THE UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS.
The influence of antiquity on culture, of which we have now to speak,
presupposes that the new learning had gained possession of the
universities. This was so, but by no means to the extent and with the
results which might have been expected.
Few of the Italian universities[485] show themselves in their full
vigour till the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the increase
of wealth rendered a more systematic care for education possible. At
first there were generally three sorts of professorships--one for civil
law, another for canonical law, the third for medicine; in course of
time professorships of rhetoric, of philosophy, and of astronomy were
added, the last commonly, though not always, identical with astrology.
The salaries varied greatly in different cases. Sometimes a capital sum
was paid down. With the spread of culture competition became so active
that the different universities tried to entice away distinguished
teachers from one another, under which circumstances Bologna is said to
have sometimes devoted the half of its public income (20,000 ducats) to
the university. The appointments were as a rule made only for a certain
time,[486] sometimes for only half a year, so that the teachers were
forced to lead a wandering life, like actors. Appointments for life
were, however, not unknown. Sometimes the promise was exacted not to
teach elsewhere what had already been taught at one place. There were
also voluntary, unpaid professors.
Of the chairs which have been mentioned, that of rhetoric was especially
sought by the humanist; yet it depended only on his familiarity with the
matter of ancient learning whether or no he could aspire to those of
law, medicine, philosophy, or astronomy. The inward conditions of the
science of the day were as variable as the outward conditions of the
teacher. Certain jurists and physicians received by far the largest
salaries of all, the former chiefly as consulting lawyers for the suits
and claims of the state which employed them. In Padua a lawyer of the
fifteenth century received a salary of 1,000 ducats,[487] and it was
proposed to appoint a celebrated physician with a yearly payment of
2,000 ducats, and the right of private practice,[488] the same man
having previously received 700 gold florins at Pisa. When the jurist
Bartolommeo Socini, professor at Pisa, accepted a Venetian appointment
at Padua, and was on the point of starting on his journey, he was
arrested by the Florentine government and only released on payment of
bail to the amount of 18,000 gold florins.[489] The high estimation in
which these branches of science were held makes it intelligible why
distinguished philologists turned their attention to law and medicine,
while on the other hand specialists were more and more compelled to
acquire something of a wide literary culture. We shall presently have
occasion to speak of the work of the humanists in other departments of
practical life.
Nevertheless, the position of the philologists, as such, even where the
salary was large,[490] and did not exclude other sources of income, was
on the whole uncertain and temporary, so that one and the same teacher
could be connected with a great variety of institutions. It is evident
that change was desired for its own sake, and something fresh expected
from each new comer, as was natural at a time when science was in the
making, and consequently depended to no small degree on the personal
influence of the teacher. Nor was it always the case that a lecturer on
classical authors really belonged to the university of the town where he
taught. Communication was so easy, and the supply of suitable
accommodation, in monasteries and elsewhere, was so abundant, that a
private undertaking was often practicable. In the first decades of the
fifteenth century,[491] when the University of Florence was at its
greatest brilliance, when the courtiers of Eugenius IV., and perhaps
even of Martin V. thronged to the lecture-rooms, when Carlo Aretino and
Filelfo were competing for the largest audience, there existed, not only
an almost complete university among the Augustinians of Santo Spirito,
not only an association of scholars among the Camaldolesi of the Angeli,
but individuals of mark, either singly or in common, arranged to provide
philosophical and philological teaching for themselves and others.
Linguistic and antiquarian studies in Rome had next to no connection
with the university (Sapienza), and depended almost exclusively either
on the favour of individual popes and prelates, or on the appointments
made in the Papal chancery. It was not till Leo X. (1513) that the great
reorganisation of the Sapienza took place, with its eighty-eight
lecturers, among whom there were able men, though none of the first
rank, at the head of the archæological department. But this new
brilliancy was of short duration. We have already spoken briefly of the
Greek and Hebrew professorships in Italy (pp. 195 sqq.).
To form an accurate picture of the method of scientific instruction,
then pursued, we must turn away our eyes as far as possible from our
present academic system. Personal intercourse between the teachers and
the taught, public disputations, the constant use of Latin and often of
Greek, the frequent changes of lecturers and the scarcity of books, gave
the studies of that time a colour which we cannot represent to
ourselves without effort.
There were Latin schools in every town of the least importance, not by
any means merely as preparatory to higher education, but because, next
to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the knowledge of Latin was a
necessity; and after Latin came logic. It is to be noted particularly
that these schools did not depend on the Church, but on the
municipality; some of them, too, were merely private enterprises.
This school system, directed by a few distinguished humanists, not only
attained a remarkable perfection of organisation, but became an
instrument of higher education in the modern sense of the phrase. With
the education of the children of two princely houses in North Italy
institutions were connected which may be called unique of their kind.
