Greece and Rome.]

From trifles, as they may seem to us at this distance of time, hostile
ingenuity wove the web destined to enmesh the incautious Academicians.
The adoption of fanciful Latin appellations--in itself a sufficiently
innocent conceit--was construed into a demonstration of revolt against
established Christian usage, almost savouring of contempt for the
canonised saints of the Church.

Pomponius Lætus was nameless, and hence free to adopt whatever name he
chose; his associates and admiring disciples paid him the homage of
imitation, proud to associate themselves, by means of this pedantic
fancy, with him they called master. The Florentine, Buonacorsi, took
the name of Callimachus Experiens; the Roman, Marco, masqueraded as
Asclepiades; two Venetian brothers gladly exchanged honest, vulgar
Piscina for the signature of Marsus, while another, Marino, adopted
that of Glaucus.

If the neo-pagans were harmless and playful merely, their opponents
were dangerously in earnest. In 1468 a grave charge of conspiracy
against the Pope's life and of organising a schism led to the arrest
of Pomponius and Platina, some of the more wary members of the
compromised fraternity saving themselves by timely flight.

Imprisonment in Castel Sant' Angelo and even the use of torture--mild,
doubtless--failing to extract incriminating admissions from the
accused, both prisoners were unconditionally released. If the Pope
felt serious alarm, his fears seem to have been easily allayed, for
Pomponius was permitted to resume his public lectures undisturbed, but
the Roman Academy had received a check, from which it did not recover