ITALY--THE RENAISSANCE.
The study of the classics had languished for a time after the deaths of
Petrarch and Boccaccio. It revived again upon the coming of Chrysoloras,
who is said to have lighted in Italy 'a new and perpetual flame.' Poggio
Bracciolini was one of his first pupils; and he became so distinguished
in literature that the earlier part of the fifteenth century is known as
the age of Poggio. Leonardo Aretino describes the enthusiasm with which
the Italians made acquaintance with the ancient learning. 'I gave myself
up to Chrysoloras,' he writes, 'and my passion for knowledge was so
strong that the daily tasks became the material of my nightly dreams.' He
told Cosmo de' Médici, when translating Plato's Dialogues, that they
alone seemed to be infused with real life, while all other books passed
by like fleeting and shadowy things.
We are chiefly concerned with Poggio as the discoverer of long-lost
treasures. He saved Quintilian and many other classics from complete
extinction. 'Some of them,' said his friend Barbaro, 'were already dead
to the world, and some after a long exile you have restored to their
rights as citizens.' As a famous stock of pears had been named after an
Appius or Claudius, so it was said that these new fruits of literature
ought certainly to be named after Poggio.
The sole remaining copy of an ancient work upon aqueducts was discovered
by him in the old library at Monte Cassino, which had survived the
assaults of Lombards and Saracens, but in that later age seemed likely to
perish by neglect. We have the record of an earlier visit by Boccaccio,
in which the carelessness of its guardians was revealed. The visitor, we
are told, asked very deferentially if he might see the library. 'It is
open, and you can go up,' said a monk, pointing to the ladder that led to
an open loft. The traveller describes the filthy and doorless chamber,
the grass growing on the window-sills, and the books and benches white
with dust. He took down book after book, and they all seemed to be
ancient and valuable; but from some of them whole sheets had been taken
out, and in others the margins of the vellum had been cut off. All in
tears at this miserable sight, Boccaccio went down the ladder, and asked
a monk in the cloister how those precious volumes had come to such a
pass; and the monk told him that the brothers who wanted a few pence
would take out a quire of leaves to make a little psalter for sale, and
used to cut off the margins to make 'briefs,' which they sold to the
women.
Poggio himself has described his discovery at the Abbey of St. Gall. 'By
good fortune,' he says, 'we were at Constance without anything to do, and
it occurred to us to go to the monastery about twenty miles off to see
the place where the Quintilian was shut up.' The Abbey had been founded
by the Irish missionaries who destroyed the idols of Suabia, when
according to the ancient legend the mountain-demon vainly called on the
spirit of the lake to join in resisting the foe. Its library had been
celebrated in the ninth century, when the Hungarian terror fell upon
Europe, and the barbarian armies in one and the same day 'laid in ashes
the monastery of St. Gall and the city of Bremen on the shores of the
Northern ocean'; but the books had been fortunately removed to the Abbey
of Reichenau on an island in the Rhine. 'We went to the place,' said
Poggio, 'to amuse ourselves and to look at the books. Among them we found
the Quintilian safe and sound, but all coated with dust. The books were
by no means housed as they deserved, but were all in a dark and noisome
place at the foot of a tower, into which one would not cast a criminal
condemned to death.' He describes the finding of several other rare MSS.,
and says: 'I have copied them all out in great haste, and have sent them
to Florence.'
In 1418 he visited England in the train of Cardinal Beaufort. He said
that he was unable to procure any transcripts, though he visited some of
the principal libraries, and must have seen that the collection at the
Grey Friars at least was 'well stocked with books.' He was more
successful on the Continent, where he brought the _History_ of Ammianus
out of a German prison into the free air of the republic of letters. He
gave the original to Cardinal Colonna, and wrote to Aretino about
transcripts: 'Niccolo has copied it on paper for Cosmo de' Médici: you
must write to Carlo Aretino for another copy, or he might lend you the
original, because if the scribe should be an ignoramus you might get a
fable instead of a history.'
