I am well aware that, in spite of your constant occupations,
the receipt of my letters is always a source of great pleasure
to you--so great is your politeness and singular kindness to
all. I beg of you, however, to be particularly attentive in
reading the present. I beseech you the more urgently, not
because I am the possessor of that which even the most learned
of men may be anxious to share, but rather out of respect due
to that which I am going to tell you. I feel certain, since
you are so pre-eminently learned, that the news will bring no
slight enjoyment to you and to the other scholars.
For tell me, pray, what is there, or what can there be more
pleasing, or agreeable, or acceptable to you and to others
than the knowledge of those things by the study of which we
become more learned and (what is of even greater moment) more
discriminating in our likes and dislikes? Our great parent,
nature, gave to the human race a reasoning mind, which we are
to consult as our guide in the conduct of a good and happy
life, than which nothing better could be imagined. I am not so
sure but that, after all, by far the most extraordinary gift of
nature is the power of speech, without which the reason and the
intellect were of no avail.
Speech, in giving external expression to the workings of the
mind, is the one faculty which distinguishes us from other
creatures. We should therefore consider ourselves under deep
obligation to all those who have developed the liberal arts,
but under deepest obligation to those who, by their patient and
unremitting study, have handed down to us the rules of oratory
and the norms of correct speech. In short, although mankind is
especially superior to all other living creatures through its
use of speech, these scholars have striven that in just this
respect men should excel themselves.
Many illustrious Roman authors devoted themselves to the study
and to the development of the human speech, as you know.
Chief and foremost among them was M. Fabius Quintilianus, who
describes the method for the development of the perfect orator
with such clearness, and with such characteristic carefulness
that, in my opinion, he lacked nothing as regards either
the broadest knowledge or the highest eloquence. Even if we
possessed nothing of Cicero, the father of Roman eloquence, we
should still attain to a perfect knowledge of correct speech
with Quintilian alone as our guide.
Hitherto, however, among us (and by this I mean among us
Italians) Quintilian was to be had only in such a mangled and
mutilated state (the fault of the times, I think), that neither
the figure nor the face of man was to be distinguished in him.
[For the parts then missing see Sabbadini, _Scoperte_, p. 13,
n. 64.] You yourself have seen him [_Aen._, vi, 495-97]:
“His body gashed and torn,
His hands cut off, his comely face
Seamed o’er with wounds that mar its grace,
Ears lopped, and nostrils shorn.”
--(Conington, ed. 1900, p. 195)
A grievous fact, indeed, and an insufferable, that in the foul
mangling of so eloquent a man we should have inflicted such
great loss upon the domain of oratory. But the greater was
our grief and our vexation at the maiming of that man, the
greater is our present cause for congratulation. Thanks to our
searchings, we have restored Quintilian to his original dress
and dignity, to his former appearance, and to a condition of
sound health. [Andreolo Arese seems to have found a complete
Quintilian in France as early as 1396. See Sabbadini, _op.
cit._, pp. 35, 36.]
Forsooth, if M. Tullius rejoices heartily in having secured the
return of M. Marcellus from exile, and that too at a time when
there were at Rome many other Marcelli who were just as good
men, just as prominent and well known both at home and abroad,
what are the learned men of today (and especially students of
oratory) to do, seeing that this matchless glory of the Roman
name (because of whose loss nothing was left except Cicero),
and that this work, which but recently was so mangled and
fragmentary, have been recalled not merely from exile but from
utter destruction?
By Hercules, unless we had brought him aid in the nick of
time, he would have died shortly. There is not the slightest
doubt that that man, so brilliant, genteel, tasteful, refined,
and pleasant could not longer have endured the filthiness of
that dungeon, the squalor of that place, and the cruelty of
those jailors. He was dejected and shabby in appearance, like
unto those who have been condemned to death. His beard was
unkept, and his hair matted with blood. [A quotation of _Aen._,
ii, 277.] His very features and dress cried out that he was
sentenced to an undeserved death. He seemed to stretch out
his hands to me, to implore the assistance of the Quirites to
protect him against an unjust judge. He seemed to be making an
accusation, in that he, who once had been the means of safety
to so many with his resourceful eloquence, could now find not
a single patron to take pity on his misfortune, not one who
would consult for his safety or prevent his being led out to an
unmerited end.
