THE UNIVERSITY OF PISA. MANUSCRIPTS AND CRITICISM. PRINTING. PLATONIC
SYMPOSIA.
THE circle of Florentine celebrities which, though its members were
continually changing, always retained its peculiar character, included
men of smaller importance than many of those already described, but
yet worthy of mention. Among these are the philologer-poets who,
in endeavouring to follow Poliziano, lost their individuality in
imitations of the Roman poets of the Flavian and following periods.
Their verses have but an historical and local interest for posterity,
and even the sixteenth century, so busy with Latin verse-making, passed
judgment upon them very freely.[87] Ugolino Vieri, who Latinised his
name into Verino, celebrated his native city and its famous men in
three books of a poem, ‘De Illustratione urbis Florentiæ,’ which spite
of a few happy characteristics, is barely more than a dry catalogue.
Naldo Naldi has acquired a more lasting reputation by his biographical
works than by his numerous verses. People sang each other’s praises
without end; and such laudations, though endurable from a Poliziano,
are tiresome from inferior hands. Alessandro Bracci, one of the
secretaries of state; Giovan Battista Cantalicio, afterwards Bishop of
Penne and Adria; Tommaso Baldinotti of Pistoja; Alessandro Cortesi,
the talented scion of a family of San Gemignano very intimate with the
Medici; Piero Riccio, known under the Latinised name of Crinitus, and
author of a history of the old Latin poets; these and many other pupils
of Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano, belong to the _dii minorum gentium_.
Verses by some of them have been printed, while heaps lie in manuscript
in the Laurentian library to testify to the intellectual activity of
the time.[88] The verses of the Roman Carlo de’ Massimi in praise of
Pisa University have some interest for the history of literature.
Literary productions of every kind were sent to Lorenzo from all
quarters; he was the great patron of authors. Much of what he received
he sent on to San Marco and to the Abbey of Fiesole, as may be seen by
the inscriptions in the volumes.
All these men, small and great, found in Lorenzo their Mæcenas. But
he showed very early that he invested the position of patron with
more serious importance than his predecessors had done. When scarcely
three-and-twenty he brought about the restoration of the University
of Pisa, which was not only an act of justice, but, apart from its
literary importance, a token of ripe political insight that helped to
counterbalance in some degree the miseries inflicted on Volterra in the
same year (1472). The university, formed in the fourth decade of the
fourteenth century out of the existing public schools, and confirmed
in 1343 by Clement VI., fell into decay from political causes later in
the century, and finally succumbed to Florentine enmity. The mutual
animosity of the two cities is only to be paralleled in the history of
antiquity. Twenty-five years after the subjection of Pisa, the Ministry
of War at Florence wrote to Averardo de’ Medici, their commissioner
in the subject town:[89] ‘According to general opinion here, the most
effectual means of securing the town is to empty it entirely of Pisan
citizens and peasants, concerning which we have written to the Captain
of the People till we are tired. He answers that he is hindered by the
soldiery and officers. We now command thee to go to him and persuade
him to spare no harshness or severity, as we perceive that no other
remedy will avail. We have confidence in thee that thou wilt at once
set everything to work, for thou couldst do nothing more pleasing
to this whole people.’ The efficacious result was that the city was
ruined, the marshy neighbourhood left fallow to become the home of
fever, and the fleet vanished. So rooted was this hatred that when
Pisa had freed herself amid the confusion which followed on Lorenzo’s
death, Bernardo del Nero—a usually moderate man of the Medicean
party—declared that against the Pisans nothing availed save force; all
prisoners of war must be slain after the example of the Genoese, who
let the Pisan captives taken at Meloria languish to death in prison.[90]
Lorenzo early perceived that the blind enmity which ruined Pisa was
overshooting the mark. As his family held considerable property in
the district he frequently had occasion to visit the city, whose
position made it a halting-place for many travellers between northern
and southern Italy. Pisa must not be allowed to give the Florentines
any more trouble, but neither should it be allowed to perish. Two
considerations in particular seem to have prompted the re-establishment
of the old university. The first was the quiet, which was more
favourable to study than the busy life of Florence; the second was the
number and cheapness of dwellings, which were in increasing danger
of falling to ruin since trade had departed from its old abodes, and
the inhabitants were nearly all poor people. Yet Lorenzo needed great
power and moral courage to set himself against rooted hatred and
stubborn prejudices. On December 19, 1472, was issued the decree by
which the university was restored to life.[91] A board of management
was appointed—the Officiales studii—consisting of five Florentine
citizens: Tommaso Ridolfi, Donato Acciaiuolo, Andrea Puccini, Alamanno
Rinuccini, and Lorenzo de’ Medici. The yearly endowment was to consist
of 6,000 gold florins, and the statutes of the University of Florence
were to be in force at that of Pisa. Members of the state were to
be entitled to academical honours and the authority to practise in
Pisa alone. To raise the salaries of the professors, Pope Sixtus IV.
consented to a tax on the clergy to the amount of 5,000 florins in five
years, a tax which was renewed by his successor in 1497 for another
five years, and drew complaints from Ficino, Poliziano, and others.
