_Rel. of P. Capello_. Literally: ‘The Pope has more respect for Venice
than for any other power in the world.’ ‘E però desidera, che ella
(Signoria di Venezia) protegga il figliuolo, e dice voler fare tale
ordine, che il papato o sia suo, ovvero della signoria nostra.’ The word
‘suo’ can only refer to Cæsar. An instance of the uncertainty caused by
this usage is found in the still lively controversy respecting the words
used by Vasari in the _Vita di Raffaello_: ‘A Bindo Altoviti fece il
ritratto suo, &c.’
[247] _Strozzii Poetae_, p. 19, in the ‘Venatio’ of Ercole Strozza: ’
... cui triplicem fata invidere coronam.’ And in the Elegy on Cæsar’s
death, p. 31 sqq.: ‘Speraretque olim solii decora alta paterni.’
[248] _Ibid._ Jupiter had once promised
‘Affore Alexandri sobolem, quæ poneret olim
Italiæ leges, atque aurea sæcla referret,’ etc.
[249] _Ibid._
‘Sacrumque decus majora parantem deposuisse.’
[250] He was married, as is well known, to a French princess of the
family of Albret, and had a daughter by her; in some way or other he
would have attempted to found a dynasty. It is not known that he took
steps to regain the cardinal’s hat, although (acc. to Macchiavelli, l.
c. p. 285) he must have counted on the speedy death of his father.
[251] Macchiavelli, l. c. p. 334. Designs on Siena and eventually on all
Tuscany certainly existed, but were not yet ripe; the consent of France
was indispensable.
[252] Macchiavelli, l. c. pp. 326, 351, 414; Matarazzo, _Cronaca di
Perugia, Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. pp. 157 and 221. He wished his soldiers
to quarter themselves where they pleased, so that they gained more in
time of peace than of war. Petrus Alcyonius, _De Exilio_ (1522), ed.
Mencken, p. 19, says of the style of conducting war: ‘Ea scelera et
flagitia a nostris militibus patrata sunt quæ ne Scythæ quidem aut
Turcæ, aut Pœni in Italia commisissent.’ The same writer (p. 65) blames
Alexander as a Spaniard: ‘Hispani generis hominem, cujus proprium est,
rationibus et commodis Hispanorum consultum velle, non Italorum.’ See
above, p. 109.
[253] To this effect Pierio Valeriano, _De Infelicitate Literat._ ed.
Mencken, p. 282, in speaking of Giovanni Regio: ‘In arcano proscriptorum
albo positus.’
[254] Tommaso Gar, l. c. p. 11. From May 22, 1502, onwards the
_Despatches of Giustiniani_, 3 vols. Florence, 1876, edited by Pasquale
Villari, offer valuable information.
[255] Paulus Jovius, _Elogia_, Cæsar Borgia. In the _Commentarii Urbani_
of Ralph. Volaterianus, lib. xxii. there is a description of Alexander
VI., composed under Julius II., and still written very guardedly. We
here read: ‘Roma ... nobilis jam carneficina facta erat.’
[256] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 362.
[257] Paul. Jovius, _Histor._ ii. fol. 47.
[258] See the passages in Ranke, _Röm. Päpste_; Sämmtl. Werke, Bd.
xxxvii. 35, and xxxix. Anh. Abschn. 1, Nro. 4, and Gregorovius, vii.
497, sqq. Giustiniani does not believe in the Pope’s being poisoned. See
his _Dispacci_, vol. ii. pp. 107 sqq.; Villari’s Note, pp. 120 sqq., and
App. pp. 458 sqq.
[259] Panvinius, _Epitome Pontificum_, p. 359. For the attempt to poison
Alexander’s successor, Julius II., see p. 363. According to Sismondi,
xiii. p. 246, it was in this way that Lopez, Cardinal of Capua, for
years the partner of all the Pope’s secrets, came by his end; according
to Sanuto (in Ranke, _Popes_, i. p. 52, note), the Cardinal of Verona
also. When Cardinal Orsini died, the Pope obtained a certificate of
natural death from a college of physicians.
[260] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 254; comp. Attilio Alessio, in Baluz.
_Miscell._, iv. p. 518 sqq.
[261] And turned to the most profitable account by the Pope. Comp.
_Chron. Venetum_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 133, given only as a report: ‘E
si giudiceva, che il Pontefice dovesse cavare assai danari di questo
Giubileo, che gli tornerà molto a proposito.
[262] Anshelm, _Berner Chronik_, iii. pp. 146-156. Trithem. _Annales
Hirsaug._ tom. ii. pp. 579, 584, 586.
[263] Panvin. _Contin. Platinae_, p. 341.
[264] Hence the splendour of the tombs of the prelates erected during
their lifetime. A part of the plunder was in this way saved from the
hands of the Popes.
[265] Whether Julius really hoped that Ferdinand the Catholic would be
induced to restore to the throne of Naples the expelled Aragonese
dynasty, remains, in spite of Giovio’s declaration (_Vita Alfonsi
Ducis_), very doubtful.
[266] Both poems in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, iv. 257 and 297. Of
his death the _Cronaca di Cremona_ says: ‘quale fu grande danno per la
Italia, perchè era homo che non voleva tramontani in Italia, ed haveva
cazato Francesi, e l’animo era de cazar le altri.’ _Bibl. Hist. Ital._
(1876) i. 217. It is true that when Julius, in August, 1511, lay one day
for hours in a fainting fit, and was thought to be dead, the more
restless members of the noblest families--Pompeo Colonna and Antimo
Savelli--ventured to call ‘the people’ to the Capitol, and to urge them
to throw off the Papal yoke--‘a vendicarsi in libertà ... a publica
ribellione,’ as Guicciardini tells us in his tenth book. See, too, Paul.
Jov. in the _Vita Pompeji Columnae_, and Gregorovius, viii. 71-75.
[267] _Septimo decretal._ l. i. tit. 3, cap. 1-3.
[268] Franc. Vettori, in the _Arch. Stor._ vi. 297.
[269] Besides which it is said (Paul. Lang. _Chronicon Cilicense_) to
have produced not less than 500,000 gold florins; the order of the
Franciscans alone, whose general was made a cardinal, paid 30,000. For a
notice of the various sums paid, see Sanuto, xxiv. fol. 227; for the
whole subject see Gregorovius, viii. 214 sqq.
[270] Franc. Vettori, l.c. p. 301. _Arch. Stor._ Append. i. p. 293 sqq.
Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, vi. p. 232 sqq. Tommaso Gar, l. c. p. 42.
[271] Ariosto, Sat. vi. v. 106. ‘Tutti morrete, ed è fatal che muoja
Leone appresso.’ Sat. 3 and 7 ridicule the hangers on at Leo’s Court.
[272] One of several instances of such combinations is given in the
_Lettere dei Principi_, i. 65, in a despatch of the Cardinal Bibbiena
from Paris of the year 1518.
[273] Franc. Vettori, l.c. p. 333.
[274] At the time of the Lateran Council, in 1512, Pico wrote an
address: _J. E. P. Oratio ad Leonem X. et Concilium Lateranense de
Reformandis Ecclesiæ Moribus_ (ed. Hagenau, 1512, frequently printed in
editions of his works). The address was dedicated to Pirckheimer and was
again sent to him in 1517. Comp. _Vir. Doct. Epist. ad Pirck._, ed.
Freytag, Leipz. 1838, p. 8. Pico fears that under Leo evil may
definitely triumph over good, ‘et in te bellum a nostræ religionis
hostibus ante audias geri quam pariri.’
[275] _Lettere dei Principi_, i. (Rome. 17th March, 1523): ‘This city
stands on a needle’s point, and God grant that we are not soon driven to
Avignon or to the end of the Ocean. I foresee the early fall of this
spiritual monarchy.... Unless God helps us we are lost.’ Whether Adrian
were really poisoned or not, cannot be gathered with certainty from Blas
Ortiz, _Itinerar. Hadriani_ (Baluz. _Miscell._ ed. Mansi, i. p. 386
sqq.); the worst of it was that everybody believed it.
[276] Negro, l.c. on Oct. 24 (should be Sept.) and Nov. 9, 1526, April
11, 1527. It is true that he found admirers and flatterers. The dialogue
of Petrus Alcyonus ‘De Exilio’ was written in his praise, shortly before
he became Pope.
[277] Varchi, _Stor. Fiorent._ i. 43, 46 sqq.
[278] Paul. Jov., _Vita Pomp. Columnae_.
[279] Ranke, _Deutsche Geschichte_ (4 Aufl.) ii. 262 sqq.
[280] Varchi, _Stor. Fiorent._ ii. 43 sqq.
[281] _Ibid._ and Ranke, _Deutsche Gesch._ ii. 278, note, and iii. 6
sqq. It was thought that Charles would transfer his seat of government
to Rome.
[282] See his letter to the Pope, dated Carpentras, Sept. 1, 1527, in
the _Anecdota litt._ iv. p. 335.
[283] _Lettere dei Principi_, i. 72. Castiglione to the Pope, Burgos,
Dec. 10, 1527.
[284] Tommaso Gar, _Relaz. della Corte di Roma_, i. 299.
[285] The Farnese succeeded in something of the kind, the Caraffa were
ruined.
[286] Petrarca, _Epist. Fam._ i. 3. p. 574, when he thanks God that he
was born an Italian. And again in the _Apologia contra cujusdam anonymi
Galli Calumnias_ of the year 1367 (_Opp._ ed. Bas. 1581) p. 1068 sqq.
See L. Geiger, _Petrarca_, 129-145.
[287] Particularly those in vol. i. of Schardius, _Scriptores rerum
Germanicarum_, Basel, 1574. For an earlier period, Felix Faber,
_Historia Suevorum_, libri duo (in Goldast, _Script. rer. Suev._ 1605);
for a later, Irenicus, _Exegesis Germaniæ_, Hagenau, 1518. On the latter
work and the patriotic histories of that time, see various studies of A.
Horawitz, _Hist. Zeitschrift_, bd. xxxiii. 118, anm. 1.
[288] One instance out of many: _The Answers of the Doge of Venice to a
Florentine Agent respecting Pisa_, 1496, in Malipiero, _Ann. Veneti.
Arch. Stor._ vii. i. p. 427.
[289] Observe the expressions ‘uomo singolare’ and ‘uomo unico’ for the
higher and highest stages of individual development.
[290] By the year 1390 there was no longer any prevailing fashion of
dress for men at Florence, each preferring to clothe himself in his own
way. See the _Canzone_ of Franco Sacchetti: ‘Contro alle nuove foggie’
in the _Rime_, publ. dal Poggiali, p. 52.
[291] At the close of the sixteenth century Montaigne draws the
following parallel (_Essais_, l. iii. chap. 5, vol. iii. p. 367 of the
Paris ed. 1816): ‘Ils (les Italiens) ont plus communement des belles
femmes et moins de laides que nous; mais des rares et excellentes
beautés j’estime que nous allons à pair. Et j’en juge autant des
esprits; de ceux de la commune façon, ils en ont beaucoup plus et
evidemment; la brutalité y est sans comparaison plus rare; d’ames
singulières et du plus hault estage, nous ne leur en debvons rien.’
[292] And also of their wives, as is seen in the family of Sforza and
among other North Italian rulers. Comp. in the work of Jacobus Phil.
Bergomensis, _De Plurimis Claris Selectisque Mulieribus_, Ferrara, 1497,
the lives of Battista Malatesta, Paola Gonzaga, Bona Lombarda, Riccarda
of Este, and the chief women of the House of Sforza, Beatrice and
others. Among them are more than one genuine virago, and in several
cases natural gifts are supplemented by great humanistic culture. (See
below, chap. 3 and part v.)
[293] Franco Sacchetti, in his ‘Capitolo’ (_Rime_, publ. dal Poggiali,
p. 56), enumerates about 1390 the names of over a hundred distinguished
people in the ruling parties who had died within his memory. However
many mediocrities there may have been among them, the list is still
remarkable as evidence of the awakening of individuality. On the ‘Vite’
of Filippo Villani, see below.
[294] _Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_ forms a part of the work:
_La Cura della Famiglia_ (_Opere Volg. di Leon Batt. Alberti_, publ. da
Anicio Bonucci, Flor. 1844, vol. ii.). See there vol. i. pp. xxx.-xl.,
vol. ii. pp. xxxv. sqq. and vol. v. pp. 1-127. Formerly the work was
generally, as in the text, attributed to Agnolo Pandolfini (d. 1446; see
on him _Vesp. Fiorent._, pp. 291 and 379); the recent investigations of
Fr. Palermo (Florence 1871), have shown Alberti to be the author. The
work is quoted from the ed. Torino, Pomba, 1828.
[295] Trattato, p. 65 sqq.
[296] Jov. Pontanus, _De Fortitudine_, l. ii. cap. 4, ‘De tolerando
Exilio,’ Seventy years later, Cardanus (_De Vitâ Propriâ_, cap. 32)
could ask bitterly: ‘Quid est patria nisi consensus tyrannorum minutorum
ad opprimendos imbelles timidos et qui plerumque sunt innoxii?’
[297] _De Vulgari Eloquio_, lib. i. cap. 6. On the ideal Italian
language, cap. 17. The spiritual unity of cultivated men, cap. 18. On
home-sickness, comp. the famous passages, _Purg._ viii. 1 sqq., and
_Parad._ xxv. 1 sqq.
[298] _Dantis Alligherii Epistolae_, ed. Carolus Witte, p. 65.
[299] Ghiberti, _Secondo Commentario_, cap. xv. (Vasari ed Lemonnier, i.
p. xxix.).
[300] _Codri Urcei Vita_, at the end of his works, first pub. Bologna
1502. This certainly comes near the old saying: ‘ubi bene, ibi patria.’
C. U. was not called after the place of his birth, but after Forli,
where he lived long; see Malagola, _Codro Urceo_, Bologna, 1877, cap. v.
and app. xi. The abundance of neutral intellectual pleasure, which is
independent of local circumstances, and of which the educated Italians
became more and more capable, rendered exile more tolerable to them.
