Francesco Diana to Lorenzo Valla (December 1452)
Never did anyone feel greater joy than I did when I read your Invective against Poggio, that endlessly garrulous shit talker. You shut the mouths of his zealous little partisans who used to mock me for preferring your writings to all of their scribbles after they read his Invective against you. I triumph over them and, as they say, return like for like; and this hurts them to no end. They marvel at your genius and your learning, and I brought them from sickness into health so that now they always have the name of Lorenzo in their mouths.
Nulla umquam maior letitia fuit quam ea quam nuper ex invectiva tua in Pogium, procacissimum hominem et maledicum accepi; quod multis Pogii studiosissimis, qui me ridebant, accepta illius in te Invectiva, quod omnium scriptis tua preferebam, os compressisti. Triumpho ego inter illos et par pari, ut aiunt, refero; quod eos vehementissime mordet. Admirantur ingenium tuum et doctrinam et ex insanis sanissimos eos feci, adeo ut Laurentium semper in ore habeant.
