[421] Muratori Annali, tom. ix. p. 456. It may be mentioned as a striking instance of the liberty which was granted by personages of the most exalted eminence to scholars of celebrity in the fifteenth century, that Poggio at various times addressed letters to his patron, cardinal Beaufort, to prince John Corrinus, Waiwode of Hungary, to the duke of Viseo, brother to Edward, king of Portugal, and also to Alfonso, king of Naples, exhorting them to active exertions against the Turks, who at this time threatened to overrun some of the finest countries of Europe. These letters still exist in the Riccardi MS. Ton. Tr. tom. ii. p. 140.
[422] Tiraboschi Storia della letter. Ital. tom. vi. p. ii. p. 303. If credit may be given to Valla’s own assertion, his introduction into the world was announced in a supernatural manner. He boasts in his Antidotus, p. 191, that his mother being ignorant that she was pregnant, was apprized of that circumstance by the interposition of an oracle, which informed her that she would be brought to bed of a son, and gave particular directions with respect to her offspring’s name. It might have been reasonably conjectured that this oracle was some experienced matron; but by the subsequent part of Valla’s narration, it seems that the important admonition in question proceeded from one of the saints.
[423] Valla Antidotus in Poggium, p. 200.
[424] Ibid, p. 201.
[425] Vallæ Antidotus in Poggium, p. 201.
[426] This treatise is printed in the first volume of the Fasciculus Rer. expet. et fugiend.
[427] Vallæ Antidotus, p. 210.
[428] Ibid, p. 211.
[429] See the account given of this transaction by Valla in his Antidotus, p. 218. Poggio, towards the conclusion of his third invective, asserts, that Valla was on this occasion subjected to the discipline of the scourge, and narrates the manner and form of his punishment with great minuteness.
[430] Valla’s invective against Beccatelli and Facio is divided into four books, and occupies fifty-two pages of the edition of his works, published by Ascensius in folio, an. 1528.