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[The announced Imperial letter has not arrived.] . . . Truly we beg you thus to treat the affair of Martin Luther that he may not be crushed by force, notwithstanding his frequent protests and offers. For since our departure from Worms we have been told that his books have been burned at Cologne, Mayence and elsewhere, for which I was totally unprepared, partly because Luther has protested and to-day protests and offers to do whatever he can and ought with Christian honor, and partly because I myself prayed that neither Martin be condemned nor his books burned without trial. If, therefore, moved by the acts of his enemies, Luther has done anything of the same sort, I hope that his imperial Majesty will regard it clemently, and I beg that you will kindly explain it to him and commend Luther and his cause to him. . . .
358. ALEANDER TO THE VICE-CHANCELLOR, CARDINAL
JULIUS DE' MEDICL
P. Kalkoff: Die Despechen des Nuntius Aleander vom Wormsif Reichstage, 1521. Halle, a. S., 1897, 2d ed., p. 29.*
Worms (December 14), 1520.
Julius de' Medici, born 1478, made Archbishop of Florence and Cardi- nal 1513, was elected Pope, as Clement VII., in 1523, and died 1534. At this time, as Leo's chief minister, he took an active part against Lother.
I received your Lordship's letter of the third on the eleventh instant, and will answer it after I have sketched the course of my hard undertaking since I wrote last on November 28. I then told you that on account of the brevity of the Em- peror's stay' at Mayence, and on account of the Archbishop's occupation with other matters, and, to speak frankly, on account of the evil animus of the councillors* who were trusted with the Lutheran affair, and on account of the hos- tility of the citizens (who have always been worthless and
^Kalkoff gives these despatches in German translation of the mixed Italian aad Latin original. The originals are found in the Reichstagsakten, also in T. Briefer: Aleander und Luther, 1521, Gotha, 1884, and in P. Balan: Monumenia rwfcnM- tionis Lutheranae^ Regensburg, 1884. I translate from Kalkoff, to whom I refer in future as: "Kalkoff: Aleander."
'Charles entered Majence, on his way from Cologne, on Norember 23. and left it for Worms via Oppenhetm on the 28th.
^Specially Capito.
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