Cosmopolitanism is further a sign of an epoch in which new worlds are
discovered, and men feel no longer at home in the old. We see it among
the Greeks after the Peloponnesian war; Plato, as Niebuhr says, was not
a good citizen, and Xenophon was a bad one; Diogenes went so far as to
proclaim homelessness a pleasure, and calls himself, Laertius tells us,
ἁπολις. Here another remarkable work may be mentioned. Petrus Alcyonius
in his book: _Medices Legatus de Exilio lib. duo_, Ven. 1522 (printed in
Mencken, _Analecta de Calam. Literatorum_, Leipzig, 1707, pp. 1-250)
devotes to the subject of exile a long and prolix discussion. He tries
logically and historically to refute the three reasons for which
banishment is held to be an evil, viz. 1. Because the exile must live
away from his fatherland. 2. Because he loses the honours given him at
home. 3. Because he must do without his friends and relatives; and comes
finally to the conclusion that banishment is not an evil. His
dissertation culminates in the words, ‘Sapientissimus quisque omnem
orbem terrarum unam urbem esse ducit. Atque etiam illam veram sibi esse
patriam arbitratur quæ se perigrinantem exciperit, quæ pudorem,
probitatem, virtutem colit, quæ optima studia, liberales disciplinas
amplectitur, quæ etiam facit ut peregrini omnes honesto otio teneant
statum et famam dignitatis suæ.’
[301] This awakening of personality is also shown in the great stress
laid on the independent growth of character, in the claim to shape the
spiritual life for oneself, apart from parents and ancestors. Boccaccio
(_De Cas. Vir. Ill._ Paris, s. a. fol. xxix. _b_) points out that
Socrates came of uneducated, Euripides and Demosthenes of unknown,
parents, and exclaims: ‘Quasi animos a gignentibus habeamus!’
[302] Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 16.
[303] The angels which he drew on tablets at the anniversary of the
death of Beatrice (_Vita Nuova_, p. 61) may have been more than the work
of a dilettante. Lion. Aretino says he drew ‘egregiamente,’ and was a
great lover of music.
[304] For this and what follows, see esp. _Vespasiano Fiorentino_, an
authority of the first order for Florentine culture in the fifteenth
century Comp. pp. 359, 379, 401, etc. See, also, the charming and
instructive _Vita Jannoctii Manetti_ (b. 1396), by Naldus Naldius, in
Murat. xx. pp. 529-608.
[305] What follows is taken, e.g., from Perticari’s account of Pandolfo
Collenuccio, in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi iii. pp. 197 sqq., and from
the _Opere del Conte Perticari_, Mil. 1823, vol. ii.
[306] For what follows compare Burckhardt, _Geschichte der Renaissance
in Italien_, Stuttg. 1868, esp. p. 41 sqq., and A. Springer,
_Abhandlungen zur neueren Kunstgeschichte_, Bonn, 1867, pp. 69-102. A
new biography of Alberti is in course of preparation by Hub. Janitschek.
[307] In Murat. xxv. col. 295 sqq., with the Italian translation in the
_Opere Volgari di L. B. Alberti_, vol. i. pp. lxxxix-cix, where the
conjecture is made and shown to be probable that this ‘Vita’ is by
Alberti himself. See, further, Vasari, iv. 52 sqq. Mariano Socini, if we
can believe what we read of him in Æn. Sylvius (_Opera_, p. 622,
_Epist._ 112) was a universal dilettante, and at the same time a master
in several subjects.
[308] Similar attempts, especially an attempt at a flying-machine, had
been made about 880 by the Andalusian Abul Abbas Kasim ibn Firnas. Comp.
Gyangos, _The History of the Muhammedan Dynasties in Spain_ (London,
1840), i. 148 sqq. and 425-7; extracts in Hammer, _Literaturgesch. der
Araber_, i. Introd. p. li.
[309] Quidquid ingenio esset hominum cum quadam effectum elegantia, id
prope divinum ducebat.
[310] This is the book (comp. p. 185, note 2) of which one part, often
printed alone, long passed for a work of Pandolfini.
[311] In his work, _De Re Ædificatoria_, l. viii. cap. i., there is a
definition of a beautiful road: ‘Si modo mare, modo montes, modo lacum
fluentem fontesve, modo aridam rupem aut planitiem, modo nemus vallemque
exhibebit.’
[312] One writer among many: Blondus, _Roma Triumphans_, l. v. pp. 117
sqq., where the definitions of glory are collected from the ancients,
and the desire of it is expressly allowed to the Christian. Cicero’s
work, _De Gloria_, which Petrarch claimed to own, was stolen from him by
his teacher Convenevole, and has never since been seen. Alberti, in a
youthful composition when he was only twenty years of age, praises the
desire of fame. _Opere_, vol. i. pp. cxxvii-clxvi.
[313] _Paradiso_, xxv. at the beginning: ‘Se mai continga,’ &c. See
above, p. 133, note 2. Comp. Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 49.
‘Vaghissimo fu e d’onore e di pompa, e per avventura più che alla sua
inclita virtù non si sarebbe richiesto.’
[314] _De Vulgari Eloquio_, l. i. cap. i. and esp. _De Monarchia_, l. i.
cap. i., where he wishes to set forth the idea of monarchy not only in
order to be useful to the world but also ‘ut palmam tanti bravii primus
in meam gloriam adipiscar.’
[315] _Convito_, ed. Venezia, 1529, fol. 5 and 6.
[316] _Paradiso_, vi. 112 sqq.
[317] E.g. _Inferno_, vi. 89; xiii. 53; xvi. 85; xxxi. 127.
[318] _Purgatorio_, v. 70, 87, 133; vi. 26; viii. 71; xi. 31; xiii. 147.
[319] _Purgatorio_, xi. 85-117. Besides ‘gloria’ we here find close
together ‘grido, fama, rumore, nominanza, onore’ all different names for
the same thing. Boccaccio wrote, as he admits in his letter to Joh.
Pizinga (_Op. Volg._ xvi. 30 sqq.) ‘perpetuandi nominis desiderio’.
[320] Scardeonius, _De Urb. Patav. Antiqu._ (Græv. _Thesaur._ vi. iii.
col. 260). Whether ‘cereis’ or ‘certis muneribus’ should be the reading,
cannot be said. The somewhat solemn nature of Mussatus can be recognised
in the tone of his history of Henry VII.
[321] Franc. Petrarca, _Posteritati_, or _Ad Posteros_, at the beginning
of the editions of his works, or the only letter of Book xviii. of the
_Epp. Seniles_; also in Fracassetti, _Petr. Epistolæ Familiares_, 1859,
i. 1-11. Some modern critics of Petrarch’s vanity would hardly have
shown as much kindness and frankness had they been in his place.
[322] _Opera_, ed. 1581, p. 177: ‘De celebritate nominis importuna.’
Fame among the mass of people was specially offensive to him. _Epp.
Fam._ i. 337, 340. In Petrarch, as in many humanists of the older
generation, we can observe the conflict between the desire for glory and
the claims of Christian humility.
[323] ‘De Remediis Utriusque Fortunæ’ in the editions of the works.
Often printed separately, e.g. Bern, 1600. Compare Petrarch’s famous
dialogue, ‘De Contemptu Mundi’ or ‘De Conflictu Curarum Suarum,’ in
which the interlocutor Augustinus blames the love of fame as a damnable
fault.
[324] _Epp. Fam._ lib. xviii. (ed. Fracassetti) 2. A measure of
Petrarch’s fame is given a hundred years later by the assertion of
Blondus (_Italia Illustrata_, p. 416) that hardly even a learned man
would know anything of Robert the Good if Petrarch had not spoken of him
so often and so kindly.
[325] It is to be noted that even Charles IV., perhaps influenced by
Petrarch, speaks in a letter to the historian Marignola of fame as the
object of every striving man. H. Friedjung, _Kaiser Karl IV. und sein
Antheil am geistigen Leben seiner Zeit_, Vienna, 1876, p. 221.
[326] _Epist. Seniles_, xiii. 3, to Giovanni Aretino, Sept. 9, 1370.
[327] Filippo Villani, _Vite_, p. 19
[328] Both together in the epitaph on Boccaccio: ‘Nacqui in Firenze al
Pozzo Toscanelli; Di fuor sepolto a Certaldo giaccio,’ &c. Comp. _Op.
Volg. di Boccaccio_, xvi. 44.
[329] Mich. Savonarola, _De Laudibus Patavii_, in Murat. xxiv. col.
1157. Arquà remained from thenceforth the object of special veneration
(comp. Ettore Conte Macola, _I Codici di Arquà_, Padua, 1874), and was
the scene of great solemnities at the fifth centenary of Petrarch’s
death. His dwelling is said to have been lately given to the city of
Padua by the last owner, Cardinal Silvestri.
[330] The decree of 1396 and its grounds in Gaye, _Carteggio_, i. 123.
[331] Reumont, _Lorenzo de’ Medici_, ii. 180.
[332] Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 39.
[333] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 121.
[334] The former in the well-known sarcophagus near San Lorenzo, the
latter over a door in the Palazzo della Ragione. For details as to their
discovery in 1413, see Misson, _Voyage en Italie_, vol. i., and Michele
Savonarola, col. 1157.
[335] _Vita di Dante_, l. c. How came the body of Cassius from Philippi
back to Parma?
[336] ‘Nobilitatis fastu’ and ‘sub obtentu religionis,’ says Pius II.
(_Comment._ x. p. 473). The new sort of fame must have been inconvenient
to those who were accustomed to the old.
That Carlo Malatesta caused the statue of Virgil to be pulled down and
thrown into the Mincio, and this, as he alleged, from anger at the
veneration paid to it by the people of Mantua, is a well-authenticated
fact, specially attested by an invective written in 1397 by P. P.
Vergerio against C. M., _De dirutâ Statuâ Virgilii P. P. V.
eloquentissimi Oratoris Epistola ex Tugurio Blondi sub Apolline_, ed. by
Marco Mantova Benavides (publ. certainly before 1560 at Padua). From
this work it is clear that till then the statue had not been set up
again. Did this happen in consequence of the invective? Bartholomæus
Facius (_De Vir. Ill._ p. 9 sqq. in the Life of P. P. V. 1456) says it
did, ‘Carolum Malatestam invectus Virgilii statua, quam ille Mantuæ in
foro everterat, quoniam gentilis fuerat, ut ibidem restitueretur,
effecit;’ but his evidence stands alone. It is true that, so far as we
know, there are no contemporary chronicles for the history of Mantua at
that period (Platina, _Hist. Mant._ in Murat. xx. contains nothing about
the matter), but later historians are agreed that the statue was not
restored. See for evidence, Prendilacqua, _Vita di Vitt. da Feltre_,
written soon after 1446 (ed. 1871, p. 78), where the destruction but not
the restoration of the statue is spoken of, and the work of Ant.
Possevini, jun. (_Gonzaga_, Mantua, 1628), where, p. 486, the pulling
down of the statue, the murmurings and violent opposition of the people,
and the promise given in consequence by the prince that he _would_
restore it, are all mentioned, with the addition: ‘Nec tamen restitutus
est Virgilius.’ Further, on March 17, 1499, Jacopo d’Hatry writes to
Isabella of Este, that he has spoken with Pontano about a plan of the
princess to raise a statue to Virgil at Mantua, and that Pontano cried
out with delight that Vergerio, if he were alive, would be even more
pleased ‘che non se attristò quando el Conte Carola Malatesta persuase
abuttare la statua di Virgilio nel flume.’ The writer then goes on to
speak of the manner of setting it up, of the inscription ‘P. Virgilius
Mantuanus’ and ‘Isabella Marchionissa Mantuæ restituit,’ and suggests
that Andrea Mantegna would be the right man to be charged with the work.
Mantegna did in fact make the drawings for it. (The drawing and the
letter in question are given in Baschet, _Recherches de documents d’art
et d’histoire dans les Archives de Mantoue; documents inédits concernant
la personne et les œuvres d’Andrea Mantegna_, in the _Gazette des
Beaux-Arts_, xx. (1866) 478-492, esp. 486 sqq.) It is clear from this
letter that Carlo Malatesta did not have the statue restored. In
Comparetti’s work on Virgil in the Middle Ages, the story is told after
Burckhardt, but without authorities. Dr. Geiger, on the authority of
Professor Paul of Berlin, distinguishes between C. Cassius Longinus and
Cassius Parmensis, the poet, both among the assassins of Cæsar.
[337] Comp. Keyssler’s _Neueste Reisen_, p. 1016.
[338] The elder was notoriously a native of Verona.
[339] This is the tone of the remarkable work, _De Laudibus Papiæ_, in
Murat. xx., dating from the fourteenth century--much municipal pride,
but no idea of personal fame.
[340] _De Laudibus Patavii_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 1138 sqq. Only three
cities, in his opinion--could be compared with Padua--Florence, Venice
and Rome.
[341] ‘Nam et veteres nostri tales aut divos aut æternâ memoriâ dignos
non immerito prædicabant, quum virtus summa sanctitatis sit consocia et
pari ematur pretio.’ What follows is most characteristic: ‘Hos itaque
meo facili judicio æternos facio.’
[342] Similar ideas occur in many contemporary writers. Codrus Urceus,
_Sermo_ xiii. (_Opp._ 1506, fol. xxxviii. _b_), speaking of Galeazzo
Bentivoglio, who was both a scholar and a warrior, ‘Cognoscens artem
militarem esse quidem excellentem, sed literas multo certe
excellentiores.’
[343] What follows immediately is not, as the editor remarks (Murat.
xxiv col. 1059, note), from the pen of Mich. Savonarola.
[344] Petrarch, in the ‘Triumph’ here quoted, only dwells on characters
of antiquity, and in his collection, _De Rebus Memorandis_, has little
to say of contemporaries. In the _Casus Virorum Illustrium_ of Boccaccio
(among the men a number of women, besides Philippa Catinensis treated of
at the end, are included, and even the goddess Juno is described), only
the close of the eighth book and the last book--the ninth--deal with
non-classical times. Boccaccio’s remarkable work, _De Claris
Mulieribus_, treats also almost exclusively of antiquity. It begins with
Eve, speaks then of ninety-seven women of antiquity, and seven of the
Middle ages, beginning with Pope Joan and ending with Queen Johanna of
Naples. And so at a much later time in the _Commentarii Urbani_ of
Ralph. Volaterranus. In the work _De Claris Mulieribus_ of the
Augustinian Jacobus Bergomensis (printed 1497, but probably published
earlier) antiquity and legend hold the chief place, but there are still
some valuable biographies of Italian women. There are one or two lives
of contemporary women by Vespasiano da Bisticci (_Arch. Stor. Ital._ iv.
i. pp. 430 sqq.). In Scardeonius (_De Urb. Patav. Antiqu. Græv.
Thesaur._ vi. iii. col. 405 sqq.,) only famous Paduan women are
mentioned. First comes a legend or tradition from the time of the fall
of the empire, then tragical stories of the party struggles of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; then notices of several heroic
women; then the foundress of nunneries, the political woman, the female
doctor, the mother of many and distinguished sons, the learned woman,
the peasant girl who dies defending her chastity; then the cultivated
beauty of the sixteenth century, on whom everybody writes sonnets; and
lastly, the female novelist and poet at Padua. A century later the
woman-professor would have been added to these. For the famous woman of
the House of Este, see Ariosto, _Orl._ xiii.
[345] Bartolommeo Facio and Paolo Cortese. B. F. _De Viris Illustribus
Liber_, was first published by L. Mehus (Florence, 1745). The book was
begun by the author (known by other historical works, and resident at
the court of Alfonso of Naples) after he had finished the history of
that king (1455), and ended, as references to the struggles of Hungary
and the writer’s ignorance of the elevation of Æneas Silvius to the
cardinalate show, in 1456. (See, nevertheless, Wahlen, _Laurentii Vallæ
Opuscula Tria_, Vienna, 1869, p. 67, note 1.) It is never quoted by
contemporaries, and seldom by later writers. The author wishes in this
book to describe the famous men, ‘ætatis memoriæque nostræ,’ and
consequently only mentions such as were born in the last quarter of the
fourteenth century, and were still living in, or had died shortly
before, the middle of the fifteenth. He chiefly limits himself to
Italians, except in the case of artists or princes, among the latter of
whom he includes the Emperor Sigismund and Albrecht Achilles of
Brandenburg; and in arranging the various biographies he neither follows
chronological order nor the distinction which the subject of each
attained, but puts them down ‘ut quisque mihi occurrerit,’ intending to
treat in a second part of those whom he might have left out in the
first. He divides the famous men into nine classes, nearly all of them
prefaced by remarks on their distinctive qualities: 1. Poets; 2.
Orators; 3. Jurists; 4. Physicians (with a few philosophers and
theologians, as an appendix); 5. Painters; 6. Sculptors; 7. Eminent
citizens; 8. Generals; 9. Princes and kings. Among the latter he treats
with special fulness and care of Pope Nicholas V. and King Alfonso of
Naples. In general he gives only short and mostly eulogistic
biographies, confined in the case of princes and soldiers to the list of
their deeds, and of artists and writers to the enumeration of their
works. No attempt is made at a detailed description or criticism of
these; only with regard to a few works of art which he had himself seen
he writes more fully. Nor is any attempt made at an estimate of
individuals; his heroes either receive a few general words of praise, or
must be satisfied with the mere mention of their names. Of himself the
author says next to nothing. He states only that Guarino was his
teacher, that Manetti wrote a book on a subject which he himself had
treated, that Bracellius was his countryman, and that the painter Pisano
of Verona was known to him (pp. 17, 18, 19, 48; but says nothing in
speaking of Laurentius Valla of his own violent quarrels with this
scholar. On the other hand, he does not fail to express his piety and
his hatred to the Turks (p. 64), to relieve his Italian patriotism by
calling the Swiss barbarians (p. 60), and to say of P. P. Vergerius,
‘dignus qui totam in Italia vitam scribens exegisset’ (p. 9).
Of all celebrities he evidently sets most store by the scholars, and
among these by the ‘oratores,’ to whom he devotes nearly a third of his
book. He nevertheless has great respect for the jurists, and shows a
special fondness for the physicians, among whom he well distinguishes
the theoretical from the practical, relating the successful diagnoses
and operations of the latter. That he treats of theologians and
philosophers in connection with the physicians, is as curious as that he
should put the painters immediately after the physicians, although, as
he says, they are most allied to the poets. In spite of his reverence
for learning, which shows itself in the praise given to the princes who
patronised it, he is too much of a courtier not to register the tokens
of princely favour received by the scholars he speaks of, and to
characterise the princes in the introduction to the chapters devoted to
them as those who ‘veluti corpus membra, ita omnia genera quæ supra
memoravimus, regunt ac tuentur.’
The style of the book is simple and unadorned, and the matter of it full
of instruction, notwithstanding its brevity. It is a pity that Facius
did not enter more fully into the personal relations and circumstances
of the men whom he described, and did not add to the list of their
writings some notice of the contents and the value of them.
The work of Paolo Cortese (b. 1645, d. 1510), _De Hominibus Doctis
Dialogus_ (first ed. Florence, 1734), is much more limited in its
character. This work, written about 1490, since it mentions Antonius
Geraldinus as dead, who died in 1488, and was dedicated to Lorenzo de’
Medici, who died in 1492, is distinguished from that of Facius, written
a generation earlier, not only by the exclusion of all who are not
learned men, but by various inward and outward characteristics. First by
the form, which is that of a dialogue between the author and his two
companions, Alexander Farnese and Antonius, and by the digressions and
unequal treatment of the various characters caused thereby; and secondly
by the manner of the treatment itself. While Facius only speaks of the
men of his own time, Cortese treats only of the dead, and in part of
those long dead, by which he enlarges his circle more than he narrows it
by exclusion of the living; while Facius merely chronicles works and
deeds, as if they were unknown, Cortese criticises the literary activity
of his heroes as if the reader were already familiar with it. This
criticism is shaped by the humanistic estimate of eloquence, according
to which no man could be considered of importance unless he had achieved
something remarkable in eloquence, _i.e._ in the classical, Ciceronian
treatment of the Latin language. On this principle Dante and Petrarch
are only moderately praised, and are blamed for having diverted so much
of their powers from Latin to Italian; Guarino is described as one who
had beheld perfect eloquence at least through a cloud; Lionardo Aretino
as one who had offered his contemporaries ‘aliquid splendidius;’ and
Enea Silvio as he ‘in quo primum apparuit mutati sæculi signum.’ This
point of view prevailed over all others; never perhaps was it held so
one-sidedly as by Cortese. To get a notion of his way of thinking we
have only to hear his remarks on a predecessor, also the compiler of a
great biographical collection, Sicco Polentone: ‘Ejus sunt viginti ad
filium libri scripti de claris scriptoribus, utiles admodum qui jam fere
ab omnibus legi sent desiti. Est enim in judicando parum acer, nec
servit aurium voluptati quum tractat res ab aliis ante tractatas; sed
hoc ferendum. Illud certe molestum est, dum alienis verbis sententiisque
scripta infarcit et explet sua; ex quo nascitur maxime vitiosum
scribendi genus, quum modo lenis et candidus, modo durus et asper
apparcat, et sic in toto genere tanquam in unum agrum plura inter se
inimicissima sparsa semina.’
All are not treated with so much detail; most are disposed of in a few
brief sentences; some are merely named without a word being added. Much
is nevertheless to be learned from his judgments, though we may not be
able always to agree with them. We cannot here discuss him more fully,
especially as many of his most characteristic remarks have been already
made use of; on the whole, they give us a clear picture of the way in
which a later time, outwardly more developed, looked down with critical
scorn upon an earlier age, inwardly perhaps richer, but externally less
perfect.
Facius, the author of the first-mentioned biographical work, is spoken
of, but not his book. Like Facius, Cortese is the humble courtier,
looking on Lorenzo de’ Medici as Facius looked on Alfonso of Naples;
like him, he is a patriot who only praises foreign excellence
unwillingly and because he must; adding the assurance that he does not
wish to oppose his own country (p. 48, speaking of Janus Pannonius).
Information as to Cortese has been collected by Bernardus Paperinius,
the editor of his work; we may add that his Latin translation of the
novel of L. B. Alberti, _Hippolytus and Dejanira_, is printed for the
first time in the _Opere di L. B. A._ vol. iii. pp. 439-463.
[346] How great the fame of the humanists was is shown by the fact that
impostors attempted to make capital out of the use of their names. There
thus appeared at Verona a man strangely clad and using strange gestures,
who, when brought before the mayor, recited with great energy passages
of Latin verse and prose, taken from the works of Panormita, answered in
reply to the questions put to him that he was himself Panormita, and was
able to give so many small and commonly unknown details about the life
of this scholar, that his statement obtained general credit. He was then
treated with great honour by the authorities and the learned men of the
city, and played his assumed part successfully for a considerable time,
until Guarino and others who knew Panormita personally discovered the
fraud. Comp. Rosmini, _Vita di Guarino_, ii. 44 sqq., 171 sqq. Few of
the humanists were free from the habit of boasting. Codrus Urceus
(_Vita_, at the end of the _Opera_, 1506, fol. lxx.), when asked for his
opinion about this or that famous man, used to answer: ‘Sibi scire
videntur.’ Barth. Facius, _De Vir. Ill._ p. 31, tells of the jurist
Antonius Butriensis: ‘Id unum in eo viro notandum est, quod neminem
unquam, adeo excellere homines in eo studio volebat, ut doctoratu dignum
in examine comprobavit.’
[347] A Latin poet of the twelfth century, one of the wandering scholars
who barters his song for a coat, uses this as a threat. _Carmina
Burana_, p. 76.
[348] Sonnet cli: Lasso ch’i ardo.
[349] Boccaccio, _Opere Volgari_, vol. xvi. in Sonnet 13: Pallido,
vinto, etc.
[350] Elsewhere, and in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, iv. 203.
[351] _Angeli Politiani Epp._ lib. x.
[352] Quatuor navigationes, etc. Deodatum (_St. Dié_), 1507. Comp. O.
Peschel, _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_, 1859, ed. 2,
1876.
[353] Paul. Jov. _De Romanis Piscibus_, Præfatio (1825). The first
decade of his histories would soon be published, ‘non sine aliqua spe
immortalitatis.’
[354] Comp. _Discorsi_, i. 27. ‘Tristizia’ (crime) can have ‘grandezza’
and be ‘in alcuna parte generosa’; ‘grandezza’ can take away ‘infamia’
from a deed; a man can be ‘onorevolmente tristo’ in contrast to one who
is ‘perfettamente buono.’
[355] _Storie Fiorentine_, l. vi.
[356] Paul. Jov. _Elog. Vir. Lit. Ill._ p. 192, speaking of Marius
Molsa.
[357] Mere railing is found very early, in Benzo of Alba, in the
eleventh century (_Mon. Germ._ ss. xi. 591-681).
[358] The Middle Ages are further rich in so-called satirical poems; but
the satire is not individual, but aimed at classes, categories, and
whole populations, and easily passes into the didactic tone. The whole
spirit of this literature is best represented by _Reineke Fuchs_, in all
its forms among the different nations of the West. For this branch of
French literature see a new and admirable work by Lenient, _La Satire en
France au Moyen-âge_, Paris, 1860, and the equally excellent
continuation, _La Satire en France, ou la littérature militante, au
XVIe Siècle_, Paris, 1866.
[359] See above, p. 7 note 2. Occasionally we find an insolent joke,
nov. 37.
[360] _Inferno_, xxi. xxii. The only possible parallel is with
Aristophanes.
[361] A modest beginning _Opera_, p. 421, sqq., in _Rerum Memorandarum
Libri IV._ Again, in _Epp. Seniles_, x. 2. Comp. _Epp. Fam._ ed.
Fracass. i. 68 sqq., 70, 240, 245. The puns have a flavour of their
mediæval home, the monasteries. Petrarch’s invectives ‘contra Gallum,’
‘contra medicum objurgantem,’ and his work, _De Sui Ipsius et Multorum
Ignorantia_; perhaps also his _Epistolæ sine Titulo_,’ may be quoted as
early examples of satirical writing.
[362] Nov. 40, 41; Ridolfo da Camerino is the man.
[363] The well-known jest of Brunellesco and the fat wood-carver,
Manetto Ammanatini, who is said to have fled into Hungary before the
ridicule he encountered, is clever but cruel.
[364] The ‘Araldo’ of the Florentine Signoria. One instance among many,
_Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi_, iii. 651, 669. The fool as
necessary to enliven the company after dinner; Alcyonius, _De Exilio_,
ed. Mencken, p. 129.
[365] Sacchetti, nov. 48. And yet, according to nov. 67, there was an
impression that a Romagnole was superior to the worst Florentine.
[366] L. B. Alberti, _Del Governo della Famiglia, Opere_, ed. Bonucci,
v. 171. Comp. above, p. 132, note 1.
[367] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 156; comp. 24 for Dolcibene and the Jews.
(For Charles IV. and the fools, _Friedjung_, o.c. p. 109.) The _Facetiæ_
of Poggio resemble Sacchetti’s in substance--practical jokes,
impertinences, refined indecency misunderstood by simple folk; the
philologist is betrayed by the large number of verbal jokes. On L. A.
Alberti, see pp. 136, sqq.
[368] And consequently in those novels of the Italians whose subject is
taken from them.
[369] According to Bandello, iv. nov. 2, Gonnella could twist his
features into the likeness of other people, and mimic all the dialects
of Italy.
[370] Paul. Jov. _Vita Leonis X._
[371] ‘Erat enim Bibiena mirus artifex hominibus ætate vel professione
gravibus ad insaniam impellendis.’ We are here reminded of the jests of
Christine of Sweden with her philologists. Comp. the remarkable passage
of Jovian. Pontanus, _De Sermone_, lib. ii. cap. 9: ‘Ferdinandus Alfonsi
filius, Neapolitanorum rex magnus et ipse fuit artifex et vultus
componendi et orationes in quem ipse usus vellet. Nam ætatis nostri
Pontifices maximi fingendis vultibus ac verbis vel histriones ipsos
anteveniunt.
[372] The eye-glass I not only infer from Rafael’s portrait, where it
can be explained as a magnifier for looking at the miniatures in the
prayer-book, but from a statement of Pellicanus, according to which Leo
views an advancing procession of monks through a ‘specillum’ (comp.
_Züricher Taschenbuch_ for 1858, p. 177), and from the ‘cristallus
concava,’ which, according to Giovio, he used when hunting. (Comp.
‘Leonis X. vita auctore anon, conscripta’ in the Appendix to Roscoe.) In
Attilius Alessius (Baluz. _Miscell._ iv. 518) we read, ‘Oculari ex
gemina (gemma?) utebatur quam manu gestans, signando aliquid videndum
esset, oculis admovebat.’ The shortsightedness in the family of the
Medici was hereditary. Lorenzo was shortsighted, and replied to the
Sienese Bartolommeo Soccini, who said that the air of Florence was bad
for the eyes: ‘E quella di Siena al cervello.’ The bad sight of Leo X.
was proverbial. After his election, the Roman wits explained the number
MCCCCXL. engraved in the Vatican as follows: ‘Multi cæci Cardinales
creaverunt cæcum decimum Leonem.’ Comp. Shepherd-Tonelli, _Vita del
Poggio_, ii. 23, sqq., and the passages there quoted.
[373] We find it also in plastic art, e.g., in the famous plate
parodying the group of the Laöcoon as three monkeys. But here parody
seldom went beyond sketches and the like, though much, it is true, may
have been destroyed. Caricature, again, is something different.
Lionardo, in the grotesque faces in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana,
represents what is hideous when and because it is comical, and
exaggerates the ludicrous element at pleasure.
[374] Jovian. Pontan. _De Sermone_, libri v. He attributes a special
gift of wit to the Sienese and Peruginese, as well as to the
Florentines, adding the Spanish court as a matter of politeness.
[375] _Il Cortigiano_, lib. ii. cap. 4 sqq., ed. Baude di Vesme,
Florence, 1854, pp. 124 sqq. For the explanation of wit as the effect of
contrast, though not clearly put, see _ibid._ cap. lxxiii. p. 136.
[376] Pontanus, _De Sermone_, lib. iv. cap. 3, also advises people to
abstain from using ‘ridicula’ either against the miserable or the
strong.
[377] _Galateo del Casa_, ed. Venez. 1789, p. 26 sqq. 48.
[378] _Lettere Pittoriche_, i. p. 71, in a letter of Vinc. Borghini,
1577. Macchiavelli (_Stor. Fior._ vii. cap. 28) says of the young
gentlemen in Florence soon after the middle of the fifteenth century:
‘Gli studî loro erano apparire col vestire splendidi, e col parlare
sagaci ed astuti, e quello che più destramente mordeva gli altri, era
più savio e da più stimato.’
[379] Comp. Fedra Inghirami’s funeral oration on Ludovico Podocataro (d.
Aug. 25, 1504) in the _Anecd. Litt._ i. p. 319. The scandal-monger
Massaino is mentioned in Paul. Jov. _Dialogues de Viris Litt. Illustr._
(Tiraboschi, tom. vii. parte iv. p. 1631).
[380] This was the plan followed by Leo X., and his calculations were
not disappointed. Fearfully as his reputation was mangled after his
death by the satirists, they were unable to modify the general estimate
formed of him.
[381] This was probably the case with Cardinal Ardicino della Porta, who
in 1491 wished to resign his dignity and take refuge in a monastery. See
Infessura, in Eccard. ii. col. 2000.
[382] See his funeral oration in the _Anecd. Litt._ iv. p. 315. He
assembled an army of peasants in the March of Aneona, which was only
hindered from acting by the treason of the Duke of Urbino. For his
graceful and hopeless love-poems, see Trucchi, _Poesie Inedite_, iii.
123.
[383] How he used his tongue at the table of Clement VII. is told in
Giraldi, _Hecatomithi_, vii. nov. 5.
[384] The charge of taking into consideration the proposal to drown
Pasquino (in Paul. Jov. _Vita Hadriani_), is transferred from Sixtus IV.
to Hadrian. Comp. _Lettere dei Principi_, i. 114 sqq., letter of Negro,
dated April 7, 1523. On St. Mark’s Day Pasquino had a special
celebration, which the Pope forbade.
[385] In the passages collected in Gregorovius, viii. 380 note, 381 sqq.
393 sqq.
[386] Comp. Pier. Valer. _De Infel. Lit._ ed. Mencken, p. 178.
‘Pestilentia quæ cum Adriano VI. invecta Romam invasit.’
[387] E.g. Firenzuola, _Opera_ (Milano 1802), vol. i. p. 116, in the
_Discorsi degli Animali_.
[388] Comp. the names in Höfler, _Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Academie_
(1876), vol. 82, p. 435.
[389] The words of Pier. Valerian, _De Infel. Lit._ ed. Mencken, p. 382,
are most characteristic of the public feeling at Rome: ‘Ecce adest
Musarum et eloquentiæ totiusque nitoris hostis acerrimis, qui literatis
omnibus inimicitias minitaretur, quoniam, ut ipse dictitabat, Terentiani
essent, quos quum odisse atque etiam persequi cœpisset voluntarium alii
exilium, alias atque alias alii latebras quærentes tam diu latuere quoad
Deo beneficio altero imperii anno decessit, qui si aliquanto diutius
vixisset, Gothica illa tempora adversus bonas literas videbatur
suscitaturus.’ The general hatred of Adrian was also due partly to the
fact that in the great pecuniary difficulties in which he found himself
he adopted the expedient of a direct tax. Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 411. It
may here be mentioned that there were, nevertheless, poets to be found
who praised Adrian. Comp. various passages in the _Coryciana_ (ed. Rome,
1524), esp. J. J. 2_b_ sqq.
[390] To the Duke of Ferrara, January 1, 1536 (_Lettere_, ed. 1539, fol.
39): ‘You will now journey from Rome to Naples,’ ‘ricreando la vista
avvilita nel mirar le miserie pontificali con la contemplazione delle
eccellenze imperiali.’
[391] The fear which he caused to men of mark, especially artists, by
these means, cannot be here described. The publicistic weapon of the
German Reformation was chiefly the pamphlet dealing with events as they
occurred; Aretino is a journalist in the sense that he has within
himself a perpetual occasion for writing.
[392] E.g. in the _Capitolo_ on Albicante, a bad poet; unfortunately the
passages are unfit for quotation.
[393] _Lettere_, ed. Venez. 1539, fol. 12, dated May 31, 1527.
[394] In the first _Capitolo_ to Cosimo.
[395] Gaye, _Carteggio_, ii. 332.
[396] See the insolent letter of 1536 in the _Lettere Pittor._ i.
Append. 34. See above, p. 142, for the house where Petrarch was born in
Arezzo.
[397]
L’Aretin, per Deo grazia, è vivo e sano,
Ma’l mostaccio ha fregiato nobilmente,
E più colpi ha, che dita in una mano.’
(Mauro, ‘_Capitolo in lode delle bugie._’)
[398] See e.g. the letter to the Cardinal of Lorraine, _Lettere_, ed.
Venez. fol. 29, dated Nov. 21, 1534, and the letters to Charles V., in
which he says that no man stands nearer to God than Charles.
[399] For what follows, see Gaye, _Carteggio_, ii. 336, 337, 345.
[400] _Lettere_, ed. Venez. 1539, fol. 15, dated June 16, 1529. Comp.
another remarkable letter to M. A., dated April 15, 1528, fol. 212.
[401] He may have done so either in the hope of obtaining the red hat or
from fear of the new activity of the Inquisition, which he had ventured
to attack bitterly in 1535 (l. c. fol. 37), but which, after the
reorganisation of the institution in 1542, suddenly took a fresh start,
and soon silenced every opposing voice.
[402] [Carmina Burana, in the _Bibliothek des literarischen Vereins in
Stuttgart_, vol. xvi. (Stuttg. 1847). The stay in Pavia (p. 68 _bis_),
the Italian local references in general, the scene with the ‘pastorella’
under the olive-tree (p. 146), the mention of the ‘pinus’ as a shady
field tree (p. 156), the frequent use of the word ‘bravium’ (pp. 137,
144), and particularly the form Madii for Maji (p. 141), all speak in
favour of our assumption.]
The conjecture of Dr. Burckhardt that the best pieces of the _Carmina
Burana_ were written by an Italian, is not tenable. The grounds brought
forward in its support have little weight (e.g. the mention of Pavia:
‘Quis Paviæ demorans castus habeatur?’ which can be explained as a
proverbial expression, or referred to a short stay of the writer at
Pavia), cannot, further, hold their own against the reasons on the other
side, and finally lose all their force in view of the probable
identification of the author. The arguments of O. Hubatsch _Die
lateinischen Vagantenlieder des Mittelalters_, Görlitz, 1870, p. 87)
against the Italian origin of these poems are, among others, the attacks
on the Italian and praise of the German clergy, the rebukes of the
southerners as a ‘gens proterva,’ and the reference to the poet as
‘transmontanus.’ Who he actually was, however, is not clearly made out.
That he bore the name of Walther throws no light upon his origin. He was
formerly identified with Gualterus de Mapes, a canon of Salisbury and
chaplain to the English kings at the end of the twelfth century; since,
by Giesebrecht (_Die Vaganten oder Goliarden und ihre Lieder, Allgemeine
Monatschrift_, 1855), with Walther of Lille or Chatillon, who passed
from France into England and Germany, and thence possibly with the
Archbishop Reinhold of Köln (1164 and 75) to Italy (Pavia, &c.). If this
hypothesis, against which Hubatsch (l. c.) has brought forward certain
objections, must be abandoned, it remains beyond a doubt that the origin
of nearly all these songs is to be looked for in France, from whence
they were diffused through the regular school which here existed for
them over Germany, and there expanded and mixed with German phrases;
while Italy, as Giesebrecht has shown, remained almost unaffected by
this class of poetry. The Italian translator of Dr. Burckhardt’s work,
Prof. D. Valbusa, in a note to this passage (i. 235), also contests the
Italian origin of the poem. [L. G.]
[403] _Carm. Bur._ p. 155, only a fragment: the whole in Wright, _Walter
Mapes_ (1841), p. 258. Comp. Hubatsch, p. 27 sqq., who points to the
fact that a story often treated of in France is at the foundation. Æst.
Inter. _Carm. Bur._ p. 67; Dum Dianæ, _Carm. Bur._ p. 124. Additional
instances: ‘Cor patet Jovi;’ classical names for the loved one; once,
when he calls her Blanciflor, he adds, as if to make up for it, the name
of Helena.
[404] In what way antiquity could serve as guide and teacher in all the
higher regions of life, is briefly sketched by Æneas Sylvius (_Opera_,
p. 603, in the _Epist._ 105, to the Archduke Sigismund).
[405] For particulars we must refer the reader to Roscoe, _Lorenzo Mag._
and _Leo X._, as well as to Voigt, _Enea Silvio_ (Berlin, 1856-63); to
the works of Reumont and to Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom im
Mittelalter_.
To form a conception of the extent which studies at the beginning of the
sixteenth century had reached, we cannot do better than turn to the
_Commentarii Urbani_ of Raphael Volatterranus (ed. Basil, 1544, fol. 16,
&c.). Here we see how antiquity formed the introduction and the chief
matter of study in every branch of knowledge, from geography and local
history, the lives of great and famous men, popular philosophy, morals
and the special sciences, down to the analysis of the whole of Aristotle
with which the work closes. To understand its significance as an
authority for the history of culture, we must compare it with all the
earlier encyclopædias. A complete and circumstantial account of the
matter is given in Voigt’s admirable work, _Die Wiederbelebung des
classischen Alterthums_ oder _Das erste Jahrhundert der Humanismus_,
Berlin, 1859.
[406] In William of Malmesbury, _Gesta Regum Anglor_. l. ii. § 169, 170,
205, 206 (ed. Lond. 1840, vol. i. p. 277 sqq. and p. 354 sqq.), we meet
with the dreams of treasure-hunters, Venus as ghostly love, and the
discovery of the gigantic body of Pallas, son of Evander, about the
middle of the eleventh century. Comp. Jac. ab Aquis _Imago Mundi_
(_Hist. Patr. Monum. Script._ t. iii. col. 1603), on the origin of the
House of Colonna, with reference to the discovery of hidden treasure.
Besides the tales of the treasure-seekers, William of Malmesbury
mentions the elegy of Hildebert of Mans, Bishop of Tours, one of the
most singular examples of humanistic enthusiasm in the first half of the
twelfth century.
[407] Dante, _Convito_, tratt. iv. cap. v.
[408] _Epp. Familiares_, vi. 2; references to Rome before he had seen
it, and expressions of his longing for the city, _Epp. Fam._ ed.
Fracass. vol. i. pp. 125, 213; vol. ii. pp. 336 sqq. See also the
collected references in L. Geiger, _Petrarca_, p. 272, note 3. In
Petrarch we already find complaints of the many ruined and neglected
buildings, which he enumerates one by one (_De Rem. Utriusque Fort._
lib. i. dial. 118), adding the remark that many statues were left from
antiquity, but no paintings (l. c. 41).
[409] _Dittamondo_, ii. cap. 3. The procession reminds one at times of
the three kings and their suite in the old pictures. The description of
the city (ii. cap. 31) is not without archæological value (Gregorovius,
vi. 697, note 1). According to Polistoro (Murat. xxiv. col. 845),
Niccolò and Ugo of Este journeyed in 1366 to Rome, ‘per vedere quelle
magnificenze antiche, che al presente sipossono vedere in Roma.’
[410] Gregorovius, v. 316 sqq. Parenthetically we may quote foreign
evidence that Rome in the Middle Ages was looked upon as a quarry. The
famous Abbot Sugerius, who about 1140 was in search of lofty pillars for
the rebuilding of St. Denis, thought at first of nothing less then
getting hold of the granite monoliths of the Baths of Diocletian, but
afterwards changed his mind. See ‘Sugerii Libellus Alter,’ in Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptores_, iv. p. 352.
[411] _Poggii Opera_, fol. 50 sqq. ‘Ruinarum Urbis Romæ Descriptio,’
written about 1430, shortly before the death of Martin V. The Baths of
Caracalla and Diocletian had then their pillars and coating of marble.
See Gregorovius, vi. 700-705.
[412] Poggio appears as one of the earliest collectors of inscriptions,
in his letter in the _Vita Poggii_, Muratori, xx. col. 177, and as
collector of busts, (col. 183, and letter in Shepherd-Tonelli, i. 258).
See also _Ambros. Traversarii Epistolæ_, xxv. 42. A little book which
Poggio wrote on inscriptions seems to have been lost. Shepherd, _Life of
Poggio_, trad. Tonelli, i. 154 sqq.
[413] Fabroni, _Cosmus_, Adnot. 86. From a letter of Alberto degli
Alberti to Giovanni Medici. See also Gregorovius, vii. 557. For the
condition of Rome under Martin V., see Platina, p. 227; and during the
absence of Eugenius IV., see Vespasiano Fiorent., p. 21.
[414] _Roma Instaurata_, written in 1447, and dedicated to the Pope;
first printed, Rome, 1474.
[415] See, nevertheless, his distichs in Voigt, _Wiederbelebung des
Alterthums_, p. 275, note 2. He was the first Pope who published a Bull
for the protection of old monuments (4 Kal. Maj. 1462), with penalties
in case of disobedience. But these measures were ineffective. Comp.
Gregorovius, vii. pp. 558 sqq.
[416] What follows is from Jo. Ant. Campanus, _Vita Pii II._, in
Muratori, iii. ii. col. 980 sqq. _Pii II. Commentarii_, pp. 48, 72 sqq.,
206, 248 sqq., 501, and elsewhere.
[417] First dated edition, Brixen, 1482.
[418] Boccaccio, _Fiammetta_, cap. 5. _Opere_, ed. Montier, vi. 91.
[419] His work, _Cyriaci Anconitani Itinerarium_, ed. Mehus, Florence,
1742. Comp. Leandro Alberti, _Descriz. di tutta l’Italia_, fol. 285.
[420] Two instances out of many: the fabulous origin of Milan in
Manipulus (Murat. xl. col. 552), and that of Florence in Gio. Villani
(who here, as elsewhere, enlarges on the forged chronicle of Ricardo
Malespini), according to which Florence, being loyally Roman in its
sentiments, is always in the right against the anti-Roman rebellious
Fiesole (i. 9, 38, 41; ii. 2). Dante, _Inf._ xv. 76.
[421] _Commentarii_, p. 206, in the fourth book.
[421A] Mich. Cannesius, _Vita Pauli II._, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 993.
Towards even Nero, son of Domitius Ahenobarbus, the author will not be
impolite, on account of his connection with the Pope. He only says of
him, ‘De quo verum Scriptores multa ac diversa commemorant.’ The family
of Plato in Milan went still farther, and nattered itself on its descent
from the great Athenian. Filelfo in a wedding speech, and in an encomium
on the jurist Teodoro Plato, ventured to make this assertion; and a
Giovanantonio Plato put the inscription on a portrait in relief carved
by him in 1478 (in the court of the Pal. Magenta at Milan): ‘Platonem
suum, a quo originem et ingenium refert.’
[422] See on this point, Nangiporto, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1094;
Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1951; Matarazzo, in the
_Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. p. 180. Nangiporto, however, admits that it was
no longer possible to decide whether the corpse was male or female.
[423] As early as Julius II. excavations were made in the hope of
finding statues. Vasari, xi. p. 302, _V. di Gio. da Udine_. Comp.
Gregorovius, viii. 186.
[424] The letter was first attributed to Castiglione, _Lettere di Negozi
del Conte Bald. Castiglione_, Padua, 1736 and 1769, but proved to be
from the hand of Raphael by Daniele Francesconi in 1799. It is printed
from a Munich MS. in Passavant, _Leben Raphael’s_, iii. p. 44. Comp.
Gruyer _Raphael et l’Antiquité_, 1864, i. 435-457.
[425] _Lettere Pittoriche_, ii. 1, Tolomei to Landi, 14 Nov., 1542.
[426] He tried ‘curis animique doloribus quacunque ratione aditum
intercludere;’ music and lively conversation charmed him, and he hoped
by their means to live longer. _Leonis X. Vita Anonyma_, in Roscoe, ed.
Bossi, xii. p. 169.
[427] This point is referred to in the _Satires_ of Ariosto. See the
first (‘Perc’ ho molto,’ &c.), and the fourth ‘Poiche, Annibale’).
[428] Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 408 sqq. ‘_Lettere dei Principi_, p. 107.
Letter of Negri, September 1, 1522 ... ‘tutti questi cortigiani esausti
da Papa Leone e falliti.’ They avenged themselves after the death of Leo
by satirical verses and inscriptions.
[429] _Pii II. Commentarii_, p. 251 in the 5th book. Comp. Sannazaro’s
elegy, ‘Ad Ruinas Cumarum urbis vetustissimæ’ (_Opera_, fol. 236 sqq.).
[430] Polifilo (i.e. Franciscus Columna) ‘Hypnerotomachia, ubi humana
omnia non nisi somnum esse docet atque obiter plurima scita sane quam
digna commemorat,’ Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1499. Comp. on this
remarkable book and others, A. Didot, _Alde Manuce_, Paris, 1875, pp.
132-142; and Gruyer, _Raphael et l’Antiquité_, i. pp. 191 sqq.; J.
Burckhardt, _Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien_, pp. 43 sqq., and
the work of A. Ilg, Vienna, 1872.
[431] While all the Fathers of the Church and all the pilgrims speak
only of a cave. The poets, too, do without the palace. Comp. Sannazaro,
_De Partu Virginis_, l. ii.
[432] Chiefly from Vespasiano Fiorentine, in the first vol. of the
_Spicileg. Romanum_, by Mai, from which edition the quotations in this
book are made. New edition by Bartoli, Florence, 1859. The author was a
Florentine bookseller and copying agent, about and after the middle of
the fifteenth century.
[433] Comp. Petr. _Epist. Fam._ ed. Fracass. l. xviii. 2, xxiv. 12, var.
25, with the notes of Fracassetti in the Italian translation, vol. iv.
92-101, v. 196 sqq., where the fragment of a translation of Homer before
the time of Pilato is also given.
[434] Forgeries, by which the passion for antiquity was turned to the
profit or amusement of rogues, are well known to have been not uncommon.
See the articles in the literary histories on Annius of Viterbo.
[435] Vespas. Fiorent. p. 31. ‘Tommaso da Serezana usava dire, che dua
cosa farebbe, se egli potesse mai spendere, ch’era in libri e murare. E
l’una e l’altra fece nel suo pontificato.’ With respect to his
translation, see Æen. Sylvius, _De Europa_, cap. 58, p. 459, and
Papencordt, _Ges. der Stadt Rom._ p. 502. See esp. Voigt, op. cit. book
v.
[436] Vespas. Fior. pp. 48 and 658, 665. Comp. J. Manetti, _Vita Nicolai
V._, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 925 sqq. On the question whether and how
Calixtus III. partly dispersed the library again, see Vespas. Fiorent.
p. 284, with Mai’s note.
[437] Vespas. Fior. pp. 617 sqq.
[438] Vespas. Fior. pp. 457 sqq.
[439] Vespas. Fiorent, p. 193. Comp. Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col.
1185 sqq.
[440] How the matter was provisionally treated is related in Malipiero,
_Ann. Veneti, Arch. Stor._ vii. ii. pp. 653, 655.
[441] Vespas. Fior. pp. 124 sqq., and ‘Inventario della Libreria
Urbinata compilata nel Secolo XV. da Federigo Veterano, bibliotecario di
Federigo I. da Montefeltro Duca d’Urbino,’ given by C. Guasti in tbe
_Giornale Storico degli Archivi Toscani_, vi. (1862), 127-147 and vii.
(1863) 46-55, 130-154. For contemporary opinions on the library, see
Favre, _Mélanges d’Hist. Lit._ i. 127, note 6. The following is the
substance of Dr. Geiger’s remarks on the subject of the old authors:--
For the Medicean Library comp. _Delle condicioni e delle vicende della
libreria medicea privata dal 1494 al 1508 ricerche di Enea Piccolomini_,
Arch. stor. ital., 265 sqq., 3 serie, vol. xix. pp. 101-129,254-281, xx.
51-94, xxi. 102-112, 282-296. Dr. Geiger does not undertake an estimate
of the relative values of the various rare and almost unknown works
contained in the library, nor is he able to state where they are now to
be found. He remarks that information as to Greece is much fuller than
as to Italy, which is a characteristic mark of the time. The catalogue
contains editions of the Bible, of single books of it, with text and
annotations, also Greek and Roman works in their then most complete
forms, together with some Hebrew books--_tractatus quidam rabbinorum
hebr._--with much modern work, chiefly in Latin, and with not a little
in Italian.
Dr. Geiger doubts the absolute accuracy of Vespasiano Fiorentino’s
catalogue of the library at Urbino. See the German edition, i. 313, 314.
[S.G.C.M.]
[442] Perhaps at the capture of Urbino by the troops of Cæsar Borgia.
The existence of the manuscript has been doubted; but I cannot believe
that Vespasiano would have spoken of the gnomic extracts from Menander,
which do not amount to more than a couple of hundred verses, as ‘tutte
le opere,’ nor have mentioned them in the list of comprehensive
manuscripts, even though he had before him only our present Pindar and
Sophocles. It is not inconceivable that this Menander may some day come
to light.
[The catalogue of the library at Urbino (see foregoing note), which
dates back to the fifteenth century, is not perfectly in accordance with
Vespasiano’s report, and with the remarks of Dr. Burckhardt upon it. As
an official document, it deserves greater credit than Vespasiano’s
description, which, like most of his descriptions, cannot be acquitted
of a certain inaccuracy in detail and tendency to over-colouring. In
this catalogue no mention is made of the manuscript of Menander. Mai’s
doubt as to its existence is therefore justified. Instead of ‘all the
works of Pindar,’ we here find: ‘Pindaris Olimpia et Pithia.’ The
catalogue makes no distinction between ancient and modern books,
contains the works of Dante (among others, _Comœdiæ Thusco Carmine_),
and Boccaccio, in a very imperfect form; those of Petrarch, however, in
all completeness. It may be added that this catalogue mentions many
humanistic writings which have hitherto remained unknown and unprinted,
that it contains collections of the privileges of the princes of
Montefeltro, and carefully enumerates the dedications offered by
translators or original writers to Federigo of Urbino.--L. G.]
[443] For what follows and in part for what has gone before,
see W. Wattenbach, _Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter_, 2nd. ed. Leipzig,
1875, pp. 392 sqq., 405 sqq., 505. Comp. also the poem, _De Officio
Scribæ_, of Phil. Beroaldus, who, however, is rather speaking of the
public scrivener.]
[444] When Piero de’ Medici, at the death of Matthias Corvinus,
the book-loving King of Hungary, declared that the ‘scrittori’ must now
lower their charges, since they would otherwise find no further
employment (Scil. except in Italy), he can only have meant the Greek
copyists, as the caligraphists, to whom one might be tempted to refer
his words, continued to be numerous throughout all Italy. Fabroni,
_Laurent. Magn._ Adnot. 156 Comp. Adnot. 154.]
[445] Gaye, _Carteggio_, i. p. 164. A letter of the year 1455
under Calixtus III. The famous miniature Bible of Urbino is written by a
Frenchman, a workman of Vespasiano’s. See D’Agincourt, _La Peinture_,
tab. 78. On German copyists in Italy, see further G. Campori, _Artisti
Italiani e Stranieri negli Stati Estensi_, Modena, 1855, p. 277, and
_Giornale di Erudizione Artistica_, vol. ii. pp. 360 sqq. Wattenbach,
_Schriftwesen_, 411, note 5. For German printers, see below.]
[446] Vespas. Fior. p. 335.]
[447] Ambr. Trav. _Epist._ i. p. 63. The Pope was equally
serviceable to the libraries of Urbino and Pesaro (that of Aless.
Sforza, p. 38). Comp. Arch. Stor. ital. xxi. 103-106. The Bible and
Commentaries on it; the Fathers of the Church; Aristotle, with his
commentators, including Averroes and Avicenna; Moses Maimonides; Latin
translations of Greek philosophers; the Latin prose writers; of the
poets only Virgil, Statius, Ovid, and Lucan are mentioned.]
[448] Vespas. Fior. p. 129.]
[449] ‘Artes--Quis Labor est fessis demptus ab Articulis’ in a
poem by Robertus Ursus about 1470, _Rerum Ital. Script, ex Codd.
Fiorent._ tom, ii. col. 693. He rejoices rather too hastily over the
rapid spread of classical literature which was hoped for. Comp. Libri,
_Hist. des Sciences Mathématiques_, ii. 278 sqq. (See also the eulogy of
Lor. Valla, _Hist. Zeitschr._ xxxii. 62.) For the printers at Rome (the
first were Germans: Hahn, Pannartz, Schweinheim), see Gaspar. Veron.
