Emperor Frederic II., Italy was for the first time divided into a number
of petty sovereignties, unconnected by any system of general union, except
the nominal allegiance still due to the Emperor. This separation, while it
excited rivalry in arms, also created some degree of emulation in
learning. Many Universities were established for the study of theology and
the exercise of scholastic disputation; and though the classics were not
publicly diffused, they existed within the walls of the convent, and were
well known to the learned men of the period. Brunetto Latini, the teacher
of Dante, and author of the _Tesoro_, translated into Italian several of
Cicero’s orations, some parts of his rhetorical works, and considerable
portions of Sallust(545). Dante, in his _Amoroso Convito_, familiarly
quotes Livy, Virgil, and Cicero _de Officiis_; and Mehus mentions various
translations of Seneca, Ovid, and Virgil, which had been executed in the
age of Dante, and which he had seen in MSS. in the different libraries of
Italy(546).
It was Petrarch, however, who, in the fourteenth century, led the way in
drawing forth the classics from the dungeons where they had been hitherto
immured, and holding up their light and glory to the eyes of men. While
enjoying the reputation of having perfected the most melodious and
poetical language of Europe, Petrarch has acquired a still higher title to
fame, by his successful exertions in rousing his country from a slumber of
ignorance which threatened to be eternal. In his earliest youth, instead
of the dry and dismal works which at that time formed the general reading,
he applied himself to the reading of Virgil and Cicero; and when he first
commenced his epistolary correspondence, he strongly expressed his wish
that their fame should prevail over the authority of Aristotle and his
commentators; and declared his belief of the high advantages the world
would enjoy if the monkish philosophy should give place to classical
literature. Petrarch, as is evinced by his letters, was the most assiduous
recoverer and restorer of ancient MSS. that had yet existed. He was an
enthusiast in this as he was in every thing else that merited
enthusiasm—love, friendship, glory, patriotism, and religion. He never
passed an old convent without searching its library, or knew of a friend
travelling into those quarters where he supposed books to be concealed,
without entreaties to procure for him some classical MS. It is evident
that he came just in time to preserve from total ruin many of the
mouldering remains of classical antiquity, and to excite among his
countrymen a desire for the preservation of those treasures when its
gratification was on the very eve of being rendered for ever
impracticable. He had seen, in his youth, several of Cicero’s now lost
treatises, and Varro’s great work _Rerum Divinarum et Humanarum_(547),
which has forever disappeared from the world; and it is probable that had
not some one, endued with his ardent love of letters, and indefatigable
research, arisen, many similar works which we now enjoy, would soon have
sunk into a like oblivion.
About the same period, Boccaccio also collected several Latin MSS., and
copied such as he could not purchase. He transcribed so many of the Latin
poets, orators, and historians, that it would appear surprising had a
copyist by profession performed so much. In a journey to Monte Casino, a
place generally considered as remarkably rich in MSS., he was both
astonished and afflicted to find the library exiled from the monastery
into a barn, which was accessible only by a ladder. He opened many of the
books, and found much of the writing effaced by damp. His grief was
redoubled when the monks told him, that when they wanted money, they
erased an ancient writing, wrote psalters and legends on the parchment,
and sold the new MSS. to women and children(548).
But though, in the fourteenth century, copies of the classics were
multiplied and rendered more accessible to the world, and though a few
were made by such hands as those of Petrarch and Boccaccio, the
transcriptions in general were much less accurate than those of a former
period. The Latin tongue, which had received more stability than could
otherwise have been expected, from having been consecrated in the service
of the church, had now at length become a dead language, and many of the
transcribers did not understand what they wrote. Still more mistakes than
those produced by ignorance, were occasioned by the presumption of
pretenders to learning, who were often tempted to alter the text, in order
to accommodate the sense to their own slender capacity and defective
taste. Whilst a remedy has been readily found for the gross oversight or
neglect of the ignorant and idle, in substituting one letter for another,
or inserting a word without meaning, errors affecting the sense of the
author, which were thus introduced, have been of the worst species, and
have chiefly contributed to compose that mass of various readings, on
which the sagacity of modern scholars has been so copiously exercised. In
a passage of Coluccio Salutati’s treatise _De Fato_, published by the Abbé
Mehus, the various modes in which MSS. were depraved by copyists are fully
pointed out(549). To such extent had these corruptions proceeded, that
Petrarch, talking of the MSS. of his own time, and those immediately
preceding it, asks, “Quis scriptorum inscitiæ medebitur, inertiæque
corrumpenti omnia ac miscenti? Non quæro jam aut queror Orthographiam, quæ
jam dudum interiit; qualitercunque utinam scriberent quod jubentur. An si
redeat Cicero aut Livius, ante omnes Plinius Secundus, sua scripta
religentes intelligent?” So sensible was Coluccio Salutati of the injury
which had been done to letters by the ignorance or negligence of
transcribers, that he proposed, as a check to the evil, that public
libraries should be every where formed, the superintendence of which
should be given to men of learning, who might carefully collate the MSS.
