life of john picus earl of mirandola - The Center for Thomas More ...

5
10
15
20
More’s Introduction to Picus’ Second Letter to Francis
I may once bring forth the children that I travail on; that I may give
out some books 1 of mine own to the common ⌐ profit ¬ which may
somewhat savour if not of cunning yet at the leastwise of wit and
diligence. And because ye shall not think that my travail and diligence
in study is anything remitted or slackened, I give you knowledge that
after great fervent labour with much watch and indefatigable travail
I have learned both the Hebrew language and the Chaldee, and now
have I set hand to overcome the great difficulty of the Arabic tongue.
These, my dear friend, be things which do appertain to a noble prince,
I have ever thought and yet think. ⌐ Fare ye well. ¬ ¦ Written at Paris 2 the
xv. day of October, the year of grace 1492. 3
⌐ The Argument of the Epistle following. After that John Francis, the
nephew of Picus, had (as it appeareth in the first epistle of Picus to
him) begun a change in his living, it seemeth by this letter that the
company of the Court where he was conversant, diversely (as it is their
unmannerly manner) descanted° thereof to his rebuke, as them thought,
but, as truth was, unto their own. Some of them judged it folly, some
called it hypocrisy, some scorned him, some slandered him; all of which
demeanour (as we may of this epistle conjecture) he wrote unto this
Earl Picus, his uncle, which in this letter comforteth and encourageth
him, as it is in the course thereof evident. ¬
17 descanted made comment on (OED cites this as the first usage in the sense of “to make remarks,
comments, or observations; to comment (on, upon…)” [s.v. descant v. 2])
¦ 10 More omits the remainder of the letter, amounting to nearly two pages in translation (CW
1:353, 355). In these pages, “Picus discusses his plans to visit Rome, Corneo’s marital affairs, Picus’
Italian verses, a wayward servant of Picus, and mitigates the amorous escapades of an unnamed
lover, evidently Picus himself, who had abducted Margherita, the wife of Guiliano Mariotto
dei Medici, on May 10, 1486. She was pursued by her husband, restored to him, and Picus was
wounded and imprisoned. For an account of this episode see Eugenio Garin, Giovanni Picus della
Mirandola: Vita e dottrina, Pubblicazioni della Università degli Studi di Firenze, Facoltà di Lettere
e Filosofia, 3 serie, 5 (Florence, 1937), p. 25. More could have learned of this abduction from
Colet or Linacre, both of whom were in Italy not long after this well-known scandal” (CW 1:236).
1. children…books: Gianfrancesco’s Latin uses liberos once (CW 1:352), a word that means both
“children” and “books.” More draws attention to the pun by his translation, “books of mine own.”
2. Paris: A mistranslation of Perusiae, “Perugia” (CW 1:354).
3. The date is incorrect. This letter was written in 1486, the year before Picus’ conversion.
Edwards lists two reasons given by scholars as to why More may have intentionally altered the
date, which was present on the Latin text: 1) “to make Picus into a more appropriate spiritual
hero by passing over the time [of]…his confrontation with papal authority”; and 2) a concern
“to disassociate Picus from the other controversial event of 1486, his kidnapping of Margherita
dei Medici” (CW 1:236).
37
[88]