The Life of Thuanus

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: opposite to modern manners. Regular lectures, at different times of the day, were read to his household in physics, law, and polite learning; and De Foix himself sometimes expounded these subjects. He joined in the general homage then paid to Aristotle; and used to quote a saying of one of his admirers,...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: opposite to modern manners. Regular lectures, at different times of the day, were read to his household in physics, law, and polite learning; and De Foix himself sometimes expounded these subjects. He joined in the general homage then paid to Aristotle; and used to quote a saying of one of his admirers, that if he were not a Christian, he would follow Aristotle in all things. And in the course of his embassy, he would not admit to a conference some student who had. broached heretical opinions concerning this philosopher. The celebrated D'Ossat, afterwards Cardinal, made one of the suite, who is said to have united the greatest probity with the most consummate skill in politics. ' In their morning rides he used to give De Foix the substance of Plato's Dialogues, and because he was fond of the conciseness of the Peripatetic school, reduced within a narrow compass the florid copiousness of those beautiful compositions. The following are the most memorable occurrences before the arrival of the embassy at Rome. At Mantua they were shewn a sleeping Cupid, carved in marble by Michael Angelo. After they had gazed on it for some time, in high admiration of the workmanship, another was produced from a silken bandage, by some ancient artist (as he is represented in the Greek epigrams), so exquisitely finished, that it quite eclipsed the first, and made it appear nothing but an inanimate block. It was said, Michael Angelo had the greatness of mind to desire they might always be exhibited in that manner. At Venice, Thuanus took care to be accommodated in the only lodging then of good repute in that vicious and dissipated city. At Florence they were introduced to Cosmo, once the most illustrious of all the Italian princes of his time, but then a decrepid, superannuated inv...