Apology Against the Calumnies of the Louvain Theologians

Our masters (for I do not believe this matter was conducted by the common votes of the entire theological order; since I have discovered that there are some candid men in their college, and to whom that declamation of ours is not displeasing) let those articles fly secretly, through the hands of many, and many courtly mystagogues, instructed for this calumny, have more than once pressed them upon the Caesar. From there, they were sent to the private council of the Caesar, and then relegated to the parliamentary senate at Mechlin, where for almost a year they were tossed about in the hands of the judges, without my knowledge, and with the Caesarean Majesty deeply indignant against me—not without a cause, although without reason. When I finally found this out, I petitioned both senates, and having even obtained letters from the Most Reverend Lord Archbishop of Palermo, the supreme president of the Caesar's private council, that a transcript of those articles be given to me, so that by their admonition I might learn what needed to be explained, or corrected, or amended, or revoked, for I was prepared, once the error was known, to retract it with Christian modesty. Thus, the transcript of those articles was given to me on the fifteenth day of December of the year one thousand five hundred and one Agrippa likely refers to the year 1531, as his work on the Vanity of the Sciences was published in 1531; there appears to be an OCR or print error in the year here, and it was decreed by the same Most Reverend Lord Archbishop of Palermo, the supreme president of the private council, that the Caesar wished me to sing a public palinode a poem or speech retracting a previous one for these articles.