intrusted to them, and ascertain the most correct readings(550). To this
labour, and to the detection of counterfeit works, of which many, from
various motives, now began to be circulated, Coluccio devoted a
considerable portion of his own time and studies. His plan for the
institution of public libraries did not succeed; but he amassed a private
one, which, in that age, was second only to the library of Petrarch. A
considerable classical library, though consisting chiefly of the later
classics, particularly Seneca, Macrobius, Apuleius, and Suetonius, was
amassed by Tedaldo de Casa, whose books, with many remarks and emendations
in his own hand, were inspected by the Abbé Mehus in the library of
Santa-Croce at Florence(551).
The path which had been opened up by Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Coluccio
Salutati, in the fourteenth century, was followed out in the ensuing
century with wonderful assiduity and success by Poggio Bracciolini,
Filelfo, and Ambrosio Traversari, Abbott of Camaldoli, under the guidance
and protection of the Medicean Family and Niccolo Niccoli.
Of all the learned men of his time, Poggio seems to have devoted himself
with the greatest industry to the search for classical MSS. No
difficulties in travelling, or indifference in the heads of convents to
his literary inquiries, could damp his zeal. His ardour and exertions were
fortunately crowned with most complete success. The number of MSS.
discovered by him in different parts of Europe, during the space of nearly
fifty years, will remain a lasting proof of his unceasing perseverance,
and of his sagacity in these pursuits. Having spent his youth in
travelling through different countries, he at length settled at Rome,
where he continued as secretary, in the service of eight successive
Pontiffs. In this capacity he, in the year 1414, accompanied Pope John
XXIII. to the Council of Constance, which was opened in that year. While
residing at Constance, he made several expeditions, most interesting to
letters, in intervals of relaxation during the prosecutions of Jean Hus
and Jerome of Prague, of which he had the official charge. His chief
excursion was to the monastery of St Gal, about twenty miles distance from
Constance, where his information led him to expect that he might find some
MSS. of the ancient Roman writers(552). The earliest Abbots, and many of
the first monks of St Gal, had been originally transferred to that
monastery from the literary establishment founded by Charlemagne at Fulda.
Werembert and Helperic, who were sent to St Gal from Fulda in the ninth
century, introduced in their new residence a strong taste for letters, and
the practice of transcribing the classics. In examining the _Histoire
Litteraire de la France_, by the Benedictines, we find that no monastery
in the middle ages produced so many distinguished scholars as St Gal. In
this celebrated convent, which, (as Tenhove expresses it) had been so long
the Dormitory of the Muses, Poggio discovered some of the most valuable
classics,—not, however, in the library of the cloister, but covered with
dust and filth, and rotting at the bottom of a dungeon, where, according
to his own account, no criminal condemned to death would have been
thrown(553). This evinces that whatever care may at one time have been
taken of classical MSS. by the monks, they had subsequently been
shamefully neglected.
The services rendered to literature by Ambrosio of Camaldoli were inferior
only to those of Poggio. Ambrosio was born at Forli in 1386, and was a
disciple of Emanuel Chrysoloras. At the age of fourteen, he entered into
the convent of Camaldoli at Florence, and thirty years afterwards became
the Superior of his order. In the kind conciliatory disposition of
Ambrosio, manifested by his maintaining an uninterrupted friendship with
Niccolo Niccoli, Poggio, and Filelfo, and by moderating the quarrels of
these irascible _Literati_—in his zeal for the sacred interests,
discipline, and purity of his convent, to which his own moral conduct
afforded a spotless example—and, finally, in his enthusiastic love of
letters, in which he was second only to Petrarch, we behold the brightest
specimen of the monastic character, of which the memory has descended to
us from the middle ages. Though chiefly confined within the limits of a
cloister, Ambrosio had perhaps the best pretensions of any man of his age,
to the character of a polite scholar. The whole of the early part of his
life, and the leisure of its close, were employed in collecting ancient
MSS. from every quarter where they could be procured, and in maintaining a
constant correspondence with the most distinguished men of his age. His
letters which have been published in 1759, at Florence, with a long
preface and life by the Abbé Mehus, contain the fullest information that
can be any where found with regard to the recovery of ancient classical
MSS. and the state of literature at Florence in the fifteenth century.
