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THE ITALIAN LEGACY IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
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er’s love, they perceived that the educator’s affection was superhuman: the institutors extended, the
preceptors extended a much greater affection than the parents during the entire course of childhood,
during all of childhood [and into] adolescence, from his very own lips. 64. During all the time it was
necessary to lead a life directed toward the light, the eternal acolytes, the eternal accomplices, the
companions with the most proven fidelity: if they send them to ruin when they grow up, if they have
a clearly hostile spirit toward them, what should we say, except that they have human characteristics,
but in fact they are fierce monsters? 65. Monsters much worse than Procrustes himself, who, having
put a bed under the guests, stretched out their mutilated bodies, if they were longer than the bed, and
if they were smaller, he stretched them by rope, he stretched them! 66. I say that they are creatures
worse than the tyrant Sini, who tied the men’s bodies to bend the trees and immediately threw them
up with a single push, and scattered them everywhere in various pieces with incredible velocity. 67.
They, in fact, hardened themselves against their guests: these princes, who live with that cruel purpose
in life, become angry against very trustworthy men, against the most beloved affections, against the
people who should be treated with complete love and with complete responsibility, and clearly show
how horribly their minds think. 68. I say that they have routed the tyrant Busiris in sheer cruelty of
spirit; they are equal to Diomedes of Thrace and Theomantis, and they overcome all the monsters of
Pisa, in Elide, whose crimes finally ended by a fierce death. 69. But they might object that these guardi-
ans did something that the princes regretted. 70. But what can a teacher do, who must be forgiven, un-
less treason clearly demonstrated? 71. This is called using the riddle of the Sphinx, the Theban monster,
to kill a man. 72. I have performed my services for twenty-two years for a very prosperous king; I was
appointed teacher, and absolutely appreciated by her mother, the most excellent Queen Isabella, for
whom I fulfilled all the main duties; and in the end, every punishment, every evil, every form of cruelty
was perpetrated against me, every cruelty against the most excellent, the pious and the holy; I, on the
other hand, am drawn to an unjust fate. 73. Rise up, eminent king of nature, for the sublime goodness
of nature from which you have become prosperous: because he is wicked, since my youth was spent
under the authority of the queen, and who now, with my weakened body, has gone to foreign kings,
foreign princes, and distant kingdoms of Europe. 74. I do not beseech the benefits that teachers have; I
pray, plead and resign, that they have given me a home for my old age; I pray that I may be buried in
your land and, if these things do not move you, you will move the penalty that corresponds to a great
king. 75. In general, the great emperors of the time when virtues had their place in the state, were
given the name of Pius by the Senate and the people, and enjoyed an existence filled with glory and
devotion. 76. I hope you are moved by these miserable letters, in which I have attempted as if I were a
child. 77. In fact, all the princes who once distinguished themselves by some dominion or made use of
some excellent virtue of the spirit, loved the letters and were attracted to themwith great commitment
everywhere, men known for their erudition also in the most remote corner of the world. 78. In fact,
the same kings, the same centuries, the same world, without this illustrious category of men, without
any education, completely succumbed.
Alessandro’s greatest aspiration was to emerge from debt and spend the last part of his life serenely. And
thus, the occasion arose when, at the end of 1515, the diocese of Santo Domingo, in the New Spanish World,
became vacant: on December 6, the first bishop, Francisco García de Padilla, died—but without ever having
fully occupied the position; this situation was due to the opposition of King Ferdinand, who, until the rights
of the Spanish Crown over the American dioceses were properly regulated, implemented a kind of passive
resistance in this regard. With the support of his former student Margaret of Habsburg, and after the new sov-
ereign, Charles V (King Ferdinand died on January 23, 1516), assumed the throne, the procedure for officially
presenting Alessandro to Pope Leo X (son of Lorenzo de Medici of Florence) as bishop of Santo Domingo
was implemented. Alessandro Geraldini officially promoted his candidacy for the important diocese in ep. 26,