Among the pupils of Chrysoloras, Guarini of Verona was esteemed the
keenest philologist, and John Aurispa as having the most extended
knowledge of the classics. Aurispa, says Hallam, came rather late from
Sicily, but his labours were not less profitable than those of his
predecessors; in the year 1423 he brought back from Greece considerably
more than two hundred MSS. of authors hardly known in Italy; and the list
includes books of Plato, of Pindar, and of Strabo, of which all knowledge
had been lost in the West. Aurispa lectured for many years at Bologna and
Florence, and ended his days at the literary Court of Ferrara. Philelpho
was one of the most famous of the scholars who returned 'laden with
manuscripts' from Greece. To recover a lost poem or oration was to go far
on the road to fortune, and a very moderate acquaintance with the text
was expected from the hero of the fortunate adventure. When he lectured
on his new discoveries at Florence, where he had established himself in
spite of the Médici, Philelpho according to his own account was treated
with such deference on all sides that he was overwhelmed with
bashfulness; 'All the citizens are turning towards me, and all the ladies
and the nobles exalt my name to the skies.' He was the bitter enemy of
Poggio, and of all who supported the reigning family of Florence. Poggio
had the art of making enemies, though he was a courtier by profession and
had been secretary to eight Popes. He raged against Philelpho in a flood
of scurrilous pamphlets; Valla, the great Latin scholar, was violently
attacked for a mere word of criticism, and Niccolo Perotti, the
grammarian, paid severely for supporting his friend. Poggio was always in
extremes. His eulogies in praise of Lorenzo de' Médici, and Niccolo
Niccoli of Florence are perfect in grace and dignity; his invectives were
as scurrilous as anything recorded in the annals of literature.
Two generous benefactors preceded 'the father of his country' in
providing libraries for Florence. Niccolo Niccoli by common consent was
the great Mæcenas of his age; his passion for books was boundless, and he
had gathered the best collection that had been seen in Italy for many
generations. The public was free to inspect his treasures, and any
citizen might either read or transcribe as he pleased; 'In one word,'
wrote Poggio, 'I say that he was the wisest and the most benevolent of
mankind.' By his will he appointed sixteen trustees, among whom was Cosmo
de' Médici, to take charge of his books for the State. Some legal
difficulty arose after his death, but Cosmo undertook to pay all
liabilities if the management of the library were left to his sole
discretion; and the gift of the 'Florentine Socrates' was eventually
added to the books which Cosmo had purchased in Italy or had acquired in
his Levantine commerce.
Another citizen of Florence had rivalled the generosity of Niccoli. The
Chancellor Coluccio Salutati was revered by his countrymen for the
majestic flow of his prose and verse. It is true that Tiraboschi
considered him to be 'as much like Virgil or Cicero as a monkey resembles
a man.' Salutati showed his gratitude to Florence by endowing the city
with his splendid library. But in this case also there were difficulties,
and again the way was made smooth by the prompt munificence of the
Médici. Cosmo himself bought up Greek books in the Levant, and was
fortunate in securing some of the best specimens of Byzantine art. His
brother Lorenzo, his son Pietro, and Lorenzo the Magnificent in the next
generation, all laboured in their turn to adorn the Medicean collection.
Politian the poet, and Mirandula, the Phoenix of his age, were the
messengers whom the great Lorenzo sent out to gather the spoil; and he
only prayed, he said, that they might find such a store of good books
that he would be obliged to pawn his furniture to pay for them.
On the flight of the reigning family the 'Médici books' were bought by
the Dominicans at St. Mark's; and they rested for some years in
Savonarola's home, stored in the gallery which holds the great
choir-books illuminated by Frà Angelico and his companions. In the year
1508 the monks were in pecuniary distress, and were forced to sell the
books to Leo X., then Cardinal de' Médici. He took them to Rome to ensure
their safety, but was always careful to keep them apart from the official
assemblage in the Vatican; it is certain that he would have restored them
to Florence, if he had lived a short time longer. The patriotic design
was carried out by Clement VII., another member of that book-loving
family, and their hereditary treasures at last found a permanent home in
the gallery designed by Michelangelo.
