[1] Sen., v., 3. Written, Fracassetti believes, about 1366.
[2] Juvenal, vii., 87.
[3] A trifling poem once universally attributed to Virgil.
[4] It is not known who is meant here. Cf. Fracassetti, Lettere Senile, vol. i., p. 283.
[5] Machiavelli's Prince, chap, xii., contains a similar description of war in his day.
[6] Luther reports that in his time, in Rome, they called an earnest believer "bon Christian."
[7] Who was fined for speaking against the Roman people.
[8] A corruption of the Arabic name of Ibn Roschd, who died in 1198.
[9] For this whole matter see Renan's charming book, Averroes. Also, Reuter's Religiöse Aufklärung des Mittelalters.
[10] Especially remarkable in this connection is the curious work De Suiipsius et Aliorum Ignorantia, the origin of which may be briefly described. A group of Petrarch's young Averroist friends happened one day in a post-prandial conversation to discuss among themselves his real claim to distinction. They decided that his fame rested largely upon the mistaken and ill-judged attentions of popes and princes, and that, although a good man, he could not be regarded as a person of great knowledge or literary power. This frank estimate of his ability reached the ears of Petrarch and naturally irritated the now failing old man, accustomed for many years to the world's adulation. The reply, written a year later, shows unmistakable signs of wounded pride and vanity. The criticism of the young men was, he assumes, dictated purely by envy of his reputation. He is indeed ignorant, but others are still more hopelessly benighted—hence the title, Of His Own Ignorance and That of Others. Opera (1581), pp., 1035-1059.