lUHUTa: DG533 . B85 v.1 ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETIES THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 00008610577 This book is due at the WALTER R. DAVIS LIBRARY ™ the last date stamped under “Date Dup ” if nnt h • be renewed by bringing it to the library n °' °" h °' d ’ " ma * THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY VOL. I. 814G3G Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill https://archive.org/details/civilisationofpe01burc THE CIVILISATION OF THE PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY BY JACOB BURCKHARDT AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY D$SS3 Li S. G. C. MIDDLEMORE IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. LONDON C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1878 ( 7 he rights of translation and of reproduction arc reserved ) PREFACE. -oO^CK)- Dr. Burckhardt’s work on the Renaissance in Italy is too well known, not only to students of the period, but now to a wider circle of readers, for any introduc¬ tion to be necessary. The increased interest which has of late years, in England, been taken in this and kindred subjects, and the welcome which has been given to the works of other writers upon them, encourage me to hope that in publishing this transla¬ tion I am meeting a want felt by some who are either unable to read German at all, or to whom an English version will save a good deal of time and trouble. The translation is made from the third edition of the original, recently published in Germany, with slight additions to the text, and large additions to the notes, by Dr. Ludwig Geiger of Berlin. It also contains some fresh matter communicated by Dr. Burckhardt to Professor Diego Valbusa of Mantua, the Italian translator of the book. 1 o all three VI PREFA CE. gentlemen my thanks are due for courtesy shown, or help given to me in the course of my work. In a few cases, where Dr. Geiger’s view differs from that taken by Dr. Burcichardt, I have called attention to the fact by bracketing Dr. Geiger’s opinion and adding his initials. THE TRANSLATOR. London, April 1878. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. -- « PART I. THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. PAGB Political condition of Italy in the thirteenth century .... 4 The Norman State under Frederick II. . . . . . . 5 Ezzelino da Romano..8 CHAPTER II. THE TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Finance and its relation to culture . . . . . . .10 The ideal of the absolute ruler . . . . . . . . 12 Inward and outward dangers . . . . . . . 13 Florentine estimate of the tyrants ..15 The Visconti . . . . . . . . . . .17 CHAPTER III. THE TYRANNY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Intervention and visits of the emperors ...... 23 Want of a fixed law of succession. Illegitimacy.28 Founding of States by Condottieri.29 VI 11 CONTENTS. PAGE Relations of Condottieri to their employers . . . . . . 31 The family of Sforza .......... 32 Giacomo Piccinino . . . . . . . . . . 35 Later attempts of the Condottieri.36 CHAPTER IV. \ THE PETTY TYRANNIES. The Baglioni of Perugia ......... 39 Massacre in the year 1500 . . . . . . . . . 42 Malatesta, Pico, and Petrucci.. . -45 CHAPTER V. THE GREATER DYNASTIES. The Aragonese at Naples.48 The last Visconti at Milan . . . . . . . . . 52 Francesco Sforza and his luck.54 Galeazzo Maria and Ludovico Moro . . . . . . . 56 The Gonzaga at Mantua.60 Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino.62 The Este at Ferrara.65 CHAPTER VI. THE OPPONENTS OF TYRANNY. The later Guelphs and Ghibellines.76 The conspirators.. . 78 Murders in church.79 Influence of ancient tyrannicide.80 Cataline as an ideal . . . . . . . . . .81 Florentine view of tyrannicide.82 The people and tyrannicide.83 CHAPTER VII. THE REPUBLICS : VENICE AND FLORENCE. Venice in the fifteenth century.86 The inhabitants ........... 89 Dangers from the poor nobility ........ 90 CONTENTS . ix PAGE Causes of the stability of Venice . . . . . . . . gi The Council of Ten and political trials.93 Relations with the Condottieri . . ..94 Optimism of Venetian foreign policy ....... 96 Venice as the home of statistics.96 Retardation of the Renaissance.100 Mediaeval devotion to reliques ... . 102 Florence from the fourteenth century.103 Objectivity of political intelligence.104 Dante as a politician.105 Florence as the home of statistics : the two Villanis . . . . 106 Higher form of statistics.109 Florentine constitutions and the historians.113 Fundamental vice of the State.115 Political theorists . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Macchiavelli and his views.117 Siena and Genoa.. . 120 CHAPTER VIII. FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES. Envy felt towards Venice.124 Relations to other countries : sympathy with France . . . . 125 Plan for a balance of power.126 Foreign intervention and conquests . . . . . . . 128 Alliances with the Turks.129 Counter-influence of Spain.13 2 Objective treatment of politics . . . . • • • • 13 2 Art of diplomacy.134 CHAPTER IX. WAR AS A WORK OF ART. Firearms. l 37 Professional warriors and dilettanti. J 3^ Horrors of war . . . . . • • • • • .14° CHAPTER X. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. Relation of the Papacy to Italy and foreign countries Disturbances in Rome from the time of Nicholas V. . 141 . 145 X CONTENTS. PAGE Sixtus IV. master of Rome.146 States of the Nipoti in Romagna.. . 147 Cardinals belonging to princely houses.149 Innocent VIII. and his son.150 Alexander VI. as a Spaniard.152 Relations with foreign countries.153 Simony.155 Caesar Borgia and his relations to his father.155 Caesar’s plans and acts . . . . . . . . .156 Julius II. as Saviour of the Papacy.163 Leo X. His relations with other States . . . . . .167 Adrian VI.. . . . 169 Clement VII. and the sack of Rome . ..169 Reaction consequent on the latter.172 The Papacy of the Counter-Reformation.174 Conclusion. The Italian patriots.175 PART II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. CHAPTER I. THE ITALIAN STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL. The mediaeval man ........ The awakening of personality. The despot and his subjects ...... Individualism in the Republics ..... Exile and cosmopolitanism. CHAPTER II. THE PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL. The many-sided men. The universal men. . 181 . 182 . 183 . 185 . 186 1^190 V192 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER III. THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME. PAGE Dante’s feeling about fame., y 197 The celebrity of the Humanists : Petrarch.^198 Cultus of birthplaces and graves.200 Cultus of the famous men of antiquity.202 Literature of local fame : Padua.205 Literature of universal fame.* . . . 206 Fame given or refused by the writers.211 Morbid passion for fame ..213 CHAPTER IV. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE. Its connection with individualism . 216 Florentine wit : the novel . . . . . . . ..217 Jesters and buffoons.218 Leo X. and his witticisms.220 Poetical parodies.. . .222 Theory of wit . . ... . . . . . . . 223 Railing and reviling.225 Adrian VI. as scapegoat.227 Pietro Aretino.229 PART III. THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Widened application of the word ‘ Renaissance ’ . . . •■'239 Antiquity in the Middle Ages . . . • • • . . 241 Latin poetry of the twelfth century in Italy . 2 4 2 The spirit of the fourteenth century. 2 45 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. ROME, THE CITY OF RUINS. / AGE 24 7 Rome at the time of Poggio.. . . 250 Nicholas V., and Pius II. as an antiquarian . . . . .251 Antiquity outside Rome . . . . . . . . . . 253 Affiliation of families and cities on Rome.254 The Roman corpse . . . . . . . . . . 255 Excavations and architectural plans . . . . . . .257 Rome under Leo X.. . . . 258 Sentimental effect of ruins ......... 259 CHAPTER III. THE OLD AUTHORS. Their diffusion in the fourteenth century.261 Discoveries in the fifteenth century ....... 262 The libraries ........... 265 Copyists and ‘ Scrittori ’.268 Printing.270 Greek scholarship. 272 Oriental scholarship .......... 275 Pico’s view of antiquity . . . . . . . . . . 281 CHAPTER IV. HUMANISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Its inevitable victory. ■{ 284 Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio . . . . . . \ 285 Coronation of the poets. v 289 CHAPTER V. THE UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS. Position of the Humanists at the Universities ..... 294 Latin schools ........... 297 Freer education : Vittorino da Feltre.298 Guarino of Verona. ^oo The education of princes. >02 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM. PAGE Florentine citizens : Niccoli and Manetti.303 The earlier Medici. ^oy Humanism at the Courts.. The Popes from Nicholas V. onwards.3 I2 Alfonso of Naples. -315 Frederick of Urbino . . .. ^iy The Houses of Sforza and Este.3!8 Sigismodo Malatesta.320 CHAPTER VII.. THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY. LATIN CORRESPONDENCE AND ORATIONS. The Papal Chancery.323 Letter-writing ........... 325 The orators.327 Political, diplomatic, and funeral orations.329 Academic and military speeches ....... 332 Latin sermons.333 Form and matter of the speeches ..335 Passion for quotation.336 Imaginary speeches.338 Decline of eloquence .......... 339 CHAPTER VIII. LATIN TREATISES AND HISTORY. Value of Latin.341 Researches on the Middle Ages : Blondus.345 Histories in Italian ; their antique spirit.349 CHAPTER IX. GENERAL LATINISATION OF CULTURE. Ancient names. 35 1 Latinised social relations. 353 Claims of Latin to supremacy. 354 Cicero and the Ciceronians ..35^ Latin conversation. 35 ^ XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. MODERN LATIN POETRY. PAGE Epic poems on ancient history : The ‘ Africa ’.362 Mythic poetry.363 Christian epics : Sannazaro.365 Poetry on contemporary subjects.367 Introduction of mythology.369 Didactic poetry: Palingenius.. . . 371 Lyric poetry and its limits.372 Odes on the saints. . . . . 373 Elegies and the like. 374 The epigram.376 CHAPTER XI. FALL OF THE HUMANISTS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. The accusations and the amount of truth they contained . . . 383 Misery of the scholars.389 Type of the happy scholar.391 Pomponius Laetus.. . 393 The Academies.395 PART I. THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART VOL. I. B \ * t •• CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. This work bears the title of an essay in the strictest sense of the word. No one is more conscious than the writer with what limited means and strength he has addressed himself to a task so arduous. And even if he could look with greater confidence upon his own researches he would hardly thereby feel more assured of the approval of competent judges. To each eye, perhaps, the outlines of a given civilisation present a different picture ; and in treating of a civilisa¬ tion which is the mother of our own, and whose influence is still at work among us, it is unavoidable that individual judgment and feeling should tell every moment both on the writer and on the reader. In the wide ocean upon which we venture, the possible ways and directions are many; and the same studies which have served for this work might easily, in other hands, not only receive a wholly different treatment and application, but lead also to essentially different conclusions. Such indeed is the importance of the subject, that it still calls for fresh investigation, and may be studied with advantage from the most varied points of view. Meanwhile we are content if a patient B 2 4 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. hearing be granted us, and if this book be taken and judged as a whole. It is the most serious difficulty of the history of civilisation that a great intellectual process must be broken up into single, and often into what seem arbitrary categories, in order to be in any way intelligible. It was formerly our intention to fill up the gaps in this book by a special work on the ‘ Art of the Renaissance,’—an intention, however, which we have been able only to fulfil 1 in part. The struggle between the Popes and the Hohen- staufen left Italy in a political condition which differed essentially from that of the other countries of the West. While in Franee, Spain, and England the feudal system was so organised that, at the close of its existence, it was naturally transformed into a unified monarchy, and while in Germany it helped to maintain, at least outwardly, the unity of the empire, Italy had shaken it off almost entirely. The Emperors of the fourteenth century, even in the most favourable case, were no longer received and respected as feudal lords, but as possible leaders and supporters of powers already in existence; while the Papacy, 2 with its creatures and 1 History of Architecture , by Franz Kugler. (The first half of the fourth volume, containing the ‘Architecture and Decoration of the Italian Re¬ naissance,’ is by the Author.) 2 Macchiavelli, Discorsi , 1 . i. c. 12. ‘E la cagione, che la Italia non sia in quel medesimo termine, ne habbia anch’ ella 6 una republica 6 un prencipe che la governi, e solamente la Chiesa ; perche havendovi habi- tato e tenuto imperio temporale non 6 stata si potente ne di tal virtu, che l’habbia potuto occupare il restante d’ltalia e farsene prencipe.’ INTROD UCTION. 5 allies, was strong enough to hinder national unity in the future, not strong enough itself to bring about that unity. Between the two lay a multitude of political units—republics and despots—in part of long standing, in part of recent origin, whose existence was founded simply on their power to maintain it. 1 In them for the first time we detect the modern political^ spirit of Europe, surrendered freely to its own instincts, often displaying the worst features of an unbridled egoism, outraging every right, and killing every germ of a healthier culture. But, wherever this vicious tendency is overcome or in any way compensated, a new fact appears in history—the state as the outcome of reflection and calculation, the state as a work of art.^ This new life displays itself in a hundred forms, both in the republican and in the despotic states, and determines their inward constitution, no less than their foreign policy. We shall limit ourselves to the con¬ sideration of the completer and more clearly defined type, which is offered by the despotic states. The internal condition of the despotically governed states had a memorable counterpart in the Norman Empire of Lower Italy and Sicily, after its transfor¬ mation by the Emperor Frederick II. 2 Bred amid 1 The rulers and their dependents were together called ‘ lo stato/ and this name afterwards acquired the meaning of the collective existence of a territory. 2 C. Winckelmann, De Regni Siculi Administratione qualis fuerit regnante Friderico II, Berlin, 1859. A. del Vecchio, La Icgislazione di Federico II. imperatore. Turin, 1874. Frederick II. has been fully and thoroughly discussed by Winckelmann and Schirrmacher. 6 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART treason and peril in the neighbourhood of the Saracens, Frederick, the first ruler of the modern type who sat upon a throne, had early accustomed himself, both in criticism and action, to a thoroughly objective treat¬ ment of affairs. His acquaintance with the internal condition and administration of the Saracenic states was close and intimate; and the mortal struggle in which he was engaged with the Papacy compelled him, no less than his adversaries, to bring into the field all the resources at his command. Fredericks measures (especially after the year 1231) are aimed at the complete destruction of the feudal state, at the transformation of the people into a multitude destitute of will and of the means of resistance, but profitable in the utmost degree to the exchequer. He cen¬ tralised, in a manner hitherto unknown in the West, the whole judicial and political administration by establish¬ ing the right of appeal from the feudal courts, which he did not, however, abolish, to the imperial judges. No office was henceforth to be filled by popular election, under penalty of the devastation of the offending district and of the enslavement of its inha¬ bitants. Excise duties were introduced; the taxes, based on a comprehensive assessment, and distributed in accordance with Mohammedan usages, were col¬ lected by those cruel and vexatious methods without which, it is true, it is impossible to obtain any money from Orientals. Here, in short, we find, not a people, but simply a disciplined multitude of subjects ; who INTRODUCTION. 7 were forbidden, for example, to marry out of the country without special permission, and under no cir¬ cumstances were allowed to study abroad. The University of Naples was the first we know of to restrict the freedom of study, while the East, in these respects at all events, left its youth unfettered. It was after the example of Mohammedan rulers that Frederick traded on his own account in all parts of the Mediterranean, reserving to himself the monopoly of many commodities, and restricting in various ways the commerce of his subjects. The Fatimite Caliphs, with all their esoteric unbelief, were, at least in their earlier history, tolerant of the differences in the religious faith of their people ; Frederick, on the other hand, crowned his system of government by a religious inquisition, which will seem the more reprehensible when we remember that in the persons of the heretics he was persecuting the representatives of a free municipal life. Lastly, the internal police, and the kernel of the army for foreign service, was composed of Saracens who had been brought over from Sicily to Nocera and Luceria—men who were deaf to the cry of misery and careless of the ban of the Church. At a later period the subjects, by whom the use of weapons had long been forgotten, were passive wit¬ nesses of the fall of Manfred and of the seizure of the government by Charles of Anjou ; the latter continued to use the system which he found already at work. At the side of the centralising Emperor appeared 8 THE STATE AS A WORK OE ART an usurper of the most peculiar kind : his vicar and son-in-law, Ezzelino da Romano. He stands as the representative of no system of government or adminis¬ tration, for all his activity was wasted in struggles for supremacy in the eastern part of Upper Italy ; but as a political type he was a figure of no less importance for the future than his imperial protector Frederick. The conquests and usurpations which had hitherto taken place in the Middle Ages rested on real or pre¬ tended inheritance and other such claims, or else were effected against unbelievers and excommunicated per¬ sons. Here for the first time the attempt was openly made to found a throne by wholesale murder and endless barbarities, by the adoption, in short, of any means with a view to nothing but the end pursued. None of his successors, not even Caesar Borgia, rivalled the colossal guilt of Ezzelino ; but the example once set was not forgotten, and his fall led to no return of justice among the nations, and served as no warning to future transgressors. It was in vain at such a time that St. Thomas Aquinas, a born subject of Frederick, set up the theory of a constitutional monarchy, in which the * prince was to be supported by an upper house named by himself, and a representative body elected by the people ; in vain did he concede to the people the right of revolution . 1 Such theories found no echo outside * Baumann, Staatslehre des Thomas von Aquino. Leipzig, 1873, esp. pp. 136 sqq. I NT ROD UCTION 9 the lecture-room, and Frederick and Ezzelino were and remain for Italy the great political phenomena of the thirteenth century. Their personality, already half legendary, forms the most important subject of ‘The Hundred Old Tales/ whose original composition falls ^ certainly within this century . 1 In them Frederick is already represented as possessing the right to do as he pleased with the property of his subjects, and exercises * on all, even on criminals, a profound influence by the force of his personality; Ezzelino is spoken of with the awe which all mighty impressions leave behind them. His person became the centre of a whole literature, from the chronicle of eye-witnesses to the ^ half-mythical tragedy 2 of later poets. Immediately after the fall of Frederick and Ezze¬ lino, a crowd of tyrants appeared upon the scene. The struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline was their opportunity. They came forward in general as Ghibelline leaders, but at times and under conditions so various, that it is impossible not to recognise in the fact a law of supreme and universal necessity. The means which they used were those already familiar in the party struggles of the past—the banishment or de¬ struction of their adversaries and of their adversaries’ households. 1 Cento Novelle Antiche , ed. 1525. For Frederick, Nov. 2, 21, 22, 23, 24, 30, 53, 59, 90, 100 ; for Ezzelino, Nov. 31, and esp. 84. 2 Scardeonius, De Urbis Patav. Antiqu . in Grcevius, Thesaurus vi. iii. p. 259. CHAPTER II. THE TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. The tyrannies, great and small, of the fourteenth cen¬ tury afford constant proof that examples such as these were not thrown away. Their crimes, which were fearful, have been fully told by historians. As states depending for existence on themselves alone, and scientifically organised with a view to this object, they present to us a higher interest than that of mere narrative. The deliberate adaptation of means to ends, of which no prince out of Italy had at that time a concep¬ tion, joined to almost absolute power within the limits of the state, produced among the despots both men ^ and modes of life of a peculiar character . 1 The chief secret of government in the hands of the prudent ruler lay in leaving the incidence of taxation so far as possible where he found it, or as he had first arranged it. The chief sources of income were : a land-tax, based on a valuation ; definite taxes on articles of con¬ sumption and duties on exported and imported goods together with the private fortune of the ruling house. 1 Sismondi, Hist, de Rep. Italiennes, iv. p. 420 ; viii. pp. 1 sqq. TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY, u The only possible increase was derived from the growth of business and of general prosperity. Loans, such as we find in the free cities, were here unknown ; a well-planned confiscation was held a preferable means of raising money, provided only that it left public credit unshaken—an end attained, for example, by the truly Oriental practice of deposing and plunder¬ ing the director of the finances . 1 Out of this income the expenses of the little court, of the body-guard, of the mercenary troops, and of the public buildings were met, as well as of the buffoons and men of talent who belonged to the personal attendants of the prince. The illegitimacy of his rule isolated the tyrant and surrounded him with constant danger; the most honourable alliance which he could form was with intellectual merit, without regard to its origin. The liberality of the northern princes of the thirteenth century was confined to the knights, to the nobility which served and sang. It was otherwise with the Italian despot. With his thirst of fame and his passion for monumental works, it was talent, not birth, which he needed!^ In the company of the poet and the scholar he felt himself in a new position, almost, indeed, in possession of a new legitimacy. No prince was more famous in this respect than the ruler of Verona, Can Grande della Scala, who numbered among the illustrious exiles whom he enter¬ tained at his court representatives of the whole of 1 Franco Sacchetti, Novelle (61, 62). 12 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. Italy . 1 The men of letters were not ungrateful. Petrarch, whose visits at the courts of such men have been so severely censured, sketched an ideal picture of a prince of the fourteenth century . 2 He demands great things from his patron, the lord of Padua, but in a manner which shows that he holds him capable of them. ‘ Thou must not be the master but the father of thy subjects, and must love them as thy children ; yea, as members of thy body . 3 Weapons, guards, and soldiers thou mayest employ against the enemy—with thy subjects goodwill is sufficient. By citizens, of course, I mean those who love the existing order; for those who daily desire change are rebels and traitors, and against such a stern justice may take its course.’ Here follows, worked out in detail, the purely modern fiction of the omnipotence of the state. The prince is to be independent of his courtiers, but at the same time to govern with simplicity and modesty ; he is to take everything into his charge, to maintain and restore churches and public buildings, to keep up the municipal police , 4 to drain the marshes, to look after 1 Dante, it is true, is said to have lost the favour of this prince, which impostors knew how to keep. See the important account in Petrarch, De Rerum Mei 7 iora 7 idarum, lib. ii. 3, 46. 2 Petrarca, Epistolce Se 7 iiles , lib. xiv. 1, to Francesco di Carrara (Nov. 28, 1373). The letter is sometimes printed separately with the title, ‘ De Republica optime administranda,’ e.g. Bern, 1602. 3 It is not till a hundred years later that the princess is spoken of as the mother of the people. Comp. Hieron. Crivelli’s funeral oration on Bianca Maria Visconti, in Muratori, Scriptores Reru 77 i Italicarwn, xxv. col. 429. It was by way of parody of this phrase that a sister of Sixtus IV. is called in Jac. Volateranus (Murat, xxiii. col. 109) ‘mater ecclesiae.’ 4 With the parenthetical request, in reference to a previous conver- TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENT UR h 13 the supply of wine and corn ; he is to exercise a strict justice, so to distribute the taxes that the people can recognise their necessity and the regret of the ruler to be compelled to put his hands in the pockets of others ; he is to support the sick and the helpless, and to give his protection and society to distinguished scholars, on whom his fame in after ages will depend. But whatever might be the brighter sides of the system, and the merits of individual rulers, yet the men of the fourteenth century were not without a more or less distinct consciousness of the brief and uncertain tenure of most of these despotisms^ Inasmuch as political institutions like these are naturally secure in proportion to the size of the territory in which they exist, the larger principalities were constantly tempted to swallow up the smaller. Whole hecatombs of petty rulers were sacrificed at this time to the Visconti alone. As a result of this outward danger an inward ferment was in ceaseless activity ; and the effect of the situa¬ tion on the character of the ruler was generally of the most sinister kind. Absolute power, with its tempta¬ tions to luxury and unbridled selfishness, and the^ perils to which he was exposed from enemies and con¬ spirators, turned him almost inevitably into a tyrant in the worst sense of the word. Well for him if he could trust his nearest relations ! But where all was illegi- sation, that the prince would again forbid the keeping of pigs in the streets of Padua, as the sight of them was unpleasing, especially for stran¬ gers, and apt to frighten the horses. THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. l 4 timate, there could be no regular law of inheritance, either with regard to the succession or to the divi¬ sion of the ruler’s property; and consequently the heir, if incompetent or a minor, was liable in the interest of the family itself to be supplanted by an uncle or cousin of more resolute character. The acknowledgment or exclusion of the bastards was a fruitful source of contest; and most of these families in consequence were plagued with a crowd of discon¬ tented and vindictive kinsmen. This circumstance gave rise to continual outbreaks of treason and to frightful scenes of domestic bloodshed. Sometimes the pretenders lived abroad in exile, and like the Visconti, who practised the fisherman’s craft on the Lake of Garda , 1 viewed the situation with patient indifference. When asked by a messenger of his rival when and how he thought of returning to Milan, he gave the reply, ‘ By the same means as those by which I was expelled, but not till his crimes have outweighed my own.’ Sometimes, too, the despot was sacrificed by his relations, with the view of saving the family, to the public conscience which he had too grossly out¬ raged . 2 In a few cases the government was in the hands of the whole family, or at least the ruler was bound to take their advice ; and here, too, the dis- 1 Petrarca, Rerum Memorandar. lib. iii. 2, 66.— Matteo I. Visconti and Guido della Torre, then ruling in Milan, are the persons referred to. 2 Matteo Villani, v. 81 : the secret murder of Matteo II. (Maffiolo) Visconti by his brother. TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 15 tribution of property and influence often led to bitter disputes. The whole of this system excited the deep and persistent hatred of the Florentine writers of that epoch. Even the pomp and display with which the despot was perhaps less anxious to gratify his own vanity than to impress the popular imagination, awakened their keenest sarcasm. Woe to an ad¬ venturer if he fell into their hands, like the upstart Doge Aguello of Pisa (1364), who used to ride out with a golden sceptre, and show himself at the window of his house, ‘ as relics are shown/ reclining on em¬ broidered drapery and cushions, served like a pope or emperor, by kneeling attendants. 1 More often, how¬ ever, the old Florentines speak on this subject in a tone of lofty seriousness. Dante saw and characterised well the vulgarity and commonplace which mark the ambition of the new princes. 2 ‘ What mean their trumpets and their bells, their horns and their flutes ; but come, hangman—come, vultures ?’ The castle of the tyrant, as pictured by the popular mind, is a lofty and solitary building, full of dungeons and listening- tubes,'" the home of cruelty and misery. Misfortune is 1 Filippo Villani, Istorie , xi. 101. Petrarch speaks in the same tone of the tyrants dressed out ‘ like altars at a festival.’—The triumphal pro¬ cession of Castracane at Lucca is described minutely in his life by Tegrimo, in Murat, xi. col. 1340. 2 De Vulgari Eloqui , i, c. 12 :. . . ‘ qui non heroico more, sed plebeo sequuntur superbiam.’ 3 This we find first in the fifteenth century, but their representations 16 THE STATE AS A WO EE OF ART. foretold to all who enter the service of the despot, 1 who even becomes at last himself an object of pity : he must needs be the enemy of all good and honest men ; he can trust no one, and can read in the faces of his subjects the expectation of his fall. ‘ As despotisms rise, grow, and are consolidated, so grows in their midst the hidden element which must produce their dissolution and ruin.’ 2V But the deepest ground of dislike has not been stated ; Florence was then the scene of the richest development of human individuality, while for the despots no other individuality could be suffered to live and thrive but their own and that of their nearest dependents.^ The control of the in¬ dividual was rigorously carried out, even down to the establishment of a system of passports. 3 The astrological superstitions and the religious unbelief of many of the tyrants gave, in the minds of their contemporaries, a peculiar colour to this awful and God-forsaken existence. When the last Carrara could no longer defend the walls and gates of the plague-stricken Padua, hemmed in on all sides by the are certainly based on the beliefs [of earlier times : L. B. Alberti, De re cedif. v. 3.—Franc, di Giorgio, ‘Trattato,’ in Della Valle, Lettere Sanesi, iii. 121. 1 Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 61. 2 Matteo Villani, vi. 1. 3 The Paduan passport-office about the middle of the fourteenth century is referred to by Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 117, in the words, ‘ quelli delle bul- lete.’ In the last ten years of the reign of Frederick II., when the strictest control was exercised on the personal conduct of his subjects, this system must have been very highly developed. TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 17 Venetians (1405), the soldiers of the guard heard him cry to the devil ‘ to come and kill him.’ The most complete and instructive type of the tyranny of the fourteenth century is to be found unques- « tionably among the Visconti of Milan, from the death of the Archbishop Giovanni onwards (1354). The family likeness which shows itself between Bernabo and the worst of the Roman Emperors is unmistakeable; 1 the most important public object was the prince’s boar¬ hunting ; whoever interfered with it was put to death with torture ; the terrified people were forced to main¬ tain 5,000 boar-hounds, with strict responsibility for their health and safety. The taxes were extorted by every conceivable sort of compulsion ; seven daughters of the prince received a dowry of 100,000 gold florins apiece ; and an enormous treasure was collected. On the death of his wife (1384) an order was issued ‘ to the subjects ’ to share his grief, as once they had shared his joy, and to wear mourning for a year. The coup de main (1385) by which his nephew Giangaleazzo got him into his power—one of those brilliant plots which make the heart of even late historians beat more quickly 2 —was strikingly characteristic of the 1 Corio, Storia di Milano, fol. 247 sqq. Recent Italian writers have observed that the Visconti have still to find a historian who, keeping the just mean between the exaggerated praises of contemporaries (e.g. Petrarch) and the violent denunciations of later political (Guelph) opponents, will pronounce a final judgment upon them. - E.g. of Paolo Giovio: Elogia Virorum bellied virtute illustnum , Basel, 1 575 ? P- 85, in the life of Bernabo. Giangal. ( Vita , pp. 86 sqq.) is for Giovio ‘ post Theodoricum omnium praestantissimus.’ Comp, also Jovius, Vitcc xii. Vicecomitum Mediolaniprincipum, Paris, 1549 ) PP- l &5 sqq- VOL. I. C i8 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. man. Giangaleazzo, despised by his relations on account of his religion and his love. of science, resolved on vengeance, and, leaving the city under pretext of a pilgrimage, fell upon his unsuspecting uncle, took him t prisoner, forced his way back into the city at the head of an armed band, seized on the government and gave up the palace of Bernabo to general plunder. In Giangaleazzo that passion for the colossal which was common to most of the despots shows itself on the largest scale. He undertook, at the cost of 300,000 golden florins, the construction of gigantic dykes, to divert in case of need the Mincio from Mantua and the Brenta from Padua, and thus to render these cities defenceless. 