Only the philosophical and literary branches of study were to continue
at Florence.
The credit of all this was justly given to Lorenzo. ‘I heard a few
days ago,’ wrote Antonio de’ Pazzi to him from Padua, January 29,
1473,[92] ‘that by your direction a new university is to be founded at
Pisa; at which not only we Florentine students, but foreign ones too,
are greatly delighted, seeing that Pisa is a city eminently suited
for it, and because the scheme proceeds from a man who will strive to
acquire honour by this as by all else that he undertakes.’ Scholars
came flocking from all parts, and first among them Francesco Filelfo.
He had found an asylum with the Sforza at Milan; but, dissatisfied and
restless, extravagant and in debt, he tried to change his position.
During the pontificate of Pius II. he made several attempts to this
end, but, failing in his hopes, he attacked the pontiff before
and after death with his usual invectives, and in consequence was
imprisoned for a time. In April 1473 he applied to Lorenzo. Some time
before he had managed to flatter Lorenzo’s father into forgetting
his offences against Cosimo so far as to hold one of his sons over
the font; and when in Florence in the autumn of 1469, shortly before
Piero’s death, he obtained a loan from Lorenzo.[93] The letter which
he now addressed to the latter[94] is curiously characteristic of the
man. He attacks those who had long been in their graves—Marsuppini,
Poggio, and their ‘synagogue.’ He begins by declaring that the Milanese
chancellor, Cecco Simonetta, had advised him to prefer Pisa to Rome,
where he was much wanted; and he ends with the artless assurance
that Lorenzo must know well he cannot find in all the world a second
Filelfo nor one more devoted to him. In another letter he remarks in
the same style: ‘You are aware that at the present time no one can
stand a comparison with me in my own branch.’ Simonetta, from Pavia,
seconded the appeal, and sang the vain man’s praises. Lorenzo answered
by asking what salary would be required, but the negotiation fell
through, which Medici probably did not much regret, as he must have
felt some hesitation in attaching the quarrelsome old man to his young
establishment. Besides, the sentence of banishment once passed on
Filelfo was still in force, and his services in the way of literary
invective after the conspiracy of the Pazzi had not yet smoothed
the way to his return. When he was at last summoned to Florence as
professor of eloquence and moral philosophy, he had scarcely time to
greet the city he had left for nearly half a century before he died, a
few days after his arrival, in the summer of 1481, in his eighty-third
year.
The new-born university, which was opened in November 1473, soon
took its share in the working of many active forces in diverse
directions. In its very earliest years it would have risen to the
highly flourishing condition it afterwards attained had not various
unfavourable circumstances come in the way. The unhealthy air of
the city and neighbourhood had not been sufficiently taken into
consideration. War, desolation, poverty, made matters worse, just at
the time when Florence was also a prey to disease. For six years the
establishment kept moving from place to place. Professors and students
wandered away to Pistoja and Prato, and sometimes to Florence—even
Empoli and San Miniato were thought of—till the state of affairs was
improved, and the hitherto scattered lecturers were brought together
in a university building erected by the care of Lorenzo. There was
no lack of difficulties with the professors; the Sienese Bartolommeo
Sozzini and the Milanese brothers Decio, all professors of law, gave
Lorenzo a great deal of trouble by their unruly conduct. Among the best
professors at the outset were the jurists Baldo Bartolini of Perugia
and Francesco Accolti of Arezzo, brother of the Florentine chancellor,
and a pupil of Filelfo; Piero Leoni of Spoleto, already mentioned,
who afterwards, to his misfortune, became Lorenzo’s family doctor;
the humanists Lorenzo Lippi of Colle and Bartolommeo of Pratovecchio.
Special honours fell to the share of the Roman Francesco de’ Massimi,
who came to the university at its opening as professor of law, was made
Principal the next year, and gained such esteem both by his lectures
and by his endeavours to establish and maintain a better understanding
between the two hostile cities, that the rights of citizenship were
conferred on him and his descendants, and he was permitted to add the
arms of Pisa to his own.[95] The salaries of the professors were
mostly considerable, and Lorenzo repeatedly contributed to them out
of his own funds. The archbishop, Filippo de’ Medici, supported him
in his efforts to benefit the institution, which was conducive both
to the honour and advantage of the see. That pecuniary difficulties
could not be escaped, however, is clear from the fact that in 1485, in
consequence of the non-payment of the papal allowance, a retrenchment
of 2,000 florins was deemed needful.
