From this dame’s school he was removed to the more advanced, but still elementary, school of the Abate Filippo Cicotti, in which he learned grammar, geography, writing, arithmetic, algebra, and the elements of Latin. But, after some time, the excellent priest who conducted this school, honestly advised the parents, young as was their boy, to remove him to another institution, and to permit him to apply himself unrestrainedly to the higher studies for which he was already fully qualified. His father appears to have demurred for a while to this suggestion. Limiting his views in reference to the boy to the lowly sphere in which he himself had been born, he had only contemplated bestowing upon him a solid elementary education in the branches of knowledge suited to its humble requirements; and, with the old-fashioned prejudices not uncommon in his rank, he was unwilling to sanction his son’s entering upon what appeared to him an unnatural and unprofitable career, for one who was destined to earn his bread by a mechanical art. Fortunately, however, his wife entertained higher and more enlightened views for their child, and understood better his character and capabilities. It was mainly, however, through the counsel and influence of a benevolent priest of the Oratory, Father John Baptist Respighi, that the career of the young Mezzofanti was decided. This excellent clergyman, to whom many deserving youths of his native city were indebted for assistance and patronage in their entrance into life, observed the rare talents of Mezzofanti, and, by his earnest advice, promptly overruled the hesitation of his father. At his recommendation, the boy was transferred from the school of the Abate Cicotti, to one of the so-called “Scuole Pie,” of Bologna;—schools conducted by a religious congregation, which had been founded in the beginning of the seventeenth century, by Joseph Cazalana; and which, though originally intended chiefly for the more elementary branches of education, had also been directed with great success, (especially in the larger cities,) to the cultivation of the higher studies.