MARSILIO FICINO AND CRISTOFORO LANDINO.
IN order to gain a complete view both of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s own
life and of his influence on the scientific progress of his time, it
is necessary to contemplate the circle in which he was placed in his
youth, and which, though greatly modified in the course of years,
preserved the same character in essentials to the end. The persons of
whom it was composed carry us back to the time of Cosimo. The first we
meet are Marsilio Ficino and Cristoforo Landino. Both owed their rise
to the house of Medici; both contributed to its glory.
The last twenty-five years at least of Ficino’s life were occupied
with the endeavour to reconcile Platonism and Christianity, to make
the one expand within the other. At the end of 1473, when forty years
old, he entered holy orders, after seriously weighing the duties and
obligations of that sacred office, and after coming to the conclusion
that there is nothing on earth nobler than a good priest, nothing
more vile than an unworthy one. At the same time he held counsel with
his own mind as to the direction of his philosophical studies. The
example of St. Augustine, who, after he became a Christian, inclined
to the Platonics of the Christian era, decided him the more easily,
because it confirmed the direction of his whole previous life. When
he became aware how Platonism recognises Christian dogma on account
of the analogies which the latter presents to its own doctrines, he
thanked God, and felt himself confirmed in his Christian faith. He
did not, however, long remain free from a suspicion of the divergence
which Platonism had caused in the mediæval development of Christian
teaching from the Aristotelian system, which was the standing-ground of
scholasticism, in its efforts to reconcile the faith of the Church with
the researches of reason. He had started from the view that religion
and philosophy are sisters. As true philosophy, he says, is the loving
study of truth and wisdom—as God alone is truth and wisdom—so true
philosophy is nothing but genuine religion, and genuine religion
nothing but true philosophy. Religion is innate in every man; every
religion is good, in so far as it turns to God, but Christianity is
the only true one, inspired by the divine power which dwelt in its
Founder. For himself, he declares he needs nothing but the teaching of
Christ. He would rather believe divine things than know human ones; for
divine faith is more secure than human knowledge, and what proceeds
from it is confirmed by true science. But there are spirits for whom
the authority of the divine law is not enough, and who require the
arguments of reason. Divine Providence has ordained that the teachings
of Platonism should agree in many things with those of Christianity,
in order to bring such spirits to Christ; for, as Augustine said, with
the exception of a few things the Platonists were Christians. As Plato
always connects religion with philosophy, and does not merely disclose
to us the principles and order of natural things, like Aristotle,
but teaches us our duty towards Him who orders all things by number,
measure, and weight; so he himself has no other object than to make
this intimate connection clear, so far as his weak powers permit.
Any one who puts together his numerous remarks on Christianity, dogma,
and morality, although he may deem some of his views peculiar, cannot
reproach him with constructing a Christianity of his own. Though he
found such an agreement between Moses and Plato that he saw in the
latter only a Moses writing in the Attic tongue, and though he compared
the life of Socrates with the life of Jesus, yet he acknowledged in
the Socratic doctrines only a confirmation of the Christian, and
guarded himself against seeing in the Greek philosopher a shadow of
the Saviour, and from interpreting the Christian mysteries by Platonic
writings. Strange was the position of the thinkers of that time, placed
as they were between Christianity and the strongly-reviving influences
of heathen antiquity, and we should do them great injustice did we not
consider the spirit which governed the whole of that period. Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola believed he had found in the Cabala the foundation
of the faith and the explanation of the Christian mysteries; both he
and Marsilio held confidential evening discussions with learned Jewish
doctors on the divine inspiration of the Prophecies, and plunged deep
into both ancient and mediæval Hebrew lore. By a gradual enlightenment
of his mind, filled with the fantastic images of the later Platonism
and the half rationalistic mysticism founded on it, Pico came back
to the pure Christian faith, which finds in Holy Scripture a living
heavenly force whose wonderful power raises man to the height of divine
love. Marsilio Ficino’s mysticism, increased by his strong tendency to
astrology, assumed in more than one of his writings a colouring which
made his friends uneasy. In 1489 he was even accused of magic before
Pope Innocent VIII., but was cleared of the charge partly by his own
apology, partly by his friends, Francesco Soderini, Ermolao Barbaro,
and the archbishop Rinaldo Orsini, who was then at Rome.