At the court of Giovan Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua (reg. 1407 to 1444)
appeared the illustrious Vittorino da Feltre[492] (b. 1397, d. 1446),
otherwise Vittore dai Rambaldoni--he preferred to be called a Mantuan
rather than a Feltrese--one of those men who devote their whole life to
an object for which their natural gifts constitute a special vocation.
He wrote almost nothing, and finally destroyed the few poems of his
youth which he had long kept by him. He studied with unwearied industry;
he never sought after titles, which, like all outward distinctions, he
scorned; and he lived on terms of the closest friendship with teachers,
companions, and pupils, whose goodwill he knew how to preserve. He
excelled in bodily no less than in mental exercises, was an admirable
rider, dancer, and fencer, wore the same clothes in winter as in summer,
walked in nothing but sandals even during the severest frost, and lived
so that till his old age he was never ill. He so restrained his
passions, his natural inclination to sensuality and anger, that he
remained chaste his whole life through, and hardly ever hurt any one by
a hard word.
He directed the education of the sons and daughters of the princely
house, and one of the latter became under his care a woman of learning.
When his reputation extended far and wide over Italy, and members of
great and wealthy families came from long distances, even from Germany,
in search of his instructions, Gonzaga was not only willing that they
should be received, but seems to have held it an honour for Mantua to be
the chosen school of the aristocratic world. Here for the first time
gymnastics and all noble bodily exercises were treated along with
scientific instruction as indispensable to a liberal education. Besides
these pupils came others, whose instruction Vittorino probably held to
be his highest earthly aim, the gifted poor, often as many as seventy
together, whom he supported in his house and educated, ‘per l’amore di
Dio,’ along with the high-born youths who here learned to live under the
same roof with untitled genius. The greater the crowd of pupils who
flocked to Mantua, the more teachers were needed to impart the
instruction which Vittorino only directed--an instruction which aimed at
giving each pupil that sort of learning which he was most fitted to
receive. Gonzaga paid him a yearly salary of 240 gold florins, built him
besides a splendid house, ‘La Giocosa,’ in which the master lived with
his scholars, and contributed to the expenses caused by the poorer
pupils. What was still further needed Vittorino begged from princes and
wealthy people, who did not always, it is true, give a ready ear to his
entreaties, and forced him by their hardheartedness to run into debt.
Yet in the end he found himself in comfortable circumstances, owned a
small property in town and an estate in the country, where he stayed
with his pupils during the holidays, and possessed a famous collection
of books which he gladly lent or gave away, though he was not a little
angry when they were taken without leave. In the early morning he read
religious books, then scourged himself and went to church; his pupils
were also compelled to go to church, like him, to confess once a month,
and to observe fast days most strictly. His pupils respected him, but
trembled before his glance. When they did anything wrong, they were
punished immediately after the offence. He was honoured by all
contemporaries no less than by his pupils, and people took the journey
to Mantua merely to see him.
More stress was laid on pure scholarship by Guarino of Verona[493]
(1370-1460), who in the year 1429 was called to Ferrara by Niccolò
d’Este to educate his son Lionello, and who, when his pupil was nearly
grown up in 1436, began to teach at the university as professor of
eloquence and of the ancient languages. While still acting as tutor to
Lionello, he had many other pupils from various parts of the country,
and in his own house a select class of poor scholars, whom he partly or
wholly supported. His evening hours till far into the night were devoted
to hearing lessons or to instructive conversation. His house, too, was
the home of a strict religion and morality. Guarino was a student of the
Bible, and lived in friendly intercourse with pious contemporaries,
though he did not hesitate to write a defence of pagan literature
against them. It signified little to him or to Vittorino that most of
the humanists of their day deserved small praise in the matter of morals
or religion. It is inconceivable how Guarino, with all the daily work
which fell upon him, still found time to write translations from the
Greek and voluminous original works.[494] He was wanting in that wise
self-restraint and kindly sweetness which graced the character of
Vittorino, and was easily betrayed into a violence of temper which led
to frequent quarrels with his learned contemporaries.
Not only in these two courts, but generally throughout Italy, the
education of the princely families was in part and for certain years in
the hands of the humanists, who thereby mounted a step higher in the
aristocratic world. The writing of treatises on the education of
princes, formerly the business of theologians, fell now within their
province.
From the time of Pier Paolo Vergerio the Italian princes were well taken
care of in this respect, and the custom was transplanted into Germany by
Æneas Sylvius, who addressed detailed exhortations to two young German
princes of the House of Habsburg[495] on the subject of their further
education, in which they are both urged, as might be expected, to
cultivate and nurture humanism, but are chiefly bidden to make
themselves able rulers and vigorous, hardy warriors. Perhaps Æneas was
aware that in addressing these youths he was talking in the air, and
therefore took measures to put his treatise into public circulation. But
the relations of the humanists to the rulers will be discussed
separately.