Renaissance in Italy, Volume 2 (of 7) / The Revival of Learning

[1] To the original edition of this volume.

[2] The analogy of the individual might be quoted. We are aware within ourselves of times when thought is fertile and insight clear, times of conception and projection, followed by seasons of slow digestion, assimilation, and formation, when the creative faculty stagnates, and the whole force of the intellect is absorbed in mastering through years what it took minutes to divine.

[3] See Vol. I., Age of Despots, pp. 239, 350-356, 415-420, where I have endeavoured to treat these topics more at length.

[4] It would be easy to multiply these contrasts, comprising, for example, the Cardinals Inghirami and Bibbiena and the Leo of Raphael with the Farnesi portraits at Modena or the grave faces of Moroni's patrons at Bergamo.

[5] Portrait in the Uffizzi, ascribed to Giorgione, but more probably by some pupil of Mantegna.

[6] Paradiso, vi. 112.

[7] Notably Purg. xi. 100-117.

[8] A curious echo of this Italian conviction may be traced in Fletcher's Elder Brother.

[9] Vespasiano, Vita di Piero de' Pazzi. Compare the beautiful letter of Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini to his nephew (Ep. Lib. i. 4). He reminds the young man that fair as youth is, and delightful as are the pleasures of the May of life, learning is more fair and knowledge more delightful. 'Non enim Lucifer aut Hesperus tam pulcher est quam sapientia quæ studiis acquiritur litterarum.'

[10] It is enough to refer to Luther's Table Talk upon the state of Rome in Leo's reign.

[11] Poliziano, Pontano, Sannazzaro, and Bembo divided their powers between scholarship and poetry, to the injury of the latter.

[12] For the low state of criticism, even in a good age, see Aulus Gellius, lib. xiv. cap. vi. He describes the lecture of a rhetor, quispiam linguæ Latinæ literator, on a passage in the seventh Æneid. The man's explanation of the word bidentes proves an almost more than mediæval puerility and ignorance.

[13] Most of the following quotations will be found in Comparetti, Virgilio nel Medio Evo, vol. i., a work of sound scholarship and refined taste upon the place of Virgil in the Middle Ages.

[14] Hoc est quod pueri tangar amore minus, for example, was altered into Hoc est quod pueri tangar amore nihil; for lusisset amores was substituted dampnasset amores, and so forth.

[15] The hymn quoted above in the text refers to a legend of S. Paul having visited the tomb of Virgil at Naples:—

[16] The common use of the word grammarie for occult science in our ballads illustrates this phase of popular opinion. So does the legend of Friar Bacon. See Thoms, Early English Prose Romances.

[17] Didot, in his Life of Aldus, tries to make out that Greek learning survived in Ireland longer than elsewhere.

[18] The word Humanism has a German sound, and is in fact modern. Yet the generic phrase umanità for humanistic culture, and the name umanista for a professor of humane studies, are both pure Italian. Ariosto, in his seventh satire, line 25, writes—

'Senza quel vizio son pochi umanisti.'

[19] See the interesting letter to Luca di Penna, De Libris Ciceronis, p. 946, and compare De Ignorantiâ sui ipsius, &c. p. 1044. These references, as well as those which follow under the general sign Ibid., are made to the edition of Petrarch's collected works, Basle, 1581.

[20] Ibid. p. 948. Cf. the fine letter on the duty of collecting and preserving codices (Fam. Epist. lib. iii. 18, p. 619). 'Aurum, argentum, gemmæ, purpurea vestis, marmorea domus, cultus ager, pictæ tabulæ, phaleratus sonipes, cæteraque id genus mutam habent et superficiariam voluptatem: libri medullitus delectant, colloquuntur, consulunt, et vivâ quâdam nobis atque argutâ familiaritate junguntur.'

[21] De Libris Ciceronis, p. 949. Cf. his Epistle to Varro for an account of a lost MS. of that author. Ibid. p. 708.

[22] Ibid. p. 948. Cf. De Ignorantiâ, pp. 1053, 1054. See, too, the letter to Nicolaus Syocerus of Constantinople, Epist. Var. xx. p. 998, thanking him for the Homer and the Plato, in which Petrarch gives an account of his slender Greek studies. 'Homerus tuus apud me mutus, immo vero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel aspectu solo, et sæpe illum amplexus et suspirans dico.... Plato philosophorum princeps ... nunc tandem tuo munere Philosophorum principi Poetarum princeps asserit. Quis tantis non gaudeat et glorietur hospitibus?... Græcos spectare, et si nihil aliud, certe juvat.' The letter urging Boccaccio to translate Homer—'an tuo studio, meâ impensâ fieri possit, ut Homerus integer bibliothecæ huic, ubi pridem Græcus habitat, tandem Latinus accedat'—will be found Ep. Rer. Sen. lib. iii. 5, p. 775. In another letter, Ep. Rer. Sen. lib. vi. 2, p. 807, he thanks Boccaccio for the Latin version.