Marsilio Ficino always keeps in view the connection between
Christianity and philosophy, both in his speculations and in the
practical application of his principles and their corollaries. If we
are astonished at the fantastic flights which seem to lead him far away
from the course he had traced out for himself, we yet gain a clear
and comprehensive development of the aim of his whole teaching, the
attainment of the highest happiness by the individual as well as by
the community, the end for which God created us. In the harmony between
the spirit of government and the divine law, whence the written law is
derived, he recognises the essential element of general well-being.
As regards forms of government, he decides that many are good, if
rightly administered—aristocracy, if its limits are not too narrow;
democracy, if it produces respect for law. Mob rule is a polypus,
all limbs and no head; tyranny has no legal ground and no legitimate
limits. Monarchy would be preferable, if it could be maintained
according to Plato’s ideal, by power and wisdom united. But the true
end of all forms of government and civil constitutions, both in theory
and practice, can be reached neither by the few nor by the many, but
only by the co-operation of the united forces of the human race, by
the maintaining and enforcing of uniform laws by a ruler who is raised
above all enmity, ambition, and envy, because he is acknowledged and
loved by all. The Christian Platonist, who lived to see the beginning
of the new era, the dawn of which had been heralded by the school to
which he attached himself, arrived at the summit of his philosophical
and political speculations exactly at the same standpoint which the
greatest poet of the middle ages had reached more than a century and
a half before him, amid the conflict of parties in the State. Wide as
was the difference between their positions and experiences of life, and
between the civil and political conditions both of their own immediate
home and of a large part of Italy, this is a remarkable circumstance,
which explains the interest felt by Marsilio Ficino in that book,
so diversely judged, in which Dante Alighieri developes his theory
of monarchy—a work well-nigh forgotten, despised by the learned on
account of its style, and sealed to the generality, till the Platonist
of the Medicean times made it accessible to his contemporaries by a
translation.
Numerous works were composed by Marsilio Ficino, who occupied himself
not only with philosophy but with theology, medicine, and music, and
was wont to say that they belonged to each other like body, soul,
and spirit in nature. His book on Christian doctrine, begun after
his entrance into the priesthood, seems to have been finished in
the beginning of 1475, and appeared in the following year, with a
declaration that the author submitted himself in all things to the
judgment of the Church. He presented his work to Lorenzo de’ Medici.
Rather more than two years later he seems to have finished his
translation of Plato’s works from the manuscripts given him by Cosimo
and by Amerigo Benci. These he submitted to the revision of Demetrius
Chalcondylas, Antonio Vespucci, and Giovan Battista Buoninsegni, and
also sought advice from Angelo Poliziano, Landino and Bartolommeo
Scala. Filippo Valori bore the expenses of the printing, which seems
to have been completed at the end of 1482—a proof how men of high
Florentine families assumed the character of Mæcenas. Meanwhile,
the industrious writer had concluded his great work on the Platonic
doctrine of immortality (‘Theologia Platonica de immortalitate
animarum’), which came out at the same time with the translation of
the writings on which it was founded. The Laurentian library possesses
the parchment manuscript which was given to Lorenzo. It contains ideas
new and old blended together, and comprising the philosophic system of
its author and the defence of the supernatural against Materialism and
Pantheism, which at that time numbered many disciples, in opposition to
the Platonic school. The scientific value of this work, in which the
doctrines of Plato and the teachings of his most dissimilar scholars
in ancient and modern times are not easy to distinguish, must rest
on its own merits, as must the validity of Lorenzo’s remark that the
Materialists, for whom there is no life in the next world, are already
dead in this. But we cannot deny the importance of Ficino’s great work
in the history of civilisation, nor question its beneficial influence
on the time.
Then followed a series of smaller writings on separate questions of
philosophy, translations connected with them, and a life of Plato.
