13 APOLOGY

If a letter was capitalized, it seemed to them like the deadly Club of Hercules. If it was smaller, it seemed like a bee, but not without a sting. Finally, those "learned" men interpreted that VANINI was threatening the Church with ruin within three months, unless the Great Pontiff provided relief through some benefit, because hunger was pressing him. To them, that was an abominable and new crime. This filled the "ears of hornets" an idiom for provoking irritable people as if with a great whispering, as if the truth of the Church did not rest on a firmer foundation and could be shattered by the threats of a poor philosopher who should rather have been led back to the path. They decided on another plan for him: the pyre and the sword for a dreamer.

And now they were certain of his destruction, while they deliberated on the manner of proceeding and what crime he should be accused of.

It seemed less convenient to make him guilty of magic in the usual way, since he himself had spoken quite doubtfully about demons according to the view of Aristotle. However, the prompt memory of the Inquisition persuaded them that denying demons does not absolve a person. They had previously prosecuted Petrus Aponensis and Cecco d'Ascoli original: "Cichum Esculanum" for magic, although they had no commerce with unclean spirits. Indeed, they perhaps believed with Aristotle that demons do not exist. * VANINI says that long ago Galen, when he accomplished many things through the science of Medicine

* P. Pomponatius, On Incantations, page 42. J. Franc. Picus, On Foreknowledge, book 7, chapter 7.