1 It is not impossible, indeed, that he thought of draining away the lagoons of Venice. He founded that most wonderful of all convents, the Certosa of Pavia, 2 and the cathedral of Milan, ‘ which exceeds in size and splendour all the churches of Christendom.’ The Palace in Pavia, which his father Galeazzo began and which he himself finished, was probably by far the most magnificent of the princely dwellings of Europe. There he transferred his famous library, and the great collection of relics of the saints, in which he placed a peculiar faith. King Winceslaus made him Duke (1395); he was hoping for nothing less than the Kingdom of Italy 3 or the Imperial 1 Corio, fol. 272, 285. 2 Cagnola, in the Archiv . Stor. iii. p. 23. 3 So Corio, fol. 286, and Poggio, Hist. Florent. iv. in Murat, xx. TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 19 crown, when (1402) he fell ill and died. His whole territories are said to have paid him in a single year, besides the regular contribution of 1,200,000 gold florins, no less than 800,000 more in extraordinary subsidies. After his death the dominions which he had brought together by every sort of violence fell to pieces ; and for a time even the original nucleus could with difficulty be maintained by his successors. What might have become of his sons Giovanni Maria (died 1412) and Filippo Maria (died 1417), had they lived in a different country and among other traditions, cannot be said. But, as heirs of their house, they in¬ herited that monstrous capital of cruelty and coward¬ ice which had been accumulated from generation to generation. Giovanni Maria, too, is famed for his dogs, which were no longer, however, used for hunting, but for tearing human bodies. Tradition has preserved their names, like those of the bears of the Emperor Valen- tinian I. 1 In May 1409, when war was going on, and the starving populace cried to him in the streets, Pace ! Pace ! he let loose his mercenaries upon them and 200 lives were sacrificed ; under penalty of the col. 290.—Cagnola (loc. cit.) speaks of his designs on the imperial crown. See too the sonnet in Trucchi, Poesie Ital . ined, ii t p. 118 ; ‘ Stan le citth lombarde con le chiave In man per darle a voi . . . etc. Roma vi chiamo : Cesar mio novello Io sono ignuda, e l’anima pur vive : Or mi coprite col vostro mantello,’ etc. 1 Corio, fol. 301 and sqq. Comp. Ammian. Marcellin. xxix. 3. 20 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. gallows it was forbidden to utter the words pace and 1 doc- tissimi de exemplis Illustrium Virorum Venetce civitatis atque aliarum gentium, Paris, 1554 . The eldest Venetian chroniclei, Joh. Diaconi, Cliron . Venetian in Pertz, Monum. S.S. vii. pp. places the occupation of the islands in the time of the Lombards and the foundation of the Rialto later. 2 * De Venetse urbis apparatu panagiricum carmen quod oraculum inscribitur. 5 ss THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. He takes us to the crowded Piazza before S. Giacometto at the Rialto, where the business of the world is trans¬ acted, not amid shouting and confusion,'but with the subdued hum of many voices; where in the porticos round the square 1 and in those of the adjoining streets sit hundreds of money-changers and goldsmiths, with endless rows of shops and warehouses above their heads. He describes the great Fondaco of the Germans beyond the bridge, where their goods and their dwellings lay, and before which their ships are drawn up side by side in the canal; higher up is a whole fleet laden with wine and oil, and parallel with it, on the shore swarm¬ ing with porters, are the vaults of the merchants ; then from the Rialto to the square of St. Mark come the inns and the perfumers’ cabinets. So he conducts the reader from one quarter of the city to another till he comes at last to the two hospitals which were among '"those institutions of public utility nowhere so numerous as at Venice. Care for the people, in peace as well as in war, was characteristic of this government, and its attention to the wounded, even to those of the enemy, excited the admiration of other states. 2 Public institutions of every kind found in Venice their pattern ; the pensioning of retired servants was carried out 1 The whole quarter was altered in the reconstructions of the sixteenth century. 2 Benedictus Carol. VIII. in Eccard, Scrip/ores , ii. col. 1597, 1601, 1621. In the Chron. Venetian , Murat, xxiv. col. 26, the political virtues of the Venetians are enumerated: bohta, innocenza. zelo di caritil, pietli, misericord ia. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE. 89 systematically, and included a provision for widows and orphans. Wealth, political security, and ac¬ quaintance with other countries, had matured the understanding of such questions. These slender fair¬ haired men, 1 with quiet cautious steps, and deliberate speech, differed but slightly in costume and bearing from one another ; ornaments, especially pearls, were reserved for the women and girls. At that time the general prosperity, notwithstanding the losses sustained from the Turks, was still dazzling; the stores of energy which the city possessed and the prejudice in its favour diffused throughout Europe, enabled it at a much later time to survive the heavy blows which were inflicted by the discovery of the sea route to the Indies, by the fall of the Mamelukes in Egypt, and by the war of the League of Cambray. Sabellico, born in the neighbourhood of Tivoli, and accustomed to the frank loquacity of the scholars of his day, remarks elsewhere 2 with some astonishment, that the young nobles who came of a morning to hear his lectures could not be prevailed on to enter into political discussions : ‘ When I ask them what people think, say, and expect about this or that movement in Italy, they all answer with one voice that they know nothing about the matter/ Still, in spite of the strict inquisition of the state, much was to be learned from 1 Many of the nobles cropped their hair. See Erasmi Colloquia, ed. Tiguri, a. 1553: miles et carthusianus. 2 Epistolce , lib. v. fol. 28. 9° THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART the more corrupt members of the aristocracy by those who were willing to pay enough for it. In the last quarter of the fifteenth century there were traitors among the highest officials ; 1 the popes, the Italian princes, and even second-rate Condottieri in the service of the government had informers in their pay, some¬ times with regular salaries ; things went so far that the Council of Ten found it prudent to conceal important political news from the Council of the Pregadi, and it was even supposed that Ludovico Moro had control of a definite number of votes anions the latter. Whether the hanging of single offenders and the high rewards—such as a life-pension of sixty ducats paid to those who informed against them-—were of much \ avail, it is hard to decide; one of the chief causes of this evil, the poverty of many of the nobility, could not be removed in a day. In the year 1492 a proposal was urged by two of that order, that the state should annually spend 70,000 ducats for the relief of those poorer nobles who held no public office; the matter was near coming before the Great Council, in which it might have had a majority, when the Council of Ten interfered in time and banished the two proposers for life to Nicosia in Cyprus/ 2 About this time a Soranzo 1 Malipiero, Ann. Veneti , Archiv. Stor. vii. i. pp. 377, 431, 481, 493, 530; ii. pp. 661, 668, 679. Chron . Venetum , in Muratori, xxiv. col. 57. Diario Ferrarese , ib. col. 240. See also Dispacci di Antonio Giustiniani (Flor. 1876), i. p. 392. 2 Malipiero, in the Archiv. Stor. vii. ii. p. 691. Comp. 694, 713, and i- 535 - THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE . 91 was hung, though not at Venice itself, for sacrilege, and a Contarini put in chains for burglary ; another of the same family came in 1499 before the Signory, and complained that for many years he had been without an office, that he had only sixteen ducats a year and nine children, that his debts amounted to sixty ducats, that he knew no trade and had lately been turned on to the streets. We can understand why some of the wealthier nobles built houses, sometimes whole rows of them, to provide free lodging for their needy comrades. Such works figure in wills among deeds of charity. 1 But if the enemies of Venice ever founded serious hopes upon abuses of this kind, they were greatly in error. It might be thought that the commercial activity of the city, which put within reach of the humblest a rich reward for their labour, and the colonies on the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean, would have diverted from political affairs the dangerous elements of society. But had not the political history of Genoa, notwithstanding similar advantages, been of the stormiest? The cause of the stability of Venice lies rather in a combination of circumstances which were found in union nowhere else. Unassailable from its position, it had been able from the beginning to treat of foreign affairs with the fullest and calmest reflection, and ignore nearly altogether the parties which divided the rest of Italy, to escape the entanglement of per¬ manent alliances, and to set the highest price on those 1 Marin Sanudo, Vite dei Duchi, Murat, xxii. col. 1194. 9 2 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. which it thought fit to make. The keynote of the Venetian character was, consequently, a spirit of proud and contemptuous isolation, which, joined to the hatred felt for the city by the other states of Italy, gave rise to a strong sense of solidarity within. The inhabitants meanwhile were united by the most powerful ties of interest in dealing both with the colonies and with the possessions on the mainland, forcing the population of the latter, that is, of all the towns up to Bergamo, to buy and sell in Venice alone. A power which rested on means so artificial could only be maintained by internal harmony and unity ; and this conviction was so widely diffused among the citizens that the conspirator found few elements to work upon. And the discon¬ tented, if there were such, were held so far apart by the division between the noble and the burgher, that a mutual understanding was not easy. On the other hand, within the ranks of the nobility itself, travel, commercial enterprise, and the incessant wars with the Turks saved the wealthy and dangerous from that fruitful source of conspiracies—idleness. In these wars they were spared, often to a criminal extent, by the general in command, and the fall of the city was predicted by a Venetian Cato, if this fear of the nobles ‘ to give one another pain ’ should continue at the ex¬ pense of justice. 1 Nevertheless this free movement in the open air gave the Venetian aristocracy, as a whole, a healthy bias. 1 Chron. Venetian , Murat, xxiv. col. 105. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE. 93 And when envy and ambition called for satisfaction an official victim was forthcoming, and legal means and authorities were ready. The moral torture, which for years the Doge Francesco Foscari (d. 1457) suffered before the eyes of all Venice, is a frightful example of a vengeance possible only in an aristocracy. The Council of Ten, which had a hand in everything, which disposed without appeal of life and death, of financial affairs and military appointments, which included the Inquisitors among its number, and which overthrew Foscari, as it had overthrown so many powerful men before,—this Council was yearly chosen afresh from the whole governing body, the Gran Consilio, and was consequently the most direct expression of its will. It is not probable that serious intrigues occurred at these elections, as the short duration of the office and the accountability which followed rendered it an object of no great desire. But violent and mysterious as the proceedings of this and other authorities might be, the genuine Venetian courted rather than fled their sentence, not only because the Republic had long arms, and if it could not catch him might punish his family, but because in most cases it acted from rational motives and not from a thirst for blood. 1 No state, indeed, 1 Citron. Venetum , Murat, xxiv. col. 123 sqq. and Malipiero, 1 . c. vii. i. pp. 175, 187 sqq. relate the significant fall of the Admiral Antonio Gri- mani, who, when accused on account of his refusal to surrender the com¬ mand in chief to another, himself put irons on his feet before his arrival at Venice, and presented himself in this condition to the Senate. For him and his future lot, see Egnatius, fol. t83 a sqq., 198 b sqq. 94 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. has ever exercised a greater moral influence over its subjects, whether abroad or at home. If traitors were to be found among the Pregadi, there was ample com¬ pensation for this in the fact that every Venetian away from home was a born spy for his government. It was a matter of course that the Venetian cardinals at Rome sent home news of the transactions of the secret papal consistories. The Cardinal Domenico Grimani had the despatches intercepted in the neigh¬ bourhood of Rome (1500) which Ascanio Sforza was sending to his brother Ludovico Moro, and forwarded them to Venice ; his father, then exposed to a serious accusation, claimed public credit for this service of his son before the Gran Cqnsilio ; in other words, before all the world. 1 The conduct of the Venetian Government to the Condottieri in its pay has been spoken of already. The only further guarantee of their fidelity which could be obtained lay in their great number, by which treachery was made as difficult as its discovery was easy. In looking at the Venetian army list, one is only surprised that among forces of such miscellaneous composition any common action was possible. In the catalogue for the campaign of 1495 we find 15,526 horsemen, broken up into a number of small divisions. 2 1 Citron. Veil. 1 . c. col. 166. 2 Malipiero, l.c. vii. i. 349. For other lists of the same kind see Marin Sanudo, Vite dei Duchi , Murat, xxii. col. 990 (year 1426), col. 1088 (year 1440), in Corio, fol. 435-438 (1483), in Guazzo, Historie , fol. 151 sqq. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE . 95 Gonzaga of Mantua alone had as many as 1,200, and Gioffredo Borgia 740 ; then follow six officers with a contingent of 600 to 700, ten with 400, twelve with 400 to 200, fourteen or thereabouts with 200 to 100, nine with 80, six with 50 to 60, and so forth. These forces were partly composed of old Venetian troops, partly of veterans led by Venetian city or country nobles; the majority of the leaders were, however, princes and rulers of cities or their relatives. To these forces must be added 24,000 infantry—we are not told how they were raised or commanded—with 3,300 addi¬ tional troops, who probably belonged to the special services. In time of peace the cities of the mainland were wholly unprotected or occupied by insignificant garrisons. Venice relied, if not exactly on the loyalty, at least on the good sense of its subjects ; in the war of the League of Cambray (1509) it absolved them, as is well known, from their oath of allegiance, and let them compare the amenities of a foreign occupation with the mild government to which they had been accustomed. As there had been no treason in their desertion of St. Mark, and consequently no punish¬ ment was to be feared, they returned to their old masters with the utmost eagerness. This war, we may remark parenthetically, was the result of a cen¬ tury’s outcry against the Venetian desire for aggran¬ disement. The Venetians, in fact, were not free from the mistake of those over-clever people who will credit their opponents with no irrational and inconsiderate 9 6 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. conduct. 1 Misled by this optimism, which is, perhaps, a peculiar weakness of aristocracies, they had utterly ignored not only the preparations of Mohammed II, for the capture of Constantinople, but even the arma¬ ments of Charles VIII., till the unexpected blow fell at last. 2 The League of Cambray was an event of the same character, in so far as it was clearly opposed to the interest of the two chief members, Louis XII. and Julius II. The hatred of all Italy against the vic¬ torious city seemed to be concentrated in the mind of the Pope, and to have blinded him to the evils of foreign intervention ; and as to the policy of Cardinal Amboise and his king, Venice ought long before to have recognised it as a piece of malicious imbecility, and to have been thoroughly on its guard. The other members of the League took part in it from that envy which may be a salutary corrective to great wealth and power, but which in itself is a beggarly sentiment. Venice came out of the conflict with honour, but not without lasting damage. A power, whose foundations were so complicated, whose activity and interests filled so wide a stage, cannot be imagined without a systematic oversight of the whole, without a regular estimate of means and burdens, of profits and losses. Venice can fairly make good its claim to be the birthplace of statistical science, 1 Guicciardini ( Ricordi , n. 150) is one of the first to remark that the passion for vengeance can drown the clearest voice of self-interest. 2 Malipiero, 1 . c. vii. i., p. 328. : THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE. 97 together, perhaps, with Florence, and followed by the more enlightened despotisms. The feudal state of the Middle Ages knew of nothing more than catalogues of signorial rights and possessions (Urbaria) ; it looked on production as a fixed quantity, which it approxi¬ mately is, so. long as we have to do with landed property only. The towns, on the other hand, through¬ out the West must from very early times have treated production, which with them depended on industry and commerce, as exceedingly variable ; but, even in the most flourishing times of the Hanseatic League, they never got beyond a simple commercial balance- sheet. Fleets, armies, political power and influence fall under the debit and credit of a trader’s ledger. In the Italian States a clear political consciousness, the pattern of Mohammedan administration, and the long and active exercise of trade and commerce, combined to produce for the first time a true science of statistics. 1 The absolute monarchy of Frederick II. in Lower Italy was organised with the sole object of securing a 1 The statistical view of Milan, in the ‘ Manipulus Florum’ (in Murat, xi. 711 sqq.) for the year 1288, is important, though not extensive. It includes house-doors, population, men of military age, ‘ loggie ’ of the nobles, wells, bakeries, wine-shops, butchers’-shops, fishmongers, the consumption of corn, dogs, birds of chase, the price of salt, wood, hay, and wines; also the judges, notaries, doctors, schoolmasters, copying clerks, armourers, smiths, hospitals, monasteries, endowments, and religious corporations. A list perhaps still older is found in the ‘ Liber de magnalibus Mediolani,’ in Heinr. de Hervordia , ed. Potthast, p. 165. See also the statistical account of Asti about the year 1250 in Ogerius Alpherius (Alfieri), De Gestis Astensium, Histor. fiatr. Monumenia , Scriptormn , tom. iii. col. 684 sqq. VOL. I. II 9 3 THE STATE AS A WOEK OF ART. concentrated power for the death-struggle in which he was engaged. In Venice, on the contrary, the supreme objects were the enjoyment of life and power, the increase of inherited advantages, the creation of the most lucrative forms of industry, and the opening of new channels for commerce. The writers of the time speak of these things with the greatest freedom. 1 We learn that the population of the city amounted in the year 1422 to 190,000 souls ; the Italians were, perhaps, the first to reckon, not according to hearths, or men able to bear arms, or people able to walk, and so forth, but according to ‘ animae,’ and thus to get the most neutral basis for further calculation. About this time, 2 when the Flo¬ rentines wished to form an alliance with Venice against Filippo Maria Visconti, they were for the moment refused, in the belief, resting on accurate commercial returns, that a war between Venice and Milan, that is, between seller and buyer, was foolish. Even if the duke simply increased his army, the Milanese, through the heavier taxation they must pay, would become worse customers. ‘ Better let the Florentines be de¬ feated, and then, used as they are to the life of a free city, they will settle with us and bring their silk 1 Especially Marin Sanudo, in the Vile dei Duchi di Venezia, Murat, xxii. passim. 2 See for the marked difference between Venice and Florence, an im¬ portant pamphlet addressed 1472 to Lorenzo de’ Medici by certain Ve¬ netians, and the answer to it by Benedetto Dei, in Paganini, Della Decima, Florence, 1763, iii. pp. 135 sqq. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE . 99 and woollen industry with them, as the Lucchese did in their distress.’ The speech of the dying Doge Mocenigo (1423) to a few of the senators whom he had sent for to his bedside 1 is still more remarkable. It contains the chief elements of a statistical account of the whole resources of Venice. I cannot say whether or where a thorough elucidation of this perplexing document exists ; by way of illustration, the following facts may be quoted. After repaying a war-loan of four million ducats, the public debt (‘ il monte ’) still amounted to six million ducats; the current trade reached (so it seems) ten millions, which yielded, the text informs us, a profit of four millions. The 3,000 ‘ navigli,’ the 300 ‘ navi,’ and the 45 galleys were manned respectively by 17,000, 8,000, and 11,000 seamen (more than 200 for each galley). To these must be added 16,000 shipwrights. The houses in Venice were valued at seven millions, and brought in a rent of half a million. 2 There were 1,000 nobles whose income ranged from 70 to 4,000 ducats. In another passage the ordinary income of the state in that same year is put at 1,100,000 ducats; through the disturbance of trade caused by the wars it sank about the middle of the century to 800,000 ducats. 3 1 In Sanudo, l.c. col. 958. What relates to trade is extracted in Scherer, Allgem. Gesch. des Welthandels , i. 326, note. 2 Here all the houses, not merely those owned by the state, are meant. The latter, however, sometimes yielded enormous rents. See Vasari, xiii. 83. V. d. Jac. Sansovino. 3 See Sanudo, col. 963. In the same place a list of the incomes of the H 2 IOO THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART If Venice, by this spirit of calculation, and by the practical turn which she gave it, was the first fully to represent one important side of modern political life, in that culture, on the other hand, which Italy then prized most highly she did not stand in the front rank. The literary impulse, in general, was here wanting, and especially that enthusiasm for classical antiquity which prevailed elsewhere. 1 The aptitude of the Venetians, says Sabellico, for philosophy and eloquence was in itself not less remarkable than for commerce and politics ; but this aptitude was neither developed in themselves nor rewarded in strangers as it was rewarded elsewhere in Italy. Filelfo, summoned to Venice not by the state, but by private individuals, soon found his expectations deceived ; and George of Trebizond, who, in 1459, laid the Latin translation of Plato’s Laws at the feet of the Doge, and was appointed professor of philology with a yearly salary of 150 ducats, and finally dedicated his ‘ Rhetoric’ to the Signoria, 2 soon left the city in dissatisfaction. Litera¬ ture, in fact, like the rest at Venice, had mostly a practical end in view. If, accordingly, we look through other Italian and European powers is given. An estimate for 1490 is to be found, col. 1245 sqq. 1 This dislike seems to have amounted to positive hatred in Paul II., who called the humanists one and all heretics. Platina, Vita Pauli , ii. p. 323. See also for the subject in general, Voigt, Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums , Berlin, 1859, pp. 207-213. The neglect of the sciences is given as a reason for the flourishing condition of Venice by Lil. Greg. Giraldus, Opera , ii. p. 439. 5 Sanudo, 1 . c. col. 1167. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE . ioi the history of Venetian literature which Francesco Sansovino has appended to‘his well-known book, 1 we shall find in the fourteenth century almost nothing but history, and special works on theology, jurisprudence, and medicine; and in the fifteenth century, till we come to Ermolao Barbaro and Aldo Manucci, human¬ istic culture is, for a city of such importance, most scantily represented. Similarly we find comparatively few traces of the passion, elsewhere so strong, for collecting books and manuscripts; and the valuable texts which formed part of Petrarch’s legacies were so badly preserved that soon all traces of them were lost. The library which Cardinal Bessarion bequeathed to the state (1468) narrowly escaped dispersion and destruction. Learning was certainly cultivated at the University of Padua, where, however, the physicians and the jurists—the latter as the authors of legal opinions—received by far the highest pay. The share of Venice in the poetical creations of the country was long insignificant, till, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, her deficiencies were made good. 2 Even the art of the Renaissance was imported into the city from without, and it was not before the end of the fifteenth century that she learned to move in this field with 1 Sansovino, Venezia , lib. xiii. It contains the biographies of the Doges in chronological order, and, following these lives one by one (regularly from the year 1312, under the heading, Scriitori Veneti ), short notices of contemporary writers. 2 Venice was then one of the chief seats of the Petrarchists. See G. Crespan, Del Petrarchismo , in Petr area e Venezia , 1874, pp. 187-253. 102 THE STATE AS A WORK 0 E ART. independent freedom and strength. But we find more striking instances still of intellectual backwardness. This Government, which had the clergy so thoroughly in its control, which reserved to itself the appointment to all important ecclesiastical offices, and which, one time after another, dared to defy the court of Rome, displayed an official piety of a most singular kind. 1 The bodies of saints and other reliques imported from Greece after the Turkish conquest were bought at the greatest sacrifices and received by the Doge in solemn procession. 2 For the coat without a seam it was decided (1455) to offer 10,000 ducats, but it was not to be had. These measures were not the fruit of any popular excitement, but of the tranquil resolutions of the heads of the Government, and might have been omitted without attracting any comment, and at Florence, under similar circumstances, would cer¬ tainly have been omitted. We shall say nothing of the piety of the masses, and of their firm belief in the indulgences of an Alexander VI. But the state itself, after absorbing the Church to a degree unknown elsewhere, had in truth a certain ecclesiastical element 1 See Heinric. de Hervordia ad a. 1293, p. 213, ed. Potthast, who says : ‘ The Venetians wished to obtain the body of Jacob of Forli from the inhabitants of that place, as many miracles were wrought by it. They promised many things in return, among others to bear all the expense of canonising the defunct, but without obtaining their request.' 2 Sanudo, 1 . c. col. 1158, 1171, 1177. When the body of St. Luke was brought from Bosnia, a dispute arose with the Benedictines of S. Gius- tina at Padua, who claimed to possess it already, and the Pope had to decide between the two parties. Comp. Guicciardini, Ricordi , n. 401. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE. 103 in its composition, and the Doge, the symbol of the state, appeared in twelve great processions (‘ andate ’) 1 in a half-clerical character. They were almost all festivals in memory of political events, and competed in splendour with the great feasts of the Church ; the most brilliant of all, the famous marriage with the sea, fell on Ascension Day. The most elevated political thought and the most varied forms of human development are found united in the history of Florence, which in this sense deserves the name of the first modern state in the world. Here the whole people are busied with what in the despotic cities is the affair of a single family. That wondrous Florentine spirit, at once keenly critical and artistically creative, was incessantly transforming the social and political condition of the state, and as incessantly describing and judging the change. Florence thus became the home of political doctrines and theories, of experiments and sudden changes, but also, like Venice, the home of statistical science, and alone and above all other states in the world, the home of historical representation in the modern sense of the phrase. The spectacle of ancient Rome and a familiarity with its leading writers were not without influence ; Giovanni Villani 2 confesses that he received 1 Sansovino, Ve?iezia , lib. xii. ‘ dell’ andate publiche del principe.’ Egnatius, fol. 50 a. For the dread felt at the papal interdict see Egnatius, fol. 12 a sqq. 2 G. Villani, viii. 36. The year 1300 is also a fixed date in the Divine Coinedy. THE STATE AS A WORK OE ART 104 the first impulse to his great work at the jubilee of the year 1300, and began it immediately on his return home. Yet how many among the 200,000 pilgrims of that year may have been like him in gifts and ten¬ dencies, and still did not write the history of their native cities! For not all of them could encourage themselves with the thought: ‘ Rome is sinking; my native city is rising, and ready to achieve great things, and therefore I wish to relate its past history, and hope to continue the story to the present time, and as long as my life shall last.’ And besides the witness to its past, Florence obtained through its historians some¬ thing further—a greater fame than fell to the lot of any other city of Italy. 1 Our present task is not to write the history of this remarkable state, but merely to give a few indications of the intellectual freedom and independence for which the Florentines were indebted to this history. 2 1 Stated about 1470 in Vespas. Fiorent. p. 554. 2 The passage which followed in former editions referring to the Chro¬ nicle of Di?io Compagni is here omitted, since the genuineness of the Chronicle has been disproved by Paul Scheffer-Boichhorst {Florentuier Studien , Leipzig, 1874, pp. 45-210), and the disproof maintained {Die Chronik des D. C., Leipzig, 1875) against a distinguished authority (C. Hegel, Die Chrofiik des D. C., Versuch einer Rettung, Leipzig, 1875). Scheffer’s view is generally received in Germany (see W. Bernhardi, Der Stand der Dino-Frage, Hist. Zeitschr. N.F. , 1877, bd. i.), and even Hegel assumes that the text as we have it is a later manipulation of an unfinished work of Dino. Even in Italy, though the majority of scholars have wished to ignore this critical onslaught, as they have done other earlier ones of the same kind, some voices have been raised to recognise the spuriousness of the document. (See especially P. Fanfani in his period¬ ical II Borghini, and in the book Dino Cainfagni Vendicato, Milano, 1875). On the earliest Florentine histories in general see Hartwig, Forsch - THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE. 105 In no other city of Italy were the struggles of political parties so bitter, of such early origin, and so permanent. The descriptions of them, which belong, it is true, to a somewhat later period, give clear evi¬ dence of the superiority of Florentine criticism. And what a politician is the great victim of these crises, Dante Alighieri, matured alike by home and by exile ! He uttered his scorn of the incessant changes and experiments in the constitution of his native city in verses of adamant, which will remain pro¬ verbial so long as political events of the same kind recur; 1 he addressed his home in words of defiance and yearning which must have stirred the hearts of his countrymen. But his thoughts ranged over Italy and the whole world; and if his passion for the Empire, as he conceived it, was no more than an illusion, it must yet be admitted that the youthful dreams of a new-born political speculation are in his case not without a poetical grandeur. He is proud to be the first who had trod this path, 2 certainly in the footsteps of Aristotle, but in his own way indepen¬ dently. His ideal emperor is a just and humane judge, dependent on God only, the heir of the universal sway of Rome to which belonged the sanction of nature, of right and of the will of God. The conquest ungen , Marburg, 1876, and C. Hegel in H. von Sybel’s Historischer Zeit- schrift , b. xxxv. 1 Purgatorio , vi. at the end. 2 De Monarchia , i. 1. (New critical edition by Witte, Halle, 1863 71; German translation by O. Hubatsch, Berlin, 1872). 106 THE STATE AS A WOE A' OF ART of the world was, according to this view, rightful, resting on a divine judgment between Rome and the other nations of the earth, and God gave his approval to this empire, since under it he became Man, sub¬ mitting at his birth to the census of the Emperor Augustus, and at his death to the judgment of Pontius Pilate. We may find it hard to appreciate these and other arguments of the same kind, but Dante’s passion never fails to carry us with him. In his letters he appears as one of the earliest publicists, 1 and is perhaps the first layman to publish political tracts in this form. He began early. Soon after the death of Beatrice he addressed a pamphlet on the state of Florence ‘ to the Great ones of the Earth,’ and the public utterances of his later years, dating from the time of his banishment, are all directed to emperors, princes, and cardinals. In these letters and in his book 4 De Vulgari Eloquio ’ the feeling, bought with such bitter pains, is constantly recurring that the exile may find elsewhere than in his native place an intellectual home in language and culture, which cannot be taken from him. On this point we shall have more to say in the sequel. To the two Villani, Giovanni as well as Matteo, we owe not so much deep political reflexion as fresh 1 Dantis Alligherii Eftistohz, cum notis C. Witte, Padua, 1827. He wished to keep the Pope as well as the Emperor always in Italy. See his letter, p. 35, during the conclave of Carpentras, 1314. On the first letter see Viter Nuova , cap. 31, and Epist. p. 9. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE. 107 and practical observations, together with the elements of Florentine statistics and important notices of other states. Here too trade and commerce had given the impulse to economical as well as political science. Nowhere else in the world was such accurate information to be had on financial affairs. The wealth of the Papal court at Avignon, which at the death of John XXII. amounted to twenty-five millions of gold florins, would be incredible on any less trustworthy authority. 1 Here only, at Florence, do we meet with colossal loans like that which the King of England contracted from the Florentine houses of Bardi and Peruzzi, who lost to his Majesty the sum of 1,365,000 gold florins (1338)—their own money and that of their partners—and nevertheless recovered from the shock. 2 Most important facts are here recorded as to the con¬ dition of Florence at this time ; 3 the public income (over 300,000 gold florins) and expenditure; the population of the city, here only roughly estimated, according to the consumption of bread, in ‘ bocche/ i.e. mouths, put at 90,000, and the population of the whole territory; the excess of 300 to 500 male children 1 Giov. Villani, xi. 20. Comp. Matt. Villani, ix. 93, who says that John XXII. ‘ astuto in tutte sue cose e massime in fare il danaio/left behind him 18 million florins in cash and 6 millions in jewels. 2 See for this and similar facts Giov. Villani, xi. 87, xii. 54. He lost his own money in the crash and was imprisoned for debt. See also Ker- vyn de Lettenhove, UEurope an Siecle de Philippe le Bel , Les Argentiers Florentins in Bulletin de VAcadthnie de Bruxelles (1861), vol. xii. pp. 123 sqq. 3 Giov. Villani, xi. 92, 93. In Macchiavelli, Stor. Fiorent. lib. ii. cap. 42, we read that 96,000 persons died of the plague in 1348. io8 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART among the 5,800 to 6,000 annually baptized ; 1 the school-children, of whom 8,000 to 10,000 learned read¬ ing, 1,000 to 1,200 in six schools arithmetic ; and besides these, 600 scholars who were taught Latin grammar and logic in four schools. Then follow the statistics of the churches and monasteries ; of the hospitals., which held more than a thousand beds ; of the wool- trade, with most valuable details ; of the mint, the provisioning of the city, the public officials, and so on. 2 Incidentally we learn many curious facts; how, for instance, when the public funds (‘monte’) were first esta¬ blished, in the year 1353, the Franciscans spoke from the pulpit in favour of the measure, the Dominicans and Augustinians against it. 3 The economical results of the black death were and could be observed and described nowhere else in all Europe as in this city. 4 Only a Florentine could have left it on record how it was expected that the scanty population would have made everything cheap, and how instead of that labour and commodities doubled in price ; how the common people at first would do no work at all, but simply give themselves up to enjoyment; how in the city itself servants and maids were not to be had except at extravagant wages ; how the peasants would only 1 The priest put aside a black bean for every boy and a white one for every girl. This was the only means of registration. 2 There was already a permanent fire brigade in Florence. 3 Matteo Villani, iii. 106. 4 Matteo Villani, i. 2-7, comp. 58. The best authority for the plague itself is the famous description by Boccaccio’ at the beginning of the De- cameron . THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE. 109 till the best lands, and left the rest uncultivated ; and how the enormous legacies bequeathed to the poor at the time of the plague seemed afterwards useless, since the poor had either died or had ceased to be poor. Lastly, on the occasion of a great bequest, by which a childless philanthropist left six ‘ danari ’ to every beggar in the city, the attempt is made to give a comprehensive statistical account of Florentine mendicancy. 1 This statistical view of things was at a later time still more highly cultivated at Florence. The note¬ worthy point about it is that, as a rule, we can perceive its connection with the higher aspects of history, with art, and with culture in general. An inventory of the year 1422 2 mentions, within the compass of the same document, the seventy-two exchange offices which sur¬ rounded the ‘ Mercato Nuovo ; ’ the amount of coined money in circulation (two million golden florins) ; the then new industry of gold spinning ; the silk wares ; Filippo Brunellesco, then busy in digging classical architecture from its grave ; and Lionardo Aretino, secretary of the republic, at work at the revival of ancient literature and eloquence ; lastly, it speaks of the general prosperity of the city, then free from political conflicts, and of the good fortune of Italy, which had rid itself of foreign mercenaries. The 1 Giov. Villani, x. 164. 2 Ex Annalibus Ceretani , in Fabroni, Magni Conni Vi/a, Adnot. 34, vol. ii. p. 63. I 10 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. Venetian statistics quoted above (p. 99), which date from about the same year, certainly give evidence of larger property and profits and of a more extensive scene of action; Venice had long been mistress of the seas before Florence sent out its first galleys (1422) to Alexandria. But no reader can fail to recognise the higher spirit of the Florentine documents. These and similar lists recur at intervals of ten years, syste¬ matically arranged and tabulated, while elsewhere we find at best occasional notices. We can form an approximate estimate of the property and the business of the first Medici ; they paid for charities, public buildings, and taxes from 1434 to 1471 no less than 663,755 gold florins, of which more than 400,000 fell on Cosimo alone, and Lorenzo Magnifico was delighted that the money had been so well spent. 1 In 1472 we have again a most important and in its way complete view of the commerce and trades of this city, 2 some of which may be wholly or partly reckoned among the fine arts—such as those which had to do with damasks and gold or silver embroidery, with wood-carving and ‘ intarsia/ with the sculpture of arabesques in marble and sandstone, with portraits in 1 Ricordi of Lorenzo, in Fabroni, Laur. Med. Magnifici Vita , Adnot. 2 and 25. Paul. Jovius, Elogia , pp. 131 sqq. Cosmus. 2 Given by Benedetto Dei, in the passage quoted above (p. 98, note 2). It must be remembered that the account was intended to serve as a warning to assailants. For the whole subject see Reumont, Lor. dei Medici , ii. p. 419. The financial project of a certain Ludovico Ghetti, with important facts, is given in Roscoe, Vita di Lor. Med. ii. Append, i. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE. 11 r wax, and with jewellery and work in gold. The inborn talent of the Florentines for the systematisation of outward life is shown by their books on agriculture, business, and domestic economy, which are markedly superior to those of other European people in the fifteenth century. It has been rightly decided to publish selections of these works, 1 although no little study will be needed to extract clear and definite results from them. At all events, we have no difficulty in recognising the city, where dying parents begged the Government in their wills to fine their sons 1,000 florins if they declined to practise a regular profession. 2 For the first half of the sixteenth century probably no state in the world possesses a document like the magnificent description of Florence by Varchi. 3 In descriptive statistics, as in so many things besides, yet another model is left to us, before the freedom and greatness of the city sank into the grave. 4 1 E.g. in the Arch. Stor. iv. (?) See as a contrast the very simple ledger of Ott. Nuland, 1455-1462 (Stuttg. 1843), and for a rather later period the day-book of Lukas Rem, 1494-1541, ed. by B. Greiff, Augsb., 1861. 2 Libri, Histoire des Sciences Mathimatiques , ii. 163 sqq. 3 Varchi, Stor. Fiorent. iii. p. 56 and sqq. up to the end of the 9th book. Some obviously erroneous figures are probably no more than clerical or typographical blunders. 4 In respect of prices and of wealth in Italy, I am only able, in default of further means of investigation, to bring together some scattered facts, which I have picked up here and there. Obvious exaggerations must be put aside. The gold coins which are worth referring to are the ducat, the sequin, the ‘ fiorino d’oro,’ and the ‘ scudo d’oro.’ The value of all is nearly the same, 11 to 12 francs of our money. In Venice, for example, the Doge Andrea Vendramin (1476) with 170,000 ducats passed for an exceedingly rich man (Malipiero, 1 . c. vii. ii. I 12 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. This statistical estimate of outward life is, how¬ ever. uniformly accompanied by the narrative of poli¬ tical events to which we have already referred. p. 666. The confiscated fortune of Colleoni amounted to 216,000 florins, 1. c. p. 244. About 1460 the Patriarch of Aquileia, Ludovico Patavino, with 200,000 ducats, was called ‘perhaps the richest of all Italians.’ (Gasp. Ve- roneus, Vita Pauli II., in Murat, iii. ii. col. 1027.) Elsewhere fabulous statements. Antonio Grimani paid 30,000 ducats for his son’s election as Cardinal. His ready money alone was put at 100,000 ducats. ( Chton. Venetian , Murat, xxiv. col. 125.) For notices as to the grain in commerce and on the market at Venice, see in particular Malipiero, 1 . c. vii. ii. p. 709 sqq. Date 1498. In 1522 it is no longer Venice, but Genoa, next to Rome, which ranks as the richest city in Italy (only credible on the authority of Francesc. Vettori. See his history in the Archiv. Stor. Append, tom. vi. p. 343). Bandello, parte ii. novelle 34 and 42, names as the richest Genoese mer¬ chant of his time Ansaldo Grimaldi. Between 1400 and 1580 Franc. Sansovino assumes a depreciation of 50 per cent, in the value of money. ( Venezia , fol. 151 bis.) In Lombardy it is believed that the relation between the price of corn about the middle of the fifteenth and that at the middle of the present century is as 3 to 8. (Sacco di Piacenza, in Archiv. Stor. Append, tom. v. Note of editor Scarabelli.) At Ferrara there were people at the time of Duke Borso with 50,000 to 60,000 ducats (Diario Ferrarese , Murat, xxiv. col. 207, 214, 218 ; an extravagant statement, col. 187). In Florence the data are exceptional and do not justify a conclusion as to averages. Of this kind are the loans to foreign princes, in which the names of one or two houses only appear, but which were in fact the work of great companies. So too the enormous fines levied on defeated parties ; we read, e.g. that from 1430 to 1453 seventy-seven families paid 4,875,000 gold florins (Varchi, iii. p. 115 sqq.), and that Giannozzo Mannetti alone, of whom we shall have occasion to speak hereafter, was forced to pay a sum of 135,000 gold florins, and was reduced thereby to beggary (Reumont, i. 157). The fortune of Giovanni Medici amounted at his death (1428) to 179,221 gold florins, but the latter alone of his two sons Cosimo and Lo¬ renzo left at his death (1440) as much as 235,137 (Fabroni, Laur. Med. Adnot. 2). Cosimo’s son Piero left (1469) 237,982 scudi (Reumont, Lo¬ renzo de’ Medici , i. 286). It is a proof of the general activity of trade that the forty-four gold- THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE. 113 Florence not only existed under political forms more varied than those of the free states of Italy and of Europe generally, but it reflected upon them far more deeply. It is a faithful mirror of the relations of individuals and classes to a variable whole. The pictures of the great civic democracies in France and in Flanders, as they are delineated in Froissart, and the narratives of the German chroniclers of the four¬ teenth century, are in truth of high importance ; but in comprehensiveness of thought and in the rational development of the story, none will bear comparison with the Florentines. The rule of the nobility, the tyrannies, the struggles of the middle class with the proletariate, limited and unlimited democracy, pseudo¬ democracy, the primacy of a single house, the theocracy of Savonarola, and the mixed forms of government which prepared the way for the Medicean despotism— all are so described that the inmost motives of the actors are laid bare to the light. 1 At length Macchia- smiths on the Ponte Vecchio paid in the fourteenth century a rent of 800 florins to the Government (Vasari, ii. 114, Vita di Taddeo Gaddi). The diary of Buonaccorso Pitti (in Delecluze, Florence et ses Vicissitudes, vol. ii.) is full of figures, which, however, only prove in general the high price of commodities and the low value of money. For Rome, the income of the Curia, which was derived from all Europe, gives us no criterion ; nor are statements about papal treasures and the fortunes of cardinals very trustworthy. The well-known banker Agostino Chigi left (1520) a fortune of in all 800,000 ducats {Lettere Pittoriche , i. Append. 48). 1 So far as Cosimo (1433-1465) and his grandson Lorenzo Magnifico (d. 1492) are concerned, the author refrains from any criticism on their internal policy. The exaltation of both, particularly of Lorenzo, by William Roscoe {Life of Lorenzo di Medici , called the Magnificent , 1st ed. VOL. I. 1 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART 114 velli in his Florentine history (down to 1492) represents his native city as a living organism and its develop¬ ment as a natural and an individual process; he is the first of the moderns who has risen to such a concep¬ tion. It lies without our province to determine whether and in what points Macchiavelli may have done violence to history, as is notoriously the case in his life of Castruccio Castracane—a fancy picture of the typical despot. We might find something to say against every line of the ‘ Istorie Florentine,’ and yet the great and unique value of the whole would remain unaffected. And his contemporaries and successors, Jacopo Pitti, Guicciardini, Segni, Varchi, Vettori, what a circle of illustrious names ! And what a story it is which these masters tell us! The great and memorable drama of the last decades of the Florentine republic is here unfolded. This voluminous record of the collapse of the highest and most original life which the world could then show may appear to one but as a collection of curiosities, may awaken in another a devilish delight at the shipwreck of so much nobility Liverpool, 1795; 10th ed. London, 1851), seems to have been a principal cause of the reaction of feeling against them. This reaction appeared first in Sismondi {Hist, des Rdp. Itciliennes , xi.), in reply to whose strictures, sometimes unreasonably severe, Roscoe again came forward (. Illustrations , Historical and Critical , of the Life of Lor. d. Med., London, 1822); later in Gino Capponi {Archiv. Stor. Ltal. i. (1842), pp. 315 sqq.), who afterwards {Storia della Rep. di Firenze , 2 vols. Florence, 1875) gave further proofs and explanations of his judgment. See also the work of Von Reumont, {Lor. d. Med. il Magn.), 2 vols. Leipzig, 1874, distinguished no less by the judicial calmness of its views than by the mastery it displays of the exten¬ sive materials used. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND ELORENCE. 115 and grandeur, to a third may seem like a great his¬ torical assize; for all it will be an object of thought and study to the end of time. The evil, which was for ever troubling the peace of the city, was its rule over once powerful and now conquered rivals like Pisa —a rule of which the necessary consequence was a chronic state of violence. The only remedy, certainly an extreme one and which none but Savonarola could have persuaded Florence to accept, and that only with the help of favourable chances, would have been the well-timed resolution of Tuscany into a federal union of free cities. At a later period this scheme, then no more than the dream of a past age, brought (1548) a patriotic citizen of Lucca to the scaffold. 1 From this evil and from the ill-starred Guelph sympathies of Florence for a foreign prince, which familiarised it with foreign intervention, came all the disasters which followed. But who does not admire the people, which was wrought up by its venerated preacher to a mood of such sustained loftiness, that for the first time in Italy it set the example of sparing a conquered foe, 1 Franc. Burlamacchi, father of the head of the Lucchese Protestants, Michele B. See Arch. Stor. Ital. ser. i. tom. x., pp. 435-599 ; Documenti, pp. 146 sqq. ; further Carlo Minutoli, Storia di Fr. B., Lucca, 1844, and the important additions of Leone del Prete in the Giornale Storico degli Archiv. Toscani , iv. (i860), pp. 309 sqq. It is well known how Milan, by its hard treatment of the neighbouring cities from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, prepared the way for the foundation of a great despotic state. Even at the time of the extinction of the Visconti in 1447, Milan frustrated the deliverance of Upper Italy, principally through not ac¬ cepting the plan of a confederation of equal cities. Comp. Corio, fol. 358 sqq. I 2 116 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART while the whole history of its past taught nothing but vengeance and extermination ? The glow which melted patriotism into one with moral regeneration may seem, when looked at from a distance, to have soon passed away ; but its best results shine forth again in the memorable siege of 1529-30. They were ‘ fools/ as Guicciardini then wrote, who drew down this storm upon Florence, but he confesses himself that they achieved things which seemed incredible; and when he declares that sensible people would have got out of the way of the danger, he means no more than that Florence ought to have yielded itself silently and ingloriously into the hands of its enemies. It would no doubt have preserved its splendid suburbs and gardens, and the lives and prosperity of countless citizens ; but it would have been the poorer by one of its greatest and most ennobling memories. In many of their chief merits the Florentines are the pattern and the earliest type of Italians and modern Europeans generally; they are so also in many of their defects. When Dante compares the city which was always mending its constitution with the sick man who is continually changing his posture to escape from pain, he touches with the comparison a permanent feature of the political life of Florence. The great modern fallacy that a constitution can be made, can be manufactured by a combination of existing forces and tendencies, 1 was constantly cropping 1 On the third Sunday in Advent, 1494, Savonarola preached as 7 HE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE. 117 up in stormy times ; even Macchiavelli is not wholly . free from it. Constitutional artists were never wanting who by an ingenious distribution and division of poli¬ tical power, by indirect elections of the most compli¬ cated kind, by the establishment of nominal offices, sought to found a lasting order of things, and to satisfy or to deceive the rich and the poor alike. They naively fetch their examples from classical antiquity, and borrow the party names ‘ ottimati,’ * aristocrazia,’ 1 as a matter of course. The world since then has become used to these expressions and given them a conventional European sense, whereas all former party names were purely national, and either characterised the cause at issue or sprang from the caprice of acci¬ dent. But how a name colours or discolours a political cause ! But of all who thought it possible to construct a state, the greatest beyond all comparison was Macchia¬ velli. 2 He treats existing forces as living and active, takes a large and an accurate view of alternative possibilities, and seeks to mislead neither himself nor follows on the method of bringing about a new constitution : The sixteen companies of the city were each to work out a plan, the Gonfalonieri to choose the four best of these, and the Signory to name the best of all on the reduced list. Things, however, took a different turn, under the in¬ fluence indeed of the preacher himself. See P. Villari, Savonarola. Besides this sermon, S. had written a remarkable Traltato circa il regi- mento di Ferenze (reprinted at Lucca, 1817). 1 The latter first in 1527, after the expulsion of the Medici. See Varchi, i. 121, &c. 2 Macchiavelli, Storie Fior. 1 . iii. cap. 1 : ‘Un Savio dator di leggi/ could save Florence. nS THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART others. No man could be freer from vanity or osten¬ tation ; indeed he does not write for the public but either for princes and administrators or for personal friends. The danger for him does not lie in an affecta¬ tion of genius or in a false order of ideas, but rather in a powerful imagination which he evidently controls with difficulty. The objectivity of his political judg¬ ment is sometimes appalling in its sincerity ; but it is the sign of a time of no ordinary need and peril, when it was a hard matter to believe in right, or to credit others with just dealing. Virtuous indignation at his expense is thrown away upon us who have seen in what sense political morality is understood by the statesmen of our own century. Macchiavelli was at all events able to forget himself in his cause. In truth, although his writings, with the exception of very few words, are altogether destitute of enthusiasm, and although the Florentines themselves treated him at last as a criminal, 1 he was a patriot in the fullest mean¬ ing of the word. But free as he was, like most of his contemporaries, in speech and morals, the welfare of the state was yet his first and last thought. His most complete programme for the construction of a new political system at Florence is set forth in the memorial to Leo X., 2 composed after the death of the younger Lorenzo Medici, Duke of Urbino (d. 1519), 1 Varchi, St or. Fior. i. p. 210. 2 ‘Discorso sopra il riformar lo Stato di Firenze/in the Opere Minori , p. 207. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND ELOPENCE. 119 to whom he had dedicated his ‘ Prince/ The state was by that time in extremities and utterly corrupt, and the remedies proposed are not always morally justi¬ fiable ; but it is most interesting to see how he hopes to set up the republic in the form of a moderate democracy, as heiress to the Medici. A more inge¬ nious scheme of concessions to the Pope, to the Popes various adherents, and to the different Florentine interests, cannot be imagined; we might fancy our¬ selves looking into the works of a clock. Principles, observations, comparisons, political forecasts, and the like are to be found in numbers in the ‘ Discorsi/ among them flashes of wonderful insight. He recog¬ nises, for example, the law of a continuous though not uniform development in republican institutions, and requires the constitution to be flexible and capable of change, as the only means of dispensing with bloodshed and banishments. For a like reason, in order to guard against private violence and foreign interference—‘ the death of all freedom ’—he wishes to see introduced a judicial procedure (‘accusa’) against hated citizens, in place of which Florence had hitherto had nothing but the court of scandal. With a masterly hand the tardy and involuntary decisions are characterised, which at critical moments play so important a part in republican states. Once, it is true, he is misled by his imagina¬ tion and the pressure of events into unqualified praise of the people, which chooses its officers, he says, better than any prince, and which can be cured of its errors 120 THE STATE AS A WORK OE ART. by ‘ good advice.’ 1 With regard to the government of Tuscany, he has no doubt that it belongs to his native city, and maintains, in a special ‘ Discorso ’ that the reconquest of Pisa is a question of life or death ; he deplores that Arezzo, after the rebellion of 1502, was not razed to the ground ; he admits in general that Italian republics must be allowed to expand freely and add to their territory in order to enjoy peace at home, and not to be themselves attacked by others, but declares that Florence had always begun at the wrong end, and from the first made deadly enemies of Pisa, Lucca, and Siena, while Pistoja, ‘ treated like a brother,’ had voluntarily submitted to her. 2 It would be unreasonable to draw a parallel between the few other republics which still existed in the fif¬ teenth century and this unique city—the most im¬ portant workshop of the Italian, and indeed of the modern European spirit. Siena suffered from the gravest organic maladies, and its relative prosperity in art and industry must not mislead us on this point. yEneas Sylvius 3 looks with longing from his native town over to the ‘ merry ’ German imperial cities, where life is embittered by no confiscations of land 1 The same view, doubtless borrowed from here, occurs in Mon¬ tesquieu. 2 Belonging to a rather later period (4532?). Compare the opinion of Guicciardini, terrible in its frankness, on the condition and inevitable organisation of the Medicean party. Lettere di Principi , iii. fol. 124, (ediz. Venez. 1577). 3 ALn. Sylvii, Apologia ad Marti?ium Mayer , p. 701. To the same effect Macchiavelli, Discorsi , i. 55, and elsewhere. THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND IIOPENCE. 121 and goods, by no arbitrary officials, and by no political factions. 1 Genoa scarcely comes within range of our task, as before the time of Andrea Doria it took almost no part in the Renaissance. Indeed, the inha¬ bitant of the Riviera was proverbial among Italians for his contempt of all higher culture. 2 Party conflicts here assumed so fierce a character, and disturbed so violently the whole course of life, that we can hardly understand how, after so many revolutions and inva¬ sions, the Genoese ever contrived to return to an endurable condition. Perhaps it was owing to the fact that nearly all who took part in public affairs were at the same time almost without exception active men of business. 3 The example of Genoa shows in a striking 1 How strangely modern half-culture affected political life is shown by the party struggles of 1535. Della Valle, Lettere Sanesi, iii. p.317. A number of small shopkeepers, excited by the study of Livy and of Macchiavelli’s Discorsi, call in all seriousness for tribunes of the people and other Roman magistrates against the misgovernment of the nobles and the official classes. 2 Piero Valeriano, De Infelicitate Literator ., speaking of Bartolommeo della Rovere. (The work of P. V. written 1527 is quoted according to the edition by Menken, Analecta de Calainitate Literatorum , Leipz. 1707.) The passage here meant can only be that at p. 384, from which we cannot infer what is stated in the text, but in which we read that B. d. R. wished to make his son abandon a taste for study which he had conceived and put him into business. 3 Senarega, De reb. Genuens, in Murat, xxiv. col. 548. For the inse¬ curity of the time see esp. col. 519, 525, 528, &c. For the frank language of the envoy on the occasion of the surrender of the state to Francesco Sforza (1464), when the envoy told him that Genoa surrendered in the hope of now living safely and comfortably, see Cagnola, Archiv. Stor. iii. p. 165 sqq. The figure of the Archbishop, Doge, Corsair, and (later) Cardinal Paolo Fregoso forms a notable contrast to the general picture of the condition of Italy. r 22 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART manner with what insecurity wealth and vast commerce, and with what internal disorder the possession of distant colonies, are compatible. Lucca is of small significance in the fifteenth century. T 23 CHAPTER VIII, THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES. As the majority of the Italian states were in their internal constitution works of art, that is, the fruit of reflection and careful adaptation, so was their relation • to one another and to foreign countries also a work of art. That nearly all of them were the result of recent usurpations, was a fact which exercised as fatal an influence in their foreign as in their internal policy. Not one of them recognised another without reserve; the same play of chance which had helped to found and consolidate one dynasty might upset another. Nor was it always a matter of choice with the despot whether to keep quiet or not. The necessity of move¬ ment and aggrandisement is common to all illegi¬ timate powers. Thus Italy became the scene of a * foreign policy ’ which gradually, as in other countries also, acquired the position of a recognised system of public law. The purely objective treatment of interna¬ tional affairs, as free from prejudice as from moral scruples, attained a perfection which sometimes is not without a certain beauty and grandeur of its own. 124 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART But as a whole it gives us the impression of a bottom¬ less abyss. Intrigues, armaments, leagues, corruption and treason make up the outward history of Italy at this period. Venice in particular was long accused on all hands of seeking to conquer the whole peninsula, or gradually so to reduce its strength that one state after another must fall into her hands. 1 But on a closer view it is evident that this complaint did not come from the people, but rather from the courts and official classes, which were commonly abhorred by their sub¬ jects, while the mild government-of Venice had secured for it general confidence. 2 Even Florence, with its restive subject cities, found itself in a false position with regard to Venice, apart from all commercial jealousy and from the progress of Venice in Romagna. At last the League of Cambray actually did strike a serious blow at the state (p. 96), which all Italy ought to have supported with united strength. The other states, also, were animated by feelings no less unfriendly, and were at all times ready to use against one another any weapon which their evil 1 So Varchi, at a much later time. Stor. Fiorent . i. 57. 2 Galeazzo Maria Sforza, indeed, declared the contrary (1467) to the Venetian agent, namely, that Venetian subjects had offered to join him in making war on Venice ; but this is only vapouring. Comp. Malipiero, Annali Veneli, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. p. 216 sqq. On every occasion cities and villages voluntarily surrendered to Venice, chiefly, it is true, those that escaped from the hands of some despot, while Florence had to keep down the neighbouring republics, which were used to independence, by force of arms, as Guicciardini ( Ricordi , n. 29) observes. FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES. I2 5 conscience might suggest. Ludovico Moro, the Arra- gonese kings of Naples, and Sixtus IV.—to say nothing of the smaller powers—kept Italy in a state of constant and perilous agitation. It would have been well if the atrocious game had been confined to Italy ; but in lay in the nature of the case that inter¬ vention and help should at last be sought from abroad —in particular from the French and the Turks. The sympathies of the people at large were throughout on the side of France. Florence had never ceased to confess with shocking nawetd its old Guelph preference for the French. 1 And when Charles VIII. actually appeared on the south of the Alps, all Italy accepted him with an enthusiasm which to himself and his followers seemed unaccountable. 2 In the imagination of the Italians, to take Savonarola for an example, the ideal picture of a wise, just, and powerful saviour and ruler was still living, with the 1 Most strongly, perhaps, in an instruction to the ambassadors going to Charles VII. in the year 1452. (See Fabroni, Cosmus, Adnot. 107, fol. ii. pp. 200 sqq.) The Florentine envoys were instructed to remind the king of the centuries of friendly relations which had subsisted between France and their native city, and to recall to him that Charles the Great had delivered Florence and Italy from the barbarians (Lombards), and that Charles I. and the Romish Church were ‘fondatori della parte Guelfa. II qual fundamento fa cagione della ruina della contraria parte e intro- dusse lo stato di felicith, in che noi siamo. 5 When the young Lorenzo visited the Duke of Anjou, then staying at Florence, he put on a French dress. Fabroni, ii. p. 9. 2 Comines, Charles VIII. chap. x. The French were considered ‘ comme saints.’ Comp, chap 17; Chron. Venetian , in Murat, xxiv. col. 5, 10, 14, 15 ; Matarazzo, Cron, di Perugia , Arch. Stor. xvi. ii. p. 23, not to speak of countless other proofs. See especially the documents in Desjardins, op. cit. p. 127, note 1. 120 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART difference that he was no longer the emperor invoked by Dante, but the Capetian king of France. With his departure the illusion was broken ; but it was long before all understood how completely Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I. had mistaken their true relation to Italy, and by what inferior motives they were led. The princes, for their part, tried to make use of France in a wholly different way. When the Franco-English wars came to an end, when Louis XI. began to cast about his diplomatic nets on all sides, and Charles of Burgundy to embark on his foolish adventures, the Italian Cabinets came to meet them at every point. It became clear that the intervention of France was only a question of time, even though the claims on Naples and Milan had never existed, and that the old interference with Genoa and Piedmont was only a type of what was to follow. The Venetians, in fact, expected it as early as 1462. 1 The mortal terror of the Duke Galeazzo Maria of Milan during the Burgundian war, in which he was apparently the ally of Charles as well as of Louis, and consequently had reason to dread an attack from both, is strikingly shown in his correspondence. 2 The plan of an equili¬ brium of the four chief Italian powers, as understood by Lorenzo the Magnificent, was but the assumption of a cheerful optimistic spirit, which had outgrown 1 Pit IT. Commentarii, x. p. 492. 