His De Civitate Dei and De Vita Beata were the paps at which I suckled my earliest mental nourishment.
And even to-day, after all the tragedy and sin and turbulence of my life, that was intended to have been so different, it is from his Confessions that I have gathered inspiration to set down my own--although betwixt the two you may discern little indeed that is comparable.
I was prenatally made a votive offering for the preservation of my father's life, for his restoration to my mother safe and sound.

That restoration she had, as you have seen; and yet, had she been other than she was, she must have accounted herself cheated of her bargain in the end.

For betwixt my father and my mother I became from my earliest years a subject of contentions that drove them far asunder and set them almost in enmity the one against the other.
I was his only son, heir to the noble lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina.
Was it likely, then, that he should sacrifice me willingly to the seclusion of the cloister, whilst our lordship passed into the hands of our renegade, guelphic cousin, Cosimo d'Anguissola of Codogno?
I can picture his outbursts at the very thought of it; I can hear him reasoning, upbraiding, storming.

But he was as an ocean of energy hurling himself against the impassive rock of my mother's pietistic obstinacy.

She had vowed me to the service of Holy Church, and she would suffer tribulation and death so that her vow should be fulfilled.