I came into this world on the Shrove-Tuesday of the year 1499, just as they were coming together for mass. From this circumstance, my friends derived the confident hope that I should become a priest, for at that time that sort of superstition was still every where prevalent. I had one sister, named Christina; she alone was with my mother when I was born, and she afterwards told it me. My father's name was Anthony Platter, of the old family of Platter, who have their name from a house which stands on a broad plat (Platte). This plat is a rock on a very high.
