The time had gone by in Italy when the fanaticism of pagan antiquity had misled the mind, and preachers were to be heard speaking from the pulpit of Minerva, Christ, and Jupiter in the same breath. At the very moment when celebrated professors, commissioned to teach philosophy even at the university of Ferrara, were exclaiming, as Voltaire and others did after him: ‘Christianity is dying out, and its end is near!’ Christianity on the contrary was reviving at Wittemberg, Zurich, Cambridge, and even in France, and the cry which it uttered as it issued from the tomb, re-echoed through Italy and awoke many souls there. In 1528, and perhaps earlier, the evangelical doctrines had been professed at Ferrara. In 1530, the inquisition of that city wrote to the pope, that there were many Lutherans, both laymen and ecclesiastics, within its walls.[833] In fact, the duchess was calling round her, either for the education of her children, or simply for love of learning and the Gospel, professors skilled in the study of the classics, among whom were men enlightened about the superstitions of the Roman Church, and often sincerely attached to the Gospel. Of their number were Celio Calcagnini, Lilio Giraldi Bartholomeo Riccio, Marzello Palingenio, and the two brothers Sinapi. Giovanni Sinapi in particular was full of zeal to spread around him the doctrine of the Scriptures. Many of the most eminent men of Italy, such as Curione, Occhino, Peter Martyr, and the famous poet Flaminio, lived for a time at Ferrara. From that centre evangelical doctrines were propagated in the neighbouring cities; and particularly in Modena, where they spread so widely in the university and among the townspeople, that it was soon called _the Lutheran city_.[834] Footnote 792: ‘Cupit renascenti pietati suppetias ferre.’—Frobenius to Luther, February 14, 1519. Footnote 793: ‘Per omnes civitates sparsum.’—_Ibid._ Footnote 794: Gerdesius, _Specimen Ital. Ref._ ii. p. 11. The words _Schwarzerd_, _Melancthon_, and _Terranigra_ have the same meaning in German, Greek, and Italian, namely, _black earth_. Footnote 795: ‘Vocis, quæ totum penitus diffusa per orbem, Terruit insolito pectora tetra sono.’ These verses have been preserved by Schelhorn in his _Amœnitates Eccl._ ii. p. 624. Footnote 796: Seckendorf, _Hist. du Luthéranisme_, p. 613. Footnote 797: Sarpi, _Hist. du Concile de Trente_, i. p. 85. Footnote 798: ‘Pestifera hæresis Lutheri non tantum apud sæculares personas, sed etiam ecclesiasticas et regulares, tam mendicantes quam non mendicantes.’ _Brief to the Inquisitors_, Raynald _ad annum_. Footnote 799: ‘Læte audio de Venetis quod Verbum Dei receperint.’—Luther, _Ep._ iii. p. 289. Footnote 800: ‘Scias igitur Italos omnes expectare Augustensis hujus vestri decreta.’ Venetiis, 3 calend. Aug. anno 1530. _Corp. Ref._ ii. p. 227. Footnote 801: _Corp. Ref._ ii. p. 170. Footnote 802: