“Maestro Tomaso da Serezano,” says Vespasiano the serene bookseller of Florence, with something of Walton’s charm—­“Maestro Tomaso da Serezano, who was afterwards Pope Nicholas V, was born at Pisa of humble parents.  Later on account of discord in that city, his father was imprisoned, so that he went to Sarzana, and there gave to his little son in his tender years lessons in grammar, which, through the excellence of his understanding, he quickly learned.  His father died, however, when he who was to come to such eminence was but nine years old, leaving two sons, our Maestro Tomaso, and Maestro Filippo, who later was Cardinal of Bologna.  Now Maestro Tomaso fell sick at that time, and his mother, seeing him thus ailing, being a widow and having all her great hope in her sons, was in the greatest anxiety and sorrow, and prayed God unweariedly to spare her little son.  Thus intent in prayer, hoping that he would not die, she fell asleep about dawn, when One called to her and said:  ’Andreola (for that was her name), doubt nothing that thy son shall live.’  And it seemed in her vision that she saw her son in a bishop’s robe, and One said to her that he would be Pope.  Waking then from this dream, immediately she went to her little son and found him already better, and to all those in the house she told the vision she had had.  Now, when the child was well, because of the steadfast hope which the vision had given her, she at once begged him to pursue his studies; which he did, so that when he was sixteen he had a very good knowledge of grammar and the Latin tongue, and began to work at logic, in order later to come at philosophy and theology.  Then he left Sarzana and went to Bologna, so that he might the better pursue his studies in every faculty.  At Bologna he studied in logic and in philosophy with great success.  In a short time he became learned in all the seven Liberal Arts.  Staying at Bologna still he was eighteen, and Master of Arts, lacking money, it was necessary for him to go to Sarzana to his mother, who had remarried, in order to have money to furnish his expenses.  She was poor and her husband not very rich, and then Tomaso was not his son, but a stepson:  he could not obtain money from them.  Determined to follow his studies, he thought to go to Florence, the mother of studies and every virtue at that time.  So he went thither, and found Messer Rinaldo degli Albizzi, a most exceptional man, who carried him off to instruct his sons, giving him a good salary as a young man of great virtue.  At the end of a year Messer Rinaldo left Florence, and Maestro Tomaso wishing to remain in the city, he arranged for him to enter the service of Messer Palla di Nofri Strozzi; and from him he had a very good salary.  At the end of another year he had gained so much from these two citizens that he had enough to return to Bologna to his studies, though in Florence he had not lost his time, for he read in every faculty.”