2 Gingins, DIpeches des Ambassadcurs Afilanais, etc . i.pp. 26, 153, 279, 283, 285, 327, 331, 345, 359; ii. pp. 29, 37, 101, 217, 306. Charles once spoke of giving Milan to the young Duke of Orleans. FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES. 127 both the recklessness of an experimental policy and the superstitions of Florentine Guelphism, and persisted in hoping the best. When Louis XI. offered him aid in the war against Ferrante of Naples and Sixtus IV., he replied, ‘ I cannot set my own advantage above the safety of all Italy ; would to God it never came into the mind of the French kings to try their strength in this country ! Should they ever do so, Italy is lost.’ 1 For the other princes, the King of France was alternately a bugbear to themselves and their enemies, and they threatened to call him in whenever they saw no more convenient way out of their difficulties. The Popes, in their turn, fancied that they could make use of France without any danger to themselves, and even Innocent VIII. imagined that he could withdraw to sulk in the North, and return as a conqueror to Italy at the head of a French army. 2 1 Niccolb Valori, Vita di Lorenzo , Flor. 1568. Italian translation of the Latin original, first printed in 1749 (later in Galletti, Phil. Villani , Liber de Civit. Flor./amosis Civibus , Florence, 1847, pp. 161-183 ; passage here referred to p. 171). It must not, however, be forgotten that this earliest biography, written soon after the death of Lorenzo, is a flattering rather than a faithful portrait, and that the words here attributed to Lorenzo are not mentioned by the French reporter, and can, in fact, hardly have been uttered. Comines, who was commissioned by Louis XI. to go to Rome and Florence, says ( MSinoires , 1 . vi. chap. 5) : ‘ I could not offer him an army, and had nothing with me but my suite.’ (Comp. Reumont, Lorenzo , i. p. 197, 429; ii. 598). In a letter from Florence to Louis XI. we read (Aug. 23, 1478) : ‘ Omnis spes nostra reposita est in favoribus suae ma- jestatis.’ A. Desjardins, Negotiations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane (Paris, 1859), i. p. 173. Similarly Lorenzo himself in Ivervyn de Lettenhove, Lettres et Negotiations de Philippe de Co mines, i. p. 190. Lorenzo, we see, is in fact the one who humbly begs for help, not who proudly declines it. 2 Fabroni, Laurentius Magnificus , Adnot. 205 sqq. In one of his Briefs 128 THE STATE AS A WORK OE ART Thoughtful men, indeed, foresaw the foreign con¬ quest long before the expedition of Charles VIII. 1 And when Charles was back again on the other side of the Alps, it was plain to every eye that an era of intervention had now begun. Misfortune now followed on misfortune ; it was understood too late that France and Spain, the two chief invaders, had become great European powers, that they would be no longer satis¬ fied with verbal homage, but would fight to the death for influence and territory in Italy. They had begun to resemble the centralised Italian states, and indeed to copy them, only on a gigantic scale. Schemes of annexation or exchange of territory were for a time indefinitely multiplied. The end, as is well known, was the complete victory of Spain, which, as sword and shield of the counter-reformation, long held the Papacy among its other subjects. The melancholy reflections of the philosophers could only show them how those who had called in the barbarians all came to a bad end. Alliances were at the same time formed with the it was said literally, £ Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo but it is to be hoped that he did not allude to the Turks. (Villari, Storia di Savonarola, ii. p. 48 of the 1 Documenti.’) 1 E.g. Jovian. Pontan. in his Charon. In the dialogue between /Ecus, Minos, and Mercurius {Op. ed. Bas. ii. p. 1167) the first says: ‘Vel quod haud multis post sasculis futurum auguror, ut Italia, cujus intestina te odia male habent Minos, in unius redacta ditionem resumat imperii ma- jestatem.’ And in reply to Mercury’s warning against the Turks, .Ecus answers : ‘ Quamquam timenda haec sunt, tamen si vetera respicimus, non ab Asia aut Graecia, verum a Gallis Germanisque timendum Italian sem¬ per fuit.’ FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES. 129 Turks too, with as little scruple or disguise ; they were reckoned no worse than any other political expe¬ dients. The belief in the unity of Western Christen¬ dom had at various times in the course of the Crusades been seriously shaken, and Frederick II. had probably outgrown it. But the fresh advance of the Oriental nations, the need and the ruin of the Greek Empire, had revived the old feeling, though not in its former strength, throughout Western Europe. Italy, how¬ ever, was a striking exception to this rule. Great as was the terror felt for the Turks, and the actual danger from them, there was yet scarcely a government of any consequence which did not conspire against other Italian states with Mohammed II. and his successors. And when they did not do so, they still had the credit of it; nor was it worse than the sending of emissaries to poison the cisterns of Venice, which was the charge brought against the heirs of Alfonso King of Naples. 1 From a scoundrel like Sigismondo Malatesta nothing better could be expected than that he should call the Turks into Italy. 2 But the Aragonese monarchs of 1 Comines, Charles VIII ., chap. 7. How Alfonso once tried in time of war to seize his opponents at a conference, is told by Nantiporto, in Murat, iii. ii. col. 1073. He was a genuine predecessor of Caesar Borgia. 2 Pii II. Commentarii, x. p. 492. See a letter of Malatesta in which he recommends to Mohammed II. a portrait-painter,Matteo Passo of Ve¬ rona, and announces the despatch of a book on the art of war, probably in the year 1463, in Baluz, MiscelL iii. 113. What Galeazzo Maria of Milan told in 1467 to a Venetian envoy, namely, that he and his allies would join with the Turks to destroy Venice, was said merely by way of threat. Comp. Malipiero, Ann. Veneti , Archiv. Stor. vii. i. p. 222. For Boccalino, see page 36. VOL. I. IC 130 THE STATE AS A WOEK OF ART. Naples, from whom Mohammed—at the instigation, we read, of other Italian governments, especially of Venice 1 —had once wrested Otranto (1480), afterwards hounded on the Sultan Bajazet II. against the Vene¬ tians. 2 The same charge was brought against Ludo¬ vico Moro. ‘ The blood of the slain, and the misery of the prisoners in the hands of the Turks, cry to God for vengeance against him/ says the state historian. In Venice, where the government was informed of everything, it was known that Giovanni Sforza, ruler of Pesaro, the cousin of the Moor, had entertained the Turkish ambassadors on their way to Milan. 3 The two most respectable among the Popes of the fifteenth century, Nicholas V. and Pius II., died in the deepest grief at the progress of the Turks, the latter indeed amid the preparations for a crusade which he was hoping to lead in person ; their successors embezzled the contributions sent for this purpose from all parts of Christendom, and degraded the indulgences granted in return for them into a private commercial specula¬ tion. 4 Innocent VIII. consented to be gaoler to the fugitive Prince Djem, for a salary paid by the pri- 1 Porzio, Congiura dei Baroni } 1 . i. p. 5. That Lorenzo, as Porzio hints, really had a hand in it, is not credible. On the other hand, it seems only too certain that Venice prompted the Sultan to the deed. See Romanin, Storia Documentata di Venezia , lib. xi. cap. 3. After Otranto was taken, Vespasiano Bisticci uttered his 1 Lamento dTtalia/ Archiv. Stor. Ital. iv. pp. 452 sqq. 2 Chron. Venet. in Murat, xxiv. col. 14 and 76. • 3 Malipiero, 1 . c. p. 565, 568. 4 Trithem. Amiales Hirsaug, ad. a. 1490, tom. ii. pp. 535 sqq. FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES. 131 sorters brother Bajazet II., and Alexander VI. supported the steps taken by Ludovico Moro in Con¬ stantinople to further a Turkish assault upon Venice (1498), whereupon the latter threatened him with a Council. 1 It is clear that the notorious alliance between Francis I. and Soliman II. was nothing new or unheard of. Indeed we find instances of whole populations to whom it seemed no particular crime to go over bodily to the Turks. Even if it were only held out as a threat to oppressive governments, this is at least a proof that the idea had become familiar. As early as 1480 Battista Mantovano gives us clearly to under¬ stand that most of the inhabitants of the Adriatic coast foresaw something of this kind, and that Ancona in particular desired it. 2 When Romagna was suffer¬ ing from the oppressive government of Leo X., a deputy from Ravenna said openly to the Legate, Cardinal Guilio Medici: ‘ Monsignore, the honourable Republic of Venice will not have us, for fear of a dis¬ pute with the Holy See; but if the Turk comes to Ragusa we will put ourselves into his hands.’ 3 1 Malipiero, 1 . c. p. 161 ; comp. p. 152. For the surrender of Djem to Charles VIII. see p. 145, from which it is clear that a connection of the most shameful kind existed between Alexander and Bajazet, even if the documents in Burcardus be spurious. See on the subject Ranke, Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtschreiber , 2 Auflage, Leipzig, 1874, p. 99, and Gregorovius, bd. vii. 353, note 1. Ibid. p. 353, note 2, a declaration of the Pope that he was not allied with the Turks. 2 Bapt. Mantuanus, De Calamitatibus Temporum , at the end of the second book, in the song of the Nereid Doris to the Turkish fleet. 3 Tommaso Gar, Relaz. della Corte di Roma , i. p. 55. 13 2 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART It was a poor but not wholly groundless consola¬ tion for the enslavement of Italy then begun by the Spaniards, that the country was at least secured from the relapse into barbarism which would have awaited it under the Turkish rule . 1 By itself, divided as it was, it could hardly have escaped this fate. If, with all these drawbacks, the Italian statesman¬ ship of this period deserves our praise, it is only on the ground of its practical and unprejudiced treatment of those questions which were not affected by fear, passion, or malice. Here was no feudal system after the northern fashion, with its artificial scheme of rights ; but the power which each possessed he held in prac¬ tice as in theory. Here was no attendant nobility to foster in the mind of the prince the mediaeval sense of honour, with all its strange consequences ; but princes and counsellors were agreed in acting according to the exigencies of the particular case and to the end they had in view. Towards the men whose services were used and towards allies, come from what quarter they might, no pride of caste was felt which could possibly estrange a supporter; and the class of the Condottieri, in which birth was a matter of indifference, shows clearly enough in what sort of hands the real power lay; and 1 Ranke, Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Volker. The opinion of Michelet ( Reforme , p. 467)5 that the Turks would have adopted Western civilisation in Italy, does not satisfy me. This mission of Spain is hinted at, perhaps for the first time, in the speech delivered by Fedra Inghirami in 1510 before Julius II., at the celebration of the capture of Bugia by the fleet of Ferdinand the Catholic. See Anccdota Litteraria, FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES. 133 lastly, the Government, in the hands of an enlightened despot, had an incomparably more accurate acquaint¬ ance with its own country and that of its neighbours, than was possessed by northern contemporaries, and estimated the economical and moral capacities of friend and foe down to the smallest particular. The rulers were, notwithstanding grave errors, born masters of statistical science. With such men negotiation was possible; it might be presumed that they would be convinced and their opinion modified when practical reasons were laid before them. When the great Alfonso of Naples was (1434) a prisoner of Filippo Maria Visconti, he was able to satisfy his gaoler that the rule of the House of Anjou instead of his own at Naples would make the French masters of Italy; Filippo Maria set him free without ransom and made an alliance with him. 1 A northern prince would scarcely have acted in the same way, certainly not one whose morality in other respects was like that of Visconti. What confidence was felt in the power of self-interest is shown by the celebrated visit which Lorenzo the Magnificent, to the universal astonishment of the Florentines, paid the faithless Ferrante at Naples—a man who would be certainly tempted to keep him a prisoner, and was by no means too scrupu- 1 Among others Corio, fol. 333. Jov. Pontanus, in his treatise, De Liberalitate , cap. 28, considers the free dismissal of Alfonso as a proof of the ‘ liberalitas ’ of Filippo Maria. (See above, p. 52, note 1.) Com¬ pare the line of conduct adopted with regard to Sforza, fol. 329. 134 THE STATE AS A WOEK OF ART. lous to do so. 1 For to arrest a powerful monarch, and then to let him go alive, after extorting his signa¬ ture and otherwise insulting him, as Charles the Bold did to Louis XI. at Peronne (1468), seemed madness to the Italians ; 2 so that Lorenzo was expected to come back covered with glory, or else not to come back at all. The art of political persuasion was at this time raised to a point—especially by the Venetian ambassadors—of which northern nations first obtained a conception from the Italians, and of which the official addresses give a most imperfect idea. These are mere pieces of humanistic rhetoric. Nor, in spite of an otherwise ceremonious etiquette, was there in case of need any lack of rough and frank speaking in diplo¬ matic intercourse. 3 A man like Macchiavelli appears in his ‘ Legazioni ’ in an almost pathetic light. Fur¬ nished with scanty instructions, shabbily equipped, and treated as an agent of inferior rank, he never loses his gift of free and wide observation or his pleasure in picturesque description. From that time Italy was and remained the country of political ‘ Istruzioni ’ and ‘ Relazioni.’ There was doubtless plenty of diplomatic 1 Nic. Valori, Vita di Lorenzo ; Paul Jovius, Vita Leonis X. 1 . i. The latter certainly upon good authority, though not without rhetorical embellishment. Comp. Reumont, i. 487, and the passage there quoted. 2 If Comines on this and many other occasions observes and judges as objectively as any Italian, his intercourse with Italians, particularly with Angelo Catto, must be taken into account. 3 Comp. e. g. Malipiero, pp. 216, 221, 236, 237, 468, &c., and above 124, note 2, and 129, note 2. Comp. Egnatius, fol. 321 a. The Pope curses an ambassador ; a Venetian envoy insults the Pope ; another, to win over his hearers, tells a fable. . FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES. 135 ability in other states, but Italy alone at so early a period has preserved documentary evidence of it in considerable quantity. The long despatch on the last period of the life of Ferrante of Naples (January 17, L'494), written by the hand of Pontano and addressed to the cabinet of Alexander VI., gives us the highest opinion of this class of political writing, although it is only quoted incidentally and as one of many written. And how many other despatches, as important and as vigorously written, in the diplomatic intercourse of this and later times, still remain unknown or unedited ! 1 A special division of this work will treat of the study of man individually and nationally, which among the Italians went hand in hand with the study of the outward conditions of human life. 1 In Villari, Storia di Savonarola , vol. ii. p. xliii. of the ‘ Documenti/ among which are to be found other important political letters. Other documents, particularly of the end of the fifteenth century in Baluzius, Miscellanea , ed. Mansi, vol. i. See especially the collected despatches of Florentine and Venetian ambassadors at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of sixteenth centuries in Desjardins, Negociatiotis diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane , vols. i. ii. Paris 1859, 1861. 136 CHAPTER IX. WAR AS A WORK OF ART. It must here be briefly indicated by what steps the art of war assumed the character of a product of reflection. 1 Throughout the countries of the West the education of the individual soldier in the middle ages was perfect within the limits of the then prevalent system of defence and attack : nor was there any want of ingenious inventors in the arts of besieging and of fortification. But the development both of strategy and of tactics was hindered by the character and dura¬ tion of military service, and by the ambition of the nobles, who disputed questions of precedence in the face of the enemy, and through simple want of disci¬ pline caused the loss of great battles like Crecy and Maupertuis. Italy, on the contrary, was the first country to adopt the system of mercenary troops, which demanded a wholly different organisation ; and the early introduction of fire-arms did its part in mak¬ ing war a democratic pursuit, not only because the strongest castles were unable to withstand a bombard- 1 The subject has been lately treated more fully by Max Jahns, Die Kriegskunst a/s Kunst, Leipzig 1874. WAR AS A WORK OF ART. i37 ment, but because the skill of the engineer, of the gun- founder, and of the artillerist—men belonging to another class than the nobility—was now of the first importance in a campaign. It was felt, with regret, that the value of the individual, which had been the soul of the small and admirably-organised bands of mercenaries, would suffer from these novel means of destruction, which did their work at a distance ; and there were Condottieri who opposed to the utmost the introduction at least of the musket, which had been lately invented in Germany. 1 We read that Paolo Vitelli, 2 while recognising and himself adopting the cannon, put out the eyes and cut off the hands of the captured ‘ schioppettieri ’ of the enemy, because he held it unworthy that a gallant, and it might be noble, knight should be wounded and laid low by a common, despised foot soldier. On the whole, how¬ ever, the new discoveries were accepted and turned to useful account, till the Italians became the teachers of all Europe, both in the building of fortifications and in the means of attacking them. 3 Princes like Federigo of Urbino and Alfonso of Ferrara acquired a mastery 1 Pii II. Comment, iv. p. 190, ad a. 1459. 2 The Cremonese prided themselves on their skill in this department. See Cronaca di Cremona in the Bibliotheca Historica Italica , vol. i. Milan 1876, p. 214, and note. The Venetians did the same, Egnatius, fol. 300 sqq. 3 To this effect Paul Jovius (. Elogia , p. 184) who adds : ‘Nondum enim invecto externarum gentium cruento more, I tali milites sanguinarii et multae casdis avidi esse didicerant/ We are reminded of Frederick of Urbino, who would have been ‘ ashamed’ to tolerate a printed book in his library. See Vespas. FioreJit. 1,8 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. of the subject compared to which the knowledge even of Maximilian I. appears superficial. In Italy, earlier than elsewhere, there existed a comprehensive science and art of military affairs; here, for the first time, that impartial delight is taken in able generalship for its own sake, which might, indeed, be expected from the frequent change of party and from the wholly unsenti¬ mental mode of action of the Condottieri. During the Milano-Venetian war of 1451 and H5 2 > between Francesco Sforza and Jacopo Piccinino, the head¬ quarters of the latter were attended by the scholar Gian Antonio Porcello dei Pandoni, commissioned by Alfonso of Naples to write a report of the campaign. 1 It is written, not in the purest, but in a fluent Latin, a little too much in the style of the humanistic bombast of the day, is modelled on Caesars Commen¬ taries, and interspersed with speeches, prodigies, and the like. Since for the past hundred years it had been seriously disputed whether Scipio Africanus or Han¬ nibal was the greater, 2 Piccinino through the whole book must needs be called Scipio and Sforza Hannibal But something positive had to be reported too respect¬ ing the Milanese army; the sophist presented himself to Sforza, was led along the ranks, praised highly all 1 Porcellii Commentaria Jac. Picinini , in Murat, xx. A continuation for the war of 145 3 ? ibid. xxv. Paul Cortesius (De Hovunibus Doctis , p. 33, Florence 1734) criticises the book severely on account of the wretched hexameters. 2 Porcello calls Scipio Aimilianus by mistake, meaning Africanus Major. WAR AS A WORK OF ART. I 39 that he saw, and promised to hand it down to posterity. 1 Apart from him the Italian literature of the day is rich in descriptions of wars and strategic devices, written for the use of educated men in general as well as of specialists, while the contemporary narratives of north¬ erners, such as the ‘ Burgundian War ’ by Diebold Schelling, still retain the shapelessness and matter-of- fact dryness of a mere chronicle. The greatest dilet¬ tante who has ever treated in that character 2 of military affairs, was then busy writing his ‘ Arte della Guerra.’ But the development of the individual soldier found its most complete expression in those public and solemn conflicts between one or more pairs of combatants which were practised long before the famous ‘ Challenge of Barletta ’ 3 (i 503). The victor was assured of the praises of poets and scholars, which were denied to the Northern warrior. The result of these combats was no longer regarded as a Divine judgment, but as a triumph of personal merit, and to the minds of the spectators seemed to be both the decision of an excit¬ ing competition and a satisfaction for the honour of the army or the nation. 4 1 Simonetta, Hist. Fr. Sfortice , in Murat, xxi. col. 630. 2 So he was considered. Comp. Bandello, parte i. nov. 40. 3 Comp. e.g. De Obsidione Tiphernatium , in vol. 2, of the 1 Rer. Italic. Scriptores excodd. Florent. col. 690. The duel of Marshal Bouci- cault with Galeazzo Gonzaga (1406) in Cagnola, Arch. Stor. iii. p. 25. Infessura tells us of the honour paid by Sixtus IV. to the duellists among his guards. His successors issued bulls against duelling. 4 We may here notice parenthetically (see Johns, pp. 26 sqq.) the less favourable side of the tactics of the Condottieri. The combat was often a mere sham-fight, in which the enemy was forced to withdraw 140 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART It is obvious that this purely rational treatment of warlike affairs allowed, under certain circumstances, of the worst atrocities, even in the absence of a strong political hatred, as, for instance, when the plunder of a city had been promised to the troops. After the four days’ devastation of Piacenza, which Sforza was com¬ pelled to permit to his soldiers (1447), the town long stood empty, and at last had to be peopled by force. 1 Yet outrages like these were nothing compared with the misery which was afterwards brought upon Italy by foreign troops, and most of all by the Spaniards, in whom perhaps a touch of Oriental blood, perhaps familiarity with the spectacles of the Inquisition, had unloosed the devilish element of human nature. After seeing them at work at Prato, Rome, and else¬ where, it is not easy to take any interest of the higher sort in Ferdinand the Catholic and Charles V., who knew what these hordes were, and yet unchained them. The mass of documents which are gradually brought to light from the cabinets of these rulers will always remain an important source of historical infor¬ mation ; but from such men no fruitful political con¬ ception can be looked for. by harmless manoeuvres. The object of the combatants was to avoid bloodshed, at the worst to make prisoners with a view to the ransom. According to Macchiavelli, the Florentines lost in a great battle in the year 1440 one man only. 1 For details, see Arch. Stor. Append, tom. v. 1 4 I CHAPTER X. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. The Papacy and the dominions of the Church 1 are creations of so peculiar a kind, that we have hitherto, in determining the general characteristics of Italian states, referred to them only occasionally. The deliberate choice and adaptation of political expedients, which gives so great an interest to the other states, is what we find least of all at Rome, since here the spiritual power could constantly conceal or supply the defects of the temporal. And what fiery trials did this state undergo in the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the Papacy was led captive to Avignon! All, at first, was thrown into confusion ; but the Pope had money, troops, and a great states¬ man and general, the Spaniard Albornoz, who again brought the ecclesiastical state into complete subjec¬ tion. The danger of a final dissolution was still o 1 Here once for all we refer our readers to Ranke’s Popes , vol. i., and to Sugenheim, Geschichte der Entstehung und Ausbildimg des Kirchenstaates. The still later works of Gregorovius and Reumont have also been made use of, and when they offer new facts or views, are quoted. See also Geschichte der romischen Papstthums , W. Watten- bach, Berlin 1876. 142 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. greater at the time of the schism, when neither the Roman nor the French Pope was rich enough to reconquer the newly-lost state; but this was done under Martin V., after the unity of the Church was restored, and done again under Eugenius IV., when the same danger was renewed. But the ecclesiastical state was and remained a thorough anomaly among the powers of Italy; in and near Rome itself, the Papacy was defied by the great families of the Colonna, Orsini, Savelli, and Anguillara; in Umbria, in the Marches, and in Romagna, those civic republics had almost ceased to exist, for whose devotion the Papacy had showed so little gratitude ; their place had been taken by a crowd of princely dynasties, great or small, whose loyalty and obedience signified little. As self-dependent powers, standing on their own merits, they have an interest of their own ; and from this point of view the most important of them have been already discussed (pp. 38 sqq., 62 sqq.). Nevertheless, a few general remarks on the Papacy can hardly be dispensed with. New and strange perils and trials came upon it in the course of the fifteenth century, as the political spirit of the nation began to lay hold upon it on various sides, and to draw it within the sphere of its action. The least of these dangers came from the populace or from abroad ; the most serious had their ground in the characters of the Popes themselves. Let us, for this moment, leave out of consideration THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. 143 the countries beyond the Alps. At the time when the Papacy was exposed to mortal danger in Italy, it neither received nor could receive the slightest assist- ance either from France, then under Louis XI., or from England, distracted by the wars of the Roses, or from the then disorganised Spanish monarchy, or from Germany, but lately betrayed at the Council of Basel. In Italy itself there were a certain number of in¬ structed and even uninstructed people, whose national vanity was flattered by the Italian character of the Papacy ; the personal interests of very many depended on its having and retaining this character; and vast masses of the people still believed in the virtue of the Papal blessing and consecration; 1 among them no¬ torious transgressors like that Vitellozzo Vitelli, who still prayed to be absolved by Alexander VI., when the Pope’s son had him slaughtered. 2 But all these 1 For the impression made by the blessing of Eugenius IV. in Florence, see Vespasia 7 io Fiorent , p. 18. See also the passage quoted in Reumont, Lorenzo, i. 171. For the impressive offices of Nicholas V., see Infessura (Eccard, ii. col. 1883 sqq.) and J. Manetti, Vita Nicolai V. (Murat, iii. ii. col. 923). For the homage given to Pius II., see Diario Ferrarese (Murat, xxiv. col. 205), and Pii II. Commentarii , passim , esp. iv. 201, 204, and xi. 562. For Florence, see Delizie degii Eruditi , xx. 368. Even professional murderers respect the person of the Pope. The great offices in church were treated as matters of much im¬ portance by the pomp-loving Paul II. (Platina, 1 . c. 321) and by Sixtus IV., who, in spite of the gout, conducted mass at Easter in a sitting posture, {jfac. Volaterran. Diarium , Murat, xxiii. col. 131.) It is curious to notice how the people distinguished between the magical efficacy of the blessing and the unworthiness of the man who gave it; when he was unable to give the benediction on Ascension Day 1481, the populace murmured and cursed him. {Ibid. col. 133.) 2 Macchiavelli, Scritti Minori, p. 142, in the well-known essay on the 144 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART grounds of sympathy put together would not have sufficed to save the Papacy from its enemies, had the latter been really in earnest, and had they known how to take advantage of the envy and hatred with which the institution was regarded. And at the very time when the prospect of help from without was so small, the most dangerous symp¬ toms appeared within the Papacy itself. Living, as it now did, and acting in the spirit of the secular Italian principalities, it was compelled to go through the same dark experiences as they; but its own exceptional nature gave a peculiar colour to the shadows. As far as the city of Rome itself is concerned, small account was taken of its internal agitations, so many were the Popes who had returned after being expelled by popular tumult, and so greatly did the presence of the Curia minister to the interests of the Roman people. But Rome not only displayed at times a specific anti-papal radicalism, 1 but in the most serious plots which were then contrived, gave proof of the working of unseen hands from without. catastrophe of Sinigaglia. It is true that the French and Spanish soldiers were still more zealous than the Italians. Comp, in Paul. Jov. Vita Leonis X. (1. ii.) the scene before the battle of Ravenna, in which the Legate, weeping for joy, was surrounded by the Spanish troops, and be¬ sought for absolution. See further {ibid.) the statements respecting the French in Milan. 1 In the case of the heretics of Poli, in the Campagna, who held the doctrine that a genuine Pope must show the poverty of Christ as the mark of his calling, we have simply a kind of Waldensian doctrine. Their im¬ prisonment under Paul II. is related by Infessura (Eccard, ii. col. 1893), Platina, p. 317, &c. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS . H5 It was so in the case of the conspiracy of Stefano Porcaro against Nicholas V. (1453), the very Pope who had done most for the prosperity of the city, but who, by enriching the cardinals, and transforming Rome into a papal fortress, had aroused the discontent of the people. 1 Porcaro aimed at the complete over¬ throw of the papal authority, and had distinguished accomplices, who, though their names are not handed down to us, 2 are certainly to be looked for among the Italian governments of the time. Under the pontifi¬ cate of the same man, Lorenzo Valla concluded his famous declamation against the gift of Constantine, with the wish for the speedy secularisation of the States of the Church. 3 The Catilinarian gang, with which Pius II. had to contend 4 (1460), avowed with equal frankness their 1 As an illustration of this feeling see the poem addressed to the Pope, quoted in Gregorovius, vii. 136. 2 Dialogus de Conjurcitione Stepliani de Porcariis , by his contem¬ porary Petrus Godes de Vicenza, quoted and used by Gregorovius, viii. 130. L. B. Alberti, De Porcaria Conjuratione,m Murat, xxv. col. 309. Porcari was desirous 1 omnem pontificiam turbam funditus exstinguere.’ The author concludes : ‘Video sane, quo stent loco res Italiae; intelligo qui sint, quibus hie perturbata esse omnia conducat. . . .’ He names them ‘ Extrinsecus impulsores,’ and is of opinion that Porcari will find suc¬ cessors in his misdeeds. The dreams of Porcari certainly bore some resemblance to those of Cola Rienzi. He also referred to himself the poem ( Spirto Gentil,’ addressed by Petrarch to Rienzi. 3 c Ut Papa tantum vicarius Christi sit et nonetiam Csesaris . . . Tunc Papa et dicetur et erit pater sanctus, pater omnium, pater ecclesias,’ etc. Valla’s work was written rather earlier, and was aimed at Eugenius IV. See Vahlen, Lor. Valla (Berlin, 1870), pp. 25 sqq., esp. 32. Nicholas V., on the other hand, is praised by Valla, Gregorovius, vii. 136. 4 Pii II. Comment. iv. pp. 208 sqq. Voigt, Enea Silvio , iii. pp. 151 sqq. VOL. I L 146 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART resolution to overthrow the government of the priests, and its leader, Tiburzio, threw the blame on the sooth¬ sayers, who had fixed the accomplishment of his wishes for this very year. Several of the chief men of Rome, the Prince of Tarentum, and the Condottiere Jacopo Piccinino, were accomplices and supporters of Tiburzio. Indeed, when we think of the booty which was accu¬ mulated in the palaces of wealthy prelates—the con¬ spirators had the Cardinal of Aquileia especially in ' view—we are surprised that, in an almost unguarded city, such attempts were not more frequent and more successful. It was not without reason that Pius II. preferred to reside anywhere rather than in Rome ; and even Paul II. 1 was exposed to no small anxiety through a plot formed by some discharged abbre- viators, who, under the command of Platina, besieged the Vatican for twenty days. The Papacy must sooner or later have fallen a victim to such enter¬ prises, if it had not stamped out the aristocratic factions under whose protection these bands of robbers grew to a head. This task was undertaken by the terrible Sixtus IV. He was the first Pope who had Rome and the neigh¬ bourhood thoroughly under his control, especially after his successful attack on the House of Colonna, and consequently, both in his Italian policy and in the internal affairs of the Church, he could venture to act with a defiant audacity, and to set at nought the com- 1 Platina, Vita Pauli II. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. 147 plaints and threats to summon a council which arose from all parts of Europe. He supplied himself with the necessary funds by simony, which suddenly grew to unheard-of proportions, and which extended from the appointment of cardinals down to the granting of the smallest favours. 