Cosimo de’ Medici wished to see the works of Plotinus translated
by Ficino, an undertaking to which the latter only devoted himself
long after the death of its originator, and to which he was chiefly
encouraged by Pico della Mirandola. According to his own words, he
recognised in this new task a leading of Providence. As the Latin
nations had learned to know Plato, the collector of the traditions
of religious philosophy, so they should also learn to know Plotinus,
who first drew forth from darkness the theology of the ancients and
searched into its mysteries. This work was finished in 1486, and a
detailed commentary on it in the summer of 1491. Lorenzo had undertaken
to defray the cost of printing, and promised to do the same for a new
edition of Plato’s works, the former one being inadequate. But the
printing was only completed a month after the death of the generous
patron—‘magnifico sumptu Laurentii patriæ servatoris.’ After this came
a translation of the mystic theology of the writer calling himself
Dionysius the Areopagite. Lorenzo Valla, who surpassed most of his
contemporaries in keenness of criticism and knowledge of antiquity,
had already raised a doubt as to its genuineness, as had also other
writers. But this work, perhaps that of a Platonist of the fifth
century, fitted in with Marsilio’s system too well not to be accepted
by him as valid testimony; another example showing how, like the
Alexandrian school, these later disciples wandered from their original
models without knowing or intending it; with this difference, that the
Neoplatonism of old ran in sharp contradiction to Christianity, while
that of more modern times aimed at a union with it.
The philosophic ‘Macrobioticon,’ an original work, was finished in
1490, and dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici and King Matthias Corvinus.
Far more interest attaches to Marsilio’s correspondence, which
embraces the twenty years between 1474 and 1494—the only product of
his literary activity that has a real value at the present time. In
these letters his opinions and motives are mirrored with life-like
originality, and they afford much information as to his life, his
occupations, his social relations, and his friends. The twelve books
(which he, following the example of many contemporaries, arranged
himself, because apocryphal writings were in circulation) are all
dedicated to men of high position or friends of the author: Giuliano
de’ Medici, Federigo of Montefeltro, Matthias Corvinus, Bernardo Bembo,
Filippo and Niccolò Valori, and others.
Marsilio’s extraordinary literary activity, the more astonishing in a
man of delicate health, did not interfere with the performance of his
duties as a priest or as a secular teacher. He preached often, not
only in his own parish church at Nevoli, but also in Florence, at the
church of the Angeli and in the cathedral. His personal relations,
to which his correspondence bears witness, were very numerous. Paol’
Antonio Soderini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Carlo Marsuppini the younger,
Piero and Giovanni Guicciardini, Bernardo Canigiani, Bernardo Dovizj
of Bibiena, afterwards cardinal; Lorenzo’s nephew Cosimo de’ Pazzi,
Bernardo Rucellai, Pier Filippo Pandolfini, Francesco Sassetti, Ugolini
Verini, and many others, were his pupils and remained attached to him;
while from Leon Battista Alberti and Cristoforo Landino downwards, all
the learned men whom Florence or Italy possessed were in communication
with him. At an important moment of his life he called three of these,
namely, Piero Soderini (afterwards Gonfaloniere for life), Piero
del Nero, and Piero Guicciardini, his three brothers in the search
after truth; and on March 6, 1482, he stood sponsor to Guicciardini’s
son, afterwards the famous statesman and historian. Foreign lands as
well as Italy sent their sons to hear his lectures, and more than
one of these foreigners remained gratefully attached to him. Among
others he became acquainted with several Germans; Johannes Reuchlin
and Ludwig Wergenhans (Nauclerus), provost of Stuttgart, who with
Gabriel Biel, professor of scholastic philosophy at Tübingen, and the
learned theologian Peter Jacobi, of Arlon in Luxemburg, accompanied
Count Eberhard of Würtemberg when in the spring of 1482 he undertook
the expedition to Rome, which will be mentioned hereafter. Marsilio
maintained the most intimate personal relations with Martin Preninger,
chancellor of the bishopric of Constance, and afterwards professor of
canon law at Tübingen. This man was twice in Italy in the year 1492
on business of Eberhard’s, and his correspondence with Marsilio bears
witness to a friendship and agreement of opinions rare to meet with.
Marsilio was wont to say that he possessed two friends, one in Germany,
the other in Italy, who represented the alliance between philosophy
and jurisprudence, namely, Martinus Uranius (Preninger’s literary
name) and Giovan Vittorio Soderini. He had Greek manuscripts copied
for his Swabian friend, and kept him informed of what was going on in
the field of science, as well as of what he was doing himself. Another
of his German correspondents was Georg Herwart of Augsburg, who made
his acquaintance in Florence; Reuchlin’s younger brother Dionysius
and Johann Strehler of Ulm also received introductions to him, when
being sent by the Count of Würtemberg to study in Italy they enjoyed
the notice of Lorenzo de’ Medici and were received into the house of
Giorgio Antonio Vespucci. Numerous princes, temporal and spiritual,
beginning with Matthias Corvinus, who tried vainly to attract him
to Ofen like Argyropulos, were in regular correspondence with him,
asked his advice on points of theology and philosophy, and sought his
criticism on various works.
