(25.)
Æneas Sylvius. 1454.
Æneas Sylvius Bartholomæus Piccolomini, who at a later period (1458) received the papal tiara under the name of Pius II, attained in 1450 the rank of cardinal, and as such was employed on various diplomatic embassies by the emperor Frederick III. In the same capacity he was once sent into Prussia, on the affairs of the Holy See, and had then an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the Poles and Lithuanians. This embassy supplied him with the means of gaining materials for his work, “De Polonia, Lithuania et Prussia sive Borussia”, which is printed in the first volume of the collection, entitled, “Joan. Pistorii Polonicæ historiæ corpus, hoc est Polonicarum rerum Latini, recentiores et veteres scriptores, quotquot extant.” Basil. 1582, fol. A considerable portion of the second section of this work is translated in the journal, “Sendungen der Kurländischen Gesellschaft für Literatur und Kunst” (vol. ii, p. 4), in the memoir, “Ueber einige religiöse Gebräuche der alten Letten, von Watson,” in which Æneas Sylvius relates many remarkable circumstances respecting the superstitions of the ancient Lithuanians, their veneration of serpents, their fire-worship, and the oracle connected with it, their adoration of the sun, and of a great hammer by which they once delivered from captivity the signs of the zodiac, as also respecting their sacred groves, etc.