1 Sixtus himself had not obtained the papal dignity without recourse to the same means. A corruption so universal might sooner or later bring disastrous consequences on the Holy See, but they lay in the uncertain future. It was otherwise with nepotism, which threatened at one time to destroy the Papacy altogether. Of all the ‘ nipoti/ Cardinal Pietro Riario enjoyed at first the chief and almost exclusive favour of Sixtus. He soon drew upon him the eyes of all Italy, 2 partly by the fabulous luxury of his life, partly through the reports which were current of his irreligion and his political plans. He bargained with Duke Galeazzo Maria of Milan (1473), that the latter should become King of Lombardy, and then aid him with money and troops to return to Rome and ascend the papal throne; Sixtus, it appears, would have voluntarily yielded it to him. 3 This plan, which, 1 Battista Mantovano, De Calamitatibus Temporum , 1. iii. The Arabian sells incense, the Tyrian purple, the Indian ivory: ‘Venalia nobis templa, sacerdotes, altaria sacra, coronae, ignes, thura, preces, caelum est venale Deusque.’ Opera, ed. Paris, 1507, fol. 302 b. Then follows an exhortation to Pope Sixtus, whose previous efforts are praised, to put an end to these evils. 2 See e.g. the Annales Placentini , in Murat, xx. col. 943. 3 Corio, Storia di Mila?io , fol. 416-420. Pietro had already helped at the election of Sixtus. See Infessura, in Eccard, Scriptores , ii. col. 1895. It is curious that in 1469 it had been prophesied that deliverance 148 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. by making the Papacy hereditary, would have ended in the secularization of the papal state, failed through the sudden death of Pietro. The second ‘ nipote,’ Girolamo Riario, remained a layman, and did not seek the Pontificate. From his time the ‘ nipoti,’ by their endeavours to found principalities for themselves, became a new source of confusion to Italy. It had already happened that the Popes tried to make good their feudal claims on Naples in favour of their rela¬ tives ; 1 but since the failure of Calixtus III. such a scheme was no longer practicable, and Girolamo Riario, after the attempt to conquer Florence (and who knows how many other places) had failed, was forced to con¬ tent himself with founding a state within the limits of the papal dominions themselves. This was, in so far, justifiable, as Romagna, with its princes and civic despots, threatened to shake off the papal supremacy altogether, and ran the risk of shortly falling a prey to Sforza or the Venetians, when Rome interfered to prevent it. But who, at times and in circumstances like these, could guarantee the continued obedience of ‘ nipoti ’ and their descendants, now turned into sove¬ reign rulers, to Popes with whom they had no further concern ? Even in his lifetime the Pope was not always would come from Savona (home of Sixtus, elected in 1471) within three years. See the letter and date in Baluz. Miscell. iii. p. 181. According to Macchiavelli, Storie Fiorent. 1. vii. the Venetians poisoned the cardinal. Certainly they were not without motives to do so. 1 Honorius II. wished, after the death of William I. (1127) to annex Apulia, as a feof reverted to St. Peter. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. 149 sure of his own son or nephew, and the temptation was strong to expel the ‘ nipote ’ of a predecessor and replace him by one of his own. The reaction of the whole system on the Papacy itself was of the most serious character ; all means of compulsion, whether temporal or spiritual, were used without scruple for the most questionable ends, and to these all the other objects of the Apostolic See were made sub¬ ordinate. And when they were attained, at whatever cost of revolutions and proscriptions, a dynasty was founded which had no stronger interest than the destruction of the Papacy. At the death of Sixtus, Girolamo was only able to maintain himself in his usurped principality of Forli and Imola by the utmost exertions of his own, and by the aid of the House of Sforza. He was murdered in 1488. In the Conclave (1484) which followed the death of Sixtus—that in which Innocent VIII. was elected—an incident occurred which seemed to furnish the Papacy with a new external guarantee. Two cardinals, who, at the same time, were princes of ruling houses, Giovanni d’Arragona, son of King Ferrante, and Ascanio Sforza, brother of the Moor, sold their votes with the most shameless effrontery ; 1 so that, at any rate, the ruling houses of Naples and Milan became interested, by their participation in the 1 Fabroni, Laureutius Mag. Adnot. 130. An informer, Vespucci, sends word of both, ( Hanno in ogni elezione a mettere a sacco questa corte, e sono i maggior ribaldi del mondo.’ T 5° THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. booty, in the continuance of the papal system. Once again, in the following Conclave, when all the cardinals but five sold themselves, Ascanio received enormous sums in bribes, not without cherishing the hope that at the next election he would himself be the favoured candidate. 1 Lorenzo the Magnificent, on his part, was anxious that the House of Medici should not be sent away with empty hands. He married his daughter Mad- dalena to the son of the new Pope—the first who publicly acknowledged his children — Franceschetto Cybo, and expected not only favours of all kinds for his own son, Cardinal Giovanni, afterwards Leo X., but also the rapid promotion of his son-in-law. 2 But with respect to the latter, he demanded impossibilities. Under Innocent VIII. there was no opportunity for the audacious nepotism by which states had been founded, since Franceschetto himself was a poor crea¬ ture who, like his father the Pope, sought power only for the lowest purpose of all—the acquisition and accumulation of money. 3 The manner, however, in which father and son practised this occupation must 1 Corio, fol. 450. Details, partly from unpublished documents, of these acts of bribery in Gregorovius, vii. 310 sqq. 2 A most characteristic letter of exhortation by Lorenzo in Fabroni, Laurentius Magn. Adnot. 217, and extracts in Ranke, Popes , i. p. 45, and in Reumont, Lorenzo , ii. pp. 482 sqq. 3 And perhaps of certain Neapolitan feofs, for the sake of which Innocent called in the Angevins afresh against the immovable Ferrante. The conduct of the Pope in this affair and his participation in the second conspiracy of the barons, were equally foolish and dishonest. For his method of treating with foreign powers, see above p. 127, note 2. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS . 151 have led sooner or later to a final catastrophe—the dissolution of the state. If Sixtus had filled his treasury by the rule of spiritual dignities and favours, Innocent and his son, for their part, established an office for the sale of secular favours, in which pardons for murder and manslaughter were sold for large sums of money. Out of every fine 150 ducats were paid into the papal exchequer, and what was over to Frances- chetto. Rome, during the latter part of this pontificate, swarmed with licensed and unlicensed assassins ; the factions, which Sixtus had begun to put down, were again as active as ever ; the Pope, well guarded in the Vatican, was satisfied with now and then laying a trap, in which a wealthy misdoer was occasionally caught. I 7 or Franceschetto the chief point was to know by what means, when the Pope died, he could escape with well-filled coffers. He betrayed himself at last, on the occasion of a false report (1490) of his fathers death ; he endeavoured to carry off all the money in the papal treasury, and when this proved impossible, insisted that, at all events, the Turkish prince, Djem, should go with him, and serve as a living capital, to be advantageously disposed of, perhaps to Ferrante of Naples. 1 It is hard to estimate the political possi¬ bilities of remote periods, but we cannot help asking ourselves the question, if Rome could have survived two or three pontificates of this kind. Even with reference to the believing countries of Europe, it was 1 Comp, in particular Infessura, in Eccard. Scriptores , ii. passim. I 5 2 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART imprudent to let matters go so far that not only travellers and pilgrims, but a whole embassy of Maxi¬ milian, King of the Romans, were stripped to their shirts in the neighbourhood of Rome, and that envoys had constantly to turn back without setting foot within the city. Such a condition of things was incompatible with the conception of power and its pleasures which in¬ spired the gifted Alexander VI. (1492-1503), and the first event that happened was the restoration, at least provisionally, of public order, and the punctual pay¬ ment of every salary. Strictly speaking, as we are now discussing phases of Italian civilization, this pontificate might be passed over, since the Borgias are no more Italian than the House of Naples. Alexander spoke Spanish in public with Caesar; Lucretia, at her entrance to Ferrara, where she wore a Spanish costume, was sung to by Spanish buffoons ; their confidential servants consisted of Spaniards, as did also the most ill-famed company of the troops of Caesar in the war of 1500 ; and even his hangman, Don Micheletto, and his poisoner, Sebastian Pinzon, 1 seem to have been of the same nation. Among his other achievements, Caesar, in true Spanish fashion, killed, according to the rules of the craft, six wild bulls in an enclosed court. But the Roman corruption, which seemed to culminate in this 1 According to the Dispacci di Antonio Giustiniani , i. p. 60, and iii. p. 309, Seb. Pinzon was a native of Cremona. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. i53 family, was already far advanced when they came to the city. What they were and what they did has been often and fully described. 1 Their immediate purpose, which, in fact, they attained, was the complete subjugation of the pontifical state. All the petty despots, 2 who were mostly more or less refractory vassals of the Church, were expelled or destroyed ; and in Rome itself the two great factions were annihilated, the so-called Guelph Orsini as well as the so-called Ghibelline Colonna. But the means employed were of so fright¬ ful a character, that they must certainly have ended in the ruin of the Papacy, had not the contemporaneous death of both father and son by poison suddenly inter¬ vened to alter the whole aspect of the situation. The moral indignation of Christendom was certainly no great source of danger to Alexander ; at home he was strong enough to extort terror and obedience ; foreign rulers were won over to his side, and Louis XII. even aided him to the utmost of his power. The mass of the people throughout Europe had hardly a conception of what was passing in Central Italy. The only moment which was really fraught with danger—when Charles VIII. was in Italy—went by with unexpected fortune, and even then it was not the Papacy as such 1 Recently by Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia , 2 Bande 3 Aufl., Stutt¬ gart 1875. 2 Except the Bentivoglio at Bologna, and the House of Este at Ferrara. The latter was compelled to form a family relationship, Lucrezia marrying Prince Alfonso. J 54 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART that was in peril, but Alexander, who risked being supplanted by a more respectable Pope. 1 The great, permanent, and increasing danger for the Papacy lay in Alexander himself, and, above all, in his son Caesar Borgia. In the nature of the father, ambition, avarice, and sensuality were combined with strong and brilliant qualities. All the pleasures of power and luxury he granted himself from the first day of his pontificate in the fullest measure. In the choice of means to this end he was wholly without scruple; it was known at once that he would more than compensate himself for the sacrifices which his election had involved, 2 and 1 According to Corio (fol. 479) Charles had thoughts of a Council, of deposing the Pope, and even of carrying him away to France, this upon his return from Naples. According to Benedictus, Carolus VIII. (in Eccard, Scriptores , ii. col. 1584), Charles, while in Naples, when Pope and cardinals refused to recognise his new crown, had certainly entertained the thought ‘de Italise imperio deque pontificis statu mutando,’ but soon after made up his mind to be satisfied with the personal humiliation of Alexander. The Pope, nevertheless, escaped him. Particulars in Pilorgerie, Campagne et Bulletins de la Grande Armee dTtalie, 1494, 1495 (Paris 1866, 8vo.), where the degree of Alexander’s danger at dif¬ ferent moments is discussed (pp. in, 117, &c.). In a letter, there printed, of the Archbishop of St. Malo to Queen Anne, it is expressly stated : ‘ Si nostre roy eust voulu obtemperer a la plupart des Messeigneurs les Cardinaulx, ilz eussent fait ung autre pappe en intention de refformer l’eglise ainsi qu’ilz disaient. Le roy desire bien la reformacion, mais il ne veult point entreprandre de sa depposicion.’ 2 Corio, fol. 450. Malipiero, Ann. Veneti , Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 318. The rapacity of the whole family can be seen in Malipiero, among other authorities, 1. c. p. 565. A ‘ nipote ’ was splendidly entertained in Venice as papal legate, and made an enormous sum of money by selling dispensations; his servants, when they went away, stole whatever they could lay their hands on, including a piece of embroidered cloth from the high altar of a church at Murano. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. 155 that the simony of the seller would far exceed the simony of the buyer. It must be remembered that the vice-chancellorship and other offices which Alex¬ ander had formerly held had taught him to know better and turn to more practical account the various sources of revenue than any other member of the Curia. As early as 1494, a Carmelite, Adam of Genoa, who had preached at Rome against simony, was found murdered in his bed with twenty wounds. Hardly a single cardinal was appointed without the payment of enormous sums of money. But when the Pope in course of time fell under the influence of his son Caesar Borgia, his violent measures assumed that character of devilish wickedness which necessarily reacts upon the ends pursued. What was done in the struggle with the Roman nobles and with the tyrants of Romagna exceeded in faithlessness and barbarity even that measure to which the Aragonese rulers of Naples had already accustomed the world; and the genius for deception was also greater. The manner in which Caesar isolated his father, murdering brother, brother-in-law, and other relations or courtiers, when¬ ever their favour with the Pope or their position in any other respect became inconvenient to him, is literally appalling. Alexander was forced to acquiesce in the murder of his best-loved son, the Duke of Gandia, since he himself lived in hourly dread of Caesar. 1 1 This in Panvinio alone among contemporary historians (Contin. 156 THE STATE AS A WORK OE ART. What were the final aims of the latter ? Even in the last months of his tyranny, when he had murdered the Condottieri at Sinigaglia, and was to all intents and purposes master of the ecclesiastical state (1503) those who stood near him gave the modest reply, that the Duke merely wished to put down the factions and the despots, and all for the good of the Church only ; that for himself he desired nothing more than the lordship of the Romagna, and that he had earned the Platinae, p. 339), ‘ insidiis Csesaris fratris interfectus . . . connivente . . . ad scelus patre,’ and to the same effect Jovius, Elog. Vir. III. p. 302. The profound emotion of Alexander looks like a sign of complicity. After the corpse was drawn out of the Tiber, Sannazaro wrote (Opera Omnia Latine Script a 1535, fol. 41 a): ‘ Piscatorem hominum ne te non, Sixte, putemus Piscaris natum retibus, ecce, tuumd Besides the epigram quoted there are others (fol. 36 b, 42 by 47 b , 51 at, b —in the last passage 5) in Sannazaro on, i.e. against, Alexander. Among them is a famous one, referred to in Gregorovius i. 314, on Lucrezia Borgia : Ergo te semper cupiet Lucretia Sextus ? O fatum diri nominis : hie pater est ? Others execrate his cruelty and celebrate his death as the beginning of an era of peace. On the Jubilee (see below, p. 108, note 1) there is another epigram, fol. 43 b. There are others no less severe (fol. 34 £,35 a, b, 42 by 43 a) against Caesar Borgia, among which we find in one of the strongest : Aut nihil aut Caesar vult did Borgia ; quidni ? Cum simul et Caesar possit, et esse nihil. (made use of by Bandello, iv. nov. 11). On the murder of the Duke of Gandia, see especially the admirable collection of the most original sources of evidence in Gregorovius, vii. 399-407, according to which Caesar’s guilt is clear, but it seems very doubtful whether Alexander knew, or approved, of the intended assassination. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. *57 gratitude of all following Popes by ridding them of the Orsini and Colonna . 1 But no one will accept this as his ultimate design. The Pope Alexander himself, in his discussions with the Venetian ambassador, went farther than this, when committing his son to the pro¬ tection of Venice : ‘ I will see to it/ he said, ‘that one day the Papacy shall belong either to him or to you/ 2 Csesar certainly added that no one could become Pope without the consent of Venice, and for this end the Venetian cardinals had only to keep well together. Whether he referred to himself or not we are unable to say; at all events, the declaration of his father is sufficient to prove his designs on the pontifical throne. We further obtain from Lucrezia Borgia a certain amount of indirect evidence, in so far as certain pas¬ sages in the poems of Ercole Strozza may be the echo of expressions which she as Duchess of Ferrara may easily have permitted herself to use. Here too Caesar’s hopes of the Papacy are chiefly spoken of ; 3 but now 1 Macchiavelli, Oftere , ed. Milan, vol. v. p. 387, 393, 395, in the Lega- zione al Duca Valentino. 2 Tommaso Gar, Relazio 7 ii della Corte di Roma , i. p. 12, in the Rel. of P. Capello. Literally: ‘The Pope has more respect for Venice than for any other power in the world. ‘ E pero 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 Caesar. 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, etc.’ 3 Strozzii Poetae , p. 19, in the ‘ Venatio’ of Ercole Strozza : ‘. . . cui triplicem fata invidere coronam.’ And in the Elegy on Caesar’s death, p. 31 sqq.: ‘ Speraretque olim solii decora alta paterni.’ 158 THE STATE AS A WO EE OE ART. and then a supremacy over all Italy is hinted at , 1 and finally we are given to understand that as temporal ruler Caesars projects were of the greatest, and that for their sake he had formerly surrendered his cardina- late . 2 In fact, there can be no doubt whatever that Caesar, whether chosen Pope or not after the death of Alexander, meant to keep possession of the pontifical state at any cost, and that this, after all the enormities he had committed, he could not as Pope have suc¬ ceeded in doing permanently. He, if anybody, could have secularised the States of the Church, and he would have been forced to do so in order to keep them . 3 Unless we are much deceived, this is the real reason of the secret sympathy with which Macchiavelli treats the great criminal; from Caesar, or from nobody, could it be hoped that he ‘ would draw the steel from the wound,’ in other words, annihilate the Papacy—the source of all foreign intervention and of all the divi¬ sions of Italy. The intriguers who thought to divine Caesar’s aims, when holding out to him hopes of the kingdom of Tuscany, seem to have been dismissed with contempt . 4 1 Ibid. Jupiter had once promised £ Affore Alexandri sobolem, quas poneret olim Italiae leges, atque aurea saecla referret,’ etc. 2 Ibid. ‘ Sacrumque decus majora parantem deposuisse.’ 3 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, 1. c. p. 285) he must have counted on the speedy death of his father. 4 Macchiavelli, 1 . c. p. 334. Designs on Siena and eventually on all THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. i59 * But all logical conclusions from his premisses are idle, not because of the unaccountable genius which in » fact characterised him as little as it did the Duke of Friedland, but because the means which he employed were not compatible with any large and consistent course of action. Perhaps, indeed, in the very excess of his wickedness some prospect of salvation for the Papacy may have existed even without the accident which put an end to his rule. Even if we assume that the destruction of the petty despots in the pontifical state had gained for him nothing but sympathy, even if we take as proof of his great projects the army, composed of the best soldiers and officers in Italy, with Lionardo da Vinci as chief engineer, which followed his fortunes in 1503, other facts nevertheless wear such a character of unreason that our judgment, like that of contemporary observers, is wholly at a loss to explain them. One fact of this kind is the devastation and maltreatment of the newly won state, which Caesar still intended to keep and to rule over. 1 Another is the condition of Rome and of the Curia in the last decades of the pontificate. Tuscany certainly existed, but were not yet ripe ; the consent of France was indispensable. 1 Macchiavelli, 1 . 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 quae ne Scythae quidem aut Turcae, aut Poeni in Italia commisissent.’ The same writer (p. 65) blames Alexander as a Spaniard: ‘ Hispani generis hominem, cujus proprium est, rationibus et commodis Hispanorurn consultum velle, non Italorum.’ See above, p. 152. i6o THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART Whether it were that father and son had drawn up a formal list of proscribed persons, 1 or that the murders were resolved upon one by one, in either case the Borgias were bent on the secret destruction of all who stood in their way or whose inheritance they coveted. Of this money and movable goods formed the smallest part ; it was a much greater source of profit for the Pope that the incomes of the clerical dignitaries in question were suspended by their death, and that he received the revenues of their offices while vacant and the price of these offices when they were filled by the successors of the murdered men. The Venetian ambassador, Paolo Capello 2 announces in the year 1500: ‘ Every night four or five murdered men are discovered—bishops, prelates and others—so that all Rome is trembling for fear of being destroyed by the Duke (Caesar).’ He himself used to wander about Rome in the night time with his guards, 3 and there is every reason to believe that he did so not only because, like Tiberius, he shrank from showing his now repul¬ sive features by daylight, but also to gratify his insane 1 To this effect Pierio Valeriano, De Infelicitate Literat. ed. Mencken, p. 282, in speaking of Giovanni Regio: ‘In arcano proscriptorum albo positus.’ 2 Tommaso Gar, 1 . c. p. n. From May 22, 1502, onwards the De¬ spatches of Giustiniani , 3 vols. Florence, 1876, edited by Pasquale Villari, offer valuable information. 3 Paulus Jovius, Elogin , Caesar Borgia. In the Commentarii Urbani of Raph. 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.’ THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. 161 thirst for blood, perhaps even on the persons of those unknown to him. As early as the year 1499 the despair was so great and so general that many of the Papal guards were waylaid and put to death. 1 But those whom the Borgias could not assail with open violence, fell victims to their poison. For the cases in which a certain amount of discretion seemed requisite, a white powder 2 of an agreeable taste was made use of, which did not work on the spot, but slowly and gradually, and which could be mixed without notice in any dish or goblet. Prince Djem had taken some of it in a sweet draught, before Alexander surrendered him to Charles VIII. (1495), and at the end of their career father and son poisoned themselves with the same powder by acci¬ dentally tasting a sweetmeat intended for a wealthy cardinal, probably Adrian of Corneto. 3 The official epitomiser of the history of the Popes, Onufrio Pan- vinio, 4 mentions three cardinals, Orsini, Ferrerio, and 1 Diario Ferrarese , in Muratori, xxiv. col. 362. 2 Paul. Jovius, Histor. ii. fol. 47. 3 See the passages in Ranke, Rom. Pcipste ; Sammtl. 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. 4 Panvinius, Epitome Pontificum , p. 359. For the attempt to poison Alexander’s successor, Julius II., seep. 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. VOL. 1. M 162 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART Michiel, whom Alexander caused to be poisoned, and hints at a fourth, Giovanni Borgia, whom Caesar took into his own charge—though probably wealthy prelates seldom died in Rome at that time without giving rise to suspicions of this sort. Even tranquil students who had withdrawn to some provincial town were not out of reach of the merciless poison. A secret horror seemed to hang about the Pope ; storms and thunder¬ bolts, crushing in walls and chambers, had in earlier times often visited and alarmed him ; in the year 1500, 1 when these phenomena were repeated, they were held to be ‘ cosa diabolica.’ The report of these events seems at last, through the well-attended jubilee 2 of 1500, to have been carried far and wide throughout the countries of Europe, and the infamous traffic in indulgences did what else was needed to draw all eyes upon Rome. 3 Besides the returning pilgrims, strange white-robed penitents came from Italy to the North, among them disguised fugitives from the Papal State, who are not likely to have been silent. Yet none can calculate how far the scandal and indignation of Christendom might have gone, before they became a source of pressing danger to Alexander. ‘ He would,’ 1 Prato, Arch.Stor. iii. p. 254 ; comp. Attilio Alessio, in Baluz. Miscell. iv. p. 518 sqq. 2 And turned to the most profitable account by the Pope. Comp. Chron. Venetian , 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 tornera molto a proposito. 3 Anshelm, Berner Chronik , iii. pp. 146-156. Trithem. Annates Hirsaug. tom. ii. pp. 579, 584, 586. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. 163 says Panvinio elsewhere, 1 ‘ have put all the other rich cardinals and prelates out of the way, to get their property, had he not, in the midst of his great plans for his son, been struck down by death.’ And what might not Caesar have achieved if, at the moment when his father died, he had not himself been laid upon a sick-bed ! What a conclave would that have been, in which, armed with all his weapons, he had extorted his election from a college whose numbers he had judiciously reduced by poison—and this at a time when there was no French army at hand ! In pursuing such a hypothesis the imagination loses itself in an abyss. Instead of this followed the conclave in which Pius III. was elected, and, after his speedy death, that which chose Julius II.—both elections the fruits of a general reaction. Whatever may have been the private morals of Julius II., in all essential respects he'was the saviour of the Papacy. His familiarity with the course of events since the pontificate of his uncle Sixtus had given him a profound insight into the grounds and conditions of the Papal authority. On these he founded his own policy, and devoted to it the whole force and passion of his unshaken soul. He ascended the steps of St. Peter’s chair without simony and amid general applause, and with him ceased, at all events, the undisguised traffic in the highest offices of the 1 Panvin. Contin. Platinae , p. 341. M 2 164 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. Church. Julius had favourites, and among them were some the reverse of worthy, but a special fortune put him above the temptation to nepotism. His brother, Giovanni della Rovere, was the husband of the heiress of Urbino, sister of the last Montefeltro Guidobaldo, and from this marriage was born, in 1491, a son, Francesco Maria della Rovere, who was at the same time Papal ‘ nipote ’ and lawful heir to the duchy of Urbino. What Julius elsewhere acquired, either on the field of battle or by diplomatic means, he proudly bestowed on the Church, not on his family; the ecclesiastical territory, which he found in a state of dissolution, he bequeathed to his successor completely subdued, and increased by Parma and Piacenza. It was not his fault that Ferrara too was not added to the dominions of the Church. The 700,000 ducats, which were stored up in the castle of St. Angelo, were to be delivered by the governor to none but the future Pope. He made himself heir of the cardinals, and, indeed, of all the clergy who died in Rome, and this by the most despotic means ; but he murdered or poisoned none of them. 1 That he should himself lead his forces to battle was for him an unavoidable necessity, and certainly did him nothing but good at a time when a man in Italy was forced to be either hammer or anvil, and when personality was a greater power than the most \ 1 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. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANG EPS. 165 indisputable right. If, despite all his high-sounding ‘Away with the barbarians!’ he nevertheless con¬ tributed more than any man to the firm settlement of the Spaniards in Italy, he may have thought it a matter of indifference to the Papacy, or even, as things stood, a relative advantage. And to whom, sooner than to Spain, could the Church look for a sincere and lasting respect, 1 in an age when the princes of Italy cherished none but sacrilegious projects against her ? Be this as it may, the powerful, original nature, which could swallow no anger and conceal no genuine good-will, made on the whole the impression most desirable in his situation—that of the ‘ Pontefice ter- ribile.’ He could even, with a comparatively clear conscience, venture to summon a council to Rome, and so bid defiance to that outcry for a council which was raised by the opposition all over Europe. A ruler of this stamp needed some great outward symbol of his conceptions; Julius found it in the reconstruc¬ tion of St. Peter’s. The plan of it, as Bramante wished to have it, is perhaps the grandest expression of power in unity which can be imagined. In other arts besides architecture the face and the memory of the Pope live on in their most ideal form, and it is not without significance that even the Latin poetry of those days gives proof of a wholly different enthusiasm 1 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. i66 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. for Julius than that shown for his predecessors. The entrance into Bologna, at the end of the ‘ Iter Julii Secundi,’ by the Cardinal Adriano da Corneto, has a splendour of its own, and Giovan Antonio Flaminio, 1 in one of the finest elegies, appealed to the patriot in the Pope to grant his protection to Italy. In a constitution of his Lateran Council, Julius had solemnly denounced the simony of the Papal elections. 2 After his death in 1513, the money-loving cardinals tried to evade the prohibition by proposing that the endowments and offices hitherto held by the chosen candidate should be equally divided among themselves, in which case they would have elected the best-endowed cardinal, the incompetent Rafael Riario. 3 But a re¬ action, chiefly arising from the younger members of the Sacred College, who, above all things, desired a liberal Pope, rendered the miserable combination futile ; Giovanni Medici was elected—the famous Leo X. We shall often meet with him in treating of the noonday of the Renaissance; here we wish only to 1 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, perche 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 5 to the Capitol, and to urge them to throw off the Papal yoke —‘ a vendicarsi in liberta ... a publica ribellione,’ as Guicciardini tells us in his tenth book. See, too, Paul. Jov. in the VitaPompeji Columnae , and Gregorovius, viii. 71-75. 2 Septimo decretal . 1 . i. tit. 3, cap. 1-3. 3 Franc. Vettori, in the Arch. Stor. vi. 297. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. 167 point out that under him the Papacy was again ex¬ posed to great inward and outward dangers. Among these we do not reckon the conspiracy of the Cardinals Petrucci, De Saulis, Riario, and Corneto (1517), which at most could have occasioned a change of persons, and to which Leo found the true antidote in the unheard-of creation of thirty-nine new cardinals, a measure which had the additional advantage of rewarding, in some cases at least, real merit. 1 But some of the paths which Leo allowed himself to tread during the first two years of his office were perilous to the last degree. He seriously endeavoured to secure, by negotiation, the kingdom of Naples for his brother Giuliano, and for his nephew Lorenzo a power¬ ful North Italian state, to comprise Milan, Tuscany, Urbino, and Ferrara. 2 It is clear that the Pontifical State, thus hemmed in on all sides, would have become a mere Medicean appanage, and that, in fact, there would have been no further need to secularise it. The plan found an insuperable obstacle in the political conditions of the time. Giuliano died early. To provide for Lorenzo, Leo undertook to expel the Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere from Urbino, but reaped from the war nothing but hatred and poverty, 1 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. 2 Franc. Vettori,. l.c. p. 301. Arch . Stor. Append, i. p. 293 sqq. Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, vi. p. 232 sqq. Tommaso Gar. 1 . c. p. 42. THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. 168 and was forced, when in 1519 Lorenzo followed his uncle to the grave, to hand over the hardly-won con¬ quests to the Church. 1 He did on compulsion and without credit what, if it had been done voluntarily, would have been to his lasting honour. What, partly alone, and partly in alternate negotiations with Francis I. and Charles V., he attempted against Alfonso of Ferrara, and actually achieved against a few petty despots and Condottieri, was assuredly not of a kind to raise his reputation. And this was at a time when the monarchs of the West were yearly growing more and more accustomed to political gambling on a colossal scale, of which the stakes were this or that province of Italy. 2 Who could guarantee that, since the last decades had seen so great an increase of their power at home, their ambition could stop short of the States of the Church ? Leo himself witnessed the prelude of what was ful¬ filled in the year 1527 ; a few bands of Spanish infantry appeared—of their own accord, it seems—at the end of 1520, on the borders of the Pontifical territory, with a view of laying the Pope under con¬ tribution, 3 but were driven back by the Papal forces. The public feeling, too, against the corruptions of the 1 Ariosto, Sat. vi. v. 106. ‘Tutti morrete, ed & fatal che muoja Leone appresso.’ Sat. 3 and 7 ridicule the hangers on at Leo’s Court. 2 One of several instances of such combinations is given in the Lettere dei Prmcipi , i. 65, in a despatch of the Cardinal Bibbiena from Paris of the year 1518. 3 Franc. Vettori, l.c. p. 333. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. ibg hierarchy had of late years been drawing rapidly to a head, and men with an eye for the future, like the younger Pico della Mirandola, called urgently for reform. 1 Meantime Luther had already appeared Upon the scene. Under Adrian VI. (1522—1523), the few and timid improvements, carried out in the face of the great German Reformation, came too late. He could do little more than proclaim his horror of .the course which things had taken hitherto, of simony, nepotism, prodigality, brigandage, and profligacy. The danger from the side of the Lutherans was by no means the greatest; an acute observer from Venice, Girolamo Negro, uttered his fears that a speedy and terrible disaster would befall the city of Rome itself. 2 Under Clement VII. the whole horizon of Rome was filled with vapours, like that leaden veil which the scirocco draws over the Campagna, and which 1 At the time of the Lateran Council, in 1512, Pico wrote an address: y. E. P. Oratio ad Leonem X. et Concilium Lateranense de Reformandis Ecclesice 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 nostras religionis hostibus ante audias geri quam parari.’ 2 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 mon¬ archy .. . Unless God helps us we are lost.’ Whether Adrian were really poisoned or not, cannot be gathered with certainty from Bias Ortiz, Itinerar. Hadria 7 ii (Baluz. Miscell. ed. Mansi, i. p. 386 sqq.); the worst of it was that everybody believed it. THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART 170 makes the last months of summer so deadly. The Pope was no less detested at home than abroad. Thoughtful people were filled with anxiety, 1 hermits appeared upon the streets and squares of Rome, foretelling the fall of Italy and of the world, and calling the Pope by the name of Antichrist; 2 the faction of the Colonna raised its head defiantly; the indomitable Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, whose mere existence 3 was a permanent menace to the Papacy, ventured to surprise the city in 1526, hoping, with the help of Charles V., to become Pope then and there, as soon as Clement was killed or captured. It was no piece of good fortune for Rome that the latter was able to escape to the Castle of St. Angelo, and the fate for which himself was reserved may well be called worse than death. By a series of those falsehoods, which only the powerful can venture on, but which bring ruin upon the weak, Clement brought about the advance of the Germano-Spanish army under Bourbon and Frunds- berg (1527). It is certain 4 that the Cabinet of Charles V. intended to inflict on him a severe cas¬ tigation, and that it could not calculate beforehand how far the zeal of its unpaid hordes would carry 1 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 c De Exilio’ was written in his praise, shortly before he became Pope. 2 Varchi, Stor. Fiorent. i. 43, 46 sqq. 3 Paul. Jov., Vita Pomp. Colum?iae. 4 Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte (4 Aufl.) ii. 262 sqq. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. 171 them. It would have been vain to attempt to enlist men in Germany without paying any bounty, if it had not been well known that Rome was the object of the expedition. It may be that the written orders to Bourbon will be found some day or other, and it is not improbable that they will prove to be worded mildly. But historical criticism will not allow itself to be led astray. The Catholic King and Emperor owed it to his luck and nothing else, that Pope and cardinals were not murdered by his troops. Had this happened, no sophistry in the world could clear him from his share in the guilt. The massacre of count¬ less people of less consequence, the plunder of the rest, and all the horrors of torture and traffic in human life, show clearly enough what was possible in the ‘ Sacco di Roma.’ Charles seems to have wished to bring the Pope, who had fled a second time to the Castle of St. Angelo, to Naples, after extorting from him vast sums of money, and Clement’s flight to Orvieto must have happened without any connivance on the part of Spain. 1 Whether the Emperor ever thought seri¬ ously of the secularisation of the States of the Church, 2 for which everybody was quite prepared, and whether he was really dissuaded from it by the representations of Henry VIII. of England, will probably never be made clear. 1 Varchi, St or. Fiorent. ii. 43 sqq. 2 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. 172 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. But if such projects really existed, they cannot have lasted long : from the devastated city arose a new spirit of reform both in Church and State. It made itself felt in a moment. Cardinal Sadoleto, one witness of many, thus writes :—* If through our suffer¬ ing a satisfaction is made to the wrath and justice of God, if these fearful punishments again open the way to better laws and morals, then is our misfortune perhaps not of the greatest. What belongs to God He will take care of; before us lies a life of reformation, which no violence can take from us. Let us so rule our deeds and thoughts as to seek in God only the true glory of the priesthood and our own true great¬ ness and power.’ 1 In point of fact, this critical year, 1527, so far bore fruit, that the voices of serious men could again make themselves heard. Rome had suffered too much to return, even under a Paul III., to the gay corruption of Leo X. The Papacy, too, when its sufferings became so great, began to excite a sympathy half religious and half political. The kings could not tolerate that one of their number should arrogate to himself the rights of Papal gaoler, and concluded (August 18, 1527) the Treaty of Amiens, one of the objects of which was the deliverance of Clement. They thus, at all events, turned to their own account the unpopularity which 1 See his letter to the Pope, dated Carpentras, Sept. 1, 1527, in the Anecdot a litt. iv. p. 335. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. i 73 the deeds of the Imperial troops had excited. At the same time the Emperor became seriously embarrassed, even in Spain, where the prelates and grandees never saw him without making the most urgent remon¬ strances. When a general deputation of the clergy and laity, all clothed in mourning, was projected, Charles, fearing that troubles might arise out of it, like those of the insurrection quelled a few years before, forbad the scheme. 1 Not only did he not dare to prolong the maltreatment of the Pope, but he was absolutely compelled, even apart from all con¬ siderations of foreign politics, to be reconciled with the Papacy which he had so grievously wounded. For the temper of the German people, which certainly pointed to a different course, seemed to him, like German affairs generally, to afford no foundation for a policy. It is possible, too, as a Venetian maintains, 2 that the memory of the sack of Rome lay heavy on his conscience, and tended to hasten that expiation which was sealed by the permanent subjection of the Florentines to the Medicean family of which the Pope was a member. The ‘ nipote ’ and new Duke, Alessandro Medici, was married to the natural daughter of the Emperor. In the following years the plan of a Council enabled Charles to keep the Papacy in all essential points under his control, and at one and the same time to 1 Lettere dei Principi , i. 72. Castiglione to the Pope, Burgos, Dec. 10, 1527. 2 Tommaso Gar, Relaz. della Corte di Roma , i. 299. i 74 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART. protect and to oppress it. The greatest danger of all —secularisation—the danger which came from within, from the Popes themselves and their ‘ nipoti/ was adjourned for centuries by the German Reformation. Just as this alone had made the expedition against Rome (1527) possible and successful, so did it compel the Papacy to become once more the expression of a world-wide spiritual power, to raise itself from the soulless debasement in which it lay, and to place itself at the head of all the enemies of this reformation. The institution thus developed during the latter years of Clement VII., and under Paul III., Paul IV., and their successors, in the face of the defection of half Europe, was a new, regenerated hierarchy, which avoided all the great and dangerous scandals of former times, particularly nepotism, with its attempts at territorial aggrandisement, 1 and which, in alliance with the Catholic princes, and impelled by a new-born spiritual force, found its chief work in the recovery of what had been lost. It only existed and is only intelligible in opposition to the seceders. In this sense it can be said with perfect truth that, the moral salvation of the Papacy is due to its mortal enemies. And now its political position, too, though certainly under the permanent tutelage of Spain, became im¬ pregnable ; almost without effort it inherited, on the extinction of its vassals, the legitimate line of Este 1 The Farnese succeeded in something of the kind, the Caraffa were ruined. THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS. J 75 and the house of Della Rovere, the duchies of Ferrara and Urbino. But without the Reformation—if, indeed, it is possible to think it away—the whole ecclesiastical State would long ago have passed into secular hands. In conclusion, let us briefly consider the effect of these political circumstances on the spirit of the nation at large. It is evident that the general political uncertainty in Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was of a kind to excite in the better spirits of the time a patriotic disgust and opposition. Dante and Petrarch, 1 in their day, proclaimed loudly a common Italy, the object of the highest efforts of all her children. It may be objected that this was only the enthusiasm of a few highly-instructed men, in which the mass of the people had no share; but it can hardly have been otherwise even in Germany, although in name at least that country was united, and recognised in the Emperor one supreme head. The first patriotic utterances of German Literature, if we except some verses of the ‘ Minnesanger,’ belong to the humanists of the time of Maximilian I. 2 and after, and read 1 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. 2 Particularly those in vol. i. of Schardius, Scriptorcs rerum Germa- 176 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART like an echo of Italian declamations, or like a reply to Italian criticism on the intellectual immaturity of Germany. And yet, as a matter of fact, Germany had been long a nation in a truer sense than Italy ever was since the Roman days. France owes the consciousness of its national unity mainly to its con¬ flicts with the English, and Spain has never per¬ manently succeeded in absorbing Portugal, closely related as the two countries are. For Italy, the existence of the ecclesiastical State, and the conditions under which alone it could continue, were a permanent obstacle to national unity, an obstacle whose removal seemed hopeless. When, therefore, in the political intercourse of the fifteenth century, the common fatherland is sometimes emphatically named, it is done in most cases to annoy some other Italian State. 1 The first decades of the sixteenth century, the years when the Renaissance attained its fullest bloom, were not favourable to a revival of patriotism ; the enjoyment of intellectual and artistic pleasures, the comforts and elegancies of life, and the supreme interests of self¬ development, destroyed or hampered the love of country. But those deeply serious and sorrowful appeals to nicarum , Basel, 1574 . For an earlier period, Felix Faber, Historia Sue - vorum, libri duo (in Goldast, Script, rer. Suev. 1605); for a later, Ire- nicus, Exegesis Germanics , 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. 1 One instance out of many : The Atiswers of the Doge of Venice to a Florentine Age?it respecting Pisa, 1496, in Malipiero, Ann. Veneti , Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 427. 7 HE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS . 177 national sentiment were not heard again till later, when the time for unity had gone by, when the country was inundated with Frenchmen and ^Spaniards, and when a German army had conquered Rome. The sense of local patriotism may be said in some measure to have taken the place of this feeling, though it was but a poor equivalent for it. vol. r. N PART II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL V CHAPTER I. THE ITALIAN STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL. In the character of these states, whether republics or despotisms, lies, not the only, but the chief reason for the early development of the Italian. To this it is due that he was the first-born among the sons of modern Europe. ^In the Middle Ages both sides of human conscious¬ ness—that which was turned within as that which was turned without—lay dreaming or half-awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation—only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things of this world became pos¬ sible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual} and recognised himself as such. 1 Observe the expressions 1 uomo singolare ’ and c uomo unico ’ for the higher and highest stages of individual development. 182 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. In the same way the Greek had once distinguished himself from the barbarian, and the Arabian had felt himself an individual at a time when other Asiatics knew themselves only as members of a race. It will not be difficult to show that this result was owing above all to the political circumstances of Italy. In far earlier times we can here and there detect a development of free personality which in Northern Europe either did not occur at all, or could not display itself in the same manner. The band of audacious wrongdoers in the sixteenth century described to us by Luidprand, some of the contemporaries of Gregory VII., and a few of the opponents of the first Hohenstaufen, show us characters of this kind. But at the close of the thirteenth century Italy began to swarm with individuality; the charm laid upon human personality was dissolved; and a thousand figures meet us each in its own special shape and dress. Dante’s great poem would have been impos¬ sible in any other country of Europe, if only for the reason that they all still lay under the spell of race. For Italy the august poet, through the wealth of individuality which he set forth, was the most national herald of his time. But this unfolding of the treasures of human nature in literature and art—this many-sided representation and criticism—will be discussed in separate chapters ; here we have to deal only with the psychological fact itself. This fact appears in the most decisive and unmistakeable form. The Italians THE ITALIAN STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL . 183 of the fourteenth century knew little of false modesty or of hypocrisy in any shape ; not one of them was afraid of singularity, of being and seeming 1 unlike his neighbours . 2 Despotism, as we have already seen, fostered in the highest degree the individuality not only of the tyrant or Condottiere himself , 3 * but also of the men whom he protected or used as his tools—the secretary, t minister, poet, and companion. These people were forced to know all the inward resources of their own nature, passing or permanent; and their enjoyment of life was enhanced and concentrated by the desire to obtain the greatest satisfaction from a possibly very brief period of power and influence. But even the subjects whom they ruled over were 1 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 5 in the Rime , publ. dal Poggiali, p. 52. 2 At the close of the sixteenth century Montaigne draws the following parallel (. Essais , 1 . iii. chap. 5, vol. iii. p. 367 of the Paris ed. 1816) : ‘ Ils (les Italiens) ont plus communement des belles femmes et moins delaides que nous ; mais des rares et excellentes beaut^s j’estime que nous allons a pair. Et j’en juge autant des esprits ; de ceux de la commune fagon, ils en ont beaucoup plus etevidemment ; la brutalite y est sans compa- raison plus rare ; d’ames smgulieres et du plus hault estage, nous ne leur en debvons rien.’ 3 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, Ric- carda 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.) 184 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. not free from the same impulse. Leaving out of account those who wasted their lives in secret opposi¬ tion and conspiracies, we speak of the majority who were content with a strictly private station, like most of the urban population of the Byzantine empire and the Mohammedan states. No doubt it was often hard for the subjects of a Visconti to maintain the dignity of their persons and families, and multitudes must have lost in moral character through the servitude they lived under. But this was not the case with regard to individuality; for political impotence does not hinder the different tendencies and manifestations of private life from thriving in the fullest vigour and variety. Wealth and culture, so far as display and rivalry were not forbidden to them, a municipal free¬ dom which did not cease to be considerable, and a Church which, unlike that of the Byzantine or of the Mohammedan world, was not identical with the State —all these conditions undoubtedly favoured the growth of individual thought, for which the necessary leisure was furnished by the cessation of party conflicts. The private man, indifferent to politics, and busied partly with serious pursuits, partly with the interests of a dilettante , seems to have been first fully formed in these despotisms of the fourteenth century. Docu¬ mentary evidence cannot, of course, be required on such a point. The novelists, from whom we might expect information, describe to us oddities in plenty, but only from one point of view and in so far as the THE ITALIAN STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 185 needs of the story demand. Their scene, too, lies chiefly in the republican cities. In the latter, circumstances were also, but in another way, favourable to the growth of individual character. The more frequently the governing party was changed, the more the individual was led to make the utmost of the exercise and enjoyment of power. The states¬ men and popular leaders, especially in Florentine history, 1 acquired so marked a personal character, that we can scarcely find, even exceptionally, a parallel to them in contemporary history, hardly even in Jacob von Arteveldt. The members of the defeated parties, on the other hand, often came into a position like. that of the subjects of the despotic States, with the difference that the freedom or power already enjoyed, and in some cases the hope of recovering them, gave a higher energy to their individuality. Among these men of involuntary leisure we find, for instance, an Agnolo Pandolfini (d. 1446), whose work on domestic economy 2 3 1 Franco Sacchetti, in his 1 Capitolo 5 (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. 3 Trattato del G over no 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 i86 THE DEVELOPMENT OP THE INDIVIDUAL . is the first complete programme of a developed private life. His estimate of the duties of the individual as against the dangers and thanklessness of public life 1 is in its way a true monument of the age. Banishment, too, has this effect above all, that it either wears the exile out or develops whatever is greatest in him. ‘In all our more populous cities,’ says Giovanni Pontano, 2 ‘ we see a crowd of people who have left their home of their own free-will; but a man takes his virtues with him wherever he goes.’ And, in fact, they were by no means only men who had been actually exiled, but thousands left their native place voluntarily, because they found its political or economical condition intolerable. The Florentine emigrants at Ferrara and the Lucchese in Venice formed whole colonies by themselves. The cosmopolitanism which grew up in the most gifted circles is in itself a high stage of individualism. Dante, as we have already said (67), finds a new home in the language and culture of Italy, but goes beyond even this in the words, ‘ My country is the whole world.’ 3 And when his recall to Florence was offered (Florence 1871), have shown Alberti to be the author. The work is quoted from the ed. Torino, Pomba, 1828. 1 Trattato, p. 65 sqq. 54 Jov. Pontanus, De Fortitudine , 1 . ii. cap. 4, ‘ De tolerando Exilio.’ Seventy years later, Cardanus {De Vita Proprid , cap. 32) could ask bitterly : £ Quid est patria nisi consensus tyrannorum minutorum ad opprimendos imbelles timidos et qui plerumque sunt innoxii ? 3 De Vulgari Eloquio , lib. i. cap. 6. On the ideal Italian language, cap. 17. The spiritual unity of cultivated men, cap. 18. On home- THE ITALIAN STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 187 him on unworthy conditions, he wrote back: ‘Can I not everywhere behold the light of the sun and the stars ; everywhere meditate on the noblest truths, without appearing ingloriously and shamefully before Even my bread will not fail me.’ 1 The artists exult no less defiantly in their freedom from the constraints of fixed residence. ‘ Only he who has learned everything,’ says Ghiberti, 2 ‘ is nowhere a stranger; robbed of his fortune and 4 without friends, he is yet the citizen of every country, and can fearlessly despise the changes of fortune.’ In the same strain an exiled humanist writes : ‘ Where- ever a learned man fixes his seat, there is home.’ 3 sickness, comp, the famous passages, Purg. viii. 1 sqq., and Par ad. xxv. 1 sqq. 1 Dantis Alligherii Epistolae , ed. Carolus Witte, p. 65. 2 Ghiberti, Secondo Commentario , cap. xv. (Vasari ed Lemonnier, i. p. xxix.). 3 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. Cosmopoli¬ tanism 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 pro¬ claim homelessness a pleasure, and calls himself, Laertius tells us, anoXts. 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 188 THE DEVELOPMENT OP THE INDIVIDUAL ,. 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, 4 Sapientissimus quisque omnem orbem terrarum unam urbem esse ducit. Atque etiam illam veram sibi esse patriam arbitratur quae se perigrinantem exciperit, quae pudorem, probitatem, virtutem colit, quae optima studia, liberales disciplinas amplectitur, quae etiam facit ut peregrini omnes honesto otio teneant statum et famam dignitatis suae/ 189 CHAPTER II. THE PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL* An acute and practised eye might be able to trace, step by step, the increase in the number of complete men during the fifteenth century. Whether they had before them as a conscious object the harmonious development of their spiritual and material existence, is hard to say ; but several of them attained it, so far ¥ as is consistent with the imperfection of all that is earthly. It may be better to renounce the attempt at an estimate of the share which fortune, character, and talent had in the life of Lorenzo Magnifico. But look at a personality like that of Ariosto, especially as shown in his satires. In what harmony are there expressed the pride of the man and the poet, the irony with which he treats his own enjoyments, the most delicate satire, and the deepest goodwill! When this impulse to the highest individual de¬ velopment 1 was combined with a powerful and varied 1 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. III. Paris, s. a. fol. xxix. b) points out that Socrates came 1 9 o THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. nature, which had mastered all the elements of the culture of the age, then arose the ‘ all-sided man ’— ‘ l’uomo universale’—who belonged to Italy alone. Men there were of encyclopaedic knowledge in many countries during the Middle Ages, for this knowledge was confined within narrow limits ; and even in the twelfth century there were universal artists, but the problems of architecture were comparatively simple and uniform, and in sculpture and painting the matter was of more importance than the form. But in Italy at the time of the Renaissance, we find artists who in every branch created new and perfect works, and who also made the greatest impression as men. Others, outside the arts they practised, were masters of a vast circle of spiritual interests. Dante, who, even in his lifetime, was called by some a poet, by others a philosopher, by others a theologian, 1 pours forth in all his writings a stream of personal force by which the reader, apart from the interest of the subject, feels himself carried away. What power of will must the steady, unbroken elabora¬ tion of the ‘ Divine Comedy ’ have required ! And if we look at the matter of the poem, we find that in the whole spiritual or physical world there is hardly an important subject which the poet has not fathomed, and on which his utterances—often only a few words of uneducated, Euripides and Demosthenes of unknown, parents, and exclaims : ‘ Quasi animos a gignentibus habeamus !’ 1 Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 16. THE PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 19r —are not the most weighty of his time. For the plastic arts he is of the first importance, and this for better reasons than the few references to contemporary artists—he soon became himself the source of inspira¬ tion. 1 The fifteenth century is, above all, that of the many-sided men. There is no biography which does not, besides the chief work of its hero, speak of other pursuits all passing beyond the limits of dilettantism. The Florentine merchant and statesman was often learned in both the classical languages ; the most famous humanists read the ethics and politics of Aristotle to him and his sons ; 2 3 * * even the daughters of the house were highly educated. It is in these circles that private education was first treated seriously. The humanist, on his side, was compelled to the most varied attainments, since his philological learning was not limited, as it now is, to the theoretical knowledge of classical antiquity, but had to serve the practical needs of daily life. While studying Pliny, 8 he made 1 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. 2 For this and what follows, see esp. Vespasiano Fiorentino, an au¬ thority of the first order for Florentine culture in the fifteenth century. Comp. pp. 359, 379, 401, etc. See, also, the charming and instructive Vita Jaiinor.tii Manetti (b. 1396), by Naldus Naldius, in Murat, xx. pp. 529-608. 3 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. 192 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. collections of natural history ; the geography of the ancients was his guide in treating of modern geography, their history was his pattern in writing contemporary chronicles, even when composed in Italian; he not only translated the comedies of Plautus, but acted as manager when they were put on the stage; every effective form of ancient literature down to the dia¬ logues of Lucian he did his best to imitate; and besides all this, he acted as magistrate, secretary, and diplomatist—not always to his own advantage. But among these many-sided men, some who may truly be called all-sided, tower above the rest. Before analysing the general phases of life and culture of this period, we may here, on the threshold of the fifteenth century, consider for a moment the figure of one of these giants—Leon Battista Alberti (b. 1404 ? d. 1472). 1 His biography, 2 which is only a fragment, speaks of him but little as an artist, and makes no mention at all of his great significance in the history of architecture. We shall now see what he was, apart from these special claims to distinction. In all by which praise is won, Leon Battista was 1 For what follows compare Burckhardt, Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien , Stuttg. 1868, esp. p. 41 sqq., and A. Springer, Abhandlungen zur neueren Knnstgescliichte , Bonn, 1867, pp. 69-102. A new biography of Alberti is in course of preparation by Hub. Janitschek. 2 In Murat, xxv. col. 295 sqq., with the Italian translation in the Opere Volgari di L. B. Alberti, v ol. i. pp. lxxxix-cix, where the conjecture is made and shown to be probable that this ‘ Vita 5 is by Alberti himself. See, further, Vasari, iv. 52 sqq. Mariano Socini, if we can believe what we read of him in /En. Sylvius {Opera, p. 622, Epist. 112) was a universal dilettante, and at the same time a master in several subjects. THE PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 193 from his childhood the first. Of his various gymnastic feats and exercises we read with astonishment how, with his feet together, he could spring over a man’s head ; how, in the cathedral, he threw a coin in the air till it was heard to ring against the distant roof; how the wildest horses trembled under him. In three things he desired to appear faultless to others, in walking, in riding, and in speaking. He learned music without a master, and yet his compositions were admired by professional judges. Under the pressure of poverty, he studied both civil and canonical law for many years, till exhaustion brought on a severe illness. In his twenty-fourth year, finding his memory for words weakened, but his sense of facts unimpaired, he set to work at physics and mathematics. And all the while he acquired every sort of accomplishment and dexterity, cross-examining artists, scholars, and artisans of all descriptions, down to the cobblers, about the secrets and peculiarities of their craft. Painting and model¬ ling he practised by the way, and especially excelled in admirable likenesses from memory. Great admiration was excited by his mysterious ‘ camera obscura,’ 1 in which he showed at one time the stars and the moon rising over rocky hills, at another wide landscapes with mountains and gulfs receding into dim perspective, 1 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, Litera- turgesch. der Araber , i. Introd. p. li. VOL. I. O i 9 4 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. and with fleets advancing on the waters in shade or sunshine. And that which others created he welcomed joyfully, and held every human achievement which fol¬ lowed the laws of beauty for something almost divine. 1 To all this must be added his literary works, first of all those on art, which are landmarks and authorities of the first order for the Renaissance of Form, especially in architecture ; then his Latin prose writ¬ ings—novels and other works—of which some have been taken for productions of antiquity ; his elegies, eclogues, and humorous dinner-speeches. He also wrote an Italian treatise on domestic life 2 in four books; various moral, philosophical, and historical works; and many speeches and poems, including a funeral oration on his dog. Notwithstanding his admi¬ ration for the Latin language, he wrote in Italian, and encouraged others to do the same ; himself a disciple of Greek science, he maintained the doctrine, that without Christianity the world would wander in a labyrinth of error. His serious and witty sayings were thought worth collecting, and specimens of them, many columns long, are quoted in his biography. And all that he had and knew he imparted, as rich natures always do, without the least reserve, giving away his chief discoveries for nothing. But the deepest spring of his nature has yet to be spoken of—the sympathetic 1 Quidquid ingenio esset hominum cum quadam effectum elegantia, id prope divinum ducebat. 2 This is the book (comp. p. 185, note 2) of which one part, often printed alone, long passed for a work of Pandolfini. THE PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 195 intensity with which he entered into the whole life around him. At the sight of noble trees and waving corn-fields he shed tears; handsome and dignified old men he honoured as ‘ a delight of nature/ and could never look at them enough. Perfectly-formed animals won his goodwill as being specially favoured by nature ; and more than once, when he was ill, the sight of a beautiful landscape cured him. 1 No wonder that those who saw him in this close and mysterious com¬ munion with the world ascribed to him the gift of prophecy. He was said to have foretold a bloody catastrophe in the family of Este, the fate of Florence, and the death of the Popes years before they hap¬ pened, and to be able to read into the countenances and the hearts of men. It need not be added that an iron will pervaded and sustained his whole personality ; like all the great men of the Renaissance, he said, ‘ Men can do all things if they will/ And Lionardo da Vinci was to Alberti as the finisher to the beginner, as the master to the dilettante. Would only that Vasari’s work were here supple¬ mented by a description like that of Alberti ! The colossal outlines of Lionardo’s nature can never be more than dimly and distantly conceived. 1 In his work, De Re ALdificatorici , 1 . 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.’ o ' » br 196 CHAPTER III. THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME. To this inward development of the individual corre¬ sponds a new sort of outward distinction—the modern form of glory. 1 In the other countries of Europe the different classes of society lived apart, each with its own mediaeval caste sense of honour. The poetical fame of the Troubadours and Minnesanger was peculiar to the knightly order. But in Italy social equality had appeared before the time of the . tyrannies or the democracies. We there find early traces of a general society, having, as will be shown more fully later on, a common ground in Latin and Italian literature ; and such a ground was needed for this new element in life to grow in. To this must be added that the Roman authors, who were now 1 One writer among many : Blondus, Roma Triumphans, 1 . 