with black silk ribbons.  He demands a Biblical concordance which is in folio.  This lies on a high shelf near the window.[168] He begs to have the works of St. Justin, which will be found in the shelves on the left as you enter his monastery-cell.  But not all his requests are for theological works.  A true son of the Renaissance, he finds entertainment or instruction in communing with the best of antiquity.  When in this mood he asks for his Aristotle bound in sheep’s-skin; it will be found in the shelves on the right as you enter the monastery-cell.  He would like a Horace and a Virgil—­of which there are a great many (’de que hay hartos’), so that he does not particularize.  He wants his Homer (in Greek and Latin) bound in sheep’s-skin, and with red edges; it will be found in the shelves where the works of St. Justin are.[169] Again, besides the works of St. Leo, bound in parchment, he asks for his Sophocles in black calf; for a Pindar (in Greek and Latin), bound partly in black leather, with gilt edges; and for Le prose dil Bembo, a volume in small quarto with a parchment binding.[170] This throws light on Luis de Leon’s progress as a linguist.  An imprisoned man who asks for an Italian book to becalm his fever may be safely presumed to know that language.  In or about 1569 when Arias Montano read aloud the anonymous Italian work which disturbed Zuniga’s scrupulous conscience, Luis de Leon, though of course able to catch the author’s drift, did not really know Italian at that time.[171] This deficiency had been made good, as he gives us to understand, previous to March 12, 1573—­twenty eight months, or more, before Luis de Leon asked that his copy of Le prose dil Bembo should be given to him in prison.

The record of the Valladolid trial likewise reveals to us some of Luis de Leon’s intellectual foibles.  But these were extremely few.  Towards the end of the proceedings at Valladolid the Inquisitionary judges there summoned before them Juan Galvan, a young theological student who lodged with Salinas, the blind musician.  Galvan testified that for about two years he had discussed matters of theology, mathematics, and astrology with Luis de Leon.[172] It may astonish some that Luis de Leon toyed with the pseudo-science of astrology:  it cannot have surprised his judges for, on April 18, 1572, while still bewildered as to the cause of his arrest, he had stated to them in writing that he had read a compilation on astrology which had been lent to him by a student named Poza, a licentiate in canon law.  Poza seems to have doubted whether he ought to keep such a work, and consulted Luis de Leon on the question.  Luis de Leon dipped into the book, and came finally to the conclusion that the whole thing was rubbish.  But he found in the work some curious observations, and was tempted to make at least one experiment which involved the use of a pious formula.  The owner of the book left Salamanca to avoid an epidemic which was then