LATIN TREATISES AND HISTORY.
From the oratory and the epistolary writings of the humanists, we shall
here pass on to their other creations, which were all, to a greater or
less extent, reproductions of antiquity.
Among these must be placed the treatise, which often took the shape of a
dialogue.[568] In this case it was borrowed directly from Cicero. In
order to do anything like justice to this class of literature--in order
not to throw it aside at first sight as a bore--two things must be taken
into consideration. The century which escaped from the influence of the
Middle Ages felt the need of something to mediate between itself and
antiquity in many questions of morals and philosophy; and this need was
met by the writer of treatises and dialogues. Much which appears to us
as mere commonplace in their writings, was for them and their
contemporaries a new and hardly-won view of things upon which mankind
had been silent since the days of antiquity. The language too, in this
form of writing, whether Italian or Latin, moved more freely and
flexibly than in historical narrative, in letters, or in oratory, and
thus became in itself the source of a special pleasure. Several Italian
compositions of this kind still hold their place as patterns of style.
Many of these works have been, or will be mentioned on account of their
contents; we here refer to them as a class. From the time of Petrarch’s
letters and treatises down to near the end of the fifteenth century, the
heaping up of learned quotations, as in the case of the orators, is the
main business oi most of these writers. The whole style, especially in
Italian, was then suddenly clarified, till, in the ‘Asolani,’ of Bembo,
and the ‘Vita Sobria,’ of Luigi Cornaro,[569] a classical perfection was
reached. Here too the decisive fact was, that antiquarian matter of
every kind had meantime begun to be deposited in encyclopædic works (now
printed), and no longer stood in the way of the essayist.
It was inevitable too that the humanistic spirit should control the
writing of history. A superficial comparison of the histories of this
period with the earlier chronicles, especially with works so full of
life, colour, and brilliancy as those of the Villani, will lead us
loudly to deplore the change. How insipid and conventional appear by
their side the best of the humanists, and particularly their immediate
and most famous successors among the historians of Florence, Lionardo
Aretino and Poggio![570] The enjoyment of the reader is incessantly
marred by the sense that, in the classical phrases of Facius,
Sabellicus, Folieta, Senarega, Platina in the chronicles of Mantua,
Bembo in the annals of Venice, and even of Giovio in his histories, the
best local and individual colouring and the full sincerity of interest
in the truth of events have been lost. Our mistrust is increased when we
hear that Livy, the pattern of this school of writers, was copied just
where he is least worthy of imitation--on the ground, namely,[571] ‘that
he turned a dry and naked tradition into grace and richness.’ In the
same place we meet with the suspicious declaration, that it is the
function of the historian--just as if he were one with the poet--to
excite, charm, or overwhelm the reader. We must further remember that
many humanistic historians knew but little of what happened outside
their own sphere, and this little they were often compelled to adapt to
the taste of their patrons and employers. We ask ourselves finally,
whether the contempt for modern things, which these same humanists
sometimes avowed openly[572] must not necessarily have had an
unfortunate influence on their treatment of them. Unconsciously the
reader finds himself looking with more interest and confidence on the
unpretending Latin and Italian annalists, like those of Bologna and
Ferrara, who remained true to the old style, and still more grateful
does he feel to the best of the genuine chroniclers who wrote in
Italian--to Marin Sanudo, Corio, and Infessura--who were followed at the
beginning of the sixteenth century by that new and illustrious band of
great national historians who wrote in their mother tongue.
Contemporary history, no doubt, was written far better in the language
of the day than when forced into Latin. Whether Italian was also more
suitable for the narrative of events long past, or for historical
research, is a question which admits, for that period, of more answers
than one. Latin was, at that time, the ‘Lingua franca’ of instructed
people, not only in an international sense, as a means of intercourse
between Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Italians, but also in an
interprovincial sense. The Lombard, the Venetian, and the Neapolitan
modes of writing, though long modelled on the Tuscan, and bearing but
slight traces of the dialect, were still not recognised by the
Florentines. This was of less consequence in local contemporary
histories, which were sure of readers at the place where they were
written, than in the narratives of the past, for which a larger public
was desired. In these the local interests of the people had to be
sacrificed to the general interests of the learned. How far would the
influence of a man like Blondus of Forli have reached if he had written
his great monuments of learning in the dialect of the Romagna? They
would have assuredly sunk into neglect, if only through the contempt of
the Florentines, while written in Latin they exercised the profoundest
influence on the whole European world of learning. And even the
Florentines in the fifteenth century wrote Latin, not only because their
minds were imbued with humanism, but in order to be more widely read.
