A68840:130
Most fruitful [and] learned co[m]mentaries of Doctor Peter Martyr Vermil Florentine, professor of divinity,…Most fruitfull [and] learned co[m]mentaries of Doctor Peter Martir Vermil Florentine, professor of deuinitie,…
Most fruitful [and] learned co[m]mentaries of Doctor Peter Martyr Vermil Florentine, professor of divinity, in the University of Tygure with a very profitable tract of the matter and places. Herein is also added [and] contained two most ample tables, aswell of the matter, as of the words: with an index of the places in the holy scripture. Set forth & allowed, according to the order appointed in the Queens majesties injunctions.Most fruitfull [and] learned co[m]mentaries of Doctor Peter Martir Vermil Florentine, professor of deuinitie, in the Vniuersitye of Tygure with a very profitable tract of the matter and places. Herein is also added [and] contained two most ample tables, aswel of the matter, as of the wordes: wyth an index of the places in the holy scripture. Set forth & allowed, accordyng to thorder appointed in the Quenes maiesties iniunctions.
London: printed by John Day, 1564London: printed by Iohn Day, 1564
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And a cubit with the Grecians is two feet, but with the Latins a foot and a half. Some allege the cause of this difference to be, because the measure may be extended from the elbow to the hand, being some times closed, and sometimes open or stretched forth. And thus much as concerning the stature of giants, so far as may be gathered by the holy Scriptures. But we read among the Ethnics far more wonderful things,1 & such which seem to some incredible. Philostratus writeth in his book of noble men, that he saw the carcass of a certain giant which was 30. cubits long, and an other 22. cubits long, and certain other also 12. But the common stature of men in our time passeth little above .5. feet. And the measure of a foot agreeth both with the Grecians & with the Latins, for they both give to every foot 4. hand breadths: and every hand breadth containeth the breadth of 4. fingers, that is, the length of the little finger. But if the last fingers, the thumb I say and the little finger should be stretched abroad, then every foot containeth but two hand breadths. I think it not amiss also to declare here what Augustine writeth in the .15. 2book de civit. Dei. 9. chap. where he reproveth those which obstinately contend that there were never any men of so wonderful huge a stature, and testifieth that he him self saw upon the coast of Utica a tooth so great, that being divided, it might easily be judged to be an hundred fold bigger in form and quantity than usual teeth in our time are,3 he also declareth in the same place, that there were in old time very many such bodies of men, by the verses of Vergil which are written in the 7. book of Aenedos, where he showeth how Turnus took up so great a stone from the ground and threw at Aeneas that 12. such men as the earth bringeth forth now of days could scarcely lift, which place he took out of the 6. book of Iliads of Homer. We may add also unto these, the verses which the same Vergil hath written in the first of the Georgics, he shall wonder at the great bones digged out of the graves. Moreover Augustine bringeth Pliny the second, who affirmeth in his 7. 4book, that nature the longer it proceedeth in her course, ⟨p. 17⟩