the service of religion: their monks and bishops have ever been
distinguished by the gravity and austerity of their manners; nor were
they diverted, like the Latin priests, by the pursuits and pleasures of
a secular, and even military, life. After a large deduction for the
time and talent that were lost in the devotion, the laziness, and the
discord, of the church and cloister, the more inquisitive and ambitious
minds would explore the sacred and profane erudition of their native
language. The ecclesiastics presided over the education of youth; the
schools of philosophy and eloquence were perpetuated till the fall of
the empire; and it may be affirmed, that more books and more knowledge
were included within the walls of Constantinople, than could be
dispersed over the extensive countries of the West. [83] But an important
distinction has been already noticed: the Greeks were stationary or
retrograde, while the Latins were advancing with a rapid and progressive
motion. The nations were excited by the spirit of independence and
emulation; and even the little world of the Italian states contained
more people and industry than the decreasing circle of the Byzantine
empire. In Europe, the lower ranks of society were relieved from the
yoke of feudal servitude; and freedom is the first step to curiosity and
knowledge. The use, however rude and corrupt, of the Latin tongue
had been preserved by superstition; the universities, from Bologna to
Oxford, [84] were peopled with thousands of scholars; and their misguided
ardor might be directed to more liberal and manly studies. In the
resurrection of science, Italy was the first that cast away her shroud;
and the eloquent Petrarch, by his lessons and his example, may justly be
applauded as the first harbinger of day. A purer style of composition,
a more generous and rational strain of sentiment, flowed from the study
and imitation of the writers of ancient Rome; and the disciples of
Cicero and Virgil approached, with reverence and love, the sanctuary of
their Grecian masters. In the sack of Constantinople, the French, and
even the Venetians, had despised and destroyed the works of Lysippus and
Homer: the monuments of art may be annihilated by a single blow; but the
immortal mind is renewed and multiplied by the copies of the pen; and
such copies it was the ambition of Petrarch and his friends to possess
and understand. The arms of the Turks undoubtedly pressed the flight
of the Muses; yet we may tremble at the thought, that Greece might have
been overwhelmed, with her schools and libraries, before Europe had
emerged from the deluge of barbarism; that the seeds of science might
have been scattered by the winds, before the Italian soil was prepared
for their cultivation.
[Footnote 83: See the state of learning in the xiiith and xivth
centuries, in the learned and judicious Mosheim, (Instit. Hist. EcclÈs.
p. 434--440, 490--494.)]
[Footnote 84: At the end of the xvth century, there existed in Europe
about fifty universities, and of these the foundation of ten or twelve
is prior to the year 1300. They were crowded in proportion to their
scarcity. Bologna contained 10,000 students, chiefly of the civil law.
In the year 1357 the number at Oxford had decreased from 30,000 to 6000
scholars, (Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. iv. p. 478.) Yet even
this decrease is much superior to the present list of the members of the
university.]
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.--Part IV.
The most learned Italians of the fifteenth century have confessed and
applauded the restoration of Greek literature, after a long oblivion of
many hundred years. [85] Yet in that country, and beyond the Alps, some
names are quoted; some profound scholars, who in the darker ages were
honorably distinguished by their knowledge of the Greek tongue; and
national vanity has been loud in the praise of such rare examples of
erudition. Without scrutinizing the merit of individuals, truth must
observe, that their science is without a cause, and without an effect;
that it was easy for them to satisfy themselves and their more ignorant
contemporaries; and that the idiom, which they had so marvellously
acquired was transcribed in few manuscripts, and was not taught in any
university of the West. In a corner of Italy, it faintly existed as
the popular, or at least as the ecclesiastical dialect. [86] The first
impression of the Doric and Ionic colonies has never been completely
erased: the Calabrian churches were long attached to the throne of
Constantinople: and the monks of St. Basil pursued their studies in
Mount Athos and the schools of the East. Calabria was the native country
of Barlaam, who has already appeared as a sectary and an ambassador; and
Barlaam was the first who revived, beyond the Alps, the memory, or
at least the writings, of Homer. [87] He is described, by Petrarch and
Boccace, [88] as a man of diminutive stature, though truly great in the
measure of learning and genius; of a piercing discernment, though of a
slow and painful elocution. For many ages (as they affirm) Greece
had not produced his equal in the knowledge of history, grammar, and
philosophy; and his merit was celebrated in the attestations of the
princes and doctors of Constantinople. One of these attestations
is still extant; and the emperor Cantacuzene, the protector of his
adversaries, is forced to allow, that Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato,
were familiar to that profound and subtle logician. [89] In the court of
Avignon, he formed an intimate connection with Petrarch, [90] the first
of the Latin scholars; and the desire of mutual instruction was the
principle of their literary commerce. The Tuscan applied himself with
eager curiosity and assiduous diligence to the study of the Greek
language; and in a laborious struggle with the dryness and difficulty
of the first rudiments, he began to reach the sense, and to feel the
spirit, of poets and philosophers, whose minds were congenial to his
own. But he was soon deprived of the society and lessons of this useful
assistant: Barlaam relinquished his fruitless embassy; and, on his
return to Greece, he rashly provoked the swarms of fanatic monks, by
attempting to substitute the light of reason to that of their navel.