Finally, there exist certain Latin essays in contemporary history, which
stand on a level with the best Italian works of the kind. When the
continuous narrative after the manner of Livy--that Procrustean bed of
so many writers--is abandoned, the change is marvellous. The same
Platina and Giovio, whose great histories we only read because and so
far as we must, suddenly come forward as masters in the biographical
style. We have already spoken of Tristan Caracciolo, of the biographical
works of Facius and of the Venetian topography of Sabellico, and others
will be mentioned in the sequel. Historical composition, like letters
and oratory, soon had its theory. Following the example of Cicero, it
proclaims with pride the worth and dignity of history, boldly claims
Moses and the Evangelists as simple historians, and concludes with
earnest exhortations to strict impartiality and love of truth.[573]
The Latin treatises on past history were naturally concerned, for the
most part, with classical antiquity. What we are more surprised to find
among these humanists are some considerable works on the history of the
Middle Ages. The first of this kind was the chronicle of Matteo Palmieri
(449-1449), beginning where Prosper Aquitanus ceases, the style of which
was certainly an offence to later critics like Paolo Cortese. On opening
the ‘Decades’ of Blondus of Forli, we are surprised to find a universal
history, ‘ab inclinatione Romanorum imperii,’ as in Gibbon, full of
original studies on the authors of each century, and occupied, through
the first 300 folio pages, with early mediæval history down to the death
of Frederick II. And this when in Northern countries nothing more was
wanted than chronicles of the popes and emperors, and the ‘Fasciculus
temporum.’ We cannot here stay to show what writings Blondus made use
of, and where he found his materials, though this justice will some day
be done to him by the historians of literature. This book alone would
entitle us to say that it was the study of antiquity which made the
study of the Middle Ages possible, by first training the mind to habits
of impartial historical criticism. To this must be added, that the
Middle Ages were now over for Italy, and that the Italian mind could the
better appreciate them, because it stood outside them. It cannot,
nevertheless, be said that it at once judged them fairly, and still less
that it judged them with piety. In art a fixed prejudice showed itself
against all that those centuries had created, and the humanists date the
new era from the time of their own appearance. ‘I begin,’ says
Boccaccio,[574] ‘to hope and believe that God has had mercy on the
Italian name, since I see that His infinite goodness puts souls into the
breasts of the Italians like those of the ancients--souls which seek
fame by other means than robbery and violence, but rather, on the path
of poetry, which makes men immortal.’ But this narrow and unjust temper
did not preclude investigation in the minds of the more gifted men, at a
time, too, when elsewhere in Europe any such investigation would have
been out of the question. A historical criticism[575] of the Middle Ages
was practicable, just because the rational treatment of all subjects by
the humanists had trained the historical spirit. In the fifteenth
century this spirit had so far penetrated the history even of the
individual cities of Italy, that the stupid fairy tales about the origin
of Florence, Venice, and Milan vanished, while at the same time, and
long after, the chronicles of the North were stuffed with this fantastic
rubbish, destitute for the most part of all poetical value, and invented
as late as the fourteenth century.
The close connection between local history and the sentiment of glory
has already been touched on in reference to Florence (part i. chap.
vii.). Venice would not be behind-hand. Just as a great rhetorical
triumph of the Florentines[576] would cause a Venetian embassy to write
home post-haste for an orator to be sent after them, so too the
Venetians felt the need of a history which would bear comparison with
those of Lionardo Aretino and Poggio. And it was to satisfy this
feeling that, in the fifteenth century, after negotiations with Giovanni
Maria Filelfo and others had failed, the ‘Decades’ of Sabellico
appeared, and in the sixteenth the ‘Historia rerum Venetarum’ of Pietro
Bembo, both written at the express charge of the republic, the latter a
continuation of the former.
The great Florentine historians at the beginning of the sixteenth
century (pp. 81 sqq.) were men of a wholly different kind from the
Latinists Bembo and Giovio. They wrote Italian, not only because they
could not vie with the Ciceronian elegance of the philologists, but
because, like Macchiavelli, they could only record in a living tongue
the living results of their own immediate observations--and we may add
in the case of Macchiavelli, of his observation of the past--and
because, as in the case of Guicciardini, Varchi, and many others, what
they most desired was, that their view of the course of events should
have as wide and deep a practical effect as possible. Even when they
only write for a few friends, like Francesco Vettori, they feel an
inward need to utter their testimony on men and events, and to explain
and justify their share in the latter.
And yet, with all that is characteristic in their language and style,
they were powerfully affected by antiquity, and, without its influence,
would be inconceivable. They were not humanists, but they had passed
through the school of humanism, and they have in them more of the spirit
of the ancient historians than most of the imitators of Livy. Like the
ancients, they were citizens who wrote for citizens.