THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF POPE PIUS II. 



FOR the following paper we are to some extent indebted to an 

 article in the first part of the Revue des Deux Mondes for September, 

 which we received late in the month. We had translated a great 

 portion of the article, when, feeling some doubt as to the sense of a pas- 

 sage, we referred to the original Latin in the British Museum, and there 

 discovered the French version of the letters in many places so very 

 inaccurate, that we hastily determined upon a new translation of those 

 extracts we had already made. The reader's indulgence, is solicited 

 for this explanation, because the necessity of getting to press within a 

 fixed time, allowed no leisure for correction. We ran the risk of 

 committing errors ourselves, rather than offend the reader by printing 

 the errors of others with our eyes open, and apologise accordingly. 

 There are two men of the same name mentioned by Bayle, and both 

 of them ecclesiastics and eminent authors, but they are not to be con- 

 founded with the subject of this article, to whom, however, it has 

 been asserted, that they were both related, although, as far as one of 

 them is concerned, on no better grounds, we apprehend, than that he 

 was particularly favoured and promoted by his namesake. 



With every people there are epochs so rich in events, in incidents, 

 and recollections, that history can neither exhaust, or indeed ever 

 wholly comprise them. In Italy, the fifteenth century is one of these 

 epochs : a host of original talents, adventurous spirits, and rare and 

 lively destinies, belong to that age from which we revive at random 

 the name of ^Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini, poet, traveller, ambassador, 

 and pope, who, notwithstanding these four materials for fame, has 

 been unable to save himself from being forgotten. 



Piccolomini was born in 1405, at Corsiguano, a small Tuscan town, 

 which he afterwards raised to a bishopric. Descended from an 

 illustrious family, he was reared with care : his success in study was 

 so great, that while yet young he was distinguished for the ease with 

 which he wrote amatory poetry in Latin and Tuscan. But he soon 

 gave a different direction to his talents : he became secretary to Car- 

 dinal Caprani, and in that capacity attended the Council of Basle. 

 Returning to Italy, he attached himself to Cardinal de St. Croix, 

 and with this new patron travelled over France, all Italy, and 

 Germany. Soon after he returned to Basle, where the council was 

 still sitting, and becoming intimate with Pope Martin the Fifth, 

 wrote several pieces in behalf of the council against the rival Pope 

 Eugenius the Fourth. At this period Piccolomini was in his twenty- 

 fifth year : afterwards, the Emperor Albert the Second, made him his 

 poet-laureate and secretary ; he was subsequently engaged in diplo- 

 matic affairs, and was charged with a delicate mission to the same 

 Pope Eugenius, against whom he had so repeatedly written, and by 

 whom he was, notwithstanding, ere long, made private secretary, and 

 soon after was ordained archdeacon in his twenty-ninth year. It was 

 in the same pontificate he was successively elected bishop of Trieste 



