Page:History of Freedom.djvu/608

 5 6 4

ESSAYS ON LIBERTY

Historia Tribulatiolllt1n, and he shows no reason for dis- missing the different account there given of the death of Delicieux: "Ipsum fratrem Bernardum sibi dari a summo pontifice petierunt. Et videns summus pontifex quod secundum accusationes quas de eo fecerant frat res minores justitiam postularent, tradidit eis eum. Qui, quum sus- cepissent eum in sua potestate, sicut canes, cum vehementer furiunt, lacerant quam capiunt bestiam, ita ipsi diversis afflictionibus et cruciatibus laniaverunt eum. Et videntes quod neque inquisitionibus nec tormentis poterant pompam de eo facere in populo, quam quaerebant, in arctissimo carcere ,eum reduxerunt, ibidem eum taliter tractantes, quod infra paucos menses, quasi per ignem et aquam transiens, de carcere corporis et minorum et praedicatorum liberatus gloriose triumphans de mundi principe, migravit ad coelos." We obtain only a general assurance that the fate of Cecco d' Ascoli is related on the strength of unpublished documents at Florence. It is not stated what they are. There is no mention of the epitaph pronounced by the pope \vho had made him his physician: "Cucullati Minores recentiorum Peripateticorum principem perdiderunt." We do not learn that Cecco reproached Dante with the same fatalistic leaning for which he himself was to die: " Non è fortuna cui ragion non vinca." Or how they disputed: U An ars natura fortior ac potentior existeret," and argu- ment was supplanted by experiment: "Aligherius, qui opinionern oppositam mordicus tuebatur, felem domesticam Stabili objiciebat, quam ea arte instituerat, ut ungulis cande- labrum teneret, dum is noctu legeret, vel coenaret. Cicchius igitur, ut in sententiam suam Aligherium pertraheret, scutu1a assumpta, ubi duo lTIusculi asservabantur inclusi, i1los in con- spectum felis dimisit; quae naturae ingenio inemendabili obsequens, muribus vix inspectis, illico in terram cande- labrum abjecit, et ultro citroque cursare ac vestigiis praedam persequi instituit." Either Appiani's defence of Cecco d' Ascoli has escaped Mr. Lea, who nowhere mentions Ber- nino's Historia di tutte I' Heresie where it is printed; or he may distrust Bernino for calling Dante a schismatic; or it