[_Lat. orig. autogr.--Library of the University of Leyden._]
[254] The preceding letter.
[255] Francis Spira, a jurisconsult of Padua, having abjured the
Protestant faith through fear of the tortures of the Inquisition,
died a short while afterwards in a state of fearful mental anxiety.
Paolo Vergerio, an aged Bishop of Pola in Istria, who was led to
give up his bishopric that he might live in the free profession of
the doctrines of the gospel, among the Grisons, visited Spira on his
deathbed, and endeavoured in vain to console this unhappy penitent.
Tho history of Spira, written by Vergerio, and translated from the
Italian into Latin by Celio Secondo Curione, was published in 1550,
with a preface by Calvin.--(_Miscellanea Groningana_, tom. iii. p.
109.) We have not met with this edition, which is become extremely
rare.
[256] We find Calvin's opinion of Vergerio at greater length, in a
letter to Farel of July 1550.