The philosophical and philological lectures continued, as has been
said, at Florence, and scholarly activity there seemed in nowise
diminished by the re-animation of the sister city. Among the native
professors, Bartolommeo della Fonte (Fontius) made a name equally
distinguished in Latin and Greek literature, and left Latin memoirs on
contemporary events from 1448 to 1493, the value of which is not to be
measured by their brevity.[96] His friendship with Poliziano became
clouded when he obtained the chair of eloquence vacant by Filelfo’s
death. He does not seem to have held it long, as he undertook the
superintendence of Matthias Corvinus’ library at Ofen. The study of
Greek flourished. The chair once occupied by Argyropulos and Theodoros
was filled by the Athenian Demetrios Chalcondylas, who kept it longer
than anyone else, and left a better reputation, both for learning and
morality, than many Greek grammarians. Poliziano, who is supposed
to have perfected his knowledge of the Hellenic tongue under him,
addressed him in several Greek epigrams, which give no hint of the
rivalry afterwards said to exist between them. A fine testimony to
his Homeric studies is the edition of the ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ which
came out in 1488. Three years before, at the age of nearly seventy,
he left Florence for Milan, where he long continued to teach, having
been gladly welcomed by Lodovico Sforza, who rivalled the Medici in his
patronage of science and art. Chalcondylas’ place at Florence was taken
by Johannes Lascaris, who formed many fruitful connections with Milan,
France, and Rome, in the days of Lorenzo’s son. The knowledge of Greek
was, perhaps, never so widespread among high-born youths anywhere as in
those days in the Tuscan city to which, Poliziano said, Athens with its
native soil and all its possessions had transferred itself. In truth,
strangers eager to learn came from all quarters—England, Germany,
Portugal—just as of old everybody went to Athens. Here Alessandro
Farnese acquired that knowledge of the language and literature of
Greece which the greyhaired Pope Paul III. had not yet lost. Poliziano
thus addressed the hearers of Chalcondylas:
Seek the Pierides not in their ancient home, O ye poets:
For in this city of ours dwells now the heavenly choir.
Where, do ye ask, have they chosen among us a place to abide in?
All the nine ye will find safe in Chalcondylas’ breast.
Textual criticism was a work taken up less by foreigners than by
Italians: in Rome, especially by Lorenzo Valla and Pomponio Leto; in
Florence, by Landino, Poliziano, and Pico. Lorenzo not only encouraged
those personally intimate with him to this work, but urged others to
it, particularly the members of the Academy, which, having weathered
the storms of Paul II.’s reign, flourished with renewed vigour
under Sixtus IV., a Pope who felt no fear of the baptized heathens.
Bartolommeo Platina, writing to Lorenzo[97] to recommend the Milanese
sculptor Andrea Fusina, adds that the man felt assured of obtaining his
desire if he, Platina, interceded for him. ‘Farewell, and believe me,
thou hast few who love and honour thee like Platina.’ On March 30,
1488, Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini on behalf of a friend of Pomponio
Leto:[98] ‘Doubtless you know, at least by name, Pomponio, one of the
most famous scholars in Rome, if not the very first, and a man much
attached to me and our whole house, so that I am greatly desirous of
doing him a favour.’
The art of studying manuscripts had first to be put on a sound basis.
The rich harvest of discoveries was now almost at an end, a few objects
of interest turning up only occasionally. Collectors had naturally
enough given themselves up to delight in the prizes thus gained,
without troubling themselves much about criticism. The necessity of
criticism became more strongly felt and exercised as continued study of
the old authors involved a stricter examination of the correctness of
the manuscripts. At first people had been too much inclined to believe
generally in their great age, and had been misled in individual cases
by the chronological notes at the end of the codices. Often, as in
the Medicean codex of the later books of the Annals of Tacitus, the
date was fixed in the fourth Christian century, when in reality the
parchments were written on by a later copyist. The corrupt state of
the manuscripts called for correction, but the correction was mostly
arbitrary. Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Francesco Barbaro,
and others, sought to supply what was needed, but of rules they
knew nothing. In this, above all, shines the transcendent merit of
Poliziano; though even he indulged largely in conjecture, when in his
youth he self-complacently fancied that his work on Catullus surpassed
everything of the kind. Nor did he stand alone in this respect. Ermolao
Barbaro in his edition of Pliny in 1492, Marullus in his critical works
on Lucretius, confess how often they had had recourse to emendations
of their own devising. But Poliziano thoroughly perceived that a
secure basis was only to be obtained by a comparison of MSS. where
more than one existed. When this was not the case he tried to get
a foundation for his conjectures from notes and parallel passages.
