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was also widely used during the sixteenth century to give a philosophical justification for the conquest of
the Americas. However, despite having problematic and non-dogmatic opinions, to the point of sometimes
being self-contradictory, it is also true that he did not view the founding of the American Church as some mo-
mentous occasion of spiritual rebirth for the Church and the entire world, a unique moment of palingenesis.
Purification of corruption and ecclesiastical malpractice: “paradise is lost,” as Teresa Cirillo Sirri writes. Like
Geraldini, Pope Leo X was convinced that the state of crisis and the grave danger that hung over the Church
pertained exclusively to Turkish conquests. He realized that the problems gradually raised by Wycliff († 1384),
Huss († 1415), by Savonarola himself († 1498) did not end in conflagration, nor in interception, even in those
years in Northern Europe, with the rising star of Luther (1517): he intended to reiterate in the NewWorld the
model of the nepotistic and worldly Church of Renaissance Rome. America was certainly an opportunity but
mainly to find gold to fund the crusade.
Alessandro Geraldini died in Santo Domingo on March 8, 1524 (at the age of 69), and his tomb is still locat-
ed in the cathedral, and not “inter ipsa incognitorum martyrum sepulcra”
4
in Rome, as he expected (ep. 5.44).
As prophetically anticipated, instead, his final resting place is captured in the ode “Per mare ueliuolum”:
“I shall never return to the Latin land, where my ancestors rest and the bones of my dear mother lie covered
in the whitest of marble.”
Alessandro Geraldini was an extremely prolific writer. We have been able to reconstruct 22 texts from
various sources. Seven have reached us in their entirety, or approximately 34% of the Geraldinian production.
These include the
Itinerarium ad regiones sub Equinoctiali plaga constitutas
, various poems with religious themes,
odes, 26 epistles, four orations, one hagiography (
Vita Alberti Montis Coruini episcopi
), and a biography of the
popes. His additional (lost) production is often linked to his activities as preceptor and teacher, as with
De insti-
tutione nobilium puellarum
, and
De quantitate syllabaria
; to his diplomatic career, as with
De officio principis
, and
Vita Catharinae Angliae reginae
; or to his intellectual pursuits as a humanist, as with
Elogia virorum illustrium, De
Latii et Romae laudibus
and
Monumenta antiquitatum Romanarum
.
ENDNOTES
1
Contracts used by the Spanish Crown to grant Indios in usu-
fruct (not in property) and for a time limited to the
encomenderos
(Spaniards who moved to the Indies), who had the burden of
organizing their lives, educating them and Christianizing them,
but also the power to exploit them.
2
See note 1.
3
Even I, as a bishop, have no lodging, nor even a roof overmy head.
4
Among the sepulchers of unknown martyrs.
“THE ITINERARIUM AD REGIONES SUB EQUINOCTIALI PLAGA CONSTITUTAS” OF ALESSANDRO GERALDINI D’AMELIA