The pagan inheritance was here
backed up by a pagan literary development.
The popular superstition of the Italians rested largely on premonitions
and inferences drawn from ominous occurrences. with which a good deal
of magic, mostly of an innocent sort, was connected. There was,
however. no lack of learned humanists who boldly ridiculed these
delusions, and to whose attacks we partly owe the knowledge of them.
Gioviano Pontano, the author of the great astrological work already
mentioned above, enumerates with pity in his 'Charon' a long string of
Neapolitan superstitions--the grief of the women when a fowl or goose
caught the pip; the deep anxiety of the nobility if a hunting falcon
did not come home, or if a horse sprained its foot; the magical
formulae of the Apulian peasants, recited on three Saturday evenings,
when mad dogs were at large. The animal kingdom, as in antiquity, was
regarded as specially significant in this respect, and the behavior of
the lions, leopards, and other beasts kept by the State gave the people
all the more food for reflection, because they had come to be
considered as living symbols of the State. During the siege of
Florence, in 1597 an eagle which had been shot at fled into the city,
and the Signoria gave the bearer four ducats because the omen was good.
Certain times and places were favourable or unfavorable, or even
decisive one way or the other, for certain actions.
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