Many printed books from his library bear on their margins traces of
this comparison of MSS., to which he alludes in one of his letters to
Lorenzo.[99] The collection of critical studies which he published in
1489 under the title of ‘Miscellanea,’ at Lorenzo’s desire and with a
dedication to him, is a lasting memorial of his learning and acumen. A
painful impression is made by his dispute with Filelfo’s pupil Giorgio
Merula,[100] the editor of ‘Plautus.’ This man had been invited to
Milan by Ludovico il Moro, gave philosophical lectures there, and
though previously an admirer of Poliziano, now professed to find errors
and plagiarisms in his works. Sforza showed his good sense by trying to
calm the irritation of the Florentine when appealed to by him.
Poliziano’s critical work on the correction of the text of Justinian’s
‘Corpus Juris’ holds an honourable place in the history of this
subject. This famous copy of the Pandects was avowedly acquired by Pisa
at the conquest of Amalfi, whither it had doubtless come as a gift from
some Greek emperor, and on the overthrow of Pisa it was transferred to
Florence. Poliziano’s views of its age and authorship may have been
exploded by later criticism, but for the foundations of a better text
than that of the later MSS., and the two editions printed from them, we
still owe him thanks.[101]
While the Latin works of the humanists were being done into the
vulgar tongue, the practice of translating Greek works into Latin
was continued. Alamanno Rinuccini translated Plutarch’s ‘Lives’ and
moral writings, as well as Philostratos’ ‘Life of Apollonius of
Tyana,’ which excited special interest in an age much busied with the
theologising philosophy of the later Greeks. Alessandro Bracci did the
same for the histories of Appian, and Poliziano, as has been mentioned,
translated those of Herodian for Innocent VIII. The movement, begun in
Florence and Venice, had spread all over Italy. In the most palmy days
of these studies the invention of printing produced in the whole world
of letters a change, the possible extent of which was at once felt,
though it could not yet be measured. Books had hitherto been things
for the great and opulent, and not seldom were to be obtained only by
personal labour. There were difficulties even in the highest circles.
The spread of the new art produced not only a material increase of
literary productions, but led naturally to an immense increase of
criticism. In earlier times bitter complaints had been heard of the
corruption of the texts. The few attempts that had been made to attain
greater correctness now became a recognised branch of study. Every
corrector was not indeed a Poliziano, a Barbaro, or a Merula. The
last complains, in his edition of ‘Plautus’ of 1472, that learned and
unlearned alike busied themselves with correcting books; a circumstance
which limits the value of more than one _editio princeps_ to its mere
rarity, and explains the fact that many of the correctors of that
time rivalled their predecessors the copyists in the arbitrariness of
their proceedings. But even in the case of the learned the canons of
criticism were by no means fixed.
It is remarkable that Florence, which, when printing was introduced
into Italy, stood at the head of all literary movement, is by no means
the first city that appears in the annals of typography. In 1465, three
years after the capture of Mainz by Adolf of Nassau had scattered to
the four winds the printers established there, two Germans set up the
first printing-press in the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, whence
ere long it was removed to the house of the Massimi at Rome. Four years
later Venice followed, then the Umbrian and other cities. In November,
1471, appeared the first book printed in Florence, the commentary of
Servius on Virgil’s ‘Bucolics,’ which was followed in the following
January by the ‘Georgics,’ and in October, 1472, by the ‘Æneid.’ But if
the city fell behind many others in point of priority, this honour is
due to her, that one of her sons cut and founded his own types, without
needing the services of a foreigner. The goldsmith Bernardo Cennini was
the first Italian who set himself up as an independent artist in this
line.[102] Born in Florence, January, 1415, he was first a silk-weaver
and then a goldsmith, and was concerned in the bronze doors of the
Baptistery, and other great works. His art led him to manufacture
types for printing. The inscription in the book printed by him, with
the help of his sons Domenico and Pietro, the first as compositor, the
second as corrector of the press,[103] shows that he was proud of the
achievement: ‘To Florentine minds nought is arduous.’ The book shows
an artistic mind in its form and typographical arrangement, but the
round type is lacking in sharpness and evenness. The pecuniary result
can scarcely have been worth the trouble and outlay. When we find that
Cennini, after spending sixteen months on the production of the folio
volume, pledged his house for a loan of 120 florins, we can understand
why he returned to his old occupation, and why no other book printed by
him is forthcoming. In course of time Bernardo Cennini, whose sight had
suffered greatly, became consul of his guild, and died in 1483, twelve
years after the attempt which brought him a name and somewhat tardy
honours.
Next a German who had established himself in Florence, Johannes,
son of Peter of Mainz, printed Boccaccio’s ‘Filocolo’ in 1472, and
afterwards joined the typographical society which took its name from
the Dominican nunnery at Ripoli.[104] Its local habitation is still
shown in one of the schoolrooms of the educational institute named
after the same in the Via della Scala. From this establishment,
founded by the spiritual directors of the convent and connected
with a type-foundry, issued first, in 1476, some lauds and prayers,
then the ‘Commentary of Donatus’ and the ‘Legend of S. Catherine of
Siena,’ which, both in the common form and in copies with illuminated
initials, obtained a great circulation. This printing establishment,
in which many both of the clergy and laity had a share, and in which
the nuns were employed as compositors, produced a great deal of work
during its short existence of eight years. In 1477 printing was begun
by Nicolaus of Breslau, already mentioned; in 1478 he brought out the
‘editio princeps’ of Celsus, and three years later Landino’s ‘Dante.’
