DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42863#0244
216
A GREAT TEACHER
son as much as you say, is not to be lost for the sake
of so paltry a sum as 20 or 30 ducats, and I hope
you will do your best to secure his services.” So
Messer Lazzaro was duly engaged, and replied in
an eloquent Latin epistle to the Marchesa’s urgent
request that he would lead her son to the glorious
goal which he had set before him.
Then work began in good earnest. M. Lazzaro
read Cicero and Aristotle every afternoon with Er-
cole in his own house, and in the evenings he
attended M. Pietro’s lectures. On the first occasion
on which the prince appeared at a public lecture,
Pomponazzi made a little speech, exhorting him
to persevere in the right way, and speaking of
his mother as Sanctissima Mater tua, Isabella, in
terms which moved many of his hearers to tears!
The good Mantuan tutor, De’ Preti, was greatly
edified at the* sight of his charge’s new fervour.
“Madama mia” he wrote, “Signor Ercole shows a
far greater zeal for learning and devotion to study
than he ever showed at Mantua. He does not
merely listen to M. Peretto, he adores him; so, if
God gives him grace to go on as he has begun, it is
certain that he will become a famous man of letters.
On my part I did my duty, as a faithful servant, by
telling him that he must persevere in his studies here
at Bologna, as those do who enter the religious life,
and thus gain immortal fame both in this world and
in the next. Upon which he replied that I might be
quite sure he would not return to Your Excellency
an ignorant man. . . . And every one here says that
they have never seen a more zealous scholar. God
keep him ever in the same excellent disposition! ”1
1 Luzio, op. cit.
A GREAT TEACHER
son as much as you say, is not to be lost for the sake
of so paltry a sum as 20 or 30 ducats, and I hope
you will do your best to secure his services.” So
Messer Lazzaro was duly engaged, and replied in
an eloquent Latin epistle to the Marchesa’s urgent
request that he would lead her son to the glorious
goal which he had set before him.
Then work began in good earnest. M. Lazzaro
read Cicero and Aristotle every afternoon with Er-
cole in his own house, and in the evenings he
attended M. Pietro’s lectures. On the first occasion
on which the prince appeared at a public lecture,
Pomponazzi made a little speech, exhorting him
to persevere in the right way, and speaking of
his mother as Sanctissima Mater tua, Isabella, in
terms which moved many of his hearers to tears!
The good Mantuan tutor, De’ Preti, was greatly
edified at the* sight of his charge’s new fervour.
“Madama mia” he wrote, “Signor Ercole shows a
far greater zeal for learning and devotion to study
than he ever showed at Mantua. He does not
merely listen to M. Peretto, he adores him; so, if
God gives him grace to go on as he has begun, it is
certain that he will become a famous man of letters.
On my part I did my duty, as a faithful servant, by
telling him that he must persevere in his studies here
at Bologna, as those do who enter the religious life,
and thus gain immortal fame both in this world and
in the next. Upon which he replied that I might be
quite sure he would not return to Your Excellency
an ignorant man. . . . And every one here says that
they have never seen a more zealous scholar. God
keep him ever in the same excellent disposition! ”1
1 Luzio, op. cit.