Whilst Poggio was lamenting the irreparable loss which he had sustained by the death of Leonardo Aretino, he received intelligence of the sad catastrophe of his old friend and correspondent, Julian, cardinal of St. Angelo. This zealous churchman, who had been dispatched into Hungary, vested with the office of pontifical legate, had heard with indignation that Ladislaus VI., king of that country, had concluded a truce for ten years with Amurath, emperor of the Turks; and strenuously insisting upon the detestable doctrine, that no faith is to be kept with infidels, he had persuaded the Hungarian monarch treacherously to attack the Mussulmans, who, in reliance on the treaty which had been so lately concluded, had withdrawn their forces into Asia. Justly irritated by this act of perfidy, the Turks rushed to arms, and gave battle to the Hungarians at Varna, a town in Bulgaria. The issue of the day was most disastrous to the Christians. Ladislaus fell in the battle, his forces were routed, and a body of the fugitives, in the course of their flight, overtaking the unfortunate Julian, whose pernicious counsels they considered as the original cause of their present calamities, fell upon him, and despatched him with a multitude of wounds.[362] The prejudices which Poggio entertained against the professors of Mohamedism, or the partiality of his friendship for the cardinal, rendered him insensible of the atrocity of the crime by which that turbulent ecclesiastic had provoked his fate. From the fragments of an oration which he composed on the occasion of the funeral of Julian, and which are preserved by Mehus in his life of Ambrogio Traversari,[363] he seems to have considered his character as a subject of unqualified praise. The birth of Julian was obscure. He prosecuted his studies, first at Perugia, afterwards at Bologna, and lastly at Padua. When his education was finished, he entered into the household of the cardinal of Piacenza, in whose suite he travelled into Bohemia, where he signalized himself by his acuteness in theological disputation, and by the assiduity of his labours for the conversion of heretics. On his return to Italy, Martin V. rewarded his zeal in the defence of the orthodox faith, by appointing him to the office of auditor of the chamber. He was afterwards sent in quality of nuncio into France and England. Making mention of his residence in the latter country, Poggio asserts that he did there what no one had ever ventured to do before him: in a numerous assembly of prelates, he uttered a vehement invective against the statutes which had been enacted in the parliament, with a view of restraining the authority of the court of Rome, and admonished his auditors to yield obedience to the pope, rather than to the laws of their country: “a proceeding,” says Poggio, “attended with great peril in a land the inhabitants of which were not accustomed to such boldness.” This temerity procured Julian