oleration extended to these heterodox scholars seems to have
been unlimited,--perhaps it was not in some instances unmixed with
contempt, for, though they lampooned the clergy of all grades, not
sparing even the Pope himself, their writings, even when not free from
positive scurrility, were allowed the freest circulation. In all
that pertained to personal conduct and morality, they directed their
exclusive efforts to assimilating classical standards of the
decadent periods, ignoring the austere virtues of civic probity,
self-restraint, and frugality, that characterised the best society of
Greek and Rome in their florescence. These same men lived on terms
of close intimacy with princes of the Church, on whose bounty they
throve, and by degrees numbers of them even entered the ranks of the
clergy, some with minor and others with holy orders. To their labours,
the world owes the recovery of the classic literature of Greece and
Rome from oblivion, while the invention and rapid adoption of the
printing-press rendered these precious texts forever indestructible
and accessible.

Into this brilliant, dissolute world of intellectual activity, Peter
Martyr entered, and through it he passed unscathed, emerging with his
Christian faith intact and his orthodoxy untainted. He gathered the
gold of classical learning, rejecting its dross; his morals were
above reproach and calumny never touched his reputation. Respected,
appreciated, and, most of all, beloved by his contemporaries, his
writings enriched the intellectual heritage of posterity with
inexhaustible treasures of original information concerning the great
events of the memorable epoch it was his privilege to illustrate.

General culture being widely diffused, the pedantic imitations of
antiquity applauded by the preceding generation ceased to confer
distinction. Latin still held its supremacy but the Italian language,
no longer reputed vulgar, was coming more and more into favour as a
vehicle for the expression of original thought. Had he remained in
Italy Martyr might well have used it, but his removal to Spain imposed
Latin as the language of his voluminous compositions.

Four years after his arrival in Rome, a Milanese noble, Bartolomeo
Scandiano, who later went as nuncio to Spain, invited Peter Martyr
to pass the summer months in his villa at Rieti, in company with the
Bishop of Viterbo. In the fifteenth letter of the _Opus Epistolarum_
he recalls the impressions and re