Note 10 — INTRODUCTION

Fausto Andrelini was the object of incredible adulation; Erasmus, wise man, simply calls him “divine,” but some did not hesitate to proclaim that “he alone had rendered France filled instead of famishing, cultivated instead of waste, verdant instead of barren, Latin instead of barbarous.” One of the noblest characters of the time, Guillaume Budé, actually dedicated to him this amazing epitaph: “Here lies Fausto. If the Fates had not given him to us, Gaeta herself would not have been more barbarous than France.” But he was no sooner buried than everyone regarded him as a knave.