APOLOGY 19

...shudders all over, he is hurried to the gallows. And now the terrible and flame-vomiting hour of death was approaching, when fury, indignation, hatred, anger, despair, fear of death, and a certain insanity crept over the wretched man. Thus he was a spectacle of evils within, and a spectacle for the people without, and now he is the subject of school stories original: "Scholae fabula". In his final moments, he had a ferocious and horrid appearance, a restless mind, and everything he spoke was anxious, and he shouted that he was dying philosophically †. But we do not read that even the Stoic, who affected apatheia freedom from passion and suffering, laughed in the Bull of Phalaris A torture device. What could this poor little man do, worn out by cares, destitute of necessities, and held in chains for six months?

Unless there is "triple bronze" around the breast A reference to Horace, meaning a heart of great courage or coldness, it is proper to pity the wretched and to remember that to ascend the pyre with a calm mind is either a mark of perfected virtue, or the one who did it was either a God or a stone. Some have done it, but they are rare,

EXTREME WEAKNESS.

...and these examples are rarer than those by which they could argue that Vanini acted badly because he died dejected in spirit and destitute of every defense of philosophy. * This is a supreme and singular gift of God: where fury reigns in men, reason and constancy cease, and you could call a man seized by the fear of such an atrocious death neither living nor dead. However, so that there might be some appearance of holiness, while he is dragged to the gallows, the comfort of a monk was present, whose offered cross he rejected and turned away from, and he mocked Christ in these words: He had a weak sweat in his final moments, while I die unfrightened. † Woe to you, Vanini, unless a merciful God, mindful of your fragility, is fairer to you than men are for the dire things you utter in your madness.

And we hope for better things for you, as is Christian, and we believe that the wickedness of your adversaries, which followed you through your whole course of life, has now attacked the reputation of the dying man, which the talkative gossip afterward brought to a thousand ears with a hundred tongues. To what end also is that which pleased some, according to that saying of Pliny ‡: There is no lie so impudent that it lacks a witness. For when it was demanded of him by the Judges in the usual manner that he ask pardon from God, the King, and Justice, he denied that he could...

* Gramondus, in the place cited.
† Gramondus, book 3, History of France.