he learned theologian's eloquent appeal failed to accomplish its end.
If Francis ever received, he probably disdained to read even the
dedication, classed by competent critics among the best specimens of
writing in the French language,[399] and must have regarded the volume
to which it was prefixed as a bold vindication of heresy, and scarcely
less insulting to his majesty than the placards themselves. Others,
better capable of forming a competent judgment, or more willing to give
it a dispassionate examination, applauded the success of a hazardous
undertaking that might have appalled even a more experienced writer than
the French exile of Noyon. The Institutes gave to a young man, who had
scarcely attained the age at which men of mark usually begin to occupy
themselves with important enterprises, the reputation of being the
foremost theologian of the age.

[Sidenote: He revises the Bible of Olivetanus.]

Other studies invited Calvin's attention. Not content with perfecting
himself in the original languages of the Holy Scriptures, he revised
with care the French Protestant Bible, translated by his relation
Olivetanus, of which we shall have occasion to speak in another chapter.
Meanwhile, in an age of intense mental and moral awakening, no
scholastic repose, such as he had pictured to himself, awaited one who
had made good his right to a foremost rank among the athletes in the
intellectual arena.

[Sidenote: Visits Italy.]

Before his unexpected call to a life of unremitting conflict, Calvin
visited Italy. In the entire absence of any trustworthy statement of the
occasion of this journey, it is almost idle to speculate on the objects
he had in view.[400] Certain, however, it is that the court of the
Duchess Renee, at Ferrara, offered to a patriotic Frenchman attractions
hard to be resisted.

[Sidenote: The court of Renee de France.]

[Sidenote: Brantome's eulogy of Renee.]

The younger daughter of Louis the Twelfth resembled her father not less
in character than in appearance and speech.[401] Cut off by the
pretended Salic law from the prospect of ascending the throne, she had
in her childhood been thrown as a straw upon the variable tide of
fortune. After having been promised in marriage to Charles of Spain,
heir to the most extensive and opulent dominions the sun shone upon, and
future Emperor of Germany, she had (1528) been given in marriage to the
ruler of a petty Italian duchy, himself as inferior to her in