Amid all these unsought testimonies of honour and confidence, Marsilio
Ficino remained simple, unpretending, easily satisfied. His delicate
health compelled him to lead a quiet life, and suffices to explain the
melancholy humour that often stole over him when alone. Yet in company
which he liked, and which afforded food for his mind in unrestrained
intercourse, he was cheerful and sympathetic. His musical talents,
bringing change and refreshment from serious studies, helped to season
his conversation. With his plectrum, an instrument which he himself
perfected, he resembled the poet-sages of the mythic age. He was
seldom absent from Platonic banquets, and had been an habitual guest
of Lorenzo’s grandfather when the latter invited learned men to his
house. He loved a country life above all things, and passed a great
part of his time on the little estate of Montevecchio. In later years
he often went to see Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano, when they
were staying in his neighbourhood—the one at Querceto, the other at
Fiesole; and still oftener to Lorenzo, when he was living at Careggi.
He was received as a welcome guest at the villas of Valori, Canigiani,
Cavalcanti, and others. At Montevecchio he instituted a peculiar yearly
festival. On SS. Cosmo and Damian’s day he assembled the old tenants
(‘coloni’) of his first and greatest patron and entertained them with
music and singing. His independence of mind was in no way diminished
by intercourse with those who, through birth or a successful career,
held a higher position in life. He once wrote thus to Lorenzo de’
Medici, whose fondness for pleasure in his earlier, perhaps also in
his later days, appeared to Ficino excessive, and caused him anxiety:
‘In the name of the eternal God I intreat thee, my dearest Prince, to
economise every moment of this brief life, lest there come over thee
vain remorse for dissipation and irreparable harm. The consciousness of
lost time drew deep sighs from the great Cosimo in my presence, when he
had reached the age of seventy. Trifling occupations and empty pastimes
rob thee of thy true self; they make thee a slave, who art born to be
a ruler. Free thyself while thou canst from this miserable servitude;
only to-day canst thou do so, for only to-day is thine own; to-morrow
it will be too late.’
When the young Raffaelle Riario was made a cardinal, he addressed to
him warnings and counsels similar to those given in a like case,
fourteen years later, by Lorenzo to his son, who was departing for
Rome. He reminded him that, since he owed his high rank not to his own
merits, he was the more bound to justify by his manner of life the
preference bestowed on him. His memorable appeal to Pope Sixtus IV.
during the war of 1478[6] shows how he could combine outspokenness with
reverence for the head of the Church, which the Bishop of Arezzo, a far
higher dignitary than he, and Francesco Filelfo made light of. His was
the frankness of a lover of truth whose soul was filled with grief for
the evils which had befallen the flock, and no less for the blots which
in an unhappily complicated affair had fallen on the reputation of a
supreme pastor who ought to be revered for his wisdom and goodness.
Like a true philosopher, Marsilio Ficino never strove after outward
splendour. His income was most modest. Besides his little farm, he
received from Lorenzo two benefices of which the revenue was small,
as he was obliged to entrust them to curates, but which would have
sufficed for his modest requirements had he not been besieged in his
later years by a swarm of needy relatives. Without the aid of rich
friends, the publication of his works would have been impossible. Amid
the restlessness and discontent of the learned men of his time, who
were rushing breathlessly after wealth and honours; amid the greediness
for ecclesiastical benefices, even among those who were not priests
like himself, Marsilio Ficino, contented and devoted to science, is a
fine example of the realisation of those philosophic doctrines which in
the case of so many were only spiritual luxuries or a means of making
money. It is this that gives interest to his character and work, though
his writings have lost their value except in their connection with the
history of learning. Lorenzo’s attachment to him remained unchanged
till his last hour; it shows itself in his poems as vividly as in his
letters. ‘Write to me,’ he says in a letter addressed to him from
Pisa, about 1473,[7] ‘whatever occurs to your mind, for nothing ever
comes from you that is not good; you never have an unworthy thought,
so that you can never write me anything that will not be useful or
agreeable. What makes me long for your letters is that in them you
combine elegance of expression with solidity of contents, so that in
both respects they leave nothing to be desired.’ And in the philosophic
poem mentioned above, on the independence of happiness from outward
position, he thus describes Marsilio’s appearance, with a touch of the
warm feeling that inspired Dante on meeting his master Brunetto, at the
sight of the ‘dear, good, fatherly face:’
Marsilio is this, of Montevecchio,
Whom heaven has filled with its own special grace,
That to the world its mirror he may be?