After a separation of three years, the two friends again met in the
court of Naples: but the generous pupil renounced the fairest occasion
of improvement; and by his recommendation Barlaam was finally settled in
a small bishopric of his native Calabria. [91] The manifold avocations of
Petrarch, love and friendship, his various correspondence and frequent
journeys, the Roman laurel, and his elaborate compositions in prose and
verse, in Latin and Italian, diverted him from a foreign idiom; and as
he advanced in life, the attainment of the Greek language was the object
of his wishes rather than of his hopes. When he was about fifty years of
age, a Byzantine ambassador, his friend, and a master of both tongues,
presented him with a copy of Homer; and the answer of Petrarch is at one
expressive of his eloquence, gratitude, and regret. After celebrating
the generosity of the donor, and the value of a gift more precious in
his estimation than gold or rubies, he thus proceeds: "Your present of
the genuine and original text of the divine poet, the fountain of all
inventions, is worthy of yourself and of me: you have fulfilled
your promise, and satisfied my desires. Yet your liberality is still
imperfect: with Homer you should have given me yourself; a guide, who
could lead me into the fields of light, and disclose to my wondering
eyes the spacious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, alas! Homer
is dumb, or I am deaf; nor is it in my power to enjoy the beauty which
I possess. I have seated him by the side of Plato, the prince of
poets near the prince of philosophers; and I glory in the sight of
my illustrious guests. Of their immortal writings, whatever had been
translated into the Latin idiom, I had already acquired; but, if there
be no profit, there is some pleasure, in beholding these venerable
Greeks in their proper and national habit. I am delighted with the
aspect of Homer; and as often as I embrace the silent volume, I exclaim
with a sigh, Illustrious bard! with what pleasure should I listen to thy
song, if my sense of hearing were not obstructed and lost by the death
of one friend, and in the much-lamented absence of another. Nor do I yet
despair; and the example of Cato suggests some comfort and hope, since
it was in the last period of age that he attained the knowledge of the
Greek letters." [92]
[Footnote 85: Of those writers who professedly treat of the restoration
of the Greek learning in Italy, the two principal are Hodius, Dr.
Humphrey Hody, (de GrÊcis Illustribus, LinguÊ GrÊcÊ Literarumque
humaniorum Instauratoribus; Londini, 1742, in large octavo,) and
Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana, tom. v. p. 364--377,
tom. vii. p. 112--143.) The Oxford professor is a laborious scholar, but
the librarian of Modena enjoys the superiority of a modern and national
historian.]
[Footnote 86: In Calabria quÊ olim magna GrÊcia dicebatur, coloniis
GrÊcis repleta, remansit quÊdam linguÊ veteris, cognitio, (Hodius, p.
2.) If it were eradicated by the Romans, it was revived and perpetuated
by the monks of St. Basil, who possessed seven convents at Rossano
alone, (Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, tom. i. p. 520.)]
[Footnote 87: Ii Barbari (says Petrarch, the French and Germans) vix,
non dicam libros sed nomen Homeri audiverunt. Perhaps, in that respect,
the xiiith century was less happy than the age of Charlemagne.]
[Footnote 88: See the character of Barlaam, in Boccace de Genealog.
Deorum, l. xv. c. 6.]
[Footnote 89: Cantacuzen. l. ii. c. 36.]
[Footnote 90: For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaam, and the two
interviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the excellent
MÈmoires sur la Vie de PÈtrarque, tom. i. p. 406--410, tom. ii. p.
74--77.]
[Footnote 91: The bishopric to which Barlaam retired, was the old Locri,
in the middle ages. Scta. Cyriaca, and by corruption Hieracium, Gerace,
(Dissert. Chorographica ItaliÊ Medii ∆vi, p. 312.) The dives opum of the
Norman times soon lapsed into poverty, since even the church was poor:
yet the town still contains 3000 inhabitants, (Swinburne, p. 340.)]
