364 



on them containing predictions of fearful impending evils on the king- 

 dom of ]N"aples. Bayle says there was a clause, according to some, to 

 this elfect — " Unless the king obeyed the injunctions of St. Cataldus," 

 &c., which clause he, Bayle, considers a proof of fraud. 



Philip de Comines, referring to this subject, says : — A writing was 

 found, as those about the king assured me, on throwing down a chapel, 

 with the words, ' Truth, with its secret counsel,' professing to tell him 

 of all the evils which were to befall him. Three persons only had seen 

 it, and he (the king) threw it into the fire." 



Pontanus Jovianus-'* states that the priest who figured in this business 

 was a Spanish friar — ill-instructed, but bold in the pulpit, and a pre- 

 tender to celestial communications. He had endeavoured, ineffectually, 

 to induce Ferdinand to banish the Jews out of l^aples, and then adopted 

 the plan in question to work on his fears. He engraved some words on 

 a leaden plate, which he made St. Cataldus author of, and buried it ; 

 and after three years, having suborned a priest to pretend to a commu- 

 nication with the saint, caused it to be dug up. The words were enig- 

 matical, and pointed to the extirpation of Judaism ; but the king was 

 enjoined not to read the writing except with the assistance of a very 

 virtuous servant. The king, suspecting the cheat, did not employ the 

 monk to decipher it ; the latter was incensed, and raised a clamour which 

 spread all over the states of Italy. 



Goulart, in his edition of the works of Camerarius,f gives forty- two 

 French verses, purporting to be a translation of the prophecy of Catal- 

 dus, wherein the French poet makes the saint, who menaced Ferdinand 

 with such awful evils, promise some future king of France all kinds of 

 blessings. 



Anthony Caraccioli published a chronology, in which he says the 

 plates were dug out of the ground in 1494, in which the sudden death 

 of the king was spoken of, and that the king soon after died. Ferdinand 

 certainly died that year ; but other writers state the digging up of the 

 leaden box took place in 1492 ; at all events, the evils foretold in the 

 writings did occur, and the death also within a period of two years. 

 (See Vossius, " De Historicis Latinis," lib. ii., p. 609.) 



The question of the truth or falsehood of this prediction is not put 

 by Bayle fairly before his readers — the first question is of the two con- 

 temporary writers who treat of this affair, Alexander and Pontanus, 

 which of these writers is entitled to the most credit ? Alexander was a 

 celebrated ]N'eapolitan jurisconsult, who died in 1523. Pontanus was a 

 celebrated scholar, an astronomer, astrologer, a poet, and historian. 

 Erasmus describes him as equal to Cicero in the elegance and dignity 

 of his style ; he died in 1503. 



* " Jovianus Pont. De Sermone," lib. ii., cap. ult., p. 623, ap. Bayle, art. Catal- 

 dus, 



f " Hist. Camerarii," p. 48, ap. Bayle, art. Cataldus. 