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. THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME. 197 zealously studied, and especially Cicero, the most read and admired of all, are filled and saturated with the conception of fame, and that their subject itself— the universal empire of Rome—stood as a permanent ideal before the minds of Italians. From henceforth all the aspirations and achievements of the people were governed by a moral postulate, which was still unknown elsewhere in Europe. Here, again, as in all essential points, the first witness to be called is Dante. He strove for the poet’s garland 1 with all the power of his soul. As publicist and man of letters, he laid stress on the fact that what he did was new, and that he wished not only to be, but to be esteemed the first in his own walks. 2 But even in his prose writings he touches on the inconveniences of fame; he knows how often personal acquaintance with famous men is disap¬ pointing, and explains how this is due partly to the childish fancy of men, partly to envy, and partly to the imperfections of the hero himself. 3 And in his great poem he firmly maintains the emptiness of fame, although in a manner which betrays that his heart was not set free from the longing for it. In Paradise the 1 Paradiso , xxv. at the beginning: ‘Se mai continga/ &c. See above, p. 186, note 2. Comp. Boccaccio, Vita di Da?ite, p. 49. ‘Vaghissimo fu e d’onore e di pompa, e per avventura piu che alia sua inclita virtu non si sarebbe richiesto.’ 2 De Vulgari Eloquio , 1 . i. cap. i. and esp. De Monarchia , 1 . 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 glo- riam adipiscar.’ 3 Convito , ed. Venezia, 1529, fol. 5 and 6. I 9 S THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. sphere of Mercury is the seat of such blessed ones 1 as on earth strove after glory and thereby dimmed ‘the beams of true love/ It is characteristic that the lost souls in hell beg of Dante to keep alive for them their memory and fame on earth, 2 while those in Purgatory only entreat his prayers and those of others for their deliverance. 3 And in a famous passage, 4 the passion for fame—‘ lo gran desio dell’ eccellenza ’—is reproved for the reason that intellectual glory is not absolute, but relative to the times, and may be surpassed and eclipsed by greater successors. The new race of poet-scholars which arose soon after Dante quickly made themselves masters of this fresh tendency. They did so in a double sense, being themselves the most acknowledged celebrities of Italy, and at the same time, as poets and his¬ torians, consciously disposing of the reputation of others. An outward symbol of this sort of fame was the coronation of the poets, of which we shall speak later on. A contemporary of Dante, Albertinus Musattus or Mussattus, crowned poet at Padua by the bishop and rector, enjoyed a fame which fell little short of deification. Every Christmas Day the doctors and 1 Paradiso , vi. 112 sqq. 2 E.g. Inferno, vi. 89; xiii. 53 : xvi. 85 ; xxxi. 127. 3 Purgatorio, v. 70, 87, 133 ; vi. 26; viii. 71 ; xi. 31 ; xiii. 147. 4 Pu?gatorio , 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.’ THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME. 199 students of both colleges at the University came in solemn procession before his house with trumpets and, as it seems, with burning tapers, to salute him 1 and bring him presents. His reputation lasted till, in 1318, he fell into disgrace with the ruling tyrant of the House of Carrara. This new incense, which once was offered only to saints and heroes, was given in clouds to Petrarch, who persuaded himself in his later years that it was but a foolish and troublesome thing. His letter ‘To Posterity ’ 2 is the confession of an old and famous man, who is forced to gratify the public curiosity. He admits that he wishes for fame in the times to come, s but would rather be without it in his own day. 3 In his dialogue on fortune and misfortune, 4 the interlo¬ cutor, who maintains the futility of glory, has the best 1 Scardeonius, De Urb. Patav. Antiqu. (Grasv. Thesaur. vi. iii. col. 260). Whether ‘ cereis 5 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. 2 Franc. Petrarca , Posleritati, or Ad Postcros, at the beginning of the editions of his works, or the only letter of book xviii. of the Epp. Seniles ; also in Fracassetti, Petr. Epistolce Familiares, 1859, i. 1-11. Some mo¬ dern critics of Petrarch’s vanity would hardly have shown as much kind¬ ness and frankness had they been in his place. 3 Opera , eel. 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. 4 ‘De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae ’ 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. 200 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL . of the contest. But, at the same time, Petrarch is pleased that the autocrat of Byzantium 1 knows him as well by his writings ar-'rCharles IV. 2 knows him. And in fact, even in his lifetime, his fame extended far beyond Italy. And the emotion which he felt was natural when his friends, on the occasion of a visit to his native Arezzo (1350), took him to the house where he was born, and told him how the city had provided that no change should be made in it. 3 In former times the dwellings of certain great saints were preserved and revered in this way, like the cell of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Dominican convent at Naples, and the Portiuncula of St. Francis near Assisi ; and one or two great jurists also enjoyed the half-mythical reputation which led to this honour. Towards the close of the fourteenth century the people at Bagnolo, near Florence, called an old building the ‘ Studio ’ of Accursius (b. about 1150), but, nevertheless, suffered it to be destroyed. 4 It is probable that the great incomes and the political influence which some jurists obtained as consulting lawyers made a lasting impres¬ sion on the popular imagination. 1 Epp. Fam. lib. xviii. (ed. Fracassetti) 2. A measure of Petrarch’s fame is given a hundred years later by the assertion of Blondus (Tta/frt 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. 2 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. 3 Epist. Seni/es , xiii. 3, to Giovanni Aretino, Sept. 9, 1370. 4 Filippo Viliam, Vile, p. 19. THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME. 201 To the cultus of the birthplaces of famous men must be added that of their graves, 1 and in the case of Petrarch, of the spot where he died. In memory of him Arqua became a favourite resort of the Paduans, and was dotted with graceful little villas. 2 At this time there were no ‘classic spots’ in Northern Europe, and pilgrimages were only made to pictures and relics. It was a point of honour for the different cities to possess the bones of their own and of foreign cele¬ brities ; and it is most remarkable how seriously the Florentines, even in the fourteenth century—long before the building of Santa Croce—laboured to make their cathedral a Pantheon. Accorso, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the jurist Zanobi della Strada were to have had magnificent tombs there erected to them. Late in the fifteenth century, Lorenzo Magnihco applied in person to the Spoletans, asking them to give up the corpse of the painter Fra Filippo Lippi for the cathedral, and received the answer that they had none too many ornaments to the city, especially in the shape of distinguished people, for which reason they begged him to spare them; and, in fact, he had 1 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. 2 Mich. Savonarola, De Laudibus Patavii , in Murat, xxiv. col. 1157. Arqua remained from thenceforth the object of special veneration (comp. Ettore Conte Macola, I Codici di Arqua , Padua, 1874), and was the scene of great solemnities at the fifth centenary of Petrarch’s death. His dwel¬ ling is said to have been lately given to the city of Padua by the last owner, Cardinal Silvestri. 3 The decree of 1396 and its grounds in Gaye, Carteggio, i. 123. 202 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL to be contented with erecting a cenotaph. 1 And even Dante, in spite of all the applications to which Boccaccio urged the Florentines with bitter emphasis, 2 remained sleeping tranquilly by the side of San Francesco at Ravenna, ‘among ancient tombs of emperors and vaults of saints, in more honourable company than thou, O Home, couldst offer him.’ It even happened that a man once took away unpunished the lights from the altar on which the crucifix stood, and set them by the grave, with the words, ‘ Take them ; thou art more worthy of them than He, the Crucified One !’ 3 4 And now the Italian cities began again to remem¬ ber their ancient citizens and inhabitants. Naples, perhaps, had never forgotten its tomb of Virgil, since a kind of mythical halo had become attached to the name, and the memory of it had been revived by Petrarch and Boccaccio, who both stayed in the city. The Paduans, even in the sixteenth century, firmly believed that they possessed not only the genuine bones of their founder Antenor, but also those of the historian Livy-. 4 4 Sulmona,’ says Boccaccio, 5 ‘ bewails 1 Reumont, Lorenzo de* Medici , ii. 180. 3 Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 39. 3 Franco Sacchetti, nov. 121. 4 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 cn Italie, vol. i., and Michele Savonarola, col. 1157. 5 Vita di Dante, 1 . c. How came the body of Cassius from Philippi back to Parma ? THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME. 203 that Ovid lies buried far away in exile; and Parma rejoices that Cassius sleeps within its walls/ The Mantuans coined a medal in 1257 with the bust of Virgil, and raised a statue to represent him. In a fit of aristocratic insolence, 1 the guardian of the young 1 ‘ Nobilitatis fastu’ and c 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 dirutd Statud Virgilii P. P. V. eloquentissimi Oratoris Efiistola ex Ttigurio Blondisub 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 con¬ sequence of the invective? Bartholomasus Facius {De Vir. III. p. 9 sqq. in the Life of P. P. V. 1456) says it did, 1 Carolum Malatestam invectus Virgilii statua, quam ille Mantuae in foro everterat, quoniam gentilis fuerat, ut ibidem restitueretur, effecit; J 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. daFeltre , written soon after 1446 (ed. 1871, p. 78), where the destruc¬ tion 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 attristo 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 Mantuae 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 204 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. Gonzaga, Carlo Malatesta, caused it to be pulled down in 1392, and was afterwards forced, when he found the fame of the old poet too strong for him, to set it up again. Even then, perhaps, the grotto, a couple of miles from the town, where Virgil was said to have meditated, 1 was shown to strangers, like the ‘ Scuola di Virgilio ’ at Naples. Como claimed both the Plinys 2 for its own, and at the end of the fifteenth century erected statues in their honour, sitting under graceful baldachins on the fagade of the cathedral. History and the new topography were now careful to leave no local celebrity unnoticed. At the same period the northern chronicles only here and there, among the list of popes, emperors, earthquakes, and comets, put in the remark, that at such a time this or that famous man ‘ flourished.’ We shall elsewhere have to show how, mainly under the influence of this idea of fame, an admirable biographical literature was developed. We must here limit ourselves to the local patriotism of the topographers who recorded the claims of their native cities to distinction. In the Middle Ages the cities were proud of their saints and of the bones and relics in their churches. 3 Tart et Lhistoire da 7 is les Archives de Mantoue; documents inedits concernant la personne et les oeuvres 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 Com- paretti’s work on Virgil in the Middle Ages the story is told after Burck- hardt, but without authorities. 1 Comp. Keyssler’s Neueste Reisen, p. 1016. 2 The elder was notoriously a native of Verona. This is the tone of the remarkable work, De Laudibus Papice , in THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME . 205 With these the panegyrist of Padua in 1440, Michele Savonarola, 1 begins his list; from them he passes to ‘ the famous men who were no saints, but who, by their great intellect and force ( virtus ), deserve to be added ( adnecti) to the saints ’—just as in classical antiquity the distinguished man came close upon the hero. 2 The further enumeration is most characteristic of the time. First comes Antenor, the brother of Priam, who founded Padua with a band of Trojan fugitives; King Dardanus, who defeated Attila in the Euganean hills ; followed him in pursuit, and struck him dead at Rimini with a chess-board ; the Emperor Henry IV., who built the cathedral; a King Marcus, whose head was preserved in Monselice (monte silicis arce ) ; then a couple of cardinals and prelates as founders of colleges, churches, and so forth; the famous Augustinian theologian, Fra Alberto ; a string of philosophers beginning with Paolo Veneto and the celebrated Pietro of Albano ; the jurist Paolo Pado- vano; then Livy and the poets Petrarch, Mussato, Lovato. If there is any want of military celebrities in the list, the poet consoles himself for it by the abundance Murat, xx., dating from the fourteenth century—much municipal pride, but no idea of personal fame. 1 De Laudibus Patavii,\x\ Murat, xxiv. col. 1138 sqq. Only three cities, in his opinion, could be compared with Padua—Florence, Venice, and Rome. 2 i Nam et veteres nostri tales aut divos aut seterna memoria dignos non immerito prasdicabant, quum virtus summa sanctitatis sit consocia et pari ematur pretio.’ What follows is most characteristic : ‘Hos itaque meo facili judicio aeternos facio.’ 206 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. of learned men whom he has to show, and by the more durable character of intellectual glory; while the fame of the soldier is buried with his body, or, if it lasts, owes its permanence only to the scholar. 1 It is nevertheless honourable to the city that foreign warriors lie buried here by their own wish, like Pietro de Rossi of Parma, Filippo Arcelli of Piacenza, and especially Gattamelata of Narni (d. 1462), 2 whose brazen equestrian statue, ‘ like a Caesar in triumph,’ already stood by the church of the Santo. The author then names a crowd of jurists and physicians, among the latter two friends of Petrarch, Johannes ab Horologio and Jacob de Dondis, nobles ‘ who had not only, like so many others, received, but deserved, the honour of knighthood.’ Then follows a list of famous mechanicians, painters, and musicians, which is closed by the name of a fencing-master, Michele Rosso, who, as the most distinguished man in his profession, was to be seen painted in many places. By the side of these local temples of fame, which myth, legend, popular admiration, and literary tradition combined to create, the poet-scholars built up a great Pantheon of world-wide celebrity. They made collec¬ tions of famous men and famous women, often in direct 1 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.’ 2 What follows immediately is not, as the editor remarks (Murat, xxiv. col. 1059, note), from the pen of Mich. Savonarola. THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME. 207 imitation of Cornelius Nepos, the pseudo-Suetonius, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch (Mulierum virlutes), Hieronymus (De Viris Illustribus), and others : or they wrote of imaginary triumphal processions and Olym¬ pian assemblies, as was done by Petrarch in his ‘Trionfo della Fama,’ and Boccaccio in the ‘ Amorosa Visione,’ with hundreds of names, of which three- fourths at least belong to antiquity and the rest to the Middle Ages . 1 By-and-by this new and comparatively modern element was treated with greater emphasis ; the historians began to insert descriptions of character, 1 Petrarch, in the ‘ Triumph ’ here quoted, only dwells on characters of antiquity, and in his collection, De Rebus Memorcindis , 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 Oueen Johanna of Naples. And so at a much later time in the Commentarii Urba?ii of Ralph. Volaterranus. In the work De Claris Mitlieribus 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. Grcev. 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 thir¬ teenth 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 women of the House of Este, see Ariosto, Orl. xiii. 208 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. and collections arose of the biographies of distinguished contemporaries, like those of Filippo Villani, Vespasi- ano Fiorentino, Bartolommeo Facio, Paolo Cortese , 1 and lastly of Paolo Giovio . 2 1 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 yEneas Silvius to the cardinalat show, in 1456. (See, nevertheless, Wahlen, Laurentii Vallce Opusctila 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, ‘ setatis memoriseque nostras,’ 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 fif¬ teenth. 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 bio¬ graphies he neither follows chronological order nor the distinction which the subject of each attained, but puts them down ‘ ut quisque mihi occur- rerit,’ 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 theo¬ logians, 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, con¬ fined 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 coun¬ tryman, 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 For Note 2 , see page 210. THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME. 209 The North of Europe, until Italian influence began to tell upon its writers—for instance, on Trithemius, 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, 1 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 intro¬ duction to the chapters devoted to them as those who ‘veluti corpus membra, ita omnia genera quae 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. 1465, 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 P VOL. I. 2io THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. the first German who wrote the lives of famous men— possessed only either legends of the saints, or descrip- 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 ; 5 and Enea Silvio as he 1 in quo primum apparuit mutati sasculi 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 biogra¬ phical collection, Sicco Polentone: 1 Ejus sunt viginti ad filium libri scripti de Claris scriptoribus, utiles admodum qui jam fere ab omnibus legi sunt 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 appareat, 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, look¬ ing 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, Hyppolitus and Dejanira , is printed for the first time in the Opcre di I. B. A. vol. iii. pp. 439-463. 2 How great the fame of the humanists was is shown by the fact that THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME. 21 I tions of princes and churchmen partaking largely of the character of legends and showing no traces of the idea of fame, that is, of distinction won by a man’s personal efforts. Poetical glory was still confined to certain classes of society, and the names of northern artists are only known to us at this period in so far as they were members of certain guilds or corporations. The poet-scholar in Italy had, as we have already said, the fullest consciousness that he was the giver of fame and immortality, or, if he chose, of oblivion . 1 Petrarch, notwithstanding all the idealism of his love to Laura, gives utterance to the feeling, that his sonnets confer immortality on his beloved as well as on him¬ self . 2 Boccaccio complains of a fair one to whom he had done homage, and who remained hard-hearted in order 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 consider¬ able time, until Guarino and others who knew Panormita personally dis¬ covered 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. III. 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.’ 1 A Latin poet of the twelfth century, one of the wandering scholars, who barters his song for a coat, uses this as a threat. Carolina Burana , p. 76. 2 Sonnet cli: Lasso ch’ i ardo. 2T2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. that he might go on praising her and making her famous, and he gives her a hint that he will try the effect of a little blame. 1 Sannazaro, in two magnificent sonnets, threatens Alfonso of Naples with eternal obscurity on account of his cowardly flight before Charles VIII. 2 Angelo Poliziano seriously exhorts (1491) King John of Portugal 3 to think betimes of his immortality in reference to the new discoveries in Africa, and to send him materials to Florence, there to be put into shape (operosius excolenda), otherwise it would befall him as it had befallen all the others whose deeds, unsupported by the help of the learned, ‘ lie hidden in the vast heap of human frailty.’ The king, or his humanistic chan¬ cellor, agreed to this, and promised that at least the Portuguese chronicles of African affairs should be translated into Italian, and sent to Florence to be done into Latin. Whether the promise was kept is not known. These pretensions are by no means so groundless as they may appear at first sight; for the form in which events, even the greatest, are told to the living and to posterity is anything but a matter of indifference. The Italian humanists, with their mode of exposition and their Latin style, had long the com¬ plete control of the reading world of Europe, and till last century the Italian poets were more widely known and studied than those of any other nation. The bap- 1 Boccaccio, Opere Volgari , vol. xvi. in Sonnet 13: Pallido, vinto, etc. 2 Elsewhere, and in Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, iv. 203. 3 Angeli Politiani Epp. lib. x. THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME . 213 tismal name of the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci was given, on account of his book of travels—certainly at the proposal of its German translator into Latin, Martin Waldseemiiller (Hylacomylus) 1 —to a new quarter of the globe, and if Paolo Giovio, with all his superficiality and graceful caprice, promised himself immortality, 2 his expectation has not altogether been disappointed. Amid all these preparations outwardly to win and secure fame, the curtain is now and then drawn aside, and we see with frightful evidence a boundless ambi¬ tion and thirst after greatness, independent of all means and consequences. Thus, in the preface to Macchiavelli’s Florentine history, in which he blames his predecessors Lionardo Aretino and Poggio for their too considerate reticence with regard to the poli¬ tical parties in the city : ‘ They erred greatly and showed that they understood little the ambition of men and the desire to perpetuate a name. How many who could distinguish themselves by nothing praise¬ worthy, strove to do so by infamous deeds ! Those writers did not consider that actions which are great in themselves, as is the case with the actions of rulers and of states, always seem tGybring more glory than blame, of whatever kind they are and whatever 1 Quatuor navigationes, etc. Deodatum (St. DU), 1507. Comp. O. Peschel, Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen , 1859, ed. 2, 1876. 2 Paul. Jov. De Roinanis Piscibus , Praefatio (1825). The first decade of his histories would soon be published, ‘ non sine aliqua spe immortalitatis.’ • JX / / 214 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. the result of them may be.’ 1 In more than one remarkable and dreadful undertaking - the motive assigned by serious writers is the burning desire to achieve something great and memorable. This motive is not a mere extreme case of ordinary vanity, but something demonic, involving a surrender of the will, the use of any means, however atrocious, and even an indifference to success itself. In this sense, for ex¬ ample, Macchiavellr conceives the character of Stefano Porcaro (p. 145) ; 2 of the murderers of Galeazzo Maria Sforza (p. 80), the documents tell us about the same ; and the assassination of Duke Alessandro of Florence (1537) is ascribed by Varchi himself to the thirst for fame which tormented the murderer Lorenzino Medici (p. 83). Still more stress is laid on this motive by Paolo Giovio. 3 Lorenzino, according to him, pilloried by a pamphlet of Molza on account of the mutilation of some ancient statues at Rome, broods over a deed whose novelty shall make his disgrace forgotten, and ends by murdering his kinsman and prince. These are characteristic features of this age of overstrained and despairing passions and forces, and remind us of the burning of the temple of Diana at Ephesus in the time of Philip of Macedon. 1 Comp. Discorsi , i. 27. 1 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.’ 2 Storie Florentine , 1 . vi. 3 Paul. Jov. Elog. Vir. Lit. III. p. 192, speaking of Marius Molsa. CHAPTER IV. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE. The corrective, not only of this modern desire for fame, but of all highly-developed individuality, is found in ridicule, especially when expressed in the victorious form of wit. 1 We read in the Middle Ages how hostile armies, princes, and nobles, provoked one another with symbolical insult, and how the defeated party was loaded with symbolical outrage. Here and there, too, under the influence of classical literature, wit began to be used as a weapon in theological disputes, and the poetry of Provence produced a whole class of satirical compositions. Even the Minnesanger, as their political poems show, could adopt this tone when necessary. 2 But wit could not 1 Mere railing is found very early, in Benzo of Alba, in the eleventh century [Mon. Germ. ss. xi. 591-681). 2 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 Fi'ance au Moyen-dge, Paris, i860, and the equally excellent continuation, La Satire e 7 i France , ou la litterature 7 nilita 7 ite au XVL Siecle y Paris. 1866. 216 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. be an independent element in life till its appropriate victim, the developed individual with personal preten¬ sions, had appeared. Its weapons were then by no means limited to the tongue and the pen, but included tricks and practical jokes—the so-called ‘burle’ and ‘ beffe ’—which form a chief subject of many collec¬ tions of novels. The ‘ Hundred Old Novels/ which must have been composed about the end of the thirteenth cen¬ tury, have as yet neither wit, the fruit of contrast, nor the ‘ burla/ for their subject; 1 their aim is merely to give simple and elegant expression to wise sayings and pretty stories or fables. But if anything proves the great antiquity of the collection, it is precisely this absence of satire. For with the fourteenth century comes Dante, who, in the utterance of scorn, leaves all other poets in the world far behind, and who, if only on account of his great picture of the deceivers, 2 must be called the chief master of colossal comedy. With Petrarch 8 begin the collections of witty sayings after the pattern of Plutarch (Apophthegmata, &c.) What stores of wit were concentrated in Florence 1 See above, p. 9, note 1. Occasionally we find an insolent joke, nov. 37. 2 Inferno, xxi. xxii. The only possible parallel is with Aristophanes. 3 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 mediaeval home, the monasteries. Petrarch’s invectives e contra Galium/ ‘ contra medicum objurgantem/ and his work, De Sui ipsius et Multorum Ignorantia j perhaps also his Epistolce sine Titulo / may be quoted as early examples of satirical writing. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE. 217 during this century, is most characteristically shown in the novels of Franco Sacchetti. These are, for the most part, not stories but answers, given under certain circumstances — shocking pieces of naivety with which silly folks, court-jesters, rogues, and pro¬ fligate women make their retort. The comedy of the tale lies in the startling contrast of this real or assumed naivete with conventional morality and the ordinary relations of the world—things are made to stand on their heads. All means of picturesque representation are made use of, including the intro¬ duction of certain North Italian dialects. Often the place of wit is taken by mere insolence, clumsy trickery, blasphemy, and obscenity ; one or two jokes told of Condottieri 1 are among the most brutal and malicious which are recorded. Many of the ‘ burle ’ are thoroughly comic, but many are only real or supposed evidence of personal superiority, of triumph over another. How much people were willing to put up with, how often the victim was satisfied with getting the laugh on his side by a retaliatory trick, cannot be said; there was much heartless and point¬ less malice mixed up with it all, and life in Florence was no doubt often made unpleasant enough from this cause. 2 The inventors and retailers of jokes soon 1 Nov. 40, 41 ; Ridolfo da Camerino is the man. 2 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. 2 13 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. became inevitable figures, 1 and among them there must have been some who were classical—far superior to all the mere court-jesters, to whom competition, a changing public, and the quick apprehension of the audience, all advantages of life in Florence, were wanting. Some Florentine wits went starring among the despotic courts of Lombardy and Romagna, 2 and found themselves much better rewarded than at home, where their talent was cheap and plentiful. The better type of these people is the amusing man (l’uomo piacevole), the worse is the buffoon and the vulgar parasite who presents himself at weddings and banquets with the argument, ‘ If I am not invited the fault is not mine.’ Now and then the latter com¬ bine to pluck a young spendthrift, 3 but in general they are treated and despised as parasites, while wits of higher position bear themselves like princes, and consider their talent as something sovereign. Dolci- bene, whom Charles IV., ‘ Imperator di Buem,’ had pronounced to be the ‘king of Italian jesters,’ said to him at Ferrara: ‘You will conquer the world, since you are my friend and the Pope’s ; you fight with the sword, the Pope with his bulls, and I with 1 The ‘Araldo’ of the Florentine Signoria. One instance among many, Com?nissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi , iii. 651, 669. The fool as necessary to enliven the company after dinner ; Alcyonius, De Exilio , ed. Mencken, p. 129. 2 Sacchetti, nov. 48. And yet, according to nov. 67, there was an impression that a Romagnole was superior to the worst Florentine. 3 L. B. Alberti, Del Govemo della Famiglia , Opere , ed. Bonucci, v. 171. Comp, above, p. 185, note 2. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE . 219 my tongue.’ 1 This is no mere jest, but a foreshadowing of Pietro Aretino. The two most famous jesters about the middle of the fifteenth century were a priest near Florence, Arlotto (1483), for more refined wit (‘facezie’), and the court-fool of Ferrara, Gonnella, for buffoonery. We can hardly compare their stories with those of the Parson of Kalenberg and Till Eulenspiegel, since the latter arose in a different and half-mythical manner, as fruits of the imagination of a whole people, and touch rather on what is general and intelligible to all, while Arlotto and Gonnella were historical beings, coloured and shaped by local influences. But if the comparison be allowed, and extended to the jests of the non-Italian nations, we shall find in general that the joke in the French fabliaux , 2 as among the Germans, is chiefly directed to the attainment of some advantage or enjoyment; while the wit of Arlotto and the practical jokes of Gonnella are an end in them selves, and exist simply for the sake of the triumph of production. (Till Eulenspiegel again forms a class by himself, as the personified quiz, mostly pointless enough, of particular classes and professions). The 1 Franco Sacchetti, nov. 156; comp. 24 for Dolcibene and the Jews. (For Charles IV. and the fools, Friedjung , o.c. p. 109.) The Facetice of Poggio resemble Sacchetti’s in substance—practical jokes, impertinences, refined indecency misunderstood by simple folk ; the philologist is be¬ trayed by the larger number of verbal jokes. On L. A. Alberti, see pp. 192 sqq. 2 And consequently in those novels of the Italians whose subject is taken from them. 220 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. court-fool of the Este saved himself more than once by his keen satire and refined modes of vengeance. 1 The type of the ‘ uomo piacevole ’ and the ‘ buffone ’ long survived the freedom of Florence. Under Duke Cosimo flourished Barlacchia, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century Francesco Ruspoli and Curzio Marignolli. In Pope Leo X., the genuine Florentine love of jesters showed itself strikingly. This prince, whose taste for the most refined intellectual pleasures was insatiable, endured and desired at his table a number of witty buffoons and jack-puddings, among them two monks and a cripple; 2 at public feasts he treated them with de¬ liberate scorn as parasites, setting before them mon¬ keys and crows in the place of savoury meats. Leo, indeed, showed a peculiar fondness for the ‘ burla ’; it belonged to his nature sometimes to treat his own favourite pursuits — music and poetry — ironically, parodying them with his factotum, Cardinal Bibbiena. 3 * Neither of them found it beneath him to fool an honest old secretary till he thought himself a master 1 According to Bandello, iv. nov. 2, Gonnella could twist his features into the likeness of other people, and mimic all the dialects of Italy. 2 Paul Jov. Vita Leonis X. 3 c Erat enim Bibiena mirus artifex hominibus aetate vel professione gravibus ad insaniam impellendis. 5 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 quern ipse usus vellet. Nam aetatis nostri Pontifices maximi fingendis vultibus ac verbis vel histriones ipsos anteveniunt/ v MODERN WIT AND SATIRE. 221 of the art of music. The Improvisatore, Baraballo of Gaeta, was brought so far by Leo’s flattery, that he applied in all seriousness for the poet’s coronation on the Capitol. On the anniversary of S. Cosmas and S. Damian, the patrons of the House of Medici, he was first compelled, adorned with laurel and purple, to amuse the papal guests with his recitations, and at last, when all were ready to split with laughter, to mount a gold-harnessed elephant in the court of the Vatican, sent as a present to Rome by Emanuel the Great of Portugal, while the Pope looked down from above through his eye-glass. 