times been buried and reburied, and which had so long been kept
in the sordid box at the Ducal Library. The one fitting place of
burial was the cemetery of San Michele. To that beautiful island,
so near the heart of Venice, had, for many years, been borne the
remains of leading Venetians. There, too, in more recent days,
have been laid to rest many of other lands widely respected and
beloved.


[1] For a full and fair statement of the researches which exposed
this pious fraud, see Castellani, Prefect of the Library of St.
Mark, preface to his Lettere Inedite di F. P. S., p. xvii. For
methods used in interpolating or modifying passages in Sarpi's
writings, see Bianchi Giovini, Biografia di Sarpi, Zurigo, 1847,
vol. ii. pp. 135, et seq.


But the same persistent hatred which, in our own day, grudged and
delayed due honors at the tombs of Copernicus and Galileo among
Catholics, and of Humboldt among Protestants, was still bitter
against the great Venetian scholar and statesman. It could not be
forgotten that he had wrested from the Vatican the most terrible
of its weapons. But patriotic pride was strong, and finally a
compromise was made: it was arranged that Sarpi should be buried
and honored at his burial as an eminent man of science, and that
no word should be spoken of his main services to the Republic and
to the world. On this condition he was buried with simple honors.

Soon, however, began another chapter of hatred. There came a pope
who added personal to official hostility. Gregory XVI, who in his