De Incantationibus

...might judge [me a less than] Christian. I shall provide the reason for this action to your most illustrious Highness, and through you to others, as briefly as I can.

When I moved to Germany six years ago, having left Italy, I brought a certain collection of books with me. Among these books was one by Pietro Pomponazzi|Petrus Pomponatius (1462–1525) was a leading Italian Renaissance philosopher known for his Aristotelianism and his controversial treatise on the immortality of the soul, a most excellent Peripatetic philosopher|A follower of the school of Aristotle, so named because Aristotle used to walk about (peripateîn) while teaching, which I happened to buy twenty years ago while I was living in original: "Patauij" refers to Padua, which was then the premier center for the study of Aristotelian philosophy in Europe. Padua.

Furthermore, I knew that a very few copies of this book were being kept among certain Italians as precious and secret things. And while I waited in vain for it to perhaps come to light from somewhere else along with some other work by the author himself, I considered within myself how it could be that, since this age [is so active] in publishing...