Chapter 13 - Page 2

were apt to think the counsels of Oliver sprang from the Devil himself.

Louis therefore led the way, followed by the impatient Quentin, to a separate tower of the castle of Plessis, in which was installed, in no small ease and splendour; the celebrated astrologer, poet, and philosopher, Galeotti Marti, or Martius, or Martivalle, a native of Narni, in Italy, the author of the famous Treatise De Vulgo Incognitis [concerning things unknown to the generality of mankind. S.], and the subject of his age's admiration, and of the panegyrics of Paulus Jovius [an Italian historian of the sixteenth century who lived at the Pope's court]. He had long flourished at the court of the celebrated Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, from whom he was in some measure decoyed by Louis, who grudged the Hungarian monarch the society and the counsels of a sage accounted so skilful in reading the decrees of Heaven.

[Martius Galeotti . . . was secretary to Matthias Carvinus, King of Hungary. He left Hungary in 1477, and was made prisoner at Venice on a charge of having propagated heterodox opinions. . . . He might have suffered seriously but for the protection of Sixtus IV, then Pope, who had been one of his scholars. . . . He attached himself to Louis XI, and died in his service. S.]

Martivalle was none of those ascetic, withered, pale professors of mystic learning of those days, who bleared their eyes over the midnight furnace, and macerated their bodies by out watching the Polar Bear. He indulged in all courtly pleasures, and until he grew corpulent, had excelled in all martial sports and gymnastic exercises, as well as in the use of arms; insomuch, that Janus Pannonius [a Hungarian poet of the fifteenth century] has left a Latin epigram upon a wrestling match betwixt Galeotti and a renowned champion of that art, in the presence of the Hungarian King and Court, in which the Astrologer was completely victorious.

The apartments of this courtly and martial sage were far more splendidly furnished than any which Quentin had yet seen in the royal palace; and the carving and ornamented woodwork of his library, as well as the magnificence displayed in the tapestries, showed the elegant taste of the learned Italian. Out of his study one door opened to his sleeping apartment, another led to the turret which served as his observatory. A large open table, in the midst of the chamber, was covered with a rich Turkey carpet, the spoils of the tent of a Pacha, after the great battle of Jaiza, where the Astrologer had fought abreast with the valiant champion of Christendom, Matthias Corvinus. On the table lay a variety of mathematical and astrological instruments, all of the most rich materials and curious workmanship. His astrolabe of silver was the gift of the Emperor of Germany, and his Jacob's staff of ebony [a divining rod made of a hazel fork], jointed with gold and curiously inlaid, was a mark of esteem from the reigning Pope.