Pius II, Commentaries 1.8:
When Aeneas set out for Milan, he found a nobleman from the great house of the Landriani had, by the order of the duke, been called through that chapter to the directorship and been led to its possession. Aeneas compelled this man to yield to him – so much did both the prince and the curia favor him. But, having obtained the directorship, he fell to the sick bed after being taken by a great fever. The duke Filippo sent his own doctor, a learned and cheerful man named Filippo of Bologna (who later served Pope Nicholas) to him every day.
When in the course of this illness Aeneas had taken a medicine and it had no effect, the doctor prepared a second medicine to be taken the next night. At the very hour when the second medicine was to be administered, his bowels began to move and so irritated him that he had to get up ninety times. Out of his mind because of this he rushed almost to death’s door, as they say. If he had taken the second medicine, he would have been weakened and consumed, and would have finally given up the ghost. Recognizing this as a sure sign from God, although he was disturbed by the continuous burning of the fever for 75 days, he could nevertheless not be prevailed upon to listen to the quacks even when a man was brought in who was said to have recently cured two thousand men in Niccolo Piccinino’s camp. Instead, trusting to God, by whose help he had been preserved in life, he took to the road though still afflicted with fever, and, liberated from it through bouts of horse riding, he returned to Basel.
At Aeneas Mediolanum profectus nobilem quendam ex magna domo Landrianorum iussu ducis per capitulum ad eam preposituram vocatum et in possessionem adductum invenit, quem sibi mox cedere compulit: tantum Aenee et princeps et curia favit. Sed obtenta prepositura lectum egritudinis incidit ingenti febre correptus; ad quem Philippus suum medicum, doctum et laetum virum, Philippum Bononiensem – qui postea Nicolao papae servivit – singulis diebus mittebat. In hac aegritudine cum farmacum accepisset, neque id quicquam operatum esset, potionemque alteram sequenti nocte sumendam medicus preparasset, ipsa hora, qua ministrari secundum farmacum debuit, moveri venter cepit atque adeo vexavit hominem, ut nonaginta vicibus assurgere cogeretur. Ob quam rem mente alienatus ad portas – ut aiunt – mortis usque cucurrit. Quod si potionem alteram ebibisset, animam procul dubio extenuatus atque consumptus exalasset. Quod certissimum Dei beneficium intelligens, quamvis quinque et septuaginta dies continuo febris ardore quateretur, nunquam tamen adduci potuit, ut incantatoribus auscultaret, quamvis homo ad se duceretur, quem novissime in castris Nicolai Picinini duo millia virorum ex febribus liberasse dicebant. Sed Deo fidens, cuius ope servatus in vita fuerat, adhuc febricitans iter accipiens inter equitandum liberatus Basileam reversus est.
