Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/176

 *' 44 ALCYONIUS. confiderablc ticne for Aldus Manutius, and is entitled to a (hare in the praifes given to the editions of that learned printer. He translated into Latin feveral treatifes of Ariftotle: Sepul- veda wrote againft thefe vertions, and pointed cut fo many errors in them, that Alcyoniur, had no other remedy, but buying up as many copies as he could get of Sepulveda's work, and burning them. The rreuife which Alcyonius publiihed '* Concerning Banifliment, "contained fo many fine pailages, with others quite the reverfe, that it was thought he had interwoven with fomewhat of his own feveral fragments of Cicero's treatife, " De gloria;" and that afterwards, in order to fave himfelffrom being detedted inthis the. L "t, he burnt nutius, in his commentary upon thefe words of Cicero, " Li- paffage relating to this affair : " He means," fays he, "his two books On Glory, which were handed down to the age of our fathers ; for Bernard JuRinian, in the index of his books, men- tions Cicero De gloria. This treatife however, when Bernard had left his whole library to a nunnery, could not be found, '* Peter Alcyonius, who, being phyfician to the nunnery, was " intruded with the library, had bafdyftolen it. And truly, " terfperfed here and there, which feem not to favour of Al- " cyonius, but of fome higher author." The two orations he made after the taking of Rome, wherein he reprefented very ftrongly the injuftice of Charles V. and the barbarity of his foldier?, were two excellent pieces. There is another Ibid. oration afcribed to him, on the knio'hts who died at the liege O O of Rhodes. Alcyonius was profuTor at Florence in the pontificate of Adrian VI. and, befides his falary, had ten ducats a month from the cardinal de Medicis, to translate Galen " De parti- bus animarum." As foon as he unJcrftood that this cardinal was created pope, heafked leave of the Florentines to depart; and though he was refufed, he went neverthelef, to Rome, in great hopes of raifing himfelf there. 'He lott all his fortune during the troubles the Columnar raifed in Rome; and fome time after, when the emperor's troops took the city, in 1527, he received a wound when flying for (heltcr to the cafde of St. Angelo : he got thither notwithstanding he was purfued by the foldiers, and joined Clement VII. He was afterwards guilty of bafe ingratitude towards this popej forj as foon as thq
 * 3 ' the manufcript of Cicero, the only one extant. Paulus Ma-
 * ' brum tibi celeriter mittam De gloria," has the following
 * 4 though fought after with great care: nobody doubted but
 * ' in his treatife Of BanUhment, forr.e things are found in-