In 1481, Antonio Miscomini printed Savonarola’s ‘Triumphus Crucis,’ a
proof of the increasing notice attracted by the eloquent and learned
Dominican. Next came Ficino’s ‘Platonic Theology,’ and translation
of ‘Plotinus.’ In 1488 the series of Greek books issued in Florence
opened brilliantly with the ‘Homer,’ dedicated to Lorenzo’s eldest son.
Chalcondylas undertook the correction, the difficulty of which called
forth his remark, in the preface, that the text had been so corrupted
by the carelessness of copyists that it was, so to say, impossible to
find it entire in any codex, however old. The expenses were borne by
Bernardo and Neri, sons of Tanai de’ Nerli, a noble citizen. Lorenzo
Alopa of Venice is said to have printed the beautiful volume, which was
soon followed by numerous others. The most celebrated Florentine family
of typographers, that of the Giunta, did not begin their labours till
Lorenzo de’ Medici had long been in his grave.
The extended use of typography had, however, as yet by no means
diminished the value of manuscripts or put an end to the work of
the copyists, while the need and difficulty of unearthing literary
treasures was as great as ever. The explanation of this is to be found
in the material perfection to which the art of the copyists had been
brought, a perfection of which the proud consciousness was expressed
in Vespasiano’s disdainful remark on printing. This branch of industry
went on flourishing for many years, to disappear at last and leave
scarcely a trace behind. One of the most brilliant, though not the
most important, of the treasures of the Laurentiana, the works of St.
Augustine in sixteen folio volumes full of miniatures and ornaments,
was begun in the time of Piero de’ Medici and finished shortly before
the death of Lorenzo (two of the volumes are dated 1491). It may
not have been completed till the time of his second son, unless the
escutcheon with the balls and the Triregnum points to Leo X. only as
the possessor of the work and not as concerned in its execution.
In the diffusion of literary treasures, both of classical and modern
works, and in the relations of the latter to the general public, who
now for the first time became really acquainted with them, was brought
about that great change which gives to this period double importance
in the history of intellectual development. At Lorenzo’s death this
revolution had hardly reached its first stage; but his keen vision
perceived its growing importance when he observed that in the course of
twenty-eight years Italy had come to take a more prominent share than
other lands in the activity of the press. This showed, quite as much as
the previous rapid development of Greek literature, that the country
was ready to make an independent and profitable use of the gifts of
foreign countries. The invention of printing and the discovery of
America were in some degree the two great landmarks of Lorenzo’s life.
The first created actual publicity, the second opened a new horizon to
the world.
Never were manuscripts more eagerly collected and copied than in those
days. The sum of the collections was not so great as in the days
of Poggio and Leonardo Bruni; still the libraries were increasing
everywhere. Greece, which had contributed so largely to enrich the
West in the first half of the century, and after the fall of the
Eastern empire, was still the principal mine. Witness the two journeys
of Johannes Lascaris, the second of which, like that of Bernardo
Michelozzi, was entirely devoted to searching the monastery of Mount
Athos. Its results, as already stated, reached Florence after Lorenzo’s
death. As early as 1472 Lorenzo had projected a building, probably near
the palace in the Via Larga, destined to contain the great number of
manuscripts collected by his grandfather, his father, and himself. This
appears from a letter addressed to him by Vespasiano da Bisticci, in
which the latter recalls their frequent conversations on the subject,
and adds that such an undertaking would do great honour to Lorenzo as
well as to the town; and that he had written about it to the Duke of
Calabria, the Count of Urbino, and Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro,
knowing how much pleasure it would give them. Doubtless the manifold
cares and disturbances which prevented Lorenzo from imitating his
grandfather in the number and splendour of his buildings hindered him
from executing this plan in good time. Consequently at his premature
death the library was but half finished. It is now impossible to make
out even the site of the building, since it is uncertain whether it
was the same chosen many years afterwards by his nephew Pope Clement
VII. for the existing Mediceo-Laurentian library. We still possess the
inventory of the private library of the Medici, drawn up in 1495,
when the books were made over to the convent of San Marco. There they
remained, through many vicissitudes, till 1508, when Cardinal Giovanni
de’ Medici bought them and transferred them to Rome; after his death
they returned to Florence, to form the chief part of the San Lorenzo
collection.[105]
It may be imagined that many of Lorenzo’s fellow-citizens were his
rivals in book-collecting. A fine library had once been formed by
Piero de’ Pazzi, son of Andrea. Francesco and Angelo Gaddi followed
his example, and the great public library of their native city
contains many books once in their possession. Poliziano’s friend, the
accomplished merchant Filippo Sassetti the elder, also made a large
collection. The good custom of making special bequests to secure these
literary treasures from dispersion was kept up. Boccaccio had done
this, and Riccoli, Traversari, Cardinal Piero Corsini and others; and
in like manner Ugolini Guigni, Bishop of Volterra, left his books to
the Benedictine abbey at Florence.[106] In 1477, Jacopo Salvini, Bishop
of Cortona, bequeathed his collection to Lorenzo de’ Medici.[107] The
latter had literary correspondents everywhere. In 1476 we find him
corresponding with the Milanese Gio. Francesco della Torre, who, with
Maestro Bonaccorso of Pisa, had purchased the books of Andronikos
Kallistos, when the latter purposed returning from Lombardy to his own
home.[108] Giovanni Rossi of Candia, who had been employed by Cardinal
Bessarion, was also made use of by Lorenzo, apparently to look after
copies of manuscripts.[109] Among those more closely connected with him
in later years, Poliziano, Pico, and Ermolao Barbaro took charge of
the enrichment of his collection and that of the convent libraries of
San Marco, Fiesole, and San Gallo. Ho said once to Poliziano, he wished
that he and Pico could procure him so many books that his income would
not suffice to buy them, and he should be obliged to pawn his household
goods. He kept copyists in many places, especially at Padua, which, as
the residence of so many great scholars and from its connection with
the Levant through Venice, was a spot favourable to book collectors.
The difficulty and expense of obtaining manuscripts in earlier times
has been already noticed. Even in Lorenzo’s latter years it was by no
means easy, and his correspondence shows that once, in the very height
of his glory, he had to apply in his own handwriting to a prince who
was probably under obligation to him, in order to obtain the loan
of Dion Cassius. ‘There is in your Excellency’s library,’ he wrote
on February 5, 1486, to Duke Ercole d’Este, ‘a historian, by name
Dio, _de Romanis historiis_, that I earnestly desire to see, both on
account of the enjoyment and consolation which history affords me,
and because my son Piero, who has some knowledge of Greek literature,
has begged me to help him to become acquainted with this author, who,
I understand, is very rare in Italy. Your Excellency can understand
how highly I shall prize the favour, if you will lend me the book
for a few days.’ Notwithstanding their intimacy, the Duke did not
send the original, but allowed a copy to be made by a copyist sent to
Ferrara for the purpose. Two years later he had Niccolò Leoniceno’s
translation copied for Lorenzo, on condition that it was neither to
be printed nor allowed to go any further.[110] In the spring of 1491
Poliziano was, as we have seen, in Venice, where he bought for his
patron a quantity of manuscripts now in the Laurentiana. He was refused
permission to see Cardinal Bessarion’s collection of books, although
the Ferrarese ambassador used his influence with the Doge Agostino
Barbarigo—a strange token of petty mistrust.[111] ‘Your diligence in
having Greek works copied, and the favour you show to scholars,’ wrote
Poliziano to Lorenzo about this time, ‘procures for you such honour and
attachment as no one has enjoyed for many years past.’ He mentioned
at the same time the admiration for Lorenzo expressed by a Venetian
poetess honoured by all scholars and literary men, as well as by popes
and kings. ‘Last evening I visited Cassandra Fedele,[112] to whom I
presented your salutations, Lorenzo; she is really admirable, both in
Latin and in the vulgar tongue, withal very modest, and, in my opinion,
also beautiful. I left her astonished. She is devoted to you, and
speaks of you as if she knew all about you. Some day she will certainly
come to Florence to visit you, so prepare to do her honour.’
Lorenzo’s example did not fail to bring forth fruit in his own house.
Leo X. laboured all his life to follow it, with a zeal in collecting
which showed that his father’s spirit survived in him. Piero, with
his tutor Poliziano, superintended the arrangement and enrichment of
the library, sending reports about it to his father, when the latter
was ill at the baths. We learn from one of his letters[113] that the
Medici, in the interests of their library, took advantage of the
death of King Matthias Corvinus (April 4, 1490) to secure a number of
his copyists and agents who were then thrown out of employment. That
monarch vied with the book collectors of his time, and spent more than
30,000 gold florins yearly on the increase of his library at Ofen. In
1488 he sent an agent to Florence with full power to make purchases and
superintend the taking of copies. The efforts made by this active and
high-minded ruler of a people still half barbarous, however capable of
development, were always assisted by Lorenzo, as became his friendly
relations with Matthias. Long before the days of Matthias Corvinus
there had been a literary and artistic connection between Florence
and Hungary through Filippo Scolari, commonly called Pippo Spano by
his countrymen, from his title of Count Palatine (_Obergespann_) of
Temesvar; he held an influential position under Sigismund of Luxemburg.
The connection with the Italian literary world had been actively kept
up by the powerful Archbishop of Gran, Johann Vitez, who founded a high
school at Ofen; still more by his nephew, Janus Pannonius, Bishop of
Fünfkirchen, who studied at Padua under Guarino, and visited Cosimo de’
Medici at Careggi.
From his youth Lorenzo had extended his attention beyond what are
called literary treasures in the narrower sense. In another field,
bordering at once on the study of antiquity and on that of history, his
name must also be mentioned with distinction. The range of classical
studies was extended to ancient monuments. Rome, for centuries active
only in destruction, began to be ashamed of the bad name which such
barbarism had brought upon her. The time of Sixtus IV., with all
its sins, was the turning-point. Like his successor and namesake,
Sixtus V., the Pope did not entirely refrain from demolishing ancient
monuments; but works of art and inscriptions were safe. The Roman
Academy strove to wipe out the blot pointed at in an epigram by Pius II.
The great increase in the collection of old inscriptions drew
attention to those valuable witnesses of old times. At the same time
the disappearance of these memorials through decay and careless
removal gave warning that their contents must be secured by copying.
What had been once undertaken by Nicola Signorini, Giovanni Dondi,
Poggio, Ciriaco, perhaps even before them by Cola di Rienzi, was now
continued under the guidance of Pomponio Leto and his friends, with the
sympathy of all Italy. Inscribed stones were diligently collected in
Rome, Naples, and northern Italy. Bernardo Rucellai copied a number
of epigraphs from the originals in Rome. One of the most valuable
of these collections of transcriptions was dedicated to Lorenzo de’
Medici by its author, the Dominican Fra Giocondo of Verona. He was
one of those many-sided geniuses frequent at the time; versed in
classical literature and in knowledge of antiquity. His pupil, Julius
Cæsar Scaliger, called him a living library of ancient and modern
learning. He was an engineer and architect, active in many ways at
Rome, at Venice, and in France, and at an advanced age master-builder
of the Vatican Basilica, under Leo X. The copy of the collection of
inscriptions presented by Fra Giocondo to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who
came in contact with him through Alessandro Cortesi, has disappeared,
but other copies remain. The dedication of the work is an eloquent
lamentation over the state of ancient Rome, and over the dispersion
or destruction of stone and bronze tablets. It offers a warm tribute
to their value, and an acknowledgment of Lorenzo’s interest in these
studies. Poliziano and other friends made use of the careful work of
the energetic Veronese, who was in communication both with the future
Pope and his brother Giuliano, to whom he dedicated his commentary on
Cæsar’s ‘Gallic War,’ and the later edition of ‘Vitruvius.’[114]
Such were the literary tendencies which, notwithstanding the rivalry
of other cities, had their chief centre and focus at Florence; such
was the circle of men which had gathered together in this city. Vacant
places were soon filled up again. Like Lorenzo himself, several of
the most prominent were in the prime of life, and younger men began
to make good their claims. Such were Marcello Virgilio Adriani, who,
after Scala’s death, restored the chancellorship to its pristine
glory, and Bernardo Dovizj, who grew up in the house of the Medici,
and afterwards gained a worldwide reputation as Cardinal of Bibiena.
Whatever personal divergences there might be in the group, Lorenzo held
them all together: all did homage to him, all acknowledged him as their
leader. It was no cringing homage to a mighty lord; many of those who
stood nearest to him gained little in worldly goods by their position,
and others were too high and independent to need his help. It was the
homage due to a richly endowed mind with noble aims and endeavours.
Regardless of all inequalities of rank and position, freedom and ease
reigned in this circle. When the meetings were academical, they were
free from the formality which afterwards crept into academical life.
Lorenzo de’ Medici, cheerful and sociable, maintained unconstrained
intercourse with his literary friends. He received them everywhere: in
the house in Via Larga, in the garden of San Marco, in the villas at
Careggi and Poggio a Cajano. The more intimate of them accompanied him
also when he went to the baths or to Pisa, or when he paced the convent
cloisters in serious discourse with the clergy. The Platonic Academy,
an inheritance from his grandfather, was only one manifestation of this
multiform social life. It was so strangely composed that it is not
surprising the Platonists sometimes fell into very un-Platonic ways.
There is something half comic about a letter of Landino’s dated 1464,
the year Cosimo died;[115] it is a petition on behalf of the herald of
the Priory Palace, who had been dismissed from his post for keeping a
girl hidden two days in his room. He solicits pardon upon the following
pleas: his wife was expecting her confinement, he had two little
daughters and an aged mother, and was a member of the Platonic Academy.
