In his exquisite search for classical equivalents for the rude phrases of the gospel, he referred, in a papal breve, to Christ as "Minerva sprung from the head of Jove," and to the Holy Ghost as "the breath of the celestial Zephyr." Conceived in the same spirit was a sermon of Inghirami heard by Erasmus at Rome on Good Friday 1509.

Couched in the purest Ciceronian terms, while comparing the Saviour to Gurtius, Cecrops, Aristides, Epaminondas and Iphigenia, it was mainly devoted to an extravagant eulogy of the reigning pontiff, Julius II.
But all the Italian humanists were not pagans.

There arose at Florence, partly under the influence of the revival of Greek, partly under that of Savonarola, a group of earnest young men who sought to invigorate Christianity by infusing into it the doctrines of Plato.
The leaders of this Neo-Platonic Academy, Pico della Mirandola [Sidenote: Pico della Mirandola, 1462-94] and Marsiglio Ficino, sought to show that the teachings of the Athenian and of the Galilean were the same.

Approaching the Bible in the simple literary way indicated by classical study, Pico really rediscovered some of the teachings of the New Testament, while in dealing with the Old he was forced to adopt an ingenious but unsound allegorical interpretation.

"Philosophy seeks the truth," he wrote, "theology finds it, religion possesses it." His extraordinary personal influence extended through {52} lands beyond the Alps, even though it failed in accomplishing the rehabilitation of Italian faith.
[Sidenote: Faber Stapulensis, c.