a.[3]

[Note 1: Ranke, in his _Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtsschreiber_,
and Rawdon Brown, in his _Calendar of State Papers relating to
England, preserved in the Archives of Venice_, mention Anghera, or
Anghiera, as the name is also written, as his birthplace. Earlier
Italian writers such as Piccinelli (_Ateneo de' Letterati Milanesi_)
and Giammatteo Toscano (_Peplus Ital_) are perhaps responsible
for this error, which passages in the _Opus Epistolarum_, that
inexplicably escaped their notice, expose. In a letter addressed to
Fajardo occurs the following explicit statement: "..._cum me utero
mater gestaret sic volente patre, Aronam, ubi plaeraque illis erant
praedia domusque ... ibi me mater dederat orbi_." Letters 388, 630, and
794 contain equally positive assertions.]

[Note 2: Mazzuchelli (_Gli Scrittori d'Italia_, p. 773) states
that Peter Martyr was born in 1455, and he has been followed by the
Florentine Tiraboschi (_Storia della Letteratura Italiana_, vol. vii.)
and later historians, including even Hermann Schumacher in his
masterly work, _Petrus Martyr der Geschichtsschreiber des Weltmeeres_.
Nicolai Antonio (_Bibliotheca Hispana nova_, app. to vol. ii) is alone
in giving the date as 1559. Ciampi, amongst modern Italian authorities
(_Le Fonti Storiche del Rinascimento_) and Heidenheimer (_Petrus
Martyr Anglerius und sein Opus Epistolarum_) after carefully
investigating the conflicting data, show from Peter Martyr's own
writings that he was born on February 2, 1457. Three different
passages are in agreement on this point. In Ep. 627 written in 1518
and referring to his embassy to the Sultan of Egypt upon which he
set out in the autumn of 1501, occurs the following: ..._quatuor et
quadraginta tunc annos agebam, octo decem superadditi vires illas
hebetarunt_. Again in Ep. 1497: _Ego extra annum ad habitis tuis
litteris quadragesimum_; and finally in the dedication of the Eighth
Decade to Clement VII.: _Septuagesimus quippe annus aetatis, cui nonae
quartae Februarii anni millesimi quingentesimi vigesimi sexti proxime
ruentis dabunt initium, sua mihi spongea memoriam ita confrigando
delevit, ut vix e calamo sit lapsa periodus, quando quid egerimsi quis
interrogaverit, nescire me profitebor. De Orbe Novo_., p. 567. Ed.
Paris, 1587. Despite the elucidation of this point, it is noteworthy
that Prof. Paul Gaffarel both in his admirable French translation of
the _Opus Epistolarum_ (1897) and in his _Lettres de Pierre Mar