[522] Gossip had it that Boniface VIII induced his predecessor to abdicate by angelic warnings, which he himself produced through improvised speaking tubes.
[523] The assassination of Vitelleschi, supposedly by order of the Pope, took place in March, 1440, and is one of the means of dating Valla’s treatise.
[524] Judges xi, 12-28.
[525] For these episodes, cf. Creighton, History of the Papacy, etc., vol. I, passim.
[526] Tarquinius, by striking down the tallest poppies with his cane, gave the hint that the leaders of the opposition should be executed; cf. Livy, I, 54.
[527] The ensuing episode occurred in 1434 and thus fixes the date of the writing of this passage as 1439 or 1440. Cf. Mancini, Vita di Lorenzo Valla, p. 163.
[528] Flamininus had defeated Philip V of Macedonia, and it was from Philip, not Antiochus, that he “freed” Greece.
[529] A reminiscence of Rom. xi, 16.
[530] Free quotations from Rom. ii, 21-24.
[531] A reference to the well-known interview in which Leo I persuaded Attila to desist from his invasion of Italy.