time: We learn from him, that the writings of the greatest Classics were
already corrupted and falsified, not only by the casual errors of
copyists, but by the deliberate perversions of critics, who boldly altered
everything that was too elegant or poetical for their own taste and
understanding(509). To the numerous corruptions in the text of Sallust he
particularly refers(510).
The practice, too, of abridging larger works, particularly histories, and
extracting from them, was injurious to the preservation of MSS. This
practice, occasioned by the scarcity of paper, began as early as the time
of Brutus, who extracted even from the meagre annals of his country. These
excerpts seldom compensated for the originals, but made them be neglected,
and in consequence they were lost.
It seems also probable, that the destruction of the treasures of classical
literature commenced at a very early period. Varro’s library, which was
the most extensive private collection of books in Italy, was ruined and
dispersed when his villa was occupied by Antony(511); and some of his own
treatises, as that addressed to Pompey on the duties of the Consulship,
were irretrievably lost. Previous to the art of printing, books, in
consequence of their great scarcity and value, were chiefly heaped up in
public libraries. Several of these were consumed in the fire, by which so
many temples were burned to the ground in the reign of Nero(512),
particularly the library in the temple of Apollo, on the Palatine Hill,
which was founded by Augustus, and contained all the Roman poets and
historians previous to his age. This literary establishment having been
restored as far as was possible by Domitian, suffered a second time by the
flames; and the extensive library of the Capitol perished in a fire during
the reign of Commodus(513). When it is considered, that at these periods
the copies of Latin works were few, and chiefly confined within the walls
of Rome, some notion may be formed of the extent of the loss sustained by
these successive conflagrations.
From the portentous æra of the death of Pertinax, the brief reign of each
succeeding emperor ended in assassination, civil war, and revolution. The
imperial throne was filled by soldiers of fortune, who came like shadows,
and like shadows departed. Rome at length ceased to be the fixed and
habitual residence of her sovereigns, who were now generally employed at a
distance in the field, in repelling foreign enemies, or repressing
usurpers. While it is certain, that during this period many of the finest
monuments of the arts were destroyed, and some of the most splendid works
of architecture defaced, it can hardly be supposed that the frail texture
of the parchment, or papyrus, should have resisted the stroke of sudden
ruin, or the gradual mouldering of neglect.
But the chief destruction took place after the removal of the seat of
empire by Constantine. The loss of so many classical works subsequently to
that æra, has been attributed chiefly to the irruption of the northern
barbarians; but it was fully as much owing to the blind zeal of the early
Christians. Many of the public libraries were placed in temples, and hence
were the more exposed to the fury of the proselytes to the new faith. This
devastation began in Italy in the fourth century, before the barbarians
had penetrated to the heart of the empire; and, in the same century, if
Sulpicius Severus may be credited, Bishop Martin undertook a crusade
against the temples of the Gauls(514). St Augustine, St Jerome, and
Lactantius, indeed, knew the classics well; but they considered them as a
sort of forbidden fruit: and St Jerome, as he himself informs us, was
whipped by an angel for perusing Plautus and Cicero(515). The following or
fifth century, was distinguished by the first capture of Rome, and its
successive devastations by Alaric, Genseric, and Attila. In the latter
part of the century, Milan, too, was plundered; which, next to Rome, was
the chief repository of books in Italy.