[Footnote 92: I will transcribe a passage from this epistle of Petrarch,
(Famil. ix. 2;) Donasti Homerum non in alienum sermonem violento alve‚??
derivatum, sed ex ipsis GrÊci eloquii scatebris, et qualis divino illi
profluxit ingenio.... Sine tu‚ voce Homerus tuus apud me mutus, immo
vero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel adspect˚ solo, ac sÊpe
illum amplexus atque suspirans dico, O magne vir, &c.]
The prize which eluded the efforts of Petrarch, was obtained by the
fortune and industry of his friend Boccace, [93] the father of the
Tuscan prose. That popular writer, who derives his reputation from the
Decameron, a hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may aspire to
the more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study of the Greek
language. In the year one thousand three hundred and sixty, a disciple
of Barlaam, whose name was Leo, or Leontius Pilatus, was detained in his
way to Avignon by the advice and hospitality of Boccace, who lodged the
stranger in his house, prevailed on the republic of Florence to allow
him an annual stipend, and devoted his leisure to the first Greek
professor, who taught that language in the Western countries of Europe.
The appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager disciple, he was
clothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or a mendicant; his countenance
was hideous; his face was overshadowed with black hair; his beard long
an uncombed; his deportment rustic; his temper gloomy and inconstant;
nor could he grace his discourse with the ornaments, or even the
perspicuity, of Latin elocution. But his mind was stored with a treasure
of Greek learning: history and fable, philosophy and grammar, were
alike at his command; and he read the poems of Homer in the schools
of Florence. It was from his explanation that Boccace composed [* and
transcribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey, which
satisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch, and which, perhaps, in
the succeeding century, was clandestinely used by Laurentius Valla,
the Latin interpreter. It was from his narratives that the same Boccace
collected the materials for his treatise on the genealogy of the
heathen gods, a work, in that age, of stupendous erudition, and which he
ostentatiously sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite
the wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers. [94] The first
steps of learning are slow and laborious; no more than ten votaries of
Homer could be enumerated in all Italy; and neither Rome, nor Venice,
nor Naples, could add a single name to this studious catalogue. But
their numbers would have multiplied, their progress would have been
accelerated, if the inconstant Leo, at the end of three years, had
not relinquished an honorable and beneficial station. In his passage,
Petrarch entertained him at Padua a short time: he enjoyed the scholar,
but was justly offended with the gloomy and unsocial temper of the
man. Discontented with the world and with himself, Leo depreciated his
present enjoyments, while absent persons and objects were dear to
his imagination. In Italy he was a Thessalian, in Greece a native of
Calabria: in the company of the Latins he disdained their language,
religion, and manners: no sooner was he landed at Constantinople, than
he again sighed for the wealth of Venice and the elegance of Florence.
His Italian friends were deaf to his importunity: he depended on their
curiosity and indulgence, and embarked on a second voyage; but on his
entrance into the Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and the
unfortunate teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast,
was struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropped a
tear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether some
copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the hands of the
mariners. [95]
[Footnote 93: For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born in
1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. Medii ∆vi, tom. i. p.
248, &c.) and Tiraboschi (tom. v. p. 83, 439--451) may be consulted. The
editions, versions, imitations of his novels, are innumerable. Yet he
was ashamed to communicate that trifling, and perhaps scandalous, work
to Petrarch, his respectable friend, in whose letters and memoirs he
conspicuously appears.]
[Footnote *: This translation of Homer was by Pilatus, not by Boccacio.
See Hallam, Hist. of Lit. vol. i. p. 132.--M.]
[Footnote 94: Boccace indulges an honest vanity: Ostentationis caus‚
GrÊca carmina adscripsi.... jure utor meo; meum est hoc decus, mea
gloria scilicet inter Etruscos GrÊcis uti carminibus. Nonne ego fui qui
Leontium Pilatum, &c., (de Genealogia Deorum, l. xv. c. 7, a work which,
though now forgotten, has run through thirteen or fourteen editions.)]
[Footnote 95: Leontius, or Leo Pilatus, is sufficiently made known by
Hody, (p. 2--11,) and the abbÈ de Sade, (Vie de PÈtrarque, tom. iii. p.
625--634, 670--673,) who has very happily caught the lively and dramatic
manner of his original.]
