LXXVII. Alexus Piamontes, speaking of an elixir calculated to restore blind people to their sight, says, that this remedy was contrived at a consultation of the most learned physicians of Italy, in 1438, for the purpose of recovering the sight of the emperor of Constantinople, who was then attending the council of Ferrara with the pope Eugenius the Fourth, and that in fact, it did restore his eye-sight perfectly. Father Le Brun, in his history of superstitious practices, gives us this passage of Alexus Piamontes, and says, that in order to find out the truth of the fact, he had examined all the contemporary authors who had spoke of the emperor John Palcologus, and what happened to him at Ferrara in 1438; and that upon this enquiry, he found that neither Blondo, Ducas, nor Calcondylas, had wrote a word concerning the loss or recovery of this emperor’s sight at Ferrara; and that Sylvester Scyropulus, so far from giving us to understand that this emperor had been blind at Ferrara, or had suffered the least disorder in his eyes during his abode there, says, that instead of attending the business of the council, he amused himself continually with hunting and shooting, which is a diversion, not well calculated for a man who has lost his eyes, or has even an impediment in his sight[8]. LXXVIII. Varillas, in his anecdotes of Florence, writes, that Peter de Medicis finding his father dead, after Leoni his physician had given assurances that he could cure him; in a fit of rage, fell upon Leoni and tumbled him headlong into a well, where he was suffocated. Angelo Politianus, who was present at his decease, and who, in one of his letters on the subject, writes all the circumstances of the death of Lorenzo the father of Peter de Medicis, says, that Leoni, in a fit of despair at not having been able to cure Lorenzo according to his promise, threw himself into a well, and was drowned there. Who shall we believe in this case, Angelo Politianus, or Varillas? It may be that the enemies of Peter de Medicis, with a view of tarnishing his fame, have attributed to him this brutal act of drowning the physician: and it might also happen, that Angelo Politianus, who was a partizan of the Medicis family, gave the relation he did, in order to defend the character of Peter from so black an imputation. We are often placed in this state of doubt and perplexity by history, and don’t know who or what to rely on; and are equally in danger of being deceived by authors, whether they mislead us from motives of flattery or of hatred.