Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera by Unknown
page 22 of 429 (05%)

[Note 3: In the month of June, 1492.]

What influences worked to prepare the change which took place in Peter
Martyr's life within the next few months are not known. After the
briefest preparation, he took minor orders and occupied a canon's
stall in the cathedral of Granada. Of a religious vocation, understood
in the theological sense, there appears to have been no pretence,
but ten years later we find him a priest, with the rank of apostolic
protonotary. Writing on March 28, 1492, to Muro, the dean of
Compostello he observed: _Ad Saturnum, cessante Marte, sub hujus
sancti viri archiepiscopi umbra tento transfugere; a thorace jam ad
togam me transtuli_. In the coherent organisation of society as it
was then ordered, men were classified in distinct and recognisable
categories, each of which opened avenues to the ambitious for
attaining its special prizes. Spain was still scarcely touched by
the culture of the Renaissance. Outside the Church there was little
learning or desire for knowledge, nor did any other means for
recompensing scholars exist than by the bestowal of ecclesiastical
benefices. A prebend, a canonry, a professorship in the schools or
university were the sole sources of income for a man of letters. Peter
Martyr was such, nor did any other road to the distinction he frankly
desired, open before him. Perhaps Archbishop Talavera made this point
clear to him. Disillusionised, if indeed he had ever entertained
serious hope of success as a soldier, it cost him no effort to change
from the military to the more congenial sacerdotal caste.

Granada, for all its charms, quickly palled, and his first enthusiasm
subsiding, gave place to a sense of confinement, isolation, and
unrest. Not the companionship of his two attached friends could make
DigitalOcean Referral Badge