[1120] Canto xviii. str. 112 to the end.
[1121] Pulci touches, though hastily, on a similar conception in his Prince Chiaristante (canto xxi. str. 101 sqq., 121 sqq., 145 sqq., 163 sqq.), who believes nothing and causes himself and his wife to be worshipped. We are reminded of Sigismondo Malatesta ([p. 245]).
[1122] Giov. Villani, iv. 29, vi. 46. The name occurs as early as 1150 in Northern countries. It is defined by William of Malmesbury (iii. 237, ed. Londin, 1840): ‘Epicureorum ... qui opinantur animam corpore solutam in aerem evanescere, in auras effluere.’
[1123] See the argument in the third book of Lucretius. The name of Epicurean was afterwards used as synonymous with freethinker. Lorenzo Valla (Opp. 795 sqq.) speaks as follows of Epicurus: ‘Quis eo parcior, quis contentior, quis modestior, et quidem in nullo philosophorum omnium minus invenio fuisse vitiorum, plurimique honesti viri cum Graecorum, tum Romanorum, Epicurei fuerunt.’ Valla was defending himself to Eugenius IV. against the attacks of Fra Antonio da Bitonto and others.
[1124] Inferno, vii. 67-96.
[1125] Purgatorio, xvi. 73. Compare the theory of the influence of the planets in the Convito. Even the fiend Astarotte in Pulci (Morgante, xxv. str. 150) attests the freedom of the human will and the justice of God.
[1126] Comp. Voigt, Wiederbelebung, 165-170.
[1127] Vespasiano Fiorent. pp. 26, 320, 435, 626, 651. Murat. xx. col. 532.
[1128] In Platina’s introd. to his Life of Christ the religious influence of the Renaissance is curiously exemplified (Vitæ Paparum, at the beginning): Christ, he says, fully attained the fourfold Platonic ‘nobilitas’ according to his ‘genus’: ‘quem enim ex gentilibus habemus qui gloria et nomine cum David et Salomone, quique sapientia et doctrina cum Christo ipso conferri merito debeat et possit?’ Judaism, like classical antiquity, was also explained on a Christian hypothesis. Pico and Pietro Galatino endeavoured to show that Christian doctrine was foreshadowed in the Talmud and other Jewish writings.
[1129] On Pomponazzo, see the special works; among others, Bitter, Geschichte der Philosophie, bd. ix.