[71] Leonardo Aretino, who does not appear to have possessed the slightest knowledge of Hebrew, in a very curious letter to Giovanni Cirignano, entered into a long train of argument, to prove the inutility of the study of that language. Nothing is more disgusting, than the propensity of men of narrow minds to undervalue those acquisitions in knowledge, to which they have not themselves attained; and which they consequently have not the means of appreciating. Excellent indeed is the precept of the Apulian bard,
“Neu tua plus laudes studia, aut aliena reprendas.”
This letter of Leonardo also shews the unhappy influence of religious bigotry and sacerdotal tyranny, in checking the progress of science. The most cogent argument which he advances, to prove the folly of spending time in the perusal of the Hebrew scriptures, is this, that St. Jerome having translated the Old Testament into Latin, whosoever presumes to study that book in the original, manifests a distrust of the fidelity of Jerome’s version.—Leonardi Aretini Epist., lib. ix. ep. xii.
[72] In the letter which Poggio wrote from Baden to Niccolo Niccoli, he says, that he wrote to him from Constance on the 19th of February, 1416; and in another letter, addressed to Leonardo Aretino, he says, that the trial of Jerome of Prague took place a few days after his return to the council. As Jerome’s last hearing, to which Poggio evidently alludes, took place May 30th, 1416, the date of Poggio’s journey to Baden is fixed between the above mentioned periods, that is, in the spring of 1416.
[73] L’Enfant’s History of the Council of Constance, vol. i. p. 167.
[74] Ibid, p. 188.
[75] L’Enfant’s History of the Council of Constance, vol. i. p. 204.
[76] Ibid, p. 512.
[77] Ibid, p. 584.
[78] In the Fasciculus Rer. expet. et fugiend. it is erroneously asserted that the following letter was addressed to Niccolo Niccoli.