The 'Médici books' were catalogued by a humble bell-ringer, who lived to
be a chief figure in the literary world. Thomas of Sarzana performed the
task so well that his system became a model for librarians. While
travelling in attendance on a Legate, the future Pope could never refrain
from expensive purchases; to own books, we are told, was his ambition,
'his pride, his pleasure, passion, and avarice'; and he was only saved
from ruin by the constant help of his friends. When he succeeded to the
tiara as Pope Nicholas V., his influence was felt through Christendom as
a new literary force. He encouraged research at home, and gathered the
records of antiquity from the ruined cities of the East, and 'the darkest
monasteries of Germany and Britain.' His labours resulted in the
restoration of the Vatican Library with an endowment of five thousand
volumes; and he found time to complete the galleries for their reception,
though he could never hope to finish the rest of the palace. A great part
of his work was destroyed in 1527 by the rabble that 'followed the
Bourbon' to the sack of Rome; but his institution survived the temporary
disaster, and its losses were repaired by the energy of Sixtus V.
Pope Nicholas had no sympathy with the niggardly spirit that would have
kept the 'barbarians' in darkness. He opened his Greek treasure-house to
the inspection of the whole western world. Looking back to the crowd
round his chair at the Lateran or in his house near S^ta. Maria
Maggiore, we recognise a number of familiar figures. Perotti is
translating Polybius, and Aurispa explaining the Golden Verses; Guarini
enlarges the world's boundaries by publishing the geography of Strabo. An
old tract upon the Pope's munificence shows how the Eastern Fathers were
restored to a place of honour. Basil and Cyril were translated, and the
Pope obtained the _Commentary upon St. Matthew_, of which Erasmus made
excellent use in his Paraphrase: it was the book of which Aquinas wrote
that he would rather have a copy than be master of the city of Paris. The
Pope desired very strongly to read Homer in Latin verse, and had procured
a translation of the first book of the Iliad. Hearing that Philelpho had
arrived in Rome, he hoped that the work might be finished by a
master-hand, and to get a version of the whole Iliad and Odyssey he gave
a large retaining fee, a palazzo, and a farm in the Campagna, and made a
deposit of ten thousand pieces of gold to be paid on the completion of
the contract.
Joseph Scaliger, the supreme judge in his day of all that related to
books, said that of all these men of the Italian renaissance he only
envied three. One of course was Pico of Mirandula, a man of marvellous
powers, who rose as a mere youth to the highest place as a philosopher
and linguist. The next was Politian, equally renowned for hard
scholarship and for the sweetness and charm of his voluminous poems. The
third was the Greek refugee, Theodore of Gaza, so warmly praised by
Erasmus for his versatile talent; no man, it was said, was so skilled in
the double task of turning Greek books into Latin, and rendering Latin
into Greek.
We should feel inclined to bracket another name with those of the famous
trio. George of Trebisond was a faithful expounder of the classics, the
discoverer of many a lost treasure, and the author of a whole library of
criticism. His life and labours were denounced in the once celebrated
_Book of the Georges_. He was more than a lover of Aristotle, said his
enemies: he was the enemy of the divine Plato, an apostate among the
Greeks, who had even dared to oppose their patron Bessarion. The Cardinal
Bessarion was complimented as 'the most Latin of the Greeks'; he might
have ruled as Pope in Rome, some said, if it had not been for Perotti
refusing to disturb him in the library. But George of Trebisond was
vilified after Poggio's fashion, and called 'brute' and 'heretic,' and
'more Turkish than the filthiest Turk,' with a hailstorm of still harder
epithets. Yet he was certainly a very accurate scholar; and he showed a
proper manly spirit when he boxed Poggio's ears in the Theatre of Pompey
for reminding him of the cleverness expected from 'a starving Greek.' His
life, one is glad to think, had a very peaceful end. The old man had a
house at Rome in the Piazza Minerva: his tombstone, much defaced, is
before the curtain as one enters the Church of S^ta. Maria. His son
Andrea used to help him in his work, and launched a pamphlet now and
again at Theodore of Gaza. The brilliant scholar fell into a second
childhood, and might be seen muttering to himself as he rambled with
cloak and long staff through the streets of Rome. The grand-daughter who
took charge of him married Madalena, a fashionable poet; and Pope Leo X.
delighted in hearing their anecdotes about old times, when George and
Theodore fought their paper-wars, and wielded their pens in the battle of
the books.
