Page:Manzoni - The Betrothed, 1834.djvu/357

 title, however, she never gave him without a degree of complacency, mingling itself with her displeasure.

Don Ferrante passed much time in his study, where he had a considerable collection of choice books; he had selected the most famous works on many different subjects, in each of which he was more or less versed. In astrology, he was justly considered more than an amateur, because he not only possessed the general notions, and the common vocabulary of influences, aspects, and conjunctions, but he could speak to the point, and, like a professor, of the twelve houses of heaven, of the great and lesser circles, of degrees, lucid and obscure, of exaltations, passages, and revolutions; in short, of the principles the most certain and most recondite of the science. For more than twenty years, in long and frequent disputes, he had sustained the pre-eminence of Cardan against another learned man attached to the system of Alcabizio, "from pure obstinacy," said Don Ferrante, who, in acknowledging voluntarily the superiority of the ancients, could not, however, endure the prejudice which would never accord to the moderns, even that which they evidently deserved. He had also a more than ordinary acquaintance with the history of the science; he could cite the most celebrated predictions which had been verified, and reason very skilfully and learnedly on other celebrated predictions which had not been verified, demonstrating that the failure was not owing to any deficiency in the science, but to the ignorance which could not apply its principles.

He had acquired as much ancient philosophy as would have contented a man of ordinary ambition, but he was continually adding to his stock from the study of Diogenes Laertius; however, as we cannot adhere to every system, and as, from among them all, a choice is necessary to him who desires the reputation of a philosopher, Don Ferrante made choice of Aristotle, who, as he was accustomed to say, was neither ancient nor modern. He possessed many works of the wisest and most subtle disciples of the school of Aristotle among the moderns; as to those of his opponents, he would not read them, "because it would be a waste of time," he said, "nor buy them, because it would