[23] De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ, p. 43. A plea for public as against private collections of useful books. 'Multos in vinculis tenes,' &c.

[24] See the four books of Invectives, Contra Medicum quendam, and the treatise De sui ipsius et aliorum Ignorantiâ. Page 1038 of the last dissertation contains a curious list of frivolous questions discussed by the Averrhoists. Cf. the letter on the decadence of true learning, Ep. Var. 31, p. 1020; the letter to a friend exhorting him to combat Averrhoism, Epist. sine titulo, 18, p. 731; two letters on physicians, Epist. Rerum Senilium, lib. xii. 1 and 2, pp. 897-914; a letter to Francesco Bruno on the lies of the astrologers, Epist. Rer. Sen. lib. i. 6, p. 747; a letter to Boccaccio on the same theme, Epist. Rer. Sen. lib. iii. 1, p. 765; another on physicians to Boccaccio, Epist. Rer. Sen. lib. v. 4, p. 796. Cf. the Critique of Alchemy, De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ, p. 93.

[25] In comparing the orator and the poet, Petrarch gives the palm to the former. He thought the perfect rhetorician, capable of expressing sound philosophy with clearness, was rarer than the poet. See De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ, lib. ii. dial. 102, p. 192.

[26] See, among other passages, Inv. contra Medicum, lib. i. p. 1092. 'Poetæ studium est veritatem veram pulchris velaminibus adornare.' Cf. p. 905, the paragraph beginning 'Officium est ejus fingere,' &c.

[27] See the preface to the Epistolæ Familiares, p. 570. 'Scribendi enim mihi vivendique unus (ut auguror) finis erit.'

[28] For his lofty conception of poetry see the two letters to Boccaccio and Benvenuto da Imola, pp. 740, 941. Epist. Rerum Senilium, lib. i. 4, lib. xiv. 11.

[29] The references to Augustine as a 'divine genius,' equal to Cicero in eloquence, superior to the classics in his knowledge of Christ, are too frequent for citation. See, however, Fam. Epist. lib. ii. 9, p. 601; the letter to Boccaccio, Variarum, 22, p. 1001; and Fam. Epist. lib. iv. 9, p. 635. The phrase describing the Confessions, quoted in my text, is from Petrarch's letter to his brother Gerard, Epist. Var. 27, p. 1012, 'Scatentes lachrymis Confessionum libros.'

[30] 'Sum sectarum negligens, veri appetens.' Epist. Rer. Sen. lib. i. 5, p. 745. 'Nam apud Horatium Flaccum, nullius jurare in verba magistri, puer valde didiceram.' Epist. Fam. lib. iv. 10, p. 637.

[31] See the letters addressed to Cicero and Seneca, pp. 705, 706.

[32] 'Ægritudo' is a phrase that constantly recurs in his epistles to indicate a restless, craving habit of the soul. See, too, the whole second book of the De Contemptu Mundi.

[33] See the treatise De Vitâ Solitariâ, pp. 223-292, and the letters on 'Vaucluse,' pp. 691-697.

[34] See the discussion of this point in Baldelli's Vita del Boccaccio, pp. 130-135.

[35] Compare the chapter in the dissertation De Remediis on troublesome notoriety, p. 177, with the letter on his reception at Arezzo, p. 918, the letter to Nerius Morandus on the false news of his death, p. 776, and the letter to Boccaccio on his detractors, p. 749.

[36] See the Epistles to Rienzi, pp. 677, 535.

[37] Epistle to the Roman people, beginning 'Apud te invictissime domitorque terrarum popule meus,' p. 712.

[38] Epistle to Charles IV., De Pacificandâ Italiâ, p. 531. This contradiction struck even his most ardent admirers with painful surprise. See Boccaccio quoted in Baldelli's Life, p. 115.

[39] Rerum memorandarum, lib. ii. p. 415.

[40] This is particularly noticeable in the miscellaneous collection of essays called De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ, where opposite views on a wide variety of topics are expressed with great dexterity.

[41] See the last chapter of this volume.

[42] The lines from the Africa used as a motto for this volume are a prophecy of the Renaissance.