This is that faithful follower of the Muses,
In whom are grace and wisdom aye united,
And never separated one from other;
From us and all worthy of highest honour.[8]
Cristoforo Landino stands far below Marsilio Ficino in scientific
importance. But both as a professor and in the learned circle of the
Medici he held a peculiar position; and by one of his literary works
he opened out a path which hundreds trod after him without taking away
the relative value of his labours. His life was not like that of his
contemporary and friend, dedicated solely to literature. As Chancellor
of the Magistracy of the Guelphic party, and one of the secretaries
of the Republic, he was concerned in public affairs till a late period
of his life.[9] During the lifetime of Pope Eugene IV. he passed some
time in Rome, and studied those antiquities the decay of which made a
painful impression on him, as on other Florentines of his time. But
when complaining, like others, that the travertine of the amphitheatre
is broken up and burnt for chalk, and that the antique sculptures lie
about mutilated, he exaggerates strangely when he says:[10]
Though round the mighty city thy gaze contemplative wanders,
Vainly around does it look for monuments vanished and gone.
In January, 1458, he accepted the professorship of eloquence and poetry
at the University, and gathered round him a continually renewed circle
of hearers, his influence being equalled by that of no contemporary
save Ficino. In 1460 he began to lecture on the Italian poems of
Petrarca, being desirous to stem the tide of contempt for the vulgar
tongue which still existed in learned circles. Though in this respect
he deserves all praise, yet his remarks on contemporaries, on Bruni,
Alberti, Palmieri, show how he was himself still prejudiced in his view
of the philological treatment of the language. His labours in the field
of classical philology have no great weight. He wrote a commentary
on Horace and one on Virgil, the former of which he dedicated to
Guidobaldo of Montefeltro, and the latter to the young Piero de’
Medici. He also translated Pliny’s ‘Natural History,’ and undertook
translations of modern Italian works, such as Giovanni Simonetta’s
Latin ‘History of Francesco Sforza,’ which was published at Milan
in 1490. He composed a letter-writer and a formulary for speeches,
which was printed two years later, with a dedication to Duke Ercole
d’Este. But the true centre of his activity and its importance lies
elsewhere—in his relation to and share in that intellectual movement
amid which the Medici lived, and in his position as a leader of the
revival of the study of Dante. In illustration of the first point, his
‘Disputationes Camaldulenses,’ which belong to the history of Lorenzo’s
youth, deserve especial consideration.
Amidst the fir and beech woods which still cover the Casentino hills,
where they rise towards the Apennines, lies the convent which gave
its name to the order of St. Romuald. For nearly a thousand years
countless pilgrims and travellers have rested within the hospitable
walls of Camaldoli, which now seem threatened with abandonment and
desolation. The Medici had long kept up intimate relations with the
Order. Cosimo and his brother were frequent visitors to the monastery
of the Angeli; and here, in the mother-convent of the Casentino,
Madonna Contessina had built a chapel to the Baptist. The connection
lasted long. Lorenzo’s son Giovanni dedicated some peaceful days in
his youth to contemplation and prayer here, as did many before and
after him who sat on the chair of St. Peter or were reckoned by the
Church among her saints—Gregory IX., Eugene IV., Paul III., Francis
of Assisi, and Charles Borromeo. More than four centuries ago, there
assembled here a select society composed of elements the most diverse
and yet congenial. Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici came to exchange the
noise and glare of the city for the delicious freshness and solitude
of the woods. Piero and Donato Acciaiuoli, Alamanno Rinuccini, whose
youthful studies had been directed by Poggio Bracciolini, and who had
been one of the best pupils of Argyropulos, Marco Parenti, and Antonio
Canigiani, accompanied the youths. Cristoforo Landino and his brother
Piero came up from their home in the valley to the cooler height of the
convent, where they also met Leon Battista Alberti and Ficino. Thus
many of the most eminent men of the Medicean circle assembled round
Lorenzo and Giuliano, who, notwithstanding their youth, were already
accustomed to take part in serious discourse. The abbot, Mariotto
Allegri, as host, was the centre of the circle; but it was Alberti who,
with his many-sided knowledge and easy command of it, gave the tone to
the evening’s discourse.