Often by mere chance, things come to pass which we do not dare
to hope for, as Terence says [_Phormio_, 5, 1, vss. 30, 31].
And so Fortune (and not so much his as ours) would have it
that, when we found ourselves at Constance with nothing to do,
a sudden desire should seize us of visiting the place where
Quintilian was imprisoned--the monastery of St. Gall, twenty
miles away. And so several of us proceeded thither [among whom
Bartolomeo da Montepulciano and Cencio Rustici: Sabbadini,
_op. cit._, p. 77] to relax our minds and at the same time to
search through the volumes of which there was said to be a
great number. There, among crowded stacks of books which it
would take long to enumerate, we discovered a Quintilian, still
safe and sound, but all moldy and covered with dust. For the
books were not in the library, as their merit warranted, but in
a most loathsome and dreary dungeon at the very foundations of
one of the towers--a place into which not even those awaiting
execution would be thrust.
I for one feel certain that if there were any today who would
tear down these barbarian penitentiaries in which such men are
held prisoners, and would submit them to a most careful search,
as our predecessors did, they would meet with the same good
fortune in the case of many authors whose loss we now mourn.
In addition to the Quintilian, we discovered the first three
books and half the fourth book of the _Argonauticon_ of C.
Valerius Flaccus [books i-iv, 317: Sabbadini, _op. cit._,
p. 78]; and explanations or commentary on eight orations of
Cicero by Q. Asconius Pedianus, a very eloquent man mentioned
by Quintilian himself. All these I transcribed with my own
hand, and somewhat hastily [the Quintilian in thirty-two days,
Burckhardt, p. 189], for I was anxious to send them to Leonardo
Bruni of Arezzo and to Niccoló of Florence [Niccoló Niccoli,
for whom he was acting as agent].
You have now, my dearest Guarino, all that could be given to
you, for the present, by one who is most devoted to you. I wish
I could have sent to you the book as well. But I had to please
our Leonardo first. Still, you now know where it is to be had,
so that if you really want to have it (which I should judge to
be as soon as possible), you can easily obtain it. Farewell.
At Constance, December 16, 1416.
The real date of the discovery is in June or July, 1416; cf.
Sabbadini, _op. cit._, p. 78.
[64]. Cic., _De inv._, i, 6 _extr._
[65]. Fracassetti translates this passage, Vol. 5. p. 160 (at
bottom): “Non io peró, com’egli ad Ermagora, a te vorrei dell’una o
dell’altra cosa negare il vanto.” From this rendering, one receives
the impression that Cicero was equally ready to deny Hermagoras both
theory and practice. Cicero, however, distinctly testifies to the
theoretical ability of Hermagoras in the words “quod hic [i. e., H.]
fecit,” and just as distinctly affirms his lack of experience--“ex
arte dicere, quod eum minime potuisse omnes videmus.” The words of
Petrarch now, therefore, become clear. He says (Vol. III, p. 279):
“oratori minimum de arte loqui, multo maximum ex arte dicere. Non
tamen ut ille [i. e., Cicero] Hermagorae de quo agebat, sic ego tibi
horum alterum eripio.”
[66]. This work has sometimes been wrongly identified with the
_Dialogus de oratoribus_, which was not known until the fifteenth
century. The _De causis_ mentioned by Petrarch must be a reference
to the collection of _Declamationes_ which in the Middle Ages passed
as the work of Quintilian (P. de Nolhac, II, pp. 84, n. 3, and 85;
Teuffel, par. 325 and n. 11).
[67]. Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 304, 305.