1 * * The brute, however, was so terrified by the noise of the trumpets and kettle-drums, and the cheers of the crowd, that there was no getting him over the bridge of S. Angelo. The parody of what is solemn or sublime, which here meets us in the case of a procession, had already 1 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 4 specillum ’ (comp. Ziiricher Taschenbuch for 1858, p. 177), and from the ‘cristallus concava,’ which, according to Giovio, he used when hunting. (Comp. 4 Leonis X. vita auctore anon, conscripta ’ in the Appendix to Roscoe.) In Attilius Alessius (Baluz. Miscell. iv. 518) we read, 4 Oculari ex gemina (gemma?) utebatur quam manT- 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 : 4 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 : 4 Multi caeci Cardinales creaverunt caecum decimum Leonem.’ Comp. Shepherd-Tonelli, Vita del Poggio , ii. 23, sqq., and the passages there quoted. 222 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. taken an important place in poetry. 1 It was naturally compelled to choose victims of another kind than those of Aristophanes, who introduced the great trage¬ dians into his plays. But the same maturity of culture which at a certain period produced parody among the Greeks, did the same in Italy. By the close of the fourteenth century, the love-lorn wailings of Petrarch’s sonnets and others of the same kind were taken off by caricaturists; and the solemn air of this form of verse was parodied in lines of mystic twaddle. A constant invitation to parody was offered by the ‘ Divine Comedy,’ and Lorenzo Magnifico wrote the most admirable travesty in the style of the ‘ Inferno’ (‘ Simposio or ‘ I Beoni ’). Luigi Pulei obviously imitates the Improvisatori in his ‘ Morgante,’ and both his poetry and Bojardo’s are in part, at least, a half-conscious parody of the chivalrous poetry of the Middle Ages. Such a caricature was deliberately undertaken by the great parodist Teofilo Folengo (about 1520). Under the name of Limerno Pitocco, he composed the ‘ Orlandino,’ in which chivalry appears only as a ludicrous setting for a crowd of modern figures and ideas. Under the name of Merlinus Coccajus he described the journeys and 1 We find it also in plastic art, e.g., in the famous plate parodying the group of the Laocoon 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. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE. 223 exploits of his phantastic vagabonds (also in the same spirit of parody) in half-Latin hexameters, with all the affected pomp of the learned Epos of the day. (‘ Opus Macaronicorum ’). Since then caricature has been constantly, and often brilliantly, represented on the Italian Parnassus. About the middle period of the Renaissance a theo¬ retical analysis of wit was undertaken, and its practical application in good society was regulated more pre¬ cisely. The theorist was Gioviano Pontano. 1 In his work on speaking, especially in the third and fourth books, he tries by means of the comparison of numerous jokes or ‘ facetiae ’ to arrive at a general principle. How wit should be used among people of position is taught by Baldassar Castiglione in his ‘ Cortigiano.’ 2 Its chief function is naturally to enliven those present by the repetition of comic or graceful stories and sayings ; personal jokes, on the contrary, are discouraged on the ground that they wound unhappy people, show too much honour to wrong-doers, and make enemies of the powerful and the spoiled children of fortune; 3 and even in repeti¬ tion, a wise reserve in the use of dramatic gestures is 1 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. 2 II 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. 3 Pontanus, De Sermone , lib. iv. cap. 3, also advises people to abstain •from using 1 ridicula 5 either against the miserable or the strong. 224 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. recommended to the gentleman. Then follows, not only for purposes of quotation, but as patterns for future jesters, a large collection of puns and witty sayings, methodically arranged according to their species, among them some that are admirable. The doctrine of Giovanni della Casa, some twenty years later, in his guide to good manners, is much stricter and more cautious ; 1 with a view to the consequences, he wishes to see the desire of triumph banished altogether from jokes and ‘ burle.’ He is the herald of a reaction, which was certain sooner or later to appear. Italy had, in fact, become a school for scandal, the like of which the world cannot show, not even in France at the time of Voltaire. In him and his comrades there was assuredly no lack of the spirit of negation ; but where, in the eighteenth century, was to be found the crowd of suitable victims, that countless assembly of highly and characteristically- developed human beings, celebrities of every kind, statesmen, churchmen, inventors, and discoverers, men of letters, poets and artists, all of whom then gave the fullest and freest play to their individuality ? This host existed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and by its side the general culture of the time had educated a poisonous brood of impotent wits, of born critics and railers, whose envy called for hecatombs of victims ; and to all this was added the envy of the famous men among themselves. 1 Galateo del Casa , ed. Venez. 1789, p. 26 sqq. 48. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE. 225 In this the philologists notoriously led the way— Filelfo, Poggio, Lorenzo Valla, and others—while the artists of the fifteenth century lived in peaceful and friendly competition with one another. The history of art may take note of the fact. Florence, the great market of fame, was in this point, as we have said, in advance of other cities. ‘ Sharp eyes and bad tongues ’ is the description given of the inhabitants. 1 An easy-going contempt of everything and everybody was probably the pre¬ vailing tone of society. Macchiavelli, in the remark¬ able prologue to his ‘ Mandragola,’ refers rightly or wrongly the visible decline of moral force to the general habit of evil speaking, and threatens his detractors with the news that he can say sharp things as well as they. Next to Florence comes the Papal court, which had long been a rendezvous of the bitterest and wittiest tongues. Poggios ‘Facetiae’ are dated from the Chamber of Lies (bugiale) of the apostolic notaries ; and when we remember the number of disappointed place-hunters, of hopeless competitors and enemies of the favourites, of idle, profligate pre¬ lates there assembled, it is intelligible how Rome became the home of the savage pasquinade as well as 1 Lettere Pittoriclie , i. p. 71, in a letter of Vine. Borghini, 1577. Macchiavelli (Stor. Fior. vii. cap. 28) says of the young gentlemen in Florence soon after the middle of the fifteenth century : ‘ Gli studi loro erano apparire col vestire splendidi, e col parlare sagaci ed astuti, e quello che piii destramente mordeva gli altri, era piii savio e da piii stimatod VOL. I. Q 226 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. of more philosophical satire. If we add to this the hatred borne to the priests, and the well- horror to the known instinct charge of the great, there results an untold mass of infamy. 1 Those who were able protected themselves best by contempt both of the false and true accusa¬ tions, and by brilliant and joyous display. 2 More sensitive natures sunk into utter despair when they found themselves deeply involved in guilt, and still more deeply in slander. 3 In course of time calumny became universal, and the strictest virtue was most certain of all to challenge the attacks of malice. Of the great pulpit orator, Fra Egidio of Viterbo, whom Leo made a cardinal on account of his merits, and who showed himself a man of the people and a brave monk in the calamity of 1527, 4 Giovio gives us to understand that he preserved his ascetic pallor by the smoke of wet straw and other means of the same 1 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. Dialogus de Viris Litt. Illustr. (Tiraboschi, tom. vii. parte iv. p. 1631). 2 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. 3 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. 4 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 h peless love-poems, see Trucchi, Poesie hiedite , iii. 123. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE. 227 kind. Giovio is a genuine Curial in these matters. 1 He generally begins by telling his story, then adds that he does not believe it, and then hints at the end that perhaps after all there may be something in it. But the true scape-goat of Roman scorn was the pious and moral Adrian VI. A general agree¬ ment seemed to be made to take him only on the comic side. Adrian had contemptuously referred to the Laocoon group as ‘ idola antiquorum/ had shut up the entrance to the Belvedere, had left the works of Raphael unfinished, and had banished the poets and players from the court; it was even feared that he would burn some ancient statues to lime for the new church of St. Peter. He fell out from the first with the formidable Francesco Berni, threatening to have thrown into the Tiber not, as people said, 2 the statue of Pasquino, but the writers of the satires themselves. The vengeance for this was the famous ‘ Capitolo ’ against Pope Adriano, inspired not exactly by hatred, but by contempt for the comical Dutch barbarian ; 3 the more savage menaces were reserved for the cardinals who had elected him. The plague, 1 How he used his tongue at the table of Clement VII. is told in Giraldi, Hecatomitlii , vii. nov. 5. 2 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. 3 In the passages collected in Gregorovius, viii. 380 note, 381 sqq. 393 sqq. Q 2 228 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. which then was prevalent in Rome, was ascribed to him ; 1 Berni and others 2 3 * sketch the environment of the Pope—the Germans by whom he was governed 8 —with the same sparkling untruthfulness with which the modern feuilletoniste turns black into white, and everything into anything. The biography which Paolo Giovio was commissioned to write by the Cardinal of Tortosa, and which was to have been a eulogy, is for anyone who can read between the lines an unexampled piece of satire. It sounds ludicrous— at least for the Italians of that time-—to hear how Adrian applied to the Chapter of Saragossa for the jaw-bone of St. Lambert; how the devout Spaniards decked him out till he looked ‘ like a right well-dressed Pope; ’ how he came in a confused and tasteless pro¬ cession from Ostia to Rome, took counsel about burning or drowning Pasquino, would suddenly break off the most important business when dinner was announced; and lastly, at the end of an unhappy reign, how he died of drinking too much beer— whereupon the house of his physician was hung with garlands by midnight revellers, and adorned with the inscription, ‘ Liberatori Patriae S. P. O. R/ It is true that Giovio had lost his money in the general 1 Comp. Pier. Valer. De Inf el. Lit. ed. Mencken, p. 178. ‘ Pestilentia quae cum Adriano VI. invecta Romarn invasit.’ 2 E.g. Firenzuola, Opera (Milano 1802), vol. i. p. 116, in the Discorsi degli A nimali. 3 Comp, the names in Hofler, Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Academie (1876), vol. 82, p. 435. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE. 229 confiscation of public funds, and had only received a benefice by way of compensation because he was ‘ no poet/ that is to say, no pagan. 1 But it was decreed that Adrian should be the last great victim. After the disaster which befell Rome in 1527, slander visibly declined along with the unrestrained wickedness of private life. But while it was still flourishing was developed, chiefly in Rome, the greatest railer of modern times, Pietro Aretino. A glance at his life and character will save us the trouble of noticing many less distinguished members of his class. We know him chiefly in the last thirty years of his life (1527-1557), which he passed in Venice, the only asylum possible for him. From hence he kept all that was famous in Italy in a sort of state of siege, and here were delivered the presents of the foreign princes who needed or dreaded his pen. Charles V. and 1 The words of Pier. Valerian, De Inf el. Lit. ed. Mencken, p. 3S2, are most characteristic of the public feeling at Rome : ‘ Ecce adest Musarum et eloquentiae totiusque nitoris hostis acerrimus, qui literatis omnibus inimicitias minitaretur, quoniam, ut ipse dictitabat, Terentiani essent, quos quum odisse atque etiam persequi ccepisset voluntarium alii exilium, alias atque alias alii latebras qucerentes tarn diu latuere quoad Deo beneficio altero imperii anno decessit, qui si aliquanto diutius vixisset, Gothica ilia tempora ad versus 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, Piipste, 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. 230 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. Francis I. both pensioned him at the same time, each hoping that Aretino would do some mischief to the other. Aretino flattered both, but naturally attached himself more closely to Charles, because he remained master in Italy. After the Emperor’s victory at Tunis in 1535, this tone of adulation passed into the most ludicrous worship, in observing which it must not be forgotten that Aretino constantly cherished the hope that Charles would help him to a cardinal’s hat. It is probable that he enjoyed special protection as Spanish agent, as his speech or silence could have no small effect on the smaller Italian courts and on public opinion in Italy. He affected utterly to despise the Papal court because he knew it so well; the true reason was that Rome neither could nor would pay him any longer. 1 Venice, which sheltered him, he Avas Avise enough to leaA^e unassailed. The rest of his relations Avith the great is mere beggary and vulofar extortion. Aretino affords the first great instance of the abuse of publicity to such ends. The polemical Avri tings which a hundred years earlier Poggio and his oppo¬ nents interchanged, are just as infamous in their tone and purpose, but they Avere not composed for the press, but for a sort of private circulation. Aretino made all his profit out of a complete publicity, and in 1 To the Duke of Ferrara, January 1, 1536 {Lettere^ eel. 1539, fol. 39) : ( You will now journey from Rome to Naples/ ‘ ricreando la vista avvilita nel mirar le miscrie pontificali con la contemplazione delle eccellcnze imperial id MODERN WIT AND SATIRE. 231 a certain sense may be considered the father of modern journalism. His letters and miscellaneous articles were printed periodically, after they had already been cir¬ culated among a tolerably extensive public. 1 Compared with the sharp pens of the eighteenth century, Aretino had the advantage that he was not burdened with principles, neither with liberalism nor philanthropy nor any other virtue, nor even with science; his whole baggage consisted of the well- known motto, ‘ Veritas odium parit.’ He never, con¬ sequently, found himself in the false position of Voltaire, who was forced to disown his ‘ Pucelle ’ and conceal all his life the authorship of other works. Aretino put his name to all he wrote, and openly gloried in his notorious ‘ Ragionamenti.’ His literary talent, his clear and sparkling style, his varied observa¬ tion of men and things, would have made him a considerable writer under any circumstances, destitute as he was of the power of conceiving a genuine work of art, such as a true dramatic comedy ; and to the coarsest as well as the most refined malice he added a grotesque wit so brilliant that in some cases it does not fall short of that of Rabelais. 2 In such circumstances, and with such objects and 1 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. 2 E.g. in the Capitolo on Albicante, a bad poet; unfortunately the passages are unfit for quotation. 232 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. means, he set to work to attack or circumvent his prey. The tone in which he appealed to Clement VII. not to complain or to think of vengeance, but to forgive, 1 at the moment when the wailings of the devastated city were ascending to the Castle of St. Angelo, where the Pope himself was a prisoner, is the mockery of a devil or a monkey. Sometimes, when he is forced to give up all hope of presents, his fury breaks out into a savage howl, as in the ‘ Capitolo ’ to the Prince of Salerno, who after paying him for some time refused to do so any longer. On the other hand, it seems that the terrible Pierluigi Farnese, Duke of Parma, never took any notice of him at all. As this gentle¬ man had probably renounced altogether the pleasures of a good reputation, it was not easy to cause him any annoyance; Aretino tried to do so by comparing his personal appearance to that of a constable, a miller, and a baker. 2 Aretino is most comical of all in the expression of whining mendicancy, as in the ‘ Capitolo ’ to Francis I.; but the letters and poems made up of menaces and flattery cannot, notwithstanding all that is ludicrous in them, be read without the deepest disgust. A letter like that one of his written to Michelangelo in November 1545 3 is alone of its kind ; along with all the admiration he expresses for the ‘ Last j udgment ’ he charges him with irreligion, indecency, 1 Lettere , ed. Venez. 1539, fol. 12, dated May 31, 1527. 2 In the first Capitolo to Cosimo. 3 Gaye, Carteggio , ii. 332. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE. 233 and theft from the heirs of Julius II., and adds in a conciliating postscript, ‘ I only want to show you that if you are “ divino,” I am not “ d’acqua.” ’ Aretino laid great stress upon it—whether from the insanity of conceit or by way of caricaturing famous men— that he himself should be called divine, as one of his flatterers had already begun to do ; and he certainly attained so much personal celebrity that his house at Arezzo passed for one of the sights of the place. 1 There were indeed whole months during which he never ventured to cross his threshold at Venice, lest he should fall in with some incensed Florentine like the younger Strozzi. Nor did he escape the cudgels and the daggers of his enemies, 2 although they failed to have the effect which Berni prophesied him in a famous sonnet. Aretino died in his house, of apo¬ plexy. The differences he made in his modes of flattery are remarkable : in dealing with non-Italians he was grossly fulsome ; 3 people like Duke Cosimo of Florence he treated very differently. He praised the 1 See the insolent letter of 1536 in the Lettere Pittor. i. Append. 34. See above, p. 200, for the house where Petrarch was born in Arezzo. 2 L’Aretin, per Deo grazia, e vivo e sano, Mad mostaccio ha fregiato nobilmente, E piu colpi ha, che dita in una mano.’ (Mauro, ‘ Capiiolo in lode delle bugiel) 3 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. 234 THE DEVELOPMENT OF TLIE INDIVIDUAL. beauty of the then youthful prince, who in fact did share this quality with Augustus in no ordinary degree ; he praised his moral conduct, with an oblique reference to the financial pursuits of Cosimo’s mother Maria Salviati, and concluded with a mendicant whine about the bad times and so forth. When Cosimo pensioned him, 1 which he did liberally, considering his habitual parsimony—to the extent, at last, of 160 ducats a year —he had doubtless an eye to Aretino’s dangerous character as Spanish agent. Aretino could ridicule and revile Cosimo, and in the same breath threaten the Florentine agent that he would obtain from the Duke his immediate recall; and if the Medicean prince felt himself at last to be seen through by Charles V. he would naturally not be anxious that Aretino’s jokes and rhymes against him should circulate at the Imperial court. A curiously qualified piece of flattery was that addressed to the notorious Marquis of Marignano, who as Castellan of Musso (p. 37) had attempted to found an independent state. Thanking him for the gift of a hundred crowns, Aretino writes : ‘ All the qualities which a prince should have are present in you, and all men would think so, were it not that the acts of violence inevitable at the beginning of all undertakings cause you to appear a trifle rough ( aspro )! 2 1 For what follows, see Gaye, Carteggio , ii. 336, 337, 345. 2 Lettcre , ed. Venez. 1539, fol. 15, dated June 16, 1529. Comp, another remarkable letter to M. A., dated April 15, 1528, fol. 212. MODERN WIT AND SATIRE . 235 It has often been noticed as something singular that Aretino only reviled the world, and not God also. The religious belief of a man who lived as he did is a matter of perfect indifference, as are also the edifying writings which he composed for reasons of his own. 1 It is in fact hard to say why he should have been a blasphemer. He was no professor, or theoretical thinker or writer; and he could extort no money from God by threats or flattery, and was consequently never goaded into blasphemy by a refusal. A man like him does not take trouble for nothing. It is a good sign of the present spirit of Italy that such a character and such a career have become a thousand times impossible. But historical criticism will always find in Aretino an important study. 1 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 (1. c. fob 37), but which, after the reorganisation of the institution in 1542 suddenly took a fresh start, and soon silenced every opposing voice. PART III. THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. Now that this point in our historical view of Italian civilisation has been reached, it is time to speak of the influence of antiquity, the ‘ new-birth ’ of which has been one-sidedly chosen as the name to sum up the whole period. The conditions which have been hitherto described would have sufficed, apart from antiquity, to upturn and to mature the national mind ; and most of the intellectual tendencies which yet remain to be noticed would be conceivable without it. But both what has gone before and what we have still to discuss are coloured in a thousand ways by the influence of the ancient world ; and though the essence of the pheno¬ mena might still have been the same without the classical revival, it is only with and through this revival that they are actually manifested to us. The Renaissance would not have been the process of world-wide significance which it is, if its elements could be so easily separated from one another. We must insist upon it, as one of the chief propositions of this book, that it was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius of the Italian people, 240 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. which achieved the conquest of the Western world. The amount of independence which the national spirit maintained in this union varied according to circum¬ stances. In the modern Latin literature of the period, it is very small, while in plastic art, as well as in other spheres, it is remarkably great; and hence the alliance between two distant epochs in the civilisation of the same people, because concluded on equal terms, proved justifiable and fruitful. The rest of Europe was free either to repel or else partly or wholly to accept the mighty impulse which came forth from Italy. Where the latter was the case we may as well be spared the complaints over the early decay of mediaeval faith and civilisation. Had these been strong enough to hold their ground, they would be alive to this day. If those elegiac natures which long to see them return could pass but one hour in the midst of them, they would gasp to be back in modern air. That in a great histo¬ rical process of this kind flowers of exquisite beauty may perish, without being made immortal in poetry or tradition, is undoubtedly true; nevertheless, we cannot wish the process undone. The general result of it consists in this—that by the side of the Church which had hitherto held the countries of the West together (though it was unable to do so much longer) there arose a new spiritual influence which, spreading itself abroad from Italy, became the breath of life for all the more instructed minds in Europe. The worst that can be said of the movement is, that it was anti- IN TROD UCTOR Y REMARKS. 241 popular, that through it Europe became for the first time sharply divided into the cultivated and uncul¬ tivated classes. The reproach will appear groundless when we reflect that even now the fact, though clearly recognised, cannot be altered. The separation, too, is by no means so cruel and absolute in Italy as else¬ where. The most artistic of her poets, Tasso, is in the hands of even the poorest. The civilisation of Greece and Rome, which, ever since the fourteenth century, obtained so powerful a hold on Italian life, as the source and basis of culture, as the object and ideal of existence, partly also as an avowed reaction against preceding tendencies—this civilisation had long been exerting a partial influence on mediaeval Europe, even beyond the boundaries of Italy. The culture of which Charles the Great was a representative was, in face of the barbarism of the seventh and eighth centuries, essentially a Renaissance, and could appear under no other form. Just as in the Romanesque architecture of the North, beside the general outlines inherited from antiquity, remarkable direct imitations of the antique also occur, so too monastic scholarship had not only gradually absorbed an immense mass of materials from Roman writers, but the style of it, from the days of Eginhard onwards shows traces of conscious imitations. But the resuscitation of antiquity took a different form in Italy from that which it assumed in the North. The wave of barbarism had scarcely gone by before VOL. I. R 242 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. the people, in whom the former life was but half effaced, showed a consciousness of its past and a wish to reproduce it. Elsewhere in Europe men delibe¬ rately and with reflection borrowed this or the other * element of classical civilisation ; in Italy the sym¬ pathies both of the learned and of the people were naturally engaged on the side of antiquity as a whole, which stood to them as a symbol of past greatness. The Latin language, too, was easy to an Italian, and the numerous monuments and documents in which the country abounded facilitated a return to the past. With this tendency other elements—the popular cha¬ racter which time had now greatly modified, the political institutions imported by the Lombards from Germany, chivalry and other northern forms of civili¬ sation, and the influence of religion and the Church— combined to produce the modern Italian spirit, which was destined to serve as the model and ideal for the whole western world. How antiquity began to work in plastic art, as soon as the flood of barbarism had subsided, is clearly shown in the Tuscan buildings of the twelfth and in the sculptures of the thirteenth centuries. In poetry, too, there will appear no want of similar analogies to those who hold that the greatest Latin poet of the twelfth century, the writer who struck the key-note of a whole class of Latin poems, was an Italian. We mean the author of the best pieces in the so-called ‘ Carmina Burana.’ A frank enjoyment of life and INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 243 its pleasures, as whose patrons the gods of heathendom are invoked, while Catos and Scipios hold the place of the saints and heroes of Christianity, flows in full current through the rhymed verses. Reading them through at a stretch, we can scarcely help coming to the conclusion that an Italian, probably a Lombard, is speaking ; in fact, there are positive grounds for thinking so. 1 To a certain degree these Latin poems 1 [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. 14.6), the mention of the i pinus ; as a shady field tree (p. 156), the frequent use of the word ‘ bravium 5 (pp. 137, 144), and par¬ ticularly the form Madii for Maji (p. 141), all speak in favour of our as¬ sumption.] The conjecture of Dr. Burckhardt that the best pieces of the Car?nina 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 Paviae 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, Gorlitz 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 ‘ transmontanusd 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 Koln (1164 and 75) to Italy (Pavia, &c.). If this hypothesis, against which Hubatsch ( 1 . c.) has brought forward certain objections, must be aban¬ doned, 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 ex¬ panded and mixed with German phrases; while Italy, as Giesebrecht has R 2 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 244 of the ‘ Clerici vagantes ’ of the twelfth century, with all their remarkable frivolity, are, doubtless, a product in which the whole of Europe had a share; but the writer of the song ‘ De Phyllide et Flora’ 1 and the \ ‘/Estuans Interius ’ can have been a northerner as little as the polished Epicurean observer to whom we owe ‘ Dum Dianae vitrea sero lampas oritur.’ Here, in truth, is a reproduction of the whole ancient view of life, which is all the more striking from the mediaeval form of the verse in which it is set forth. There are many works of this and the following centuries, in which a careful imitation of the antique appears both in the hexameter and pentameter of the metre and in the classical, often mythological, character of the subject, and which yet have not anything like the same spirit of antiquity about them. In the hexameter chronicles and other works of Gulielmus Apuliensis and his successors (from about 1100), we find frequent traces of a diligent study of Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Statius, and Claudian ; but this classical form is after all here a mere matter of archaeology, as is the classical subject in collectors like Vincent of Beauvais, or in the mytho- 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.] 1 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. JEst. Inter. Carm. Bur. p. 67 ; Dum Dianae, Carm. Bur. p. 124. Additional in¬ stances : ‘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. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 245 logical and allegorical writer, Alanus ab Insulis. The Renaissance is not a mere fragmentary imitation or compilation, but a new birth ; and the signs of this are visible in the poems of the unknown ‘ Clericus ’ of the twelfth century. But the great and general enthusiasm of the Italians for classical antiquity did not display itself before the fourteenth century. For this a develop¬ ment of civic life was required, which took place only in Italy, and there not till then. It was needful that noble and buigher should first learn to dwell together on equal terms, and that a social world should arise (see p. 196) which felt the want of culture, and had the leisure and the means to obtain it, But culture, as soon as it freed itself from the fantastic bonds of the Middle Ages, could not at once and without help find its way to the understanding of the physical and intellectual world. It needed a guide, and found one in the ancient civilisation, with its wealth of truth and knowledge in every spiritual interest. Both the form and the substance of this civilisation were adopted with admiring gratitude; it became the chief part of the culture of the age. 1 The general condition of the country was favourable to this transformation. The mediaeval empire, since the fall of the Hohenstaufen, had either renounced, or was unable to make good, its claims on Italy. The Popes had migrated to Avignon. 1 In what way antiquity could serve as guide and teacher in all the higher regions of life, is briefly sketched by^Eneas Sylvius (Opera, p. 603, in the Epist. 105, to the Archduke Sigismund). 246 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. Most of the political powers actually in existence owed their origin to violent and illegitimate means. The spirit of the people, now awakened to self-conscious¬ ness, sought for some new and stable ideal on which to rest. And thus the vision of the world-wide empire of Italy and Rome so possessed the popular mind, that Cola di Rienzi could actually attempt to put it in practice. The conception he formed of his task, particularly when tribune for the first time, could only end in some extravagant comedy; nevertheless, the memory of ancient Rome was no slight support to the national sentiment. Armed afresh with its culture, the Italian soon felt himself in truth citizen of the most advanced nation in the world. It is now our task to sketch this spiritual move¬ ment, not indeed in all its fulness, but in its most salient features, and especially in its first beginnings. 1 1 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 Volaterranus (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 encyclopaedias. A complete and circumstantial account of the matter is given in Voigt’s admirable work, Die Wiederbelebu?ig des clas- sische?i AIterthums oder Das erste Jahrhundert der Humanismus , Berlin, 1859. 247 CHAPTER II. ROME, THE CITY OF RUINS. Rome itself, the city of ruins, now became the object of a wholly different sort of piety from that of the time when the ‘ Mirabilia Romae ’ and the collection of William of Malmesbury were composed. The imaginations of the devout pilgrim, or of the seeker after marvels 1 and treasures, are supplanted in con¬ temporary records by the interests of the patriot and the historian. In this sense we must understand Dante’s words, 2 that the stones of the walls of Rome deserve reverence, and that the ground on which the city is built is more worthy than men say. The jubilees, incessant as they were, have scarcely left a single devout record in literature properly so called. 1 In William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglor. 1 . 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. 2 Dante, Convito, tratt, iv. cap. v. 248 THE REVIVAL OF ANTI QUIT X The best thing that Giovanni Villani (p. 104) brought back from the jubilee of the year 1300 was the reso¬ lution to write his history which had been awakened in him by the sight of the ruins of Rome. Petrarch gives evidence of a taste divided between classical and Christian antiquity. He tells us how often with Giovanni Colonna he ascended the mighty vaults of the Baths of Diocletian, 1 and there in the transparent air, amid the wide silence, with the broad panorama stretching far around them, they spoke, not of business, of domestic or political affairs, but of the history which the ruins beneath their feet suggested, Petrarch appear¬ ing in their dialogues as the partisan of classical, Giovanni of Christian antiquity; then they would discourse of philosophy and of the inventors of the arts. How often since that time, down to the days of Gibbon and Niebuhr, have the same ruins stirred men’s minds to the same reflections ! This double current of feeling is also recognisable in the ‘ Dittamondo ’ of Fazio degli Uberti, composed about