It would appear from these Epistles, that though the monks had been
certainly instrumental in preserving the precious relics of classical
antiquity, their avarice and bigotry now rather obstructed the prosecution
of the researches undertaken for the purpose of bringing them to light. It
was their interest to keep these treasures to themselves, because it was a
maxim of their policy to impede the diffusion of knowledge, and because
the transcription of MSS. was to them a source of considerable emolument.
Hence they often threw obstacles in the way of the inquiries of the
learned, who were obliged to have recourse to various artifices, in order
to draw classical MSS. from the recesses of the cloister(554).
The exertions of Poggio and Ambrosio, however, were stimulated and aided
by the munificent patronage of many opulent individuals of that period,
who spared no expense in reimbursing and rewarding those who had made
successful researches after these favourite objects of pursuit. “To such
an enthusiasm,” says Tiraboschi, “was this desire carried, that long
journeys were undertaken, treasures were levied, and enmities were
excited, for the sake of an ancient MS.; and the discovery of a book was
regarded as almost equivalent to the conquest of a kingdom.”
The most zealous promoters of these researches, and most eager collectors
of MSS. during the fifteenth century, were the Cardinal Ursini, Niccolo
Niccoli and the Family of Medici.
Niccolo Niccoli, who was an humble citizen of Florence, devoted his whole
time and fortune to the acquisition of ancient MSS. In this pursuit he had
been eminently successful, having collected together 800 volumes, of which
a great proportion contained Roman authors. Poggio, in his funeral oration
of Niccolo, bears ample testimony to his liberality and zeal, and
attributes the successful discovery of so many classical MSS. to the
encouragement which he had afforded. “Quod autem,” says he, “egregiam
laudem meretur, summam operam, curamque adhibuit ad pervestigandos
auctores, qui culpâ temporum perierant. Quâ in re verè possum dicere,
omnes libros fere, qui noviter tum ab aliis reperti sunt, tum a me ipso,
qui integrum Quintilianum, Ciceronis nostri orationes, Silium Italicum,
Marcellinum, Lucretii partem, multosque præterea e Germanorum Gallorumque
ergastulis, meâ diligentiâ eripui, atque in lucem extuli, Nicholai suasu,
impulsu, cohortatione, et pæne verborum molestiâ esse Latinis literis
restitutos(555).” Several of these classical works Niccolo copied with his
own hand, and with great accuracy, after he had received them(556). The
MSS. in his hand-writing were long known and distinguished by the beauty
and distinctness of the characters. Nor did he content himself with mere
transcription: He diligently employed himself in correcting the errors of
the MSS. which were transmitted to him, and arranging the text in its
proper order. “Quum eos auctores,” says Mehus, “ex vetustissimis codicibus
exscriberet, qui suo potissimum consilio, aliorum vero operâ inventi sunt,
non solum mendis, quibus obsiti erant, expurgavit, sed etiam distinxit,
capitibusque locupletavit(557).” Such was the judgment of Niccolo, in this
species of emendation, that Politian always placed the utmost reliance on
his MS. copies(558); and, indeed, from a complimentary poem addressed to
him in his own time, it would seem that he had carefully collated
different MSS. of the same work, before he transcribed his own copy—
“Ille hos errores, unâ exemplaribus actis
Pluribus ante oculos, ne postera oberret et ætas,
Corrigit.”
Previous to the time of Niccolo, the only libraries of any extent or value
in Italy, were those of Petrarch, Coluccio Salutati, and Boccaccio. The
books which had belonged to Petrarch and Coluccio, were sold or dispersed
after the decease of their illustrious possessors. Boccaccio’s library had
been bequeathed by him to a religious order, the Hermits of St Augustine;
and this library was repaired and arranged by Niccolo, for the use of the
convent, and a proper hall built for its reception(559). Niccolo was
likewise the first person in modern times who conceived the idea of
forming a public library. Previous to his death, which happened in 1437,
he directed that his books should be devoted to the use of the public; and
for this purpose he appointed sixteen curators, among whom was Cosmo de
Medici. After his demise, it appeared that he was greatly in debt, and
that his liberal intentions were likely to be frustrated by the insolvency
of his circumstances. Cosmo therefore offered to his associates, that if
they would resign to him the exclusive right of the disposal of the books,
he would himself discharge all the debts of Niccolo, to which proposal
they readily acceded. Having thus obtained the sole direction of the MSS.,
he deposited them for public use in the Dominican Monastery of St Marco,
at Florence, which he had himself erected at an enormous expense(560).