_Vita Pauli II._ in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1046; and Laire, _Spec. Hist.
Typographiæ Romanae, xv. sec._ Romæ, 1778; Gregorovius, vii. 525-33. For
the first Privilegium in Venice, see Marin Sanudo, in Muratori, xxii.
col. 1189.]
[450] Something of the sort had already existed in the age of
manuscripts. See Vespas. Fior. p. 656, on the _Cronaco del Mondo_ of
Zembino of Pistoia.]
[451] Fabroni, _Laurent. Magn._ Adnot. 212. It happened in the
case of the libel. _De Exilio_.]
[452] Even in Petrarch the consciousness of this superiority of
Italians over Greeks is often to be noticed: _Epp. Fam._ lib. i. ep. 3;
_Epp. Sen._ lib. xii. ep. 2; he praises the Greeks reluctantly:
_Carmina_, lib. iii. 30 (ed. Rossetti, vol. ii. p. 342). A century
later, Æneas Sylvius writes (Comm. to Panormita, ‘De Dictis et Factis
Alfonsi,’ Append.): ‘Alfonsus tanto est Socrate major quanto gravior
Romanus homo quam Græcus putatur.’ In accordance with this feeling the
study of Greek was thought little of. From a document made use of below,
written about 1460, it appears that Porcellio and Tomaso Seneca tried to
resist the rising influence of Greek. Similarly, Paolo Cortese (1490)
was averse to Greek, lest the hitherto exclusive authority of Latin
should be impaired, _De Hominibus Doctis_, p. 20. For Greek studies in
Italy, see esp. the learned work of Favre, _Mélanges d’Hist. Liter._ i.
_passim_.]
[453] See above p. 187, and comp. C. Voigt, _Wiederbelebung_,
323 sqq.]
[454] The dying out of these Greeks is mentioned by Pierius
Valerian, _De Infelicitate Literat._ in speaking of Lascaris. And Paulus
Jovius, at the end of his _Elogia Literaria_, says of the Germans, ‘Quum
literæ non latinæ modo cum pudore nostro, sed græcæ et hebraicæ in eorum
terras fatali commigratione transierint’ (about 1450). Similarly, sixty
years before (1482), Joh. Argyropulos had exclaimed, when he heard young
Reuchlin translate Thucydides in his lecture-room at Rome, ‘Græcia
nostra exilio transvolavit Alpes.’ Geiger, _Reuchlin_ (Lpzg. 1871), pp.
26 sqq. Burchhardt, 273. A remarkable passage is to be found in Jov.
Pontanus, _Antonius_, opp. iv. p. 203: ‘In Græcia magis nunc Turcaicum
discas quam Græcum. Quicquid enim doctorum habent Græcæ disciplinæ, in
Italia nobiscum victitat.]
[455] Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 486 sqq. Comp. the end of this part
of our work.]
[456] Tommaso Gar, _Relazioni della Corte di Roma_, i. pp. 338,
379.]
[457] George of Trebizond, teacher of rhetoric at Venice, with
a salary of 150 ducats a year (see Malipiero, _Arch. Stor._ vii. ii. p.
653). For the Greek chair at Perugia, see _Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. p. 19
of the Introduction. In the case of Rimini, there is some doubt whether
Greek was taught or not. Comp. _Anecd. Litt._ ii. p. 300. At Bologna,
the centre of juristic studies, Aurispa had but little success. Details
on the subject in Malagola.]
[458] Exhaustive information on the subject in the admirable
work of A. F. Didot, _Alde Manuce et l’Héllenisme à Venise_, Paris,
1875.]
[459] For what follows see A. de Gubernatis, _Matériaux pour
servir à l’Histoire des Études Orientales en Italie_, Paris, Florence,
&c., 1876. Additions by Soave in the _Bolletino Italiano degli Studi
Orientali_, i. 178 sqq. More precise details below.]
[460] See below.]
[461] See _Commentario della Vita di Messer Gianozzo Manetti,
scritto da Vespasiano Bisticci_, Torino, 1862, esp. pp. 11, 44, 91 sqq.]
[462] Vesp. Fior. p. 320. A. Trav. _Epist._ lib. xi. 16.]
[463] Platina, _Vita Sixti IV._ p. 332.]
[464] Benedictus Faleus, _De Origine Hebraicarum Græcarum
Latinarumque Literarum_, Naples, 1520.]
[465] For Dante, see Wegele, _Dante_, 2nd ed. p. 268, and
Lasinio, _Dante e le Lingue semitiche_ in the _Rivista Orientale_ (Flor.
1867-8). On Poggio, _Opera_, p. 297; Lion. Bruni, _Epist._ lib. ix. 12,
comp. Gregorovius, vii. 555, and Shepherd-Tonelli, _Vita di Poggio_, i.
65. The letter of Poggio to Niccoli, in which he treats of Hebrew, has
been lately published in French and Latin under the title, _Les Bains de
Bade par Pogge_, by Antony Méray, Paris, 1876. Poggio desired to know on
what principles Jerome translated the Bible, while Bruni maintained
that, now that Jerome’s translation was in existence, distrust was shown
to it by learning Hebrew. For Manetti as a collector of Hebrew MSS. see
Steinschneider, in the work quoted below. In the library at Urbino there
were in all sixty-one Hebrew manuscripts. Among them a Bible ‘opus
mirabile et integrum, cum glossis mirabiliter scriptus in modo avium,
arborum et animalium in maximo volumine, ut vix a tribus hominibus
feratur.’ These, as appears from Assemanni’s list, are now mostly in the
Vatican. On the first printing in Hebrew, see Steinschneider and Cassel,
_Jud. Typographic in Esch. u. Gruber, Realencyclop._ sect. ii. bd. 28,
p. 34, and _Catal. Bodl._ by Steinschneider, 1852-60, pp. 2821-2866. It
is characteristic that of the two first printers one belonged to Mantua,
the other to Reggio in Calabria, so that the printing of Hebrew books
began almost contemporaneously at the two extremities of Italy. In
Mantua the printer was a Jewish physician, who was helped by his wife.
It may be mentioned as a curiosity that in the _Hypnerotomachia_ of
Polifilo, written 1467, printed 1499, fol. 68 _a_, there is a short
passage in Hebrew; otherwise no Hebrew occurs in the Aldine editions
before 1501. The Hebrew scholars in Italy are given by De Gubernatis (p.
80), but authorities are not quoted for them singly. (Marco Lippomanno
is omitted; comp. Steinschneider in the book given below.) Paolo de
Canale is mentioned as a learned Hebraist by Pier. Valerian. _De Infel.
Literat._ ed. Mencken, p. 296; in 1488 Professor in Bologna, _Mag.
Vicentius_; comp. _Costituzione, discipline e riforme dell’antico studio
Bolognese. Memoria del Prof. Luciano Scarabelli_, Piacenza, 1876; in
1514 Professor in Rome, Agarius Guidacerius, acc. to Gregorovius, viii.
292, and the passages there quoted. On Guid. see Steinschneider,
_Bibliogr. Handbuch_, Leipzig, 1859, pp. 56, 157-161.]
[466] The literary activity of the Jews in Italy is too great
and of too wide an influence to be passed over altogether in silence.
The following paragraphs, which, not to overload the text, I have
relegated to the notes, are wholly the substance of communications made
me by Dr. M. Steinschneider, of Berlin, to whom I [Dr. Ludwig Geiger]
here take the opportunity of expressing my thanks for his constant and
friendly help. He has given exhaustive evidence on the subject in his
profound and instructive treatise, ‘Letteratura Italiana dei Giudei,’ in
the review _Il Buonarotti_, vols. vi. viii. xi. xii.; Rome, 1871-77
(also printed separately); to which, once for all, I refer the reader.
There were many Jews living in Rome at the time of the Second Temple.
They had so thoroughly adopted the language and civilisation prevailing
in Italy, that even on their tombs they used not Hebrew, but Latin and
Greek inscriptions (communicated by Garucci, see Steinschneider, _Hebr.
Bibliogr._ vi. p. 102, 1863). In Lower Italy, especially, Greek learning
survived during the Middle Ages among the inhabitants generally, and
particularly among the Jews, of whom some are said to have taught at the
University of Salerno, and to have rivalled the Christians in literary
productiveness (comp. Steinschneider, ‘Donnolo,’ in Virchow’s _Archiv_,
bd. 39, 40). This supremacy of Greek culture lasted till the Saracens
conquered Lower Italy. But before this conquest the Jews of Middle Italy
had been striving to equal or surpass their bretheren of the South.
Jewish learning centred in Rome, and from there spread, as early as the
sixteenth century, to Cordova, Kairowan, and South Germany. By means of
these emigrants, Italian Judaism became the teacher of the whole race.
Through its works, especially through the work _Aruch_ of Nathan ben
Jechiel (1101), a great dictionary to the Talmud, the Midraschim, and
the Thargum, ‘which, though not informed by a genuine scientific spirit,
offers so rich a store of matter and rests on such early authorities,
that its treasures have even now not been wholly exhausted,’ it
exercised indirectly a great influence (Abraham Geiger, _Das Judenthum
und seine Geschichte_, Breslau, bd. ii. 1865, p. 170; and the same
author’s _Nachgelassene Schriften_, bd. ii. Berlin, 1875, pp. 129 and
154). A little later, in the thirteenth century, the Jewish literature
in Italy brought Jews and Christians into contact, and received through
Frederick II., and still more perhaps through his son Manfred, a kind of
official sanction. Of this contact we have evidence in the fact that an
Italian, Niccolò di Giovinazzo, studied with a Jew, Moses ben Salomo,
the Latin translation of the famous work of Maimonides, _More Nebuchim_;
of this sanction, in the fact that the Emperor, who was distinguished
for his freethinking as much as for his fondness for Oriental studies,
probably was the cause of this Latin translation being made, and
summoned the famous Anatoli from Provence into Italy, to translate works
of Averroes into Hebrew (comp. Steinschneider, _Hebr. Bibliogr._ xv. 86,
and Renan, _L’Averroes et l’Averroisme_, third edition, Paris, 1866, p.
290). These measures prove the acquaintance of early Jews with Latin,
which rendered intercourse possible between them and Christians--an
intercourse which bore sometimes a friendly and sometimes a polemical
character. Still more than Anatoli, Hillel b. Samuel, in the latter half
of the thirteenth century, devoted himself to Latin literature; he
studied in Spain, returned to Italy, and here made many translations
from Latin into Hebrew; among them of writings of Hippocrates in a Latin
version. (This was printed 1647 by Gaiotius, and passed for his own.) In
this translation he introduced a few Italian words by way of
explanation, and thus perhaps, or by his whole literary procedure, laid
himself open to the reproach of despising Jewish doctrines.
But the Jews went further than this. At the end of the thirteenth and in
the fourteenth centuries, they drew so near to Christian science and to
the representatives of the culture of the Renaissance, that one of them,
Giuda Romano, in a series of hitherto unprinted writings, laboured
zealously at the scholastic philosophy, and in one treatise used Italian
words to explain Hebrew expressions. He is one of the first to do so
(Steinschneider, _Giuda Romano_, Rome, 1870). Another, Giuda’s cousin
Manoello, a friend of Dante, wrote in imitation of him a sort of Divine
Comedy in Hebrew, in which he extols Dante, whose death he also bewailed
in an Italian sonnet (Abraham Geiger, _Jüd. Zeitsch._ v. 286-331,
Breslau, 1867). A third, Mose Riete, born towards the end of the
century, wrote works in Italian (a specimen in the Catalogue of Hebrew
MSS., Leyden, 1858). In the fifteenth century we can clearly recognise
the influence of the Renaissance in Messer Leon, a Jewish writer, who,
in his _Rhetoric_, uses Quintilian and Cicero, as well as Jewish
authorities. One of the most famous Jewish writers in Italy in the
fifteenth century was Eliah del Medigo, a philosopher who taught
publicly as a Jew in Padua and Florence, and was once chosen by the
Venetian Senate as arbitrator in a philosophical dispute (Abr. Geiger,
_Nachgelassene Schriften_, Berlin, 1876, bd. iii. 3). Eliah del Medigo
was the teacher of Pico della Mirandola; besides him, Jochanan Alemanno
(comp. Steinschneider, _Polem. u. Apolog. Lit._ Lpzg. 1877, anh. 7, §
25). The list of learned Jews in Italy may be closed by Kalonymos ben
David and Abraham de Balmes (d. 1523), to whom the greater part of the
translations of Averroes from Hebrew into Latin is due, which were still
publicly read at Padua in the seventeenth century. To this scholar may
be added the Jewish Aldus, Gerson Soncino, who not only made his press
the centre of Jewish printing, but, by publishing Greek works,
trespassed on the ground of the great Aldus himself (Steinschneider,
_Gerson Soncino und Aldus Manutius_, Berlin, 1858).
[467] Pierius Valerian. _De Infelic. Lit._ ed. Mencken, 301, speaking of
Mongajo. Gubernatis, p. 184, identifies him with Andrea Alpago, of
Bellemo, said to have also studied Arabian literature, and to have
travelled in the East. On Arabic studies generally, Gubernatis, pp. 173
sqq. For a translation made 1341 from Arabic into Italian, comp.
Narducci, _Intorno ad una tradizione italiana di una composizione
astronomica di Alfonso X. rè di Castiglia_, Roma 1865. On Ramusio, see
Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 250.
[468] Gubernatis, p. 188. The first book contains Christian prayers in
Arabic; the first Italian translations of the Koran appeared in 1547. In
1499 we meet with a few not very successful Arabic types in the work of
Polifilo, b. 7 _a_. For the beginnings of Egyptian studies, see
Gregorovius, viii. p. 304.