[43] It is very significant of Petrarch's influence that his contemporaries ranked him higher, even as a sonnet-writer, than Dante. See Coluccio de' Salutati's Letters, part ii. p. 57.

[44] Filippo Villani, Vite d'Uomini Illustri Fiorentini, Firenze, 1826, p. 9.

[45] With his own hand Boccaccio transcribed the Divine Comedy, and sent the MS. to Petrarch, who in his reply wrote thus:—'Inseris nominatim hanc hujus officii tui escusationem, quod tibi adolescentulo primus studiorum dux, prima fax fuerit.' Baldelli, p. 133. The enthusiasm of Boccaccio for Dante contrasts favourably with Petrarch's grudging egotism.

[46] Boccaccio was present at Naples when Petrarch disputed before King Robert for his title to the poet's crown (Gen. Deor. xiv. 22); but he first became intimate with him as a friend during Petrarch's visit to Florence in 1350.

[47] Salutato, writing to Francesco da Brossano, describes his conversations with Boccaccio thus:—'Nihil aliud quam de Francisco (i.e. Petrarcha) conferebamus. In cujus laudationem adeo libenter sermones usurpabat, ut nihil avidius nihilque copiosius enarraret. Et eo magis quia tali orationis generi me prospiciebat intentum. Sufficiebat enim nobis Petrarcha solus, et omni posteritati sufficiet in moralitate sermonis, in eloquentiæ soliditate atque dulcedine, in lepore prosarum et in concinnitate metrorum.' Epist. Fam. p. 45.

[48] Epist. Rer. Sen., lib. xi. 9, p. 887; lib. vi. 1, p. 806; lib. v. 4, p. 801.

[49] Petrarch's letter to Ugone di San Severino, Epist. Rer. Sen. lib. xi. 9, p. 887, deserves to be read, since it proves that Italian scholars despaired at this time of gaining Greek learning from Constantinople. They were rather inclined to seek it in Calabria. 'Græciam, ut olim ditissimam, sic nunc omnis longe inopem disciplinæ ... quod desperat apud Græcos, non diffidit apud Calabros inveniri posse.'

[50] De Gen. Deor. xv. 6, 7.

[51] Comento sopra Dante, Opp. Volg. vol. x. p. 127. After allowing for the difficulty of writing Greek, pronounced by an Italian, in Italian letters, and also for the errors of the copyist and printer, it is clear that a Greek scholar who thought Melpomene was one 'who gives fixity to meditation,' Thalia one 'who plants the capacity of growth,' Polyhymnia she 'who strengthens and expands memory,' Erato 'the discoverer of similarity,' and Terpsichore 'delightful instruction,' was on a comically wrong track.

[52] See above, p. 53, note 4.

[53] Vita del Boccaccio, p. 264. The autograph was probably burned with other books of Boccaccio, and some of the unintelligible passages in the above quotation may be due to the ignorance of the copyist.

[54] De Genealogiâ Deorum; De Casibus Virorum ac Feminarum Illustrium; De Claris Muliebribus; De Montibus, Silvis, Fontibus, &c.

[55] 'La teologia e la poesia quasi una cosa si possono dire ... la teologia niuna altra cosa è che una poesia d'Iddio.' Vita di Dante, p. 59. Cf. Comento sopra Dante, loc. cit. p. 45. The explanation of the Muses referred to above is governed by the same determination to find philosophy in poetry.

[56] See Petrarch's letter 'De quibusdam fictionibus Virgilii.' Ep. Rer. Sen. lib. iv. 4, p. 785.

[57] See the privilege granted to Petrarch by the Roman senator in 1343, Petr. Opp. tom. iii. p. 6.

[58] De Sade, in his Memoirs of Petrarch, gives an interesting account of this romantic episode in his life. See too Petrarch, Epist. Rer. Sen. lib. v. 6 and 7, pp. 802-806.

[59] Epist. Rer. Sen. lib. xiv. 14, p. 942.

[60] Epist. sine titulo, xviii. p. 732.

[61] See the exhaustive work of Renan, Averroès et l'Averroïsme.

[62] See Manetti's Life, Mur. xx. col. 531. Other references will be found in Vespasiano's Lives. Boccaccio's library was preserved in this convent.

[63] Poggii Opera, p. 271.

[64] Salutato's familiar letters, Lini Coluci Pieri Salutati Epistolarum Pars Secunda, Florentiæ, MDCCXXXXI., are a valuable source of information respecting scholarship at the close of the fourteenth century. See especially his letter to Benvenuto da Imola on the death of Petrarch (p. 32), his letter to the same about Petrarch's Africa (p. 41), another letter about the preservation of the Africa (p. 79), a letter to Petrarch's nephew Francesco da Brossano on the death of Boccaccio (p. 44), and a letter to a certain Comes Magnificus on the literary and philosophical genius of Petrarch (p. 49).