This library, for some time celebrated under the name of the _Bibliotheca
Marciana_, or library of St Marc, was arranged and catalogued by Tommaso
da Sarzana Calandrino, at that time a poor but zealous scholar in the
lower orders of the clergy, and afterwards Pope, by the name of Nicholas
V. The building which contained the books of Niccolo having been destroyed
by an earthquake in 1454, Cosmo rebuilt it on such a plan, as to admit a
more extensive collection. After this it was enriched by private donations
from citizens of Florence, who, catching the spirit of the reigning
family, vied with each other in the extent and value of their gifts(561).
When Cosmo, having finally triumphed over his enemies, was recalled from
banishment, and became the first citizen of Florence, “which he governed
without arms or a title,” he employed his immense wealth in the
encouragement of learned men, and in collecting, under his own roof, the
remains of the ancient Greek and Roman writers. His riches, and extensive
mercantile intercourse with different parts of Europe and Asia, enabled
him to gratify a passion of this kind beyond any other individual. He gave
injunctions to all his friends and correspondents, to search for and
procure ancient MSS., in every language, and on every subject. From these
beginnings arose the celebrated library of the Medici, which, in the time
of Cosmo, was particularly distinguished for MSS. of Latin
classics—possessing, in particular, full and accurate copies of Virgil,
Cicero, Seneca, Ovid, and Tibullus(562). This collection, after the death
of its founder, was farther enriched by the attention of his descendants,
particularly his grandson, Lorenzo, under whom it acquired the name of the
Medicean-Laurentian Library. “If there was any pursuit,” says the
biographer of Lorenzo, “in which he engaged more ardently, and persevered
more diligently, than the rest, it was in that of enlarging his
collections of books and antiquities. His emissaries were dispersed
through every part of the globe, for the purpose of collecting books, and
he spared no expense in procuring, for the learned, the materials
necessary for the prosecution of their studies(563).” In the execution of
his noble design, he was assisted by Ermolao Barbaro, and Paulo Cortesi;
but his principal coadjutor was Politian, to whom he committed the care
and arrangement of his collection, and who made excursions, at intervals,
through Italy, to discover and purchase such remains of antiquity as
suited the purposes of his patron. An ample treasure of books was
expected, during his last illness, under the care of Lascaris. When the
vital spark was nearly extinguished, he called Politian to his side, and
grasping his hand, told him he could have wished to have lived to see the
library completed(564).
After the death of Lorenzo, some of the volumes were dispersed, when
Charles VIII. of France invaded Italy; and, on the expulsion of the Medici
family from Florence, in 1496, the remaining volumes of the Laurentian
collection were united with the books in the library of St Mark.
It being the great object of Lorenzo to diffuse the spirit of literature
as extensively as possible, he permitted the Duke of Urbino, who
particularly distinguished himself as a patron of learning, to copy such
of his MSS. as he wished to possess. The families, too, of Visconti at
Milan, of Este at Ferrara, and Gonzaga at Mantua, excited by the glorious
example set before them, emulated the Medici in their patronage of
classical literature, and formation of learned establishments. “The
division of Italy,” says Mr Mills, “into many independent principalities,
was a circumstance highly favourable to the nourishing and expanding
learning. Every city had a Mæcenas sovereign. The princes of Italy
rivalled each other in literary patronage as much as in political power,
and changes of dominion did not affect letters(565).” Eight Popes, in
succession, employed Poggio as their secretary, which greatly aided the
promotion of literature, and the collecting of MSS. at Rome. The last
Pontiff he served was Nicholas V., who, before his elevation, as we have
seen, had arranged the library of St Mark at Florence. From his youth he
had shown the most wonderful avidity for copies of ancient MSS., and an
extraordinary turn for elegant and accurate transcription, with his own
hand. By the diligence and learning which he exhibited in the schools of
Bologna, he secured the patronage of many literary characters. Attached to
the family of Cardinal Albergati, he accompanied him in several embassies,
and seldom returned without bringing back with him copies of such ancient
works as had been previously unknown in Italy. The titles of some of these
are mentioned by his biographer, who adds, that there was no Latin author,
with whose writings he was unacquainted. This enabled him to be useful in
the arrangement of many libraries formed at this period(566). His
promotion to the Pontifical chair, in 1447, was, in the circumstances of
the times, peculiarly auspicious to the cause of letters. With the
assistance of Poggio, he founded the library of the Vatican. The scanty
collection of his predecessors had been nearly dissipated or destroyed, by
frequent removals from Rome to Avignon: But Nicholas more than repaired
these losses; and before his death, had collected upwards of 5000 volumes
of Greek and Roman authors—and the Vatican being afterwards increased by
Sixtus IV. and Leo X. became, both in extent and value, the first library
in the world.