Note 1082 — Chapter II · RELIGION IN DAILY LIFE.
S. G. C. (Samuel George Chetwynd) Middlemore translation
Bapt. Mantuan. De Sacris Diebus, l. ii. exclaims:—
Ista superstitio, ducens a Manibus ortum Tartareis, sancta de religione facessat Christigenûm! vivis epulas date, sacra sepultis.
A century earlier, when the army of John XXII. entered the Marches to attack the Ghibellines, the pretext was avowedly ‘eresia’ and ‘idolatria.’ Recanti, which surrendered voluntarily, was nevertheless burnt, ‘because idols had been worshipped there,’ in reality, as a revenge for those whom the citizens had killed. Giov. Villani, ix. 139, 141. Under Pius II. we read of an obstinate sun-worshipper, born at Urbino. Æn. Sylv. Opera, p. 289. Hist. Rer. ubique Gestar. c. 12. More wonderful still was what happened in the Forum in Rome under Leo X. (more properly in the interregnum between Hadrian and Leo. June 1522, Gregorovius, viii. 388). To stay the plague, a bull was solemnly offered up with pagan rites. Paul. Jov. Hist. xxi. 8.