Familiar Letters

with the Curia groaning, we depart Viterbo, compelled by the greed and ambition of a few, and we go to Rome, to men who are, moreover, formerly offended in a magnificent way, and also inclined by nature to new things. And the city has not sinned entirely. For within the very walls, the enemy holds Hadrian's Mole The Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome. Besieged, indeed, but still he holds it. Regarding this, I see no omen for prudent men. We, however the matter may turn out, will be of good spirit. Concerning our Coluccio, I do not know where to turn. For he recently wrote to the Pope with a recommendation for me that was truly extensive and eloquent. I immediately and very humanely and modestly gave thanks to him in many words through my own letters, and I did not omit his previous favors. In short, nothing was lacking to respond to his kindness with gratitude. But he himself, as if fearing that men, because of that recommendation of his, might value me more than was sufficient, sang a wonderful palinodia a poem or speech retracting a previous one in a second letter. For when I, like a child complaining to a parent, complained to him that, being feverish, I had found in this city neither wine nor doctors nor anything else suitable for the sick, taking the occasion from this, as if he himself were Zeno or Diogenes, he began to tear me apart as a madman: because, forsooth, I was affected by the pleasures of the body. Would that these pleasures were mine, so that while the daily fever burns, they might also require a doctor. How humane he was to me, in our friendship, to have grieved himself that I lacked these things. But let us omit this. For I, writing back to him, when I was clearly vexed, wished to answer to this very point so that, if he had begun to reply, he would not attack me more than I wished, and thus, having transgressed that part, I attacked him not without certain stings that his letter contained. And I regret having done this very thing. For it would have been more honorable to endure, in whatever frame of mind he acts. Especially since I have held him in the place of a parent until now, and will do so perpetually. Farewell. Viterbo, March 11th, 1406.