[68]. These criticisms are to be found in Quintilian, book x. Since
Petrarch uses almost the same words, and in fact quotes verbatim
in the last instance, the tenth book (or at least this portion of
it) must have been part of the Quintilian given him by Lapo di
Castiglionchio (see n. [72]). Petrarch says (Vol. III, p. 280): “et
tu [i. e., Quintilian] quidem ingenium eius et studium et doctrinam
laudas [Quint., x, 1, 128], electionem ac iudicium non laudas [x, 1,
130]: stilum vero corruptum et omnibus vitiis fractum dicis [x, 1,
125].” (For the parts of the _Institutes_ generally missing in the
Middle Ages, see Sabbadini, _Scoperte_, p. 13, n. 64.)
[69]. Sen., _Contr._, x, _praef._ 2: “Pertinere autem ad rem non puto
... quomodo L. Asprenas aut Quintilianus senex declamaverit: transeo
istos quorum fama cum ipsis extincta est.” This criticism, evidently,
was not spoken by Seneca the philosopher, as Petrarch thought, but by
the elder Seneca, the author of the _Controversiae_ and _Suasoriae_.
Petrarch has simply confused the two, not being aware of the
existence of the latter. Furthermore, the elder Seneca died before or
about the time that Quintilian was born. Hence the criticism could
not have referred to the author of the _Institutes_, but, perhaps, to
Quintilian’s father (who is merely mentioned in Quint., ix, 3, 73),
or to Sextus Nonius Quintilianus, consul in 8 A.D. In either case
the identity of this other Quintilian remains a doubtful one.
[70]. There is no question that Quintilian’s pupils were the sons
of Flavius Clemens and Domitilla the Younger--in other words, the
grandsons of Emperor Domitian’s sister, and hence his grandnephews.
The Italian version wrongly gives (Vol. 5, p. 162): “i figli di
sua sorella, nipoti suoi--the sons of his sister, his nephews.”
Petrarch’s Latin reads (Vol. III, p. 280): “sororis Domitiani
principis nepotum curam ipso mandante suscipiens.” The confusion
seems to arise from the double function of the Italian word “nipoti”
for both “nephews” and “grandchildren.”
[71]. Plutarch, _Moralia_ (ed. Gregorius N. Bernardakis), Vol. VII,
p. 183, “Institutio Traiani, Epistola ad Traianum,” 11, 7-16:
I therefore congratulate you upon your merits, and myself upon
my good fortune, provided that in the exercise of your power
you exhibit the same justice and honesty which have earned
it for you. Otherwise I am sure that you will be exposed to
serious dangers, and that I shall be subjected to the criticism
of my detractors. For Rome cannot tolerate worthless emperors,
and men, in their gossiping, are wont to heap upon teachers
the faults of their pupils. In consequence, Seneca is justly
censured by those who detract from his Nero, Quintilian is
justly charged with the rash acts of his wards, and Socrates
is justly accused of having been over-indulgent with his pupil.
Petrarch’s words, “tuorum adolescentium temeritas in te refunditur”
(Vol. III, p. 280), are directly quoted from the pseudo-Plutarch’s
“adolescentium suorum temeritas in Quintilianum refunditur.” Cf. also
Petrarch, _De rem._, I, 81.
[72]. Fracassetti omits to translate this thought, though it seems
to result clearly from Petrarch’s words (Vol. III, p. 280): “Apud
superos ... ubi primum mihi coeptus es nosci, eoque ipso tempore.”
In the Latin edition Fracassetti notes that in one of the codices in
the Laurentian Library, Lapo di Castiglionchio entered the following
comment on these words: “You speak truly, for it was I who presented
you with that work while you were on your way to Rome--a work which,
as you said, you had never seen before.” The omission mentioned above
seems, however, to have been a mere slip. For elsewhere, in speaking
of the same occurrence, Fracassetti says (Vol. 2, p. 249): “a lui
[Petrarca] Lapo fece la prima volta conoscere, e donó le Istituzioni
di Quintiliano, per lo acquisto delle quali egli nel giorno stesso
scrisse una lettera a Quintiliano medesimo.”