Monachism, which, in its first institution, particularly in the east, had
been so destructive of literary works, became, when more advanced in its
progress, a chief cause of their preservation. When the monks were at
length united, in a species of civil union, under the fixed rules of St
Benedict, in the beginning of the sixth century, the institution
contributed, if not to the diffusion of literature, at least to the
preservation of literary works. There was no prohibition in the ordinances
of St Benedict against the reading of classical writings, as in those of
St Isidore: and the consequence was, that wherever any abbot, or even
monk, had a taste for letters, books were introduced into the convent. We
have a remarkable example of this in the instance of Cassiodorus, whose
genius, learning, and virtue, shed a lustre on one of the darkest periods
of Italian history. After his pre-eminent services as minister of state
during the reign of Theodoric, and regency of Amalasuntha, he retired, in
the year 540, when he had reached the age of seventy, to the monastery of
Monte Casino, situated in a most delightful spot, near the place of his
birth, in Calabria. There he became as serviceable to literature as he had
formerly been to the state; and the convent to which he betook himself
deserves to be first mentioned in any future history of the preservation
of the Classics. Before his entrance into it, he possessed an extensive
library, with which he enriched the cloister(516); and subsequently
enlarged it by a collection of MSS., which he caused to be brought to him
from various quarters of Italy. There is still extant his order to a monk
to procure for him Albinus’ treatise on Music; which shows, that his
collection was not entirely confined to theological treatises: while his
work _De Artibus ac Disciplinis liberalium Literarum_, is an ample
testimony of his classical learning, and of the value which he attached to
it. His library contained, at least, Ennius, Terence, Lucretius, Varro,
Cicero, and Sallust(517). The monks of his convent were excited by him to
the transcription of MSS.; and, in his work _De Orthographia_, he did not
disdain to give minute directions for copying with facility and
correctness.
Thus, in collecting an ample library—in diffusing copies of ancient
MSS.—in verbal instructions, written lectures, and the composition of
voluminous works—he closed, in the service of religion and learning, a
long and meritorious life.
The example of Cassiodorus was followed in other convents. About half a
century after his death, Columbanus founded a monastery of Benedictines at
Bobbio, a town situated among the northern Apennines. This religious
society, as Tiraboschi informs us, was remarkable, not only for the
sanctity of its manners, but the cultivation of literature. It was
fortunate that receptacles for books had now been thus provided, as
otherwise the treasures of classical literature in Italy would, in all
likelihood, have perished during the wars of Belisarius, and Narses, and
the invasion of Totila. It is in the age of Cassiodorus,—that is, the
beginning and middle of the sixth century,—that Tiraboschi places the
serious and systematic commencement of the transcription of the
classics(518). He mentions the names of some of the most eminent copyists;
but a fuller list had been previously furnished by Fabricius(519).
In Gregory the Great, who was Pope at the end of the sixth and beginning
of the seventh century, literature, according to popular belief, found an
enemy in the west, as fatal to its interests as the Caliph Omar had been
in the east. This pontiff was accused of burning a classical library, and
also some valuable works, which had replaced those formerly consumed in
the Palatine library. John of Salisbury is the sole authority for this
charge; and even he, who lived six centuries after the age of Gregory,
only mentions it as a tradition and report: “Fertur Beatus Gregorius
bibliothecam combussisse gentilem, quo divinæ paginæ gratior esset locus,
et major auctoritas, et diligentia studiosior(520);” and again, “Ut
traditur a majoribus, incendio dedit probatæ lectionis scripta, Palatinus
quæcunque tenebat Apollo(521).” Cardan informs us, that Gregory also
caused the plays of Nævius, Ennius, and Afranius, to be burned. That he
suppressed the works of Cicero, rests on the authority of a passage in an
edict published by Louis XI., dated 1473, and quoted by Lyron in his
_Singularitéz Historiques_(522). St Antonius, who was Archbishop of
Florence in the middle of the fifteenth century, is cited by Vossius as
the most ancient author who has asserted that he burned the decades of
Livy(523). These charges have been strenuously supported by Brucker(524),
while Tiraboschi, on the other hand, has endeavoured to vindicate the
memory of the pontiff from all such aspersions(525). Bayle has adopted a
prudent neutrality(526). Dendina(527) and Ginguené(528), the most recent
authors who have touched on the subject, seem to consider the question,
after all that has been written on it, as still doubtful, and not likely
to receive any farther elucidation. It appears certain, that Gregory
disliked classical, or profane literature, on account of the oracles,
idolatry, and rites, with which it is associated, and that he prohibited
its study by the clergy(529);—whence may, perhaps, have originated the
reports of his wilfully destroying the then surviving libraries and books
of Rome.