Lorenzo sometimes took part in the meetings of the learned society,
which he was fond of summoning to Careggi, being less disturbed there
than in the city. In both places the Symposia were renewed which,
according to Alexandrian tradition, were to celebrate the day of
Plato’s birth and death (November 7). Marsilio Ficino has described
one of these banquets which took place under the presidency either
of Lorenzo or Francesco Bandini.[116] Among the guests were Marsilio
and his father, Landino, Antonio degli Agli Bishop of Fiesole, Carlo
and Cristoforo Marsuppini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Bernardo Nuzzi, and
Tommaso Benci. The academical celebration or exercise succeeded the
repast. Plato’s ‘Symposion’—the book which treats of the tokens of
love at similar happy meetings, and a commentary on which Marsilio
furnished in his treatise on love—was used as a starting-point for
free disputation, the parts being divided among the persons present.
Giovanni Cavalcanti developed the ‘Phædro,’ and showed how the birth
of Eros from the conjunction of the earth with chaos, amid the throes
of creation and the struggle for light, signified the original motive
force of all that is good, noble, and beautiful in mankind. With this
discourse was connected the exposition, also allotted to Cavalcanti,
of the speech of Pausanias on the double Aphrodite, and Urania; on
the distinction and confusion between moral and physical affections,
their emanation, extension, stages of purification, and participation
in the manifold forces of nature. Landino undertook to explain the
speech of Aristophanes. According to this, love is the never-sleeping
longing of man for a return to his former state of oneness with the
Divine, from which Zeus, in wrath, had divided him by means of his
earthly form and by sin. To Carlo Marsuppini fell the discourse of
Agathon, which glorifies the qualities of the god who is at once so
various and yet blends all variety into unity. Tommaso Benci devoted
himself to pointing out the connection between the Christian view and
the supposed inspired words of the priestess Diotima, who disclosed to
Socrates the nature of a love that raises man to the highest good or
sinks him to the lowest depths of evil. Cristoforo Marsuppini undertook
to bring into harmony with the Socratic doctrine of Love the poems of
Guido Cavalcanti, to which, as an emanation of Greek philosophy in
the arena of the new-born Italian literature, great importance was
attached by contemporaries, especially by Lorenzo de’ Medici. Such were
the occupations of these famous assemblies. Their positive scientific
results were not great, yet they afford a brilliant testimony to the
cultivation which enabled the upper classes in Florence to take part in
the noblest intellectual efforts.
While poetry and philosophy were thus flourishing, the exact sciences
were making considerable progress. It is doubtful whether Fra Luca
Paciolo, of Borgo San Sepolcro—who first recalled true geometry to
life by his exposition of Euclid, and who exercised so much influence
on Leonardo da Vinci—began his labours during the lifetime of
Lorenzo. But Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, the physician, philosopher,
naturalist, and mathematician, commenced his studies as early as the
days of Cosimo the Elder. In 1468 he laid down the famous meridian
in Sta. Maria del Fiore, primarily for the purpose of ascertaining
exactly the solstices in order to fix the festivals of the Church.
The importance of the work was appreciated by later generations, and
the task was performed more perfectly 300 years afterwards, at the
suggestion of La Condamine.[117] It is well known that Toscanelli,
who died in 1482, aged seventy-five, exerted great influence on the
mind of Christopher Columbus by his calculations of the longitudinal
extent of Eastern Asia, which, however, rested chiefly on Marco Polo’s
mistaken hypotheses. Long after Toscanelli’s death, Columbus—when
upon his first voyage—made use of the map, marked with the latitudes
and longitudes, which the former had once sent to Lisbon. It was in
the last years of Lorenzo’s life that a man whose name is more famous
than his deeds, and who has been the subject of renewed controversy in
our own times, left his home to seek a new one in Southern Spain.[118]
The family of Amerigo Vespucci, which reckoned among the navigator’s
near relatives men of both scientific and political importance, was
sometimes on friendly, sometimes on hostile terms with the Medici;
but we hear nothing of any personal relation between him and Lorenzo.
About the age of forty, Amerigo settled in Seville, where he joined the
banking and commercial house of his fellow-countryman Giovanni Berardi.
Well furnished with knowledge, to which his learned uncle Giorgio
Antonio had contributed not a little, he began a course of practical
preparations for the undertaking which led him to the Far West. Not
with the Florentines, but with a schoolman of Lorraine, originated the
name of the new continent which, as long as the world stands, will
recall Amerigo Vespucci. Still the Florentines rightly rejoiced in the
fame of their countryman. A later generation has seen the house of his
forefathers turned into a hospital, and has inscribed on it in homage
to his memory: ‘Ob repertam Americam sui et patriæ nominis illustratori
amplificatori orbis terrarum.’ When the news of his discoveries made in
the voyage of 1497 reached Florence, the Signoria had the above-named
house illuminated for three nights, a distinction they were wont to
bestow only on the most conspicuous merit.
THIRD PART.
_THE FINE ARTS._