quisitionibus
nec tormentis poterant pompam de eo facere in populo, quam quaerebant,
in arctissimo carcere eum reduxerunt, ibidem eum taliter tractantes,
quod infra paucos menses, quasi per ignem et aquam transiens, de carcere
corporis et minorum et praedicatorum liberatus gloriose triumphans de
mundi principe, migravit ad coelos."

We obtain only a general assurance that the fate of Cecco d' Ascoli is
related on the strength of unpublished documents at Florence. It is not
stated what they are. There is no mention of the epitaph pronounced by
the pope who had made him his physician: "Cucullati Minores recentiorum
Peripateticorum principem perdiderunt." We do not learn that Cecco
reproached Dante with the same fatalistic leaning for which he himself
was to die: "Non e fortuna cui ragion non vinca." Or how they disputed:
"An ars natura fortior ac potentior existeret," and argument was
supplanted by experiment: "Aligherius, qui opinionem oppositam mordicus
tuebatur, felem domesticam Stabili objiciebat, quam ea arte instituerat,
ut ungulis candelabrum teneret, dum is noctu legeret, vel coenaret.
Cicchius igitur, ut in sententiam suam Aligherium pertraheret, scutula
assumpta, ubi duo musculi asservabantur inclusi, illos in conspectum
felis dimisit; quae naturae ingenio inemendabili obsequens, muribus vix
inspectis, illico in terram candelabrum abjecit, et ultro citroque
cursare ac vestigiis praedam persequi instituit." Either Appiani's
defence of Cecco d' Ascoli has escaped Mr. Lea, who nowhere mentions
Bernino's _Historia di tutte l' Heresie_ where it is printed; or he may
distrust Bernino for calling Dante a schismatic; or it may be that he
rejects all this as legend, beneath the certainty of history. But he
does not disdain the legendary narrative of the execution: "Tradition
relates that he had learned by his art that he should die between Africa
and Campo Fiore, and so sure was he of this that on the way to the stake
he mocked and ridiculed his guards; but when the pile was about to be
lighted he asked whether there was any place named Africa in the
vicinage, and was told that that was the name of a neighbouring brook
flowing from Fiesole to the Arno. Then he recognised that Florence was
the Field of Flowers, and that he had been miserably deceived." The
Florentine document before me, whether the same or another I know not,
says nothing about untimely mockery or miserable deception: "Aveva
inteso dal demonio dover lui m