I replied, ’can best tell why he gave me this title, for I know not.’  At length, having pleased, but not satisfied himself with my tortures, he ordered me to be let down, that I might undergo tortures much greater in the evening.  I was carried, half dead, into my chamber; but not long after, the inquisitor having dined, and being fresh in drink, I was fetched again, and the archbishop of Spalatro was there.  They inquired of my conversations with Malatesta.  I said it only concerned ancient and modern learning, the military arts, and the characters of illustrious men, the ordinary subjects of conversation.  I was bitterly threatened by Vianesius, unless I confessed the truth on the following day, and was carried back to my chamber, where I was seized with such extreme pain, that I had rather have died than endured the agony of my battered and dislocated limbs.  But now those who were accused of heresy were charged with plotting treason.  Pomponius being examined why he changed the names of his friends, he answered boldly, that this was no concern of his judges or the pope; it was, perhaps, out of respect for antiquity, to stimulate to a virtuous emulation.  After we had now lain ten months in prison, Paul comes himself to the castle, where he charged us, among other things, that we had disputed concerning the immortality of the soul, and that we held the opinion of Plato; by disputing you call the being of a God in question.  This, I said, might be objected to all divines and philosophers, who, to make the truth appear, frequently question the existence of souls and of God, and of all separate intelligences.  St. Austin says, the opinion of Plato is like the faith of Christians.  I followed none of the numerous heretical factions.  Paul then accused us of being too great admirers of pagan antiquities; yet none were more fond of them than himself, for he collected all the statues and sarcophagi of the ancients to place in his palace, and even affected to imitate, on more than one occasion, the pomp and charm of their public ceremonies.  While they were arguing, mention happened to be made of ‘the Academy,’ when the Cardinal of San Marco cried out, that we were not ‘Academics,’ but a scandal to the name; and Paul now declared that he would not have that term evermore mentioned under pain of heresy.  He left us in a passion, and kept us two months longer in prison to complete the year, as it seems he had sworn.”

Such is the interesting narrative of Platina, from which we may surely infer, that if these learned men assembled for the communication of their studies—­inquiries suggested by the monuments of antiquity, the two learned languages, ancient authors, and speculative points of philosophy—­these objects were associated with others which terrified the jealousy of modern Rome.