Before leaving the subject of the libraries in the two great capitals, we
ought to bestow a word or two upon those splendidly endowed institutions
by which a few Florentine book-collectors have kept up the literary fame
of their city, without pretending to emulate the splendour of the Médici,
or the wealth of the Vatican, or the curious antiquities of St. Mark. We
desire especially to say something in remembrance of the 'Riccardiana'
which, from its foundation in the sixteenth century, has been famous for
the value of its historical manuscripts. Among these are the journals of
Frà Oderigo, an early traveller in the East, a treatise in Galileo's own
writing, and a defence of Savonarola's policy in the handwriting of Pico
of Mirandula. We may see a copy of Marshal Strozzi's will, discussing his
plans of suicide, a history of the city composed and written out by
Machiavelli, and a large and interesting series of Poggio's literary
correspondence. The most celebrated of the librarians was Giovanni Lami,
who in the last century kept up with such spirit a somewhat dangerous
controversy with the Jesuits; but his monument at Santa Croce may have
been owed less to his triumphs in argument than to his passionate
devotion to books. His life was spent among them, and he died with a
manuscript in his arms; and his memory is still preserved in Florence by
the Greek collection with which he endowed the University.
The Abbé Marucelli left his name to another Florentine library. He was a
philanthropist as well as a bibliophile; and he gave the huge assemblage
of books which he had gathered at Rome to the use of the students in the
home of his boyhood. He wrote much, but was almost too modest to publish
or preserve his works. Perhaps the most interesting portion of his gift
consisted of a series of about a hundred large folios in which, like the
Patriarch Photius, he had written in the form of notes the results of the
reading of a life-time.
[Illustration: ANTONIO MAGLIABECCHI.]
The Magliabecchian Library maintains the remembrance of a portent in
literature. Antonio Magliabecchi, the jeweller's shop-boy, became
renowned throughout the world for his abnormal knowledge of books. He
never at any time left Florence; but he read every catalogue that was
issued, and was in correspondence with all the collectors and librarians
of Europe. He was blessed with a prodigious memory, and knew all the
contents of a book by 'hunting it with his finger,' or once turning over
the pages. He was believed, moreover, to know the habitat of all the rare
books in the world; and according to the well-known anecdote he replied
to the Grand Duke, who asked for a particular volume: 'The only copy of
this work is at Constantinople, in the Sultan's library, the seventh
volume in the second book-case, on the right as you go in.' He has been
despised as 'a man who lived on titles and indexes, and whose very pillow
was a folio.' Dibdin declared that Magliabecchi's existence was confined
to 'the parade and pacing of a library'; but, as a matter of fact, the
old bibliomaniac lived in a kind of cave made of piles and masses of
books, with hardly any room for his cooking or for the wooden cradle
lined with pamphlets which he slung between his shelves for a bed. He
died in 1714, in his eighty-second year, dirty, ragged, and as happy as a
king; and certainly not less than eight thick volumes of sonnets and
epigrams appeared at once in his praise. He left about 30,000 volumes of
his own collecting, which he gave to the city upon condition that they
should be always free to the public. The library that bears his name
contains more than ten times that number. It includes about 60,000
printed books and 2000 MSS. that once belonged to the Grand Dukes, and
were kept in their Palatine Galleries. There have been many later
additions; but the whole mass is now dedicated to the worthiest of its
former possessors, and remains as a perpetual monument of the most
learned and most eccentric of bookmen.