During the course of the two centuries which followed the death of
Gregory, Italy was divided between the Greeks and Lombards, and was torn
by spiritual dissensions. The most numerous and barbarous swarm which had
yet crossed the Alps was the Lombards, who descended on Italy, under their
king, Alboinus, in 568, immediately after the death of Narses. It was no
longer a tribe or army by which Italy was invaded; but a whole nation of
old men, women, and children, covered its plains. This ignorant and
ferocious race spread themselves from the Alps to Rome during the seventh
and eighth centuries. And although Rome itself escaped the Lombard
dominion, the horrors of a perpetual siege can alone convey an adequate
idea of its distressed situation. The feuds of the Lombard chiefs, their
wars with the Greeks, who still remained masters of Rome, and at length
with the Franks, (all which contests were marked with fire and massacre,)
made a desert of the Peninsular garden(530). Hitherto the superstitious
feelings of the northern hordes had inspired them with some degree of
respect for the sacerdotal order which they found established in Italy.
Reverence for the person of the priest had extended itself to the security
of his property, and while the palace and castle were wrapt in flames, the
convent escaped sacrilege. But the Lombards extended their fury to objects
which their rude predecessors had generally respected; and learning was
now attacked in her most vulnerable part. Amid the general destruction,
the monasteries and their libraries were no longer spared; and with
others, that of Monte Casino, one of the most valuable and extensive in
Italy, was plundered by the Lombards(531). Some books preserved in the
sack of the libraries were carried back by these invaders to their native
country, and a few were saved by monks, who sought refuge in other
kingdoms, which accounts for the number of classical MSS. subsequently
discovered in France and Germany(532).
Amid the ruin of taste and letters in these ages, it is probable that but
few new copies were made from the MSS. then extant. Some of the classics,
however, were still spared, and remained in the monastic libraries.
Anspert, who was Abbot of Beneventum, in the eighth century, declares that
he had never studied Homer, Cicero, or Virgil, which implies, that they
were still preserved, and accessible to his perusal(533).
The division of Italy between the Lombards and Greeks continued till the
end of the eighth century, when Charlemagne put an end to the kingdom of
the former, and founded his empire. Whether this monarch himself had any
pretensions to the character of a scholar, is more than doubtful; but
whether he possessed learning or not, he was a generous patron of those
who did. He assembled round his court such persons as were most
distinguished for talents and erudition; he established schools and
pensioned scholars; and he founded also a species of Academy, of which
Alcuin was the head, and in which every one adopted a scriptural or
classic appellation. This tended to multiply the MSS. of the classics, and
many of them found a place in the imperial library mentioned by Eginhard.
Charlemagne also established the monastery of Fulda, and, in consequence,
copies of these MSS. found their way to Germany in the beginning of the
ninth century(534). The more recent Latin writers, as Boethius, Macrobius,
and Capella, were chiefly popular in his age; but Virgil, Cicero, and
Livy, were not unknown. Alcuin’s poetical account of the library at York,
founded by Archbishop Egbert, and of which he had been the first
librarian, affords us some notion of the usual contents of the libraries
at that time.—
“Illic invenies veterum vestigia patrum;
Quicquid habet pro se Latio Romanus in orbe,
Græcia vel quicquid transmisit clara Latinis.”
Then, after enumerating the works of all the Fathers which had a place in
the library, he proceeds with his catalogue.—
“Historici veteres, Pompeius, Plinius, ipse
Acer Aristoteles rhetor, atque Tullius ingens;
Quid quoque Sedulius, vel quid canit ipse Juvencus,
Alcuinus, et Clemens Prosper, Paulinus orator;
Quid Fortunatus vel quid Lactantius edunt.
Quæ Maro Virgilius, Statius, Lucanus et auctor,
Artis grammaticæ vel quid scripsere magistri.”