[65] 'Galeacius Mediolanensium Princeps crebro auditus est dicere non tam sibi mille Florentinorum equites quam Colucii scripta nocere.' Pii Secundi Europæ Commentarii, p. 454.

[66] 'Costui fu de' migliori dittatori di pistole al mondo, perocchè molti quando ne potevano avere, ne toglieano copie; si piaceano a tutti gl'intendenti: e nelle corte di Re e di signori del mondo, e anchora de' cherici era di lui in questa arte maggiore fama che di alcuno altro uomo.' From the Chronicle of Luca da Scarparia. These epistles were collected and printed by Josephus Rigaccius, Bibliopola Florentinus Celeberrimus, in 1741. Among the letters written for the Signory of Florence, that of congratulation to Gian Galeazzo Visconti on his murder of Bernabo (p. 16), that to the French Cardinals (p. 18), to Sir John Hawkwood, or Domino Joanni Aucud (p. 107), to the Marquis of Moravia (p. 110), and to the Romans (p. 141) deserve to be read.

[67] See the letter of Lionardo Bruni, quoted in Lini Coluci Pieri Salutati Epistolæ, p. xv. Coluccio's own letter recommending Lionardo to Innocent VII., ib. p. 5, and his numerous familiar letters to Poggio, ib. pp. 13, 173, &c.

[68] 'Certe cogitabam revidere librum, et si quid, ut scribis, vel absonum, vel contra metrorum regulam intolerabile deprehendissem, curiosius elimare et sicut Naso finxit in Æneida, singulos libros paucis versiculis quasi in argumenti formam brevissime resumere, et exinde pluribus sumptis exemplis, et per me ipsum correctis et diligenter revisis, unum ad Bononiense gymnasium, unum Parisiis, unum in Angliam cum meâ epistolâ de libri laudibus destinare, et unum in Florentiâ ponere in loco celebri,' &c. Epistolæ, part ii. p. 80.

[69] Among the other laureati who filled the post of Florentine Chancellor may be mentioned Dante's tutor, Brunetto Latini, Lionardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini, Poggio Bracciolini, and Benedetto Accolti, of whom more hereafter.

[70] Vite d'Uomini Illustri, p. 271.

[71] Cf. the letter quoted by Voigt (p. 130) to Giacomo da Scarparia, which shows Coluccio's enthusiasm for Greek.

[72] Mur. xix. 920.

[73] Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, vol. iv. p. 42 et seq., vol. v. p. 60 et seq. Large quarto, Modena, 1787.

[74] See Muratori, vol. viii. 15, 75, 372. Matteo Villani, lib. i. cap. 8.

[75] 'Hoc anno translatum est Studium Scholarium de Bononiâ Paduam.' Mur. viii. 372.

[76] They were called 'Exemplatores.' See Tiraboschi, vol. iv. lib. i cap. 2.

[77] Muratori, vii. p. 997. Amari, Storia dei Mussulmani di Sicilia, vol. iii. p. 706.

[78] See Von Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. p. 521.

[79] In 1320 there were at least 15,000 students in Bologna.

[80] See Sismondi, vol. iii. p. 349.

[81] Lib. i. cap. 8.

[82] 'Volendo attrarre gente alla nostra città, e dilatarla in onore, e dare materia a' suoi cittadini d'essere scienziati e virtudiosi.'

[83] Cf. Corio, p. 290. He gives the names of the professors who attended at the funeral of Gian Galeazzo Visconti.

[84] Mur. xxii. 990.

[85] See Voigt, p. 447.

[86] Many of the earliest printed editions of the Latin poets give an exact notion of what such lectures must have been. The text is embedded in an all-embracing commentary.

[87] Cf. Villani's Statistics of Florence, and Corio's of Milan.

[88] For humorous but vivid pictures of a professor's lecture-room, see the macaronic poems of Odassi and Fossa quoted by me in vol. v. of this work.

[89] See Cantù, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, p. 105, note.

[90] 'Hodie Scriptores non sunt Scriptores sed Pictores,' quoted by Tiraboschi, vol. iv. lib. i. cap. 4.

[91] See Cantù, loc. cit. p. 104.

[92] See Comparetti, vol. i. p. 114.

