P E T R I R A M I

Talaeus taught philosophy in the morning hours. From that time on, he dedicated all his efforts to that study, and he taught and demonstrated as much of the use of Dialectica logic/dialectics as he could attain through keen and perpetual vigils, while publicly explaining and clarifying poets, orators, philosophers, and authors and writers of every kind. Meanwhile, that evil genius, whether hindered by the task of troubling other affairs or because he had not yet found a sufficiently suitable instrument for harassing Ramus, allowed him to remain quiet. Finally, in the year 1550, having obtained some sort of petty office through I know not what arts of the public authorities, he began to rage against Ramus again. He found a bold young man, puffed up and proud with the insignia and influence of great dignity, to be the servant and minister of his own lust. Through him, he accused Ramus of fabricated and concocted crimes, alleging that in his philosophical studies he did not teach philosophers, but rather, contrary to the laws of the Academy, taught poets as philosophers. First, he petitioned against this accuser—the minister of another’s lust—because he was strongly suspicious that, while the case was being argued, he would pass judgment against him, and that he did not wish for the same person to be both the accuser and the judge of the case. Next, he responded to the other men of the remaining orders that these crimes were fictitious and false, confirmed that the laws of the Academy were being observed by him, and requested that his gymnasium, the Prælleum the college of Presles, be inspected by upright and learned men, and that his discipline be investigated, so that it might be established that he was accused of a false crime, and that if any human error had been committed by him, it might be corrected, not only with his lack of resistance, but at his own request. Nothing further was done on this day. The next day, that evil genius, through that judge who was his minister and certain men from the same nest assigned to the task, condemned Ramus’s students without any prior investigation, without a summons, and without any form of trial, in his own private chambers. He prohibited their public schooling and seals and tablets, and finally excluded and ejected them from all the offices and rewards of the Academy. Ramus’s students appealed against this very novel sentence. By this appeal, the matter was transferred from a private judgment to the Julian court of philosophers. There were two points of deliberation there, one regarding the time of the philosophical curriculum, and the other regarding the books; on both of these, there was no disagreement. Therefore (I believe because there was less power to do harm in a sacred place for evil geniuses), the students of Ramus were acquitted by the unanimous voice of all the philosophers, provided that their preceptor...