But though there were libraries in other countries, Italy always contained
the greatest number of classical MSS. In the ninth century, Lupus, who was
educated at Fulda, and afterwards became Abbot of Ferrieres, a monastery
in the Orleanois, requested Pope Benedict III. to send him Cicero _de
Oratore_ and Quintilian, of both of which he possessed parts, but had
neither of them complete(535); and in another letter he begs from Italy a
copy of Suetonius(536). The series of his letters gives us a favourable
impression of the state of profane literature in his time. In his very
first letter to Einhart, who had been his preceptor, he quotes Horace and
the Tusculan Questions. Virgil is repeatedly cited in the course of his
epistles, and the lines of Catullus are familiarly referred to as
authorities for the proper quantities of syllables. Lupus did not confine
his care to the mere transcription of MSS. He bestowed much pains on the
rectification of the texts, as is evinced by his letter to Ansbald, Abbot
of Prum, where he acknowledges having received from him a copy of the
epistles of Cicero, which would enable him to correct the MSS. of them
which he himself possessed(537).
It was a rule in convents, that those who embraced the monasteric life
should employ some hours each day in manual labour; but as all were not
fit for those occupations which require much corporeal exertion, many of
the monks fulfilled their tasks by copying MSS. Transcription thus became
a favourite exercise in the ninth century, and was much encouraged by the
Abbots(538). In every great convent there was an apartment called the
_Scriptorium_, in which writers were employed in transcribing such books
as were deemed proper for the library. The heads of monasteries borrowed
their classics from each other, and, having copied, returned them(539).—By
this means, books were wonderfully multiplied. Libraries became the
constant appendages of cloisters, and in Italy existed nowhere else. We do
not hear, during this period, of either royal or private libraries. There
was little information among the priests or parochial clergy, and almost
every man of learning was a member of a convent.
But while MSS. thus increased in the monasteries, there were, at the same
time, during this century, many counteracting causes, which rendered them
more scarce than they would otherwise have been. During the Norman
invasion, the convents were the chief objects of plunder. From the time,
too, of the conquest of Alexandria by the Saracens, in the seventh
century, when the Egyptian papyrus almost ceased to be imported into
Europe, till the close of the tenth, when the art of making paper from
cotton rags seems to have been introduced, there were no materials for
writing except parchment, a substance too expensive to be readily spared
for mere purposes of literature(540). The scarcity of paper, too, not only
prevented the increase of classical MSS., but occasioned the loss of some
which were then in existence, from the characters having been deleted, in
order to make way for a more favourite production. The monkish scribes
were accustomed to peel off the surface of parchment MSS., or to
obliterate the ink by a chemical process, for the purpose of fitting them
to receive the works of some Christian author; so that, by a singular and
fatal metamorphosis, a classic was frequently translated into a vapid
homily or monastic legend. That many valuable works of antiquity perished
in this way, is evinced by the number of MSS. which have been discovered,
evidently written on erased parchments. Thus the fragments of Cicero’s
Orations, lately found in the Ambrosian library, had been partly
obliterated, to make room for the works of Sedulius, and the Acts of the
Council of Chalcedon; and Cicero’s treatise _de Republica_ had been
effaced, in order to receive a commentary of St Augustine on the Psalms.
The tenth century has generally been accounted the age of deepest darkness
in the west of Europe. During its course, Italy was united by Otho I. with
the German empire, and was torn by civil dissensions. Muratori gives a
detailed account of the plundering of Italian convents, which was the
consequence of these commotions, and of the irruption of the Huns in
899(541). Still, however, Italy continued to be the great depository of
classical MSS.; and in that country they were occasionally sought with the
utmost avidity. Gerbert, who became Pope in the last year of the tenth
century, by name of Silvester II., spared neither pains nor expense in
procuring transcriptions of MSS. This extraordinary man, impelled by a
thirst of science, had left his home and country at an early period of
life: He had visited various nations of Europe, but it was in Spain, then
partly subject to the Arabs, that he had chiefly obtained an opportunity
of gratifying his mathematical talent, and desire of general information.