On the following morning, after the whole company had assisted at
mass in the church of the convent, they all moved along the pleasant
woodland path leading to the summit of the mountain ridge, past the
little group of dwellings and gardens, the place where, according to
the legend, the saint had a dream which led him to change his black
Benedictine robe for the white one which continued to be worn at
Camaldoli, as it is represented in Andrea Sacchi’s fine picture at the
Vatican. We know not whether the travellers reached the neighbouring
mountain ridge, the watershed of Italy, whence the eye looks down
on Romagna and takes in the wide sweep of the far-off Adriatic. The
narrator makes the company halt on the height near a spring, under the
shelter of a mighty beech; a tree which, defying the mountain storms,
overtops all other trees on the Apennines, whose brow it adorns here
in the midst of fine pasture lands. Here Leon Battista, again taking
the lead in the conversation, dilated on the good effects of retirement
and meditation on the mind of the statesman and the scholar, and showed
that only when the mind is set free from contact with the individual
does it become capable of embracing the whole. Then turning to the
two young men the speaker reminded them that their father’s failing
health would probably soon call them to the guidance of state affairs,
which, he said, were already in some degree entrusted to their care.
After a somewhat extravagant eulogium of Lorenzo’s qualities, his
courage, prudence, and moderation, Alberti continued to set forth how,
notwithstanding such qualities and the moderate bearing he had hitherto
displayed, quiet meditation or discourse held with a confidential
circle on the deepest questions of human nature could not but be
beneficial to the community. When the learned man thus adopted the
Platonic principle, according to which complete abstinence from worldly
pursuits brings our nature most surely to perfection, it would not
have been difficult for Lorenzo, who was already well acquainted with
this doctrine, to show that a man who practically applied and followed
this principle must necessarily be brought into contradiction with his
duties as a citizen; whereas the two phases of our nature—the active
and the contemplative life—not divided, but united and balancing each
other, lead to the true fulfilment of the purpose of existence.
From the objection put into the mouth of the young man and directed
against Landino’s own teaching, as well as from the praises bestowed
on Lorenzo’s conduct, it is clear that the date of the conversation
is shortly before the death of Piero de’ Medici, when the Pitti
transactions had given evidence of the prudence and talents of his
son. The visit to Camaldoli may have taken place earlier, but the
‘disputations,’ which are the actual conversations expanded and
embellished, were certainly not composed before 1470. In the discourses
of the three following days Alberti again took the lead, and expounded
the connection of the ‘Æneid’ with Platonic philosophy. What is here
said of the character of Virgil’s poetry, of the ancient wisdom
therein, which has become common property, of the poet’s knowledge
and reverence for antiquity, of the relation between the poetical
garniture and the more solid contents of the work, was probably drawn
from Landino’s own Virgilian studies, for the author of the book speaks
through the mouths of those to whom he attributes the conversations
held in the woods of Camaldoli. He dedicated his work to Federigo
of Montefeltro. If, as it seems, this dedication to the valiant and
accomplished prince of Urbino was made in 1472, the book has a certain
connection with the sad occurrences at Volterra, in which Lorenzo
de’ Medici’s action belied only too strongly the Platonic theory of
wisdom.[11]
If Cristoforo Landino is ever mentioned nowadays, it is only on
account of his studies of Dante, which constitute his only value in
the eyes of posterity. The study of the ‘Divine Comedy’ went through
the most varied phases in Florence as elsewhere. On the petition of
divers citizens (see above, vol. i. p. 80) in 1373, fifty-two years
after Dante’s death, the Republic decreed the establishment of public
lectures on his great poem.[12] On Sunday, October 3, in the church of
Sto. Stefano, Giovanni Boccaccio began the lectures, the interruption
of which by his death shortly after was lamented by Francesco
Sacchetti. Messer Antonio, priest of Vado, and Filippo Villani
succeeded him. A mass of commentaries were composed almost immediately
after the poet’s own time, partly by his own friends. Numerous copies
of the poem were in circulation; that which was formerly in the library
of the convent of Sta. Croce, and is now in the Laurentiana, was
attributed to Filippo Villani. Most of these copies were faulty. ‘I am
trying,’ wrote Coluccio Salutati to Niccolò of Todi, at the beginning
of the fifteenth century,[13] ‘to get a correct copy of the work of our
divine Dante. Believe me, we possess nothing more sublime than these
three poems, nothing more richly adorned, nothing more carefully worked
out, nothing which penetrates further into the depths of knowledge.
