a society for the discussion of philosophical
questions. The Pope conceived that a political intrigue was the real
object of this club. Nor was the suspicion wholly destitute of color.
The conspiracy of Porcari against Nicholas, and the Catilinarian riots
of Tiburzio which had troubled the pontificate of Pius, were still fresh
in people's memories; nor was the position of the Pope in Rome as yet by
any means secure. What increased Paul's anxiety was the fact that some
scholars, appointed secretaries of the briefs (Abbreviatori) by Pius and
deprived of office by himself, were members of the Platonic Society.
Their animosity against him was both natural and ill-concealed. At the
same time the bitter hatred avowed by Laurentius Valla against the
temporal power might in an age of conjurations have meant active malice.
Leo Alberti hints that Porcari had been supported by strong backers
outside Rome; and one of the accusations against the Platonists was that
Pomponius Laetus had addressed Platina as Holy Father. Now both Pomponius
Laetus and Valla had influence in Naples, while Paul was on the verge of
open rupture with King Ferdinand. He therefore had sufficient grounds
for suspecting a Neapolitan intrigue, in which the humanists were
playing the parts of Brutus and Cassius. Yet though we take this trouble
to construct some show of reason for the panic of the Pope, the fact
remains that he was really mistaken at the outset; and of the stupidity,
cruelty, and injustice of his subsequent conduct there can be no doubt.
He seized the chief members of the Roman Academy, imprisoned them, put
them to the torture, and killed some of them upon the rack. 'You would
have taken Castle S. Angelo for Phalaris' bull,' writes Platina; 'the
hollow vaults did so resound with the cries of innocent young men.' No
evidence of a conspiracy could be extorted. Then Paul tried the
survivors for unorthodoxy. They proved the soundness of their faith to
the satisfaction of the Pope's inquisitors. Nothing remained but to
release them, or to shut them up in dungeons, in order that the people
might not say the Holy Father had arrested them without due cause. The
latter course was chosen. Platina, the historian of the Popes, was one
of the _abbreviatori_ whom Paul had cashiered, and one of the Platonists
whom he had tortured. The tale of Papal persecution loses, therefore,
nothing in the telling; for if the humanists of the fifteenth century
were powerful in