Being no less ready to communicate than eager to acquire learning, he
founded a school on his return to Italy, and greatly increased the library
at Bobbio, in Lombardy, to the abbacy of which he had been promoted. While
Archbishop of Rheims, in France, that kingdom experienced the effects of
his enlightened zeal. During his papacy, obtained for him by his pupil
Otho III., he persevered in his love of learning. In his generosity to
scholars, and his expenditure of wealth for the employment of copyists, as
well as for exploring the repositories in which the mouldering relics of
ancient learning were yet to be found, we trace a liberality, bordering on
profusion.—“Nosti,” says he, in one of his epistles to the monk Rainaldo,
“quanto studio librorum exemplaria undique conquiram; nosti quot
scriptores in urbibus, aut in agris Italiæ passim habeantur. Age ergo, et
te solo conscio, ex tuis sumptibus fac ut mihi scribantur Manilius de
Astronomia, et Victorinus. Spondeo tibi, et certum teneo quod, quicquid
erogaveris, cumulatim remittam(542).” Having by this means exhausted
Italy, Silvester directed his researches to countries beyond the Alps, as
we perceive from his letter to Egbert, Abbot of Tours.—“Cui rei preparandæ
bibliothecam assidue comparo; et sicut Romæ dudum, et in aliis partibus
Italiæ, in Germanià quoque, et Belgicà, scriptores auctorumque exemplaria
multitudine nummorum redemi; adjutus benevolentia et studio amicorum
comprovincialium: sic identidem apud vos per vos fieri sinite ut exorem.
Quos scribi velimus, in fine epistolæ designabimus(543).” This list,
however, is not printed in any of the editions of Gerbert’s Letters, which
I have had an opportunity of consulting.
It thus appears that there were zealous researches for the classics, and
successful discoveries of them, long before the age of Poggio, or even of
Petrarch; but so little intercourse existed among different countries, and
the monks had so little acquaintance with the treasures of their own
libraries, that a classical author might be considered as lost in Italy,
though familiar to a few learned men, and still lurking in many of the
convents.
Gerbert, previous to his elevation to the Pontificate, had, as already
mentioned, been Abbot of Bobbio; and the catalogue which Muratori has
given of the library in that convent, may be taken as an example of the
description and extent of the classical treasures contained in the best
monastic libraries of the tenth century. While the collection, no doubt,
chiefly consists of the works of the saints and fathers, we find Persius,
Valerius Flaccus, and Juvenal, contained in one volume. There are also
enumerated in the list Cicero’s Topica, and his Catilinarian orations,
Martial, parts of Ausonius and Pliny, the first book of Lucretius, four
books of Claudian, the same number of Lucan, and two of Ovid(544). The
monastery of Monte Casino, which was the retreat, as we have seen, of
Cassiodorus, was distinguished about the same period for its classical
library.—“The monks of Casino, in Italy,” observes Warton, “were
distinguished before the year 1000, not only for their knowledge of the
sciences, but their attention to polite learning, and an acquaintance with
the classics. Their learned Abbot, Desiderius, collected the best of the
Roman writers. This fraternity not only composed learned treatises on
music, logic, astronomy, and the Vitruvian architecture, but likewise
employed a portion of their time in transcribing Tacitus, Jornandes,
Ovid’s Fasti, Cicero, Seneca, Donatus the grammarian, Virgil, Theocritus,
and Homer.”
During the eleventh century, the Benedictines having excited scandal by
their opulence and luxury, the Carthusian and Cistertian orders attracted
notice and admiration, by a self-denying austerity; but they valued
themselves not less than the Benedictines, on the elegance of their
classical transcriptions; and about the same period, translations from the
Classics into the _Lingua volgare_, first commenced in Italy.
At the end of the eleventh century, the Crusades began; and during the
whole course of the twelfth century, they occupied the public mind, to the
exclusion of almost every other object or pursuit. Schools and convents
were affected with this religious and military mania: All sedentary
occupations were suspended, and a mark of reproach was affixed to every
undertaking which did not promote the contagion of the times.