What only comes to others in part this one man has mastered as a whole.
His moral precepts are sublime; he throws light on natural history and
theology, and his masterly handling of language and rhetoric is such
that it would be difficult to find equal beauty of style even in the
greatest writers. With him the laws, manners, tongues, the history of
all nations, shine like stars in the firmament with such majesty that
no one can equal him in this respect, far less surpass him. Wherefore
do I say all this? That my eagerness to obtain a correct text may cause
thee less astonishment.’
This enthusiasm for Dante—an enthusiasm which one cannot but feel
was less for the poet than for the man who had mastered more than
any other all the learning of his time—was, however, by no means
shared by all the learned men of the fifteenth century, whose
threshold Coluccio barely crossed. Niccolò Niccoli, by his attacks
on his great countryman, exposed himself to obloquy from which he
never recovered; though it must not be forgotten that the words in
which Niccoli calls Dante’s book reading for cobblers and bakers are
only found in a writing of Leonardo Bruni, who was just as excitable
as Niccoli himself. Niccoli’s rage seems to have been especially
excited by the unclassical Latin in Dante’s letters; but the reproach
which he brings against Dante, that he knew nothing of classical
literature, and drew all his information from monkish compendiums—a
reproach which, strangely enough, he also applies to Petrarca and
Boccaccio[14]—resembles other tokens of the pride of the humanistic
school too strongly to be seriously examined. The lecture given at
the end of 1430 by Francesco Filelfo against the censurers of Dante,
and the controversial treatise composed for the same object by Cino
Rinuccini, father of Alamanno, are sufficiently clear proofs how false
was the judgment of many. Filelfo himself declared, more than forty
years later, that he undertook the public exposition of the ‘Divine
Comedy’ of his own accord, and in deference to a general wish.[15]
About the close of the fourteenth century Filippo Villani wrote a
short life of Dante; a longer biography came out in 1436 written by
Leonardo Bruni; twenty years later he was followed by Gianozzo Manetti.
Not long after the latter, Gian Maria Filelfo, Francesco’s son, who had
many opportunities of acquiring information from the poet’s descendants
living in Verona, wrote a new biography which he dedicated to Pietro
Alighieri, and which the latter sent, at the end of 1467, to Piero de’
Medici and Tommaso Soderini.[16] The erection in Sta. Maria del Fiore
of a monument in the shape of the poet’s statue was decreed in 1465.
Ten years later, the picture painted by Domenico di Michelino was
placed in the north aisle of the church.[17] In literature the great
poet’s countrymen had wandered far away from the path which he had
pointed out; but they guarded his memory faithfully, and the beautiful
manuscripts which appeared about the middle of the fifteenth century,
shortly before the introduction of printing, prove how much his work
was held in honour.
