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

5
10
15
20
25
Life of John Picus
mouth, and after that issuing out again and flying up on high, hiding
themselves among the clouds, escaped both the sight of his father and
of all them that were present: which prognostication one Paulinus 1
making much of, expounded it to signify to us the ⌐ sweet ¬ honeycombs
of his ⌐ pleasant ¬ writing, which should show out the celestial gifts of
God and should lift up the mind of men from earth into heaven.
⌐ Of his Person. ¬ He was of feature and shape seemly and beauteous,
of stature goodly and high, of flesh tender and soft, his visage
lovely and fair, his colour white intermingled with comely reds, his
eyes grey and quick of look, his teeth white and even, his hair yellow
and not too picked. 2
⌐ Of his Setting Forth to School and Study in Humanity. ¬3 Under the rule
and governance 4 of his mother he was set to masters and to learning,
where with so ardent mind he laboured the studies of humanityº that
within short while he was (and not without a cause) accounted among
the chief orators and poets of that time, in learning marvellous swift
and of so ready a wit that the verses which he heard once read he would
again both forward and backward to the great wonder of the hearers
rehearse, and over that would hold it in sure re membrance; which in
other folks wont commonly to happen contrary,º for they that are swift
in taking be oftentimes slow in remembering, and they that with more
labour and difficulty receive it, more fast and surely hold it.
⌐ Of his Study in Canon.º ¬ In the fourteenth year of his age, by the
commandment of his mother (which longed very sore to have him
priest) he departed to Bononie 5 to study in the laws of the Church,
which when he had two years tasted, perceiving that the faculty leaned
to nothing but only mere traditions and ordinances, his mind fell from
it. 6 Yet lost he not his time therein, 7 for in that two years, yet being a
child, he compiled a breviary or a sum upon all the decretals, in which,
14 studies of humanity the liberal arts / 20 wont...contrary was not usually the case / 23 Canon
Canon Law
1. The source is Paulinus of Milan’s Vita sancti Ambrosii Mediolanensis episcopi.
2. his teeth...not too picked: More reverses the order of the Latin (i.e., “his hair...his teeth”). More’s “not
too picked” translates the Latin inaffectato, “not done up in an affected style” (CW 1:296, 297).
3. Latin sidenote here: Profectus in studiis humanitatis aetate tenella, “Accomplished in the studies of
humanity [liberal arts] at a tender age” (CW 1: 211).
4. rule and governance: Translates imperio, “command” (CW 1:296, 297).
5. Bononie: Bologna, one of the great places for the study of Canon Law throughout the Middle
Ages. Picus went to Bologna in 1477.
6. his mind...from it: Latin alio deflexit, “he turned elsewhere” (CW 1:298, 299).
7. Yet...therein: Translates the Latin non tamen absque bonae frugis foetura, “not, however, without
reaping a good harvest” (CW 1:298, 299).
7
[55]
Virtue in a
comely body is
more esteemed.
Wit receiveth;
remembrance
holdeth
[56]
The faculty of Canon
Law