to Bologna and took his degree of Doctor of Theology at the age of twenty-two. Soon he acquires a patron in Niccolo degli Albergati, Archbishop of Bologna, who appoints him Controller of his household. Albergati was one of the Cardinais of Eugenius IV, and, when the papal court went to Florence, he went also, and took Tommaso with him. It was not long before he became known to Cosimo de* Medici, and so grew to be a constant attendant at the gatherings of the learned.

How he appeared at this time is graphically described by Vespasiano. "It was the cus-tom for many men of learning to congregate every morning and evening at the side of the Palazzo where they entered into discussions and disputes on various subjects. As soon then as Maestro Tommaso had attended the Cardinal to the Palazzo, he joined them, mounted on a mule, with two servants on foot; and generally he was attired in blue and his servants in long dresses of a darker

color. In the place I have named he was always to be found conversing and dis-puting, since he was a most impassioned debater."

At this time he was always buying books, even borrowing money to secure them.

In 1443 Albergati died and soon after Eugenius promoted Tommaso to the see of Bologna; within a few months he was made Cardinal and in 1447 he was elected Pope of Rome. His love for books resulted in his founding the Vatican library, and his erudi-tion in his being a munificent patron of learn-ing. So the true story of Pope Nicholas V is not sullied by the selfishness displayed by the Greek, but it shows the stuff out of which such a story might grow.

Though at the end of the poem Browning speaks of lilting in lazy fashion this legend of Padua, yet we cannot help feeling that in treating his subject he has been conscious of all these diverse elements that went to the making of the intellectually awakened Italy, into which was coming by various Channels the learning of the Arab and the learning of the Greek, both of which had their battles to fight sooner or later with the Church.

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PIETRO OP ABANO

Petrus Aponensis — there was a magician!

When that stränge adventure happened, which I mean to teil

my hearers, Nearly had he tried all trades — beside physician, Architect, astronomer, astrologer, — or worse: How eise, as the old books Warrant, was he able, All at once, through all the world, to prove the promptest of

appearers Where was prince to eure, tower to build as high as Babel, Star to name or sky-sign read, — yet pouch, for pains, a

curse?

— Curse: for when a vagrant, — foot-sore, travel-tattered, Now a young man, now an old man, Turk or Arab, Jew or

Gypsy,— Proffered folk in passing — Oh, for pay, what mattered ? — "TU be doctor, 111 play builder, star 111 name — sign read!" Soon as prince was cured, tower built, and fate predicted, "Who may you be?" came the question; when he answered

"Petrus ipse" "Just as we divined!" cried folk — "A wretch convicted Long ago of dealing with the devil — you indeed!"

So, they cursed him roundly, all his labor's payment, Motioned him — the convalescent prince would — to vacate

the presence: Babylonians plucked his beard and tore his raiment, Drove him from that tower he built: while, had he peered at

stars, Town howled "Stone the quack who styles our Dog-star —

Sirius!" Country yelled "Aroint the churl who prophesies we take no

pleasance

Under vine and fig-tree, since the year's delirious,

Bears no crop of any kind, — all through the planet Mars!

»

Straightway would the whilom youngster grow a grisard, Or, as case might hap, the hoary eld drop off and show a

stripling. Town and country groaned — indebted to a wizard! "Curse — nay, kick and cuff him — fit requital of his pains! Gratitude in word or deed were wasted truly! Rather make the Chnrch amends by crying out on, cramp-

ing, crippling One who, on pretence of serving man, serves duly Man's arch foe: not ours, be sure, but Satan's — his the

gains!"

Peter grinned and bore it, and such disgraceful usage: Somehow, cuffs and kicks and curses seem ordained his like

to suffer: Prophet's pay with Christians, now as in the Jew's age, Still is — stoning: so, he meekly took his wage and went, — Safe again was found ensconced in those old quarters, Padua's blackest blindest by-street, — none the worse, nay,

somewhat tougher: " Calculating," quoth he, "soon I join the martyrs, Since, who magnify my lore on buraing me are beut."

Therefore, on a certain evening, to his alley

Peter slunk, all bruised and broken, sore in body, sick in

spirit, Just escaped from Cairo where he launched a galley Needing neither sails nor oars nor help of wind or tide — Needing but the fume of fire to set a-flying Wheels like mad which whirled you quick — North, South,

where'er you pleased require it, —

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That is — would have done so had not priests come prying, Broke his engine up and bastinadoed him beside.

As he reached his lodgings, stopped there unmolested, (Neighbors feared him, urchins fled him, few were bold

enough to follow) While his fumbling fingers tried the lock and tested Once again the queer key's virtue, oped the sullen door, — Some one plucked his sleeve, cried, "Master, pray your

pardon! Grant a word to me who patient wait you in your archway's

hollow! Hard on you men's hearts are: be not your heart hard on Me who kiss your garment's hem, O Lord of magic lore!

"Mage — say I, who no less, scorning tittle-tattle,

To the vulgär give no credence when they prate of Peter's

magic, Deem his art brews tempest, hurts the crops and cattle, Hindere fowls f rom laying eggs and worms f rom spinning silk, Rides upon a he-goat, mounts at need a broomstick: While the price he pays for this (so turns to comic what was

tragic) Is — he may not drink — dreads like the Day of Doom's

tick — One poor drop of sustenance ordained mere men — that's

milk!

"Teil such tales to Padua! Think me no such dullard! Not from these benighted parts did I derive my breath and

being! I am from a land whose cloudless skies are colored Livelier, suns orb largelier, airs seem incense, — while, on

earth —

What, instead of grass, our fingers and our thumbs cull, Proves true moly! sounds and sights there help the body's

hearing, seeing, Till the soul grows godlike: brief, — you front no numskull Shaming by ineptitude the Greece that gave him birth!

"Mark within my eye its iris mystic-lettered —

That's my name! and note my ear — its swan-shaped cavity,