In 1472 a German named Johann Numeister (Neumeister), and a native
of Fuligno, printed the ‘Divine Comedy’ for the first time in that
Umbrian city.[18] Other impressions at Mantua, Jesi, and other
places were followed in 1477 by the first edition at Venice, with a
commentary of the fourteenth century. At last, after Florence had
allowed nine editions to take precedence of her, the first Florentine
edition appeared in the summer of 1481, with the glosses of Cristoforo
Landino. A Silesian named Nicolaus (Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna)
had the honour of presenting to the poet’s native city the text of his
work, accompanied by the commentary in smaller type, in a form highly
creditable to his still youthful art. The Magliabecchian library
possesses the copy, printed on parchment, which Landino presented to
the Signoria, with a speech which also appeared in print.[19] Rich
miniatures at the beginning, arabesque borders, a medallion portrait
of Dante, and on the binding, striped with the Florentine colours, red
and white, niello-work representing the lion and Hercules, the seal of
the commonwealth, with the lily-shield and that of the red cross, show
with what pretensions this edition came forth. By a decree of somewhat
tardy justice the Republic reinstated the exile of 1301 in his civil
rights and honours, and placed his statue, crowned with laurel, in the
baptistery of San Giovanni. In a Latin address Ficino set forth the
rejoicings of Florence at the restoration of his honour by the hands
of one of his fellow-citizens; and Benivieni celebrated in harmonious
terza rima the fulfilment of the prophecy in which the exile predicted
his future fame, and his ultimate return to his ungrateful city:
With other voice forthwith, with other fleece,
Poet will I return, and at my font
Baptismal will I take the laurel crown.[20]
The Signoria showed itself grateful to Landino. It gave him a tower on
the ramparts of Borgo alia Collina, where he dwelt, and its possession
was confirmed to his descendants in 1563 by a sentence of the supreme
civil court of Florence, the Rota, when the magistrates of the Parte
Guelfa claimed it as public property. His work is not remarkable for
critical thoroughness and correctness, but for the commentary, which
had great influence on opinion at the time and long afterwards. Six if
not seven reissues in different places before the end of the century
show with what approval this edition was received. It encountered
formidable rivals, with respect to the text, in 1502, in the first
Aldine, and with respect to the commentary in 1544, in Alessandro
Vellutello’s work, which was soon followed by others; yet it retains
some value even now. While Landino was earning well-deserved fame
by this fruit of diligent study, the lectures in the cathedral on
the ‘Divine Comedy’ were entrusted, in 1483, to the preaching friar
Domenico da Corella, who had taken part in the council, and dedicated
his Latin poem on the life of the Virgin Theotokon to Piero de’ Medici
in 1468. Marsilio Ficino had long previously turned his attention to
Dante when he dedicated his translation of the ‘De Monarchia’ in 1467
to his friends Bernardo del Nero and Antonio Manetti. The latter, who
occupied himself much with copying old codices, is remembered among
students of Dante by his dialogue (between himself and Benivieni) on
the position, form, and extent of hell. Marsilio’s dedication states
that he had held much discourse with the two men named on the questions
raised by this political treatise, and that they were thereby led to
discuss the ‘Divina Commedia.’ As Dante treated in his poem of the
kingdom of the blessed, of the regions of the wretched, and of the
place where departed souls abide waiting for redemption, so in his book
on monarchy he treated of the realms of those who are still waiting
and hoping in this world. The perception, imperfect though it be, of
the spiritual connection between the great poem and its author’s other
works, shows a progress in the appreciation of Dante remarkable at the
time, and to this Cristoforo Landino had practically contributed.
Lorenzo’s great interest in the most sublime poet of the middle ages is
shown both by testimonies in his own writings and by a letter written
to him, April 13, 1476, by the above-named Antonio Manetti, then
governor of the small town of San Giovanni, in the Val d’Arno. This
letter[21] shows that Lorenzo had come to an understanding with the
Venetian ambassador, Bernardo Bembo, for the purpose of soliciting from
the senate of that Republic the return of Dante’s mortal remains from
Ravenna to Florence. ‘Magnificent Lord,’—thus the letter begins—‘I am
told that the Venetian ambassador has returned home. Remembering what
you once told me, as we returned from visiting him shortly after Matteo
Palmieri’s funeral, when we were near the house of Antonio Pucci, I
wish you would bring that matter to a conclusion. I know not what
greater pleasure I could have in my life than to witness the return of
those remains which the magnificent ambassador promised to obtain when
he went back to his own country; the more so as I am sure that, with
your greatness and magnanimity, you will do whatever is in your power
to give to the remains of such a man the reception they deserve, as to
sepulture and crown. Great acts are for the magnanimous; but what could
be greater than this? I commend myself to your Magnificence. May the
Lord be with you.’
Twice already, in 1396 and 1426, when the Polenta family, which had
offered hospitality to the exiled poet, was still reigning at Ravenna,
the Florentines had tried to get back his remains. But both times they
failed; and they had no better luck in 1476, nor again under the reign
of Leo X., when Michael Angelo offered to raise the monument to his
great countryman, whom he resembled in more respects than one. Seven
years after the date of Antonio Manetti’s letter, Bernardo Bembo, when
Podestà at Ravenna, caused Dante’s sepulchre to be restored. He had
been too rash in the promise given to Lorenzo de’ Medici, but he did
all that lay in his power to honour the memory of the father of Italian
poetry.