[469] Especially in the important letter of the year 1485 to Ermolao
Barbaro, in _Ang. Politian. Epistolæ_, l. ix. Comp. Jo. Pici, _Oratio de
Hominis Dignitate_. For this discourse, see the end of part iv.; on Pico
himself more will be given in part vi. chap. 4.
[470] Their estimate of themselves is indicated by Poggio (_De
Avaritia_, fol. 2), according to whom only such persons could say that
they had lived (_se vixisse_) who had written learned and eloquent books
in Latin or translated Greek into Latin.
[471] Esp. Libri, _Histoires des Sciences Mathém._ ii. 159 sqq., 258
sqq.
[472] _Purgatorio_, xviii. contains striking instances. Mary hastens
over the mountains, Cæsar to Spain; Mary is poor and Fabricius
disinterested. We may here remark on the chronological introduction of
the Sibyls into the profane history of antiquity as attempted by Uberti
in his _Dittamondo_ (i. cap. 14, 15), about 1360.
[473] The first German translation of the _Decameron_, by H. Steinhovel,
was printed in 1472, and soon became popular. The translations of the
whole _Decameron_ were almost everywhere preceded by those of the story
of Griselda, written in Latin by Petrarch.
[474] These Latin writings of Boccaccio have been admirably discussed
recently by Schück, _Zur Characteristik des ital. Hum. im 14 und 15
Jahrh._ Breslau, 1865; and in an article in Fleckeisen and Masius,
_Jahrbücher fur Phil. und Pädag._ bd. xx. (1874).
[475] ‘Poeta,’ even in Dante (_Vita Nuova_, p. 47), means only the
writer of Latin verses, while for Italian the expressions ‘Rimatore,
Dicitore per rima,’ are used. It is true that the names and ideas became
mixed in course of time.
[476] Petrarch, too, at the height of his fame complained in moments of
melancholy that his evil star decreed him to pass his last years among
scoundrels (_extremi fures_). In the imaginary letter to Livy, _Epp.
Fam._ ed. Fracass. lib. xxiv. ep. 8. That Petrarch defended poetry, and
how, is well known (comp. Geiger, _Petr._ 113-117). Besides the enemies
who beset him in common with Boccaccio, he had to face the doctors
(comp. _Invectivæ in Medicum Objurgantem_, lib. i. and ii.).
[477] Boccaccio, in a later letter to Jacobus Pizinga (_Opere Volgari_,
vol. xvi.), confines himself more strictly to poetry properly so called.
And yet he only recognises as poetry that which treated of antiquity,
and ignores the Troubadours.
[478] Petr. _Epp. Senil._ lib. i. ep. 5.
[479] Boccaccio (_Vita di Dante_, p. 50): ‘La quale (laurea) non scienza
accresce ma è dell’acquistata certissimo testimonio e ornamento.’
[480] _Paradiso_, xxv. 1 sqq. Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 50. ‘Sopra
le fonti di San Giovanni si era disporto di coronare.’ Comp. _Paradiso_,
i. 25.
[481] See Boccaccio’s letter to him in the _Opere Volgari_, vol. xvi. p.
36: ‘Si præstet Deus, concedente senatu Romuleo.’ ...
[482] Matt. Villani, v. 26. There was a solemn procession on horseback
round the city, when the followers of the Emperor, his ‘baroni,’
accompanied the poet. Boccaccio, l. c. Petrarch: _Invectivæ contra Med.
Præf._ See also _Epp. Fam. Volgarizzate da Fracassetti_, iii. 128. For
the speech of Zanobi at the coronation, Friedjung, l. c. 308 sqq. Fazio
degli Uberti was also crowned, but it is not known where or by whom.
[483] Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 185.
[484] Vespas. Fiorent. pp. 575, 589. _Vita Jan. Manetti_, in Murat. xx.
col. 543. The celebrity of Lionardo Aretino was in his lifetime so great
that people came from all parts merely to see him; a Spaniard fell on
his knees before him.--Vesp. p. 568. For the monument of Guarino, the
magistrate of Ferrara allowed, in 1461, the then considerable sum of 100
ducats. On the coronation of poets in Italy there is a good summary of
notices in Favre, _Mélanges d’Hist. Lit._ (1856) i. 65 sqq.
[485] Comp. Libri, _Histoire des Sciences Mathém._ ii. p. 92 sqq.
Bologna, as is well known, was older. Pisa flourished in the fourteenth
century, fell through the wars with Florence, and was afterwards
restored by Lorenzo Magnifico, ‘ad solatium veteris amissæ libertatis,’
as Giovio says, _Vita Leonis X._ l. i. The university of Florence (comp.
Gaye, _Carteggio_, i. p. 461 to 560 _passim_; _Matteo Villani_, i. 8;
vii. 90), which existed as early as 1321, with compulsory attendance for
the natives of the city, was founded afresh after the Black Death in
1848, and endowed with an income of 2,500 gold florins, fell again into
decay, and was refounded in 1357. The chair for the explanation of
Dante, established in 1373 at the request of many citizens, was
afterwards commonly united with the professorship of philology and
rhetoric, as when Filelfo held it.
[486] This should be noticed in the lists of professors, as in that of
the University of Pavia in 1400 (Corio, _Storia di Milano_, fol. 290),
where (among others) no less than twenty jurists appear.
[487] Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 990.
[488] Fabroni, _Laurent. Magn._ Adnot. 52, in the year 1491.
[489] Allegretto, _Diari Sanesi_, in Murat. xiii. col. 824.
[490] Filelfo, when called to the newly founded University of Pisa,
demanded at least 500 gold florins. Comp. Fabroni, _Laur. Magn._ ii. 75
sqq. The negotiations were broken off, not only on account of the high
salary asked for.
[491] Comp. Vespasian. Fiorent. pp. 271, 572, 582, 625. _Vita. Jan.
Manetti_, in Murat. xx. col. 531 sqq.
[492] Vespas. Fiorent. p. 1460. Prendilacqua (a pupil of Vitt.),
_Intorno alla Vita di V. da F._, first ed. by Natale dalle Laste, 1774,
translated by Giuseppe Brambilla, Como, 1871. C. Rosmini, _Idea
dell’ottimo Precettore nella Vita e Disciplina di Vittorino da Feltre e
de’ suoi Discepoli_, Bassano, 1801. Later works by Racheli (Milan,
1832), and Venoit (Paris, 1853).
[493] Vespas. Fior. p. 646, of which, however, C. Rosmini, _Vita e
Disciplina di Guarino Veronese e de’ suoi Discepoli_, Brescia, 1856 (3
vols.), says that it is (ii. 56), ‘formicolante di errori di fatto.’
[494] For these and for Guarino generally, see Facius, _De Vir.
Illustribus_, p. 17 sqq.; and Cortesius, _De Hom. Doctis_, p. 13. Both
agree that the scholars of the following generation prided themselves on
having been pupils of Guarino; but while Fazio praises his works,
Cortese thinks that he would have cared better for his fame if he had
written nothing. Guarino and Vittorino were friends and helped one
another in their studies. Their contemporaries were fond of comparing
them, and in this comparison Guarino commonly held the first place
(Sabellico, _Dial. de Lingu. Lat. Reparata_, in Rosmini, ii. 112).
Guarino’s attitude with regard to the ‘Ermafrodito’ is remarkable; see
Rosmini, ii. 46 sqq. In both these teachers an unusual moderation in
food and drink was observed; they never drank undiluted wine: in both
the principles of education were alike; they neither used corporal
punishment; the hardest penalty which Vittorino inflicted was to make
the boy kneel and lie upon the ground in the presence of his
fellow-pupils.
[495] To the Archduke Sigismond, _Epist._ 105, p. 600, and to King
Ladislaus Postumus, p. 695; the latter as _Tractatus de Liberorum
Educatione_ (1450).
[496] P. 625. On Niccoli, see further a speech of Poggio, _Opera_, ed.
1513, fol. 102 sqq.; and a life by Manetti in his book, _De Illustribus
Longaevis_.
[497] The following words of Vespasiano are untranslatable: ‘A vederlo
in tavola cosi antico come era, era una gentilezza.’
[498] _Ibid._ p. 495.
[499] According to Vespas. p. 271, learned men were in the habit of
meeting here for discussion.
[500] Of Niccoli it may be further remarked that, like Vittorino, he
wrote nothing, being convinced that he could not treat of anything in as
perfect a form as he desired; that his senses were so delicately poised
that he ‘neque rudentem asinum, neque secantem serram, neque muscipulam
vagientem sentire audireve poterat.’ But the less favourable sides of
Niccoli’s character must not be forgotten. He robbed his brother of his
sweetheart Benvenuta, roused the indignation of Lionardo Aretino by this
act, and was embittered by the girl against many of his friends. He took
ill the refusal to lend him books, and had a violent quarrel with
Guarino on this account. He was not free from a petty jealousy, under
the influence of which he tried to drive Chrysoloras, Poggio, and
Filelfo away from Florence.
[501] See his _Vita_, by Naldus Naldi, in Murat. xx. col. 532 sqq. See
further Vespasiano Bisticci, _Commentario della Vita di Messer Giannozzo
Manetti_, first published by P. Fanfani in _Collezione di Opere inedite
o rare_, vol. ii. Torino, 1862. This ‘Commentario’ must be distinguished
from the short ‘Vita’ of Manetti by the same author, in which frequent
reference is made to the former. Vespasiano was on intimate terms with
Giannozzo Manetti, and in the biography tried to draw an ideal picture
of a statesman for the degenerate Florence. Vesp. is Naldi’s authority.
Comp. also the fragment in Galetti, _Phil. Vill. Liber Flor._ 1847, pp.
129-138. Half a century after his death Manetti was nearly forgotten.
Comp. Paolo Cortese, p. 21.
[502] The title of the work, in Latin and Italian, is given in Bisticci,
_Commentario_, pp. 109, 112.
[503] What was known of Plato before can only have been fragmentary. A
strange discussion on the antagonism of Plato and Aristotle took place
at Ferrara in 1438, between Ugo of Siena and the Greeks who came to the
Council. Comp. Æneas Sylvius, _De Europa_, cap. 52 (_Opera_, p. 450).
[504] In Niccolò Valori, _Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent_. Comp.
Vespas. Fiorent. p. 426. The first supporters of Argyropulos were the
Acciajuoli. _Ib._ 192: Cardinal Bessarion and his parallels between
Plato and Aristotle. _Ib._ 223: Cusanus as Platonist. _Ib._ 308: The
Catalonian Narciso and his disputes with Argyropulos. _Ib._ 571: Single
Dialogues of Plato, translated by Lionardo Aretino. _Ib._ 298: The
rising influence of Neoplatonism. On Marsilio Ficino, see Reumont,
_Lorenzo de’ Medici_, ii. 27 sqq.
[505] Varchi, _Stor. Fior._ p. 321. An admirable sketch of character.
[506] The lives of Guarino and Vittorino by Rosmini mentioned above (p.
213, note 1; and 215, note 1), as well as the life of Poggio by
Shepherd, especially in the enlarged Italian translation of Tonelli (2
vols. Florence, 1825); the Correspondence of Poggio, edited by the same
writer (2 vols. Flor. 1832); and the letters of Poggio in Mai’s
_Spicilegium_, tom. x. Rome, 1844, pp. 221-272, all contain much on this
subject.
[507] _Epist. 39_; _Opera_, p. 526, to Mariano Socino.
[508] We must not be misled by the fact that along with all this
complaints were frequently heard of the inadequacy of princely patronage
and of the indifference of many princes to their fame. See e.g. Bapt.
Mantan, Eclog. v. as early as the fifteenth century; and Ambrogio
Traversari, _De Infelicitate Principum_. It was impossible to satisfy
all.
[509] For the literary and scientific patronage of the popes down to the
end of the fifteenth century, see Gregorovius, vols. vii. and viii. For
Pius II., see Voigt, _En. Silvio als Papst Pius II._ bd. iii. (Berlin,
1863), pp. 406-440.
[510] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De Poetis Nostri Temporis_, speaking of the
_Sphaerulus_ of Camerino. The worthy man did not finish it in time, and
his work lay for forty years in his desk. For the scanty payments made
by Sixtus IV., comp. Pierio Valer. _De Infelic. Lit._ on Theodoras Gaza.
He received for a translation and commentary of a work of Aristotle
fifty gold florins, ‘ab eo a quo se totum inauratum iri speraverat.’ On
the deliberate exclusion of the humanists from the cardinalate by the
popes before Leo, comp. Lor. Grana’s funeral oration on Cardinal Egidio,
_Anecdot. Litt._ iv. p. 307.
[511] The best are to be found in the _Deliciae Poetarum Italorum_, and
in the Appendices to the various editions of Roscoe, _Leo X._ Several
poets and writers, like Alcyonius, _De Exilio_, ed. Menken, p. 10, say
frankly that they praise Leo in order themselves to become immortal.
[512] Paul. Jov. _Elogia_ speaking of Guido Posthumus.
[513] Pierio Valeriano in his _Simia_.
[514] See the elegy of Joh. Aurelius Mutius in the _Deliciae Poetarum
Italorum_.
[515] The well-known story of the purple velvet purse filled with
packets of gold of various sizes, in which Leo used to thrust his hand
blindly, is in Giraldi _Hecatommithi_, vi. nov. 8. On the other hand,
the Latin ‘improvisatori,’ when their verses were too faulty, were
whipped. Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De Poetis Nostri Temp. Opp._ ii. 398
(Basil, 1580).
[516] Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi. iv. 181.
[517] Vespas. Fior. p. 68 sqq. For the translations from Greek made by
Alfonso’s orders, see p. 93; _Vita Jan. Manetti_, in Murat. xx. col. 541
sqq., 450 sqq., 495. Panormita, _Dicta et Facta Alfonsi_, with the notes
by Æneas Sylvius, ed. by Jacob Spiegel, Basel, 1538.
[518] Even Alfonso was not able to please everybody--Poggio, for
example. See Shepherd-Tonelli, _Poggio_ ii. 108 sqq. and Poggio’s letter
to Facius in _Fac. de Vir. Ill._ ed. Mehus, p. 88, where he writes of
Alfonso: ‘Ad ostentationem quædam facit quibus videatur doctis viris
favere;’ and Poggio’s letter in Mai, _Spicil._ tom. x. p. 241.
[519] Ovid. _Amores_, iii. 11, vs. ii.; Jovian. Pontan. _De Principe_.
[520] _Giorn. Napolet._ in Murat. xxi. col. 1127.
[521] Vespas. Fior. pp. 3, 119 sqq. ‘Volle aver piena notizia d’ogni
cosa, cosi sacra come gentile.’
[522] The last Visconti divided his interest between Livy, the French
chivalrous romances, Dante, and Petrarch. The humanists who presented
themselves to him with the promise ‘to make him famous,’ were generally
sent away after a few days. Comp. _Decembrio_, in Murat. xx. col. 1114.
[523] Paul. Jov. _Vita Alfonsi Ducis_.
[524] On Collenuccio at the court of Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro (son of
Alessandro, p. 28), who finally, in 1508, put him to death, see p. 135,
note 4. At the time of the last Ordelaffi at Forli, the place was
occupied by Codrus Urceus (1477-80); death-bed complaint of C. U. _Opp._
Ven. 1506, fol. liv.; for his stay in Forli, _Sermo_, vi. Comp. Carlo
Malagola, _Della Vita di C. U._ Bologna, 1877, Ap. iv. Among the
instructed despots, we may mention Galeotto Manfreddi of Faenza,
murdered in 1488 by his wife, and some of the Bentivoglio family at
Bologna.
[525] _Anecdota Literar._ ii. pp. 305 sqq., 405. Basinius of Parma
ridicules Porcellio and Tommaso Seneca; they are needy parasites, and
must play the soldier in their old age, while he himself was enjoying an
‘ager’ and a ‘villa.’
[526] For details respecting these graves, see Keyssler, _Neueste
Reisen_, s. 924.
[527] _Pii II. Comment._ l. ii. p. 92. By history he means all that has
to do with antiquity. Cortesius also praises him highly, p. 34 sqq.
[528] Fabroni, _Costnus_, Adnot. 118. Vespasian. Fior. _passim_. An
important passage respecting the demands made by the Florentines on
their secretaries (‘quod honor apud Florentinos magnus habetur,’ says B.
Facius, speaking of Poggio’s appointment to the secretaryship, _De Vir.
Ill._ p. 17), is to be found in Æneas Sylvius, _De Europâ_, cap. 54
(_Opera_, p. 454).
[529] See Voigt, _En. Silvio als Papst Pius II._ bd. iii. 488 sqq., for
the often-discussed and often-misunderstood change which Pius II. made
with respect to the Abbreviators.
[530] Comp. the statement of Jacob Spiegel (1521) given in the reports
of the Vienna Academy, lxxviii. 333.
[531] _Anecdota Lit._ i. p. 119 sqq. A plea (‘Actio ad Cardinales
Deputatos’) of Jacobus Volaterranus in the name of the Secretaries, no
doubt of the time of Sixtus IV. (Voigt, l. c. 552, note). The humanistic
claims of the ‘advocati consistoriales’ rested on their oratory, as that
of the Secretaries on their correspondence.
[532] The Imperial chancery under Frederick III. was best known to Æneas
Sylvius. Comp. _Epp._ 23 and 105; _Opera_, pp. 516 and 607.
[533] The letters of Bembo and Sadoleto have been often printed; those
of the former, e.g. in the _Opera_, Basel, 1556, vol. ii., where the
letters written in the name of Leo X. are distinguished from private
letters; those of the latter most fully, 5 vols. Rome, 1760. Some
additions to both have been given by Carlo Malagola in the review _Il
Baretti_, Turin, 1875. Bembo’s _Asolani_ will be spoken of below;
Sadoleto’s significance for Latin style has been judged as follows by a
contemporary, Petrus Alcyonius, _De Exilio_, ed. Menken, p. 119: ‘Solus
autem nostrorum temporum aut certe cum paucis animadvertit elocutionem
emendatam et latinam esse fundamentum oratoris; ad eamque obtinendam
necesse esse latinam linguam expurgare quam inquinarunt nonnulli
exquisitarum literarum omnino rudes et nullius judicii homines, qui
partim a circumpadanis municipiis, partim ex transalpinis provinciis, in
hanc urbem confluxerunt. Emendavit igitur ‘eruditissimus hic vir
corruptam et vitiosam linguæ latinæ consuetudinem, pura ac integra
loquendi ratione.’
[534] Corio, _Storia di Milano_, fol. 449, for the letter of Isabella of
Aragon to her father, Alfonso of Naples; fols. 451, 464, two letters of
the Moor to Charles VIII. Compare the story in the _Lettere Pittoriche_,
iii. 86 (Sebastiano del Piombo to Aretino), how Clement VII., during the
sack of Rome, called his learned men round him, and made each of them
separately write a letter to Charles V.
[535] For the correspondence of the period in general, see Voigt,
_Wiederbelebung_, 414-427.
[536] Bembo thought it necessary to excuse himself for writing in
Italian: ‘Ad Sempronium,’ _Bembi Opera_, Bas. 1556, vol. iii. 156 sqq.
[537] On the collection of the letters of Aretino, see above, pp. 164
sqq., and the note. Collections of Latin letters had been printed even
in the fifteenth century.
[538] Comp. the speeches in the _Opera_ of Philelphus, Sabellicus,
Beroaldus, &c.; and the writings and lives of Giann. Manetti, Æneas
Sylvius, and others.
[539] B. F. _De Viris Illustribus_, ed. Mehus, p. 7. Manetti, as Vesp.
Bisticci, _Commentario_, p. 51, states, delivered many speeches in
Italian, and then afterwards wrote them out in Latin. The scholars of
the fifteenth century, e.g. Paolo Cortese, judge the achievements of the
past solely from the point of view of ‘Eloquentia.’
[540] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 198, 205.
[541] _Pii II. Comment._ l. i. p. 10.
[542] The success of the fortunate orator was great, and the humiliation
of the speaker who broke down before distinguished audiences no less
great. Examples of the latter in Petrus Crinitus, _De Honestâ
Disciplinâ_, v. cap. 3. Comp. Vespas. Fior. pp. 319, 430.
[543] _Pii II. Comment._ l. iv. p. 205. There were some Romans, too, who
awaited him at Viterbo. ‘Singuli per se verba facere, ne alius alio
melior videretur, cum essent eloquentiâ ferme pares.’ The fact that the
Bishop of Arezzo was not allowed to speak in the name of the general
embassy of the Italian states to the newly chosen Alexander VI., is
seriously placed by Guicciardini (at the beginning of book i.) among the
causes which helped to produce the disaster of 1494.
[544] Told by Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 1160.
[545] _Pii II. Comment._ l. ii. p. 107. Comp. p. 87. Another oratorical
princess, Madonna Battista Montefeltro, married to a Malatesta,
harangued Sigismund and Martin. Comp. _Arch. Stor._ iv. i. p. 442, note.
[546] _De Expeditione in Turcas_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 68. ‘Nihil enim
Pii concionantis majestate sublimius.’ Not to speak of the naïve
pleasure with which Pius describes his own triumphs, see Campanus, _Vita
Pii II._, in Murat. iii. ii. _passim_. At a later period these speeches
were judged less admiringly. Comp. Voigt, _Enea Silvio_, ii. 275 sqq.
[547] Charles V., when unable on one occasion to follow the flourishes
of a Latin orator at Genoa, replied in the ear of Giovio: ‘Ah, my tutor
Adrian was right, when he told me I should be chastened for my childish
idleness in learning Latin.’ Paul. Jov. _Vita Hadriani VI._ Princes
replied to these speeches through their official orators; Frederick III.
through Enea Silvio, in answer to Giannozzo Manetti. Vesp. Bist.
_Comment._ p. 64.
[548] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis Nostri Temp._ speaking of
Collenuccio. Filelfo, a married layman, delivered an introductory speech
in the Cathedral at Como for the Bishop Scarampi, in 1460. Rosmini,
_Filelfo_, ii. 122, iii. 147.
[549] Fabroni, _Cosmus_, Adnot. 52.
[550] Which, nevertheless, gave some offence to Jac. Volaterranus (in
Murat. xxiii. col. 171) at the service in memory of Platina.
[551] _Anecdota Lit._ i. p. 299, in Fedra’s funeral oration on Lod.
Podacataro, whom Guarino commonly employed on these occasions. Guarino
himself delivered over fifty speeches at festivals and funerals, which
are enumerated in Rosmini, _Guarino_, ii. 139-146. Burckhardt, 332. Dr.
Geiger here remarks that Venice also had its professional orators. Comp.
G. Voigt, ii. 425.
[552] Many of these opening lectures have been preserved in the works of
Sabellicus, Beroaldus Major, Codrus Urceus, &c. In the works of the
latter there are also some poems which he recited ‘in principio studii.’
[553] The fame of Pomponazzo’s delivery is preserved in Paul. Jov.
_Elogia Vir. Doct._ p. 134. In general, it seems that the speeches, the
form of which was required to be perfect, were learnt by heart. In the
case of Giannozzo Manetti we know positively that it was so on one
occasion (_Commentario_, 39). See, however, the account p. 64, with the
concluding statement that Manetti spoke better _impromptu_ than Aretino
with preparation. We are told of Codrus Urceus, whose memory was weak,
that he read his orations (_Vita_, at the end of his works. Ven. 1506,
fol. lxx.). The following passage will illustrate the exaggerated value
set on oratory: ‘Ausim affirmare perfectum oratorem (si quisquam modo
sit perfectus orator) ita facile posse nitorem, lætitiam, lumina et
umbras rebus dare quas oratione exponendas suscipit, ut pictorem suis
coloribus et pigmentis facere videmus.’ (Petr. Alcyonius, _De Exilio_,
ed. Menken, p. 136.)
[554] Vespas. Fior. p. 103. Comp. p. 598, where he describes how
Giannozzo Manetti came to him in the camp.
[555] _Archiv. Stor._ xv. pp. 113, 121. Canestrini’s Introduction, p. 32
sqq. Reports of two such speeches to soldiers; the first, by Alamanni,
is wonderfully fine and worthy of the occasion (1528).
[556] On this point see Faustinus Terdoceus, in his satire _De Triumpho
Stultitiae_, lib. ii.
[557] Both of these extraordinary cases occur in Sabellicus, _Opera_,
fol. 61-82. _De Origine et Auctu Religionis_, delivered at Verona from
the pulpit before the barefoot friars; and _De Sacerdotii Laudibus_,
delivered at Venice.
[558] Jac. Volaterrani. _Diar. Roman._ in Murat. xxiii. _passim_. In
col. 173 a remarkable sermon before the court, though in the absence of
Sixtus IV., is mentioned. Pater Paolo Toscanella thundered against the
Pope, his family, and the cardinals. When Sixtus heard of it, he smiled.
[559] Fil. Villani, _Vitae_, ed. Galetti, p. 30.
[560] See above, p. 237, note 3.
[561] Georg. Trapezunt, _Rhetorica_, the first complete system of
instruction. Æn. Sylvius, _Artis Rhetoricae Praecepta_, in the _Opera_,
p. 992. treats purposely only of the construction of sentences and the
position of words. It is characteristic as an instance of the routine
which was followed. He names several other theoretical writers who are
some of them no longer known. Comp. C. Voigt, ii. 262 sqq.
[562] His life in Murat. xx. is full of the triumphs of his eloquence.
Comp. Vespas. Fior. 592 sqq., and _Commentario_, p. 30. On us these
speeches make no great impression, e.g. that at the coronation of
Frederick III. in Freher-Struve, _Script. Rer. Germ._ iii. 4-19. Of
Manetti’s oration at the burial of Lion. Aretino, Shepherd-Tonelli says
(_Poggio_, ii. 67 sqq.): ‘L’orazione ch’ei compose, è ben la cosa la più
meschina che potesse udirsi, piena di puerilità volgare nello stile,
irrelevante negli argomenti e d’una prolissità insopportabile.’
[563] _Annales Placentini_, in Murat. xx. col. 918.
[564] _E.g._ Manetti. Comp. Vesp. _Commentario_, p. 30; so, too,
Savonarola Comp. Perrens, _Vie de Savonarole_, i. p. 163. The shorthand
writers, however, could not always follow him, or, indeed, any rapid
‘Improvisatori.’ Savonarola preached in Italian. See Pasq. Villari:
_Vita di Savonarola_.
[565] It was by no means one of the best (_Opuscula Beroaldi_, Basel,
1509, fol. xviii.-xxi). The most remarkable thing in it is the flourish
at the end: ‘Esto tibi ipsi archetypon et exemplar, teipsum imitare,’
etc.
[566] Letters and speeches of this kind were written by Alberto di
Ripalta; comp. the _Annales Placentini_, written by his father Antonius
and continued by himself, in Murat. xx. col. 914 sqq., where the pedant
gives an instructive account of his own literary career.
[567] _Pauli Jovii Dialogus de Viris Litteris Illustribus_, in
Tiraboschi, tom. vii. parte iv. Yet he says some ten years later, at the
close of the _Elogia Litteraria_: ‘Tenemus adhuc (after the leadership
in philology had passed to the Germans) sincerae et constantis
eloquentiae munitam arcem,’ etc. The whole passage, given in German in
Gregorovius, viii. 217 sqq. is important, as showing the view taken of
Germany by an Italian, and is again quoted below in this connection.
[568] A special class is formed by the semi-satirical dialogues, which
Collenuccio, and still more Pontano, copied from Lucian. Their example
stimulated Erasmus and Hutten. For the treatises properly so-called
parts of the ethical writings of Plutarch may have served as models.
[569] See below, part iv. chap. 5.