But the faint rudiments of Greek learning, which Petrarch had encouraged
and Boccace had planted, soon withered and expired. The succeeding
generation was content for a while with the improvement of Latin
eloquence; nor was it before the end of the fourteenth century that a
new and perpetual flame was rekindled in Italy. [96] Previous to his own
journey the emperor Manuel despatched his envoys and orators to implore
the compassion of the Western princes. Of these envoys, the most
conspicuous, or the most learned, was Manuel Chrysoloras, [97] of noble
birth, and whose Roman ancestors are supposed to have migrated with
the great Constantine. After visiting the courts of France and England,
where he obtained some contributions and more promises, the envoy was
invited to assume the office of a professor; and Florence had again
the honor of this second invitation. By his knowledge, not only of the
Greek, but of the Latin tongue, Chrysoloras deserved the stipend, and
surpassed the expectation, of the republic. His school was frequented
by a crowd of disciples of every rank and age; and one of these, in a
general history, has described his motives and his success. "At that
time," says Leonard Aretin, [98] "I was a student of the civil law;
but my soul was inflamed with the love of letters; and I bestowed some
application on the sciences of logic and rhetoric. On the arrival
of Manuel, I hesitated whether I should desert my legal studies, or
relinquish this golden opportunity; and thus, in the ardor of youth,
I communed with my own mind--Wilt thou be wanting to thyself and thy
fortune? Wilt thou refuse to be introduced to a familiar converse with
Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes; with those poets, philosophers, and
orators, of whom such wonders are related, and who are celebrated by
every age as the great masters of human science? Of professors and
scholars in civil law, a sufficient supply will always be found in our
universities; but a teacher, and such a teacher, of the Greek language,
if he once be suffered to escape, may never afterwards be retrieved.
Convinced by these reasons, I gave myself to Chrysoloras; and so strong
was my passion, that the lessons which I had imbibed in the day were the
constant object of my nightly dreams." [99] At the same time and place,
the Latin classics were explained by John of Ravenna, the domestic pupil
of Petrarch; [100] the Italians, who illustrated their age and country,
were formed in this double school; and Florence became the fruitful
seminary of Greek and Roman erudition. [101] The presence of the emperor
recalled Chrysoloras from the college to the court; but he afterwards
taught at Pavia and Rome with equal industry and applause. The remainder
of his life, about fifteen years, was divided between Italy and
Constantinople, between embassies and lessons. In the noble office of
enlightening a foreign nation, the grammarian was not unmindful of a
more sacred duty to his prince and country; and Emanuel Chrysoloras died
at Constance on a public mission from the emperor to the council.
[Footnote 96: Dr. Hody (p. 54) is angry with Leonard Aretin, Guarinus,
Paulus Jovius, &c., for affirming, that the Greek letters were restored
in Italy _post septingentos annos_; as if, says he, they had flourished
till the end of the viith century. These writers most probably reckoned
from the last period of the exarchate; and the presence of the Greek
magistrates and troops at Ravenna and Rome must have preserved, in some
degree, the use of their native tongue.]
[Footnote 97: See the article of Emanuel, or Manuel Chrysoloras, in Hody
(p 12--54) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vii. p. 113--118.) The precise date of
his arrival floats between the years 1390 and 1400, and is only confined
by the reign of Boniface IX.]
[Footnote 98: The name of _Aretinus_ has been assumed by five or six
natives of _Arezzo_ in Tuscany, of whom the most famous and the most
worthless lived in the xvith century. Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, the
disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator, and an historian,
the secretary of four successive popes, and the chancellor of
the republic of Florence, where he died A.D. 1444, at the age
of seventy-five, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii ∆vi, tom. i. p. 190 &c.
Tiraboschi, tom. vii. p. 33--38.)]
[Footnote 99: See the passage in Aretin. Commentario Rerum suo Tempore
in Italia gestarum, apud Hodium, p. 28--30.]
[Footnote 100: In this domestic discipline, Petrarch, who loved the
youth, often complains of the eager curiosity, restless temper, and
proud feelings, which announce the genius and glory of a riper age,
(MÈmoires sur PÈtrarque, tom. iii. p. 700--709.)]
[Footnote 101: Hinc GrÊcÊ LatinÊque scholÊ exortÊ sunt, Guarino
Philelpho, Leonardo Aretino, Caroloque, ac plerisque aliis tanquam ex
equo Trojano prodeuntibus, quorum emulatione multa ingenia deinceps ad
laudem excitata sunt, (Platina in Bonifacio IX.) Another Italian
writer adds the names of Paulus Petrus Vergerius, Omnibonus Vincentius,
Poggius, Franciscus Barbarus, &c. But I question whether a rigid
chronology would allow Chrysoloras _all_ these eminent scholars,
(Hodius, p. 25--27, &c.)]