[93] In Milan, in the fourteenth century, when the population was estimated at about 200,000, the town could boast of only fifty copyists. Tirab. loc. cit. cap. 4.

[94] De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ, lib. i. dial. 43, p. 42. The passage condensed above is so valuable for a right understanding of the humanistic feeling about manuscripts that I shall transcribe portions of the original:—'Libri innumerabiles sunt mihi. Et errores innumeri, quidam ab impiis, alii ab indoctis editi. Illi quidem religioni ac pietati et divinis literis, hi naturæ ac justitiæ moribusque et liberalibus disciplinis seu historiæ rerumque gestarum fidei, omnes autem vero adversi; inque omnibus, et præsertim primis ubi majoribus agitur de rebus, et vera falsis immixta sunt, perdifficilis ac periculosa discretio est ... scriptorum inscitiæ inertiæque, corrumpenti omnia miscentique ... ignavissima ætas hæc culinæ solicita, literarum negligens, et coquos examinans non scriptores. Quisquis itaque pingere aliquid in membranis, manuque calamum versare didicerit, scriptor habebitur, doctrinæ omnis ignarus, expers ingenii, artis egens ... nunc confusis exemplaribus et exemplis, unum scribere polliciti, sic aliud scribunt ut quod ipse dictaveris, non agnoscas ... accedunt et scriptores nullâ frenati lege, nullo probati examine, nullo judicio electi; non fabris, non agricolis, non textoribus, non ulli fere artium tanta licentia est, cum sit in aliis leve periculum, in hâc grave; sine delectu tamen scribendum ruunt omnes, et cuncta vastantibus certa sunt pretia.'

[95] 'Commentary on the Divine Comedy,' ap. Muratori, Antiq. Ital. vol. i. p. 1296.

[96] Mur. xx. 160.

[97] Petrarch in 1350 found a bad copy at Florence. Poggio describes it thus:—'Is vero apud nos antea, Italos dico, ita laceratus erat, ita circumcisus culpâ, ut opinor, temporum, ut nulla forma, nullus habitus hominis in eo recognosceretur.'

[98] Mur. xx. 169. Cf. the Elegy of Landino quoted in the notes to Roscoe's Lorenzo, p. 388.

[99] Voigt, p. 138.

[100] See Voigt, p. 139, for this story.

[101] See the emphatic language about Palla degli Strozzi, Cosimo de' Medici, and Niccolo de' Niccoli, in Vespasiano's Lives. Islam, moreover, as is proved by Pletho's Life, was at that period more erudite than Hellas.

[102] I have touched upon this subject elsewhere. See Studies of Greek Poets, second series, pp. 304-307. In order to form a conception of the utter decline of Byzantine learning after Photius, it is needful to read the passages in Petrarch's letters, where even Calabria is compared favourably with Constantinople. In a state of ignorance so absolute as he describes, it is possible that treasures existed unknown to professed students, and therefore undiscovered by Filelfo and his fellow-workers. The testimony of Demetrius Chalcondylas, quoted by Didot, Alde Manuce, p. xiv., goes to show that the Greeks attributed their losses in large measure to the malice of the priests.

[103] The details of Virgil's romance occupy the first half of Comparetti's second volume on Virgil in the Middle Ages. For the English version of this legend see Thoms.

[104] See above, pp. 38-49.

[105] Gibbon, ch. lxxi.

[106] Vol. I., Age of the Despots, p. 200.

[107] Purg. xxxiii. 58.

[108] Stefano Porcari, for example. See Vol. I., Age of the Despots, pp. 296, 302.

[109] De Capessendâ Libertate, Hortatoria, p. 535.

[110] See Petrarch's Epistle to the Roman People, p. 712.

[111] Epist. Fam. lib. ii. 14, p. 605; lib. vi. 2, p. 657.

[112] 'Qui enim hodie magis ignari rerum Romanarum sunt, quam Romani Cives? Invitus dico, nusquam minus Roma cognoscitur quam Romæ.' Epist. Fam. lib. ii. 14, p. 658.

[113] 'Quis enim dubitare potest, quin illico surrectura sit si cœperit se Roma cognoscere?' Ibid.

[114] 'Vi vel senio collapsa palatia, quæ quondam ingentes tenuere viri, diruptos arcus triumphales ... indignum de vestris marmoreis columnis, de liminibus templorum, ad quæ nuper ex toto orbe concursus devotissimus fiebat, de imaginibus sepulchrorum, sub quibus patrum vestrorum venerabilis cinis erat, ut reliquas sileam, desidiosa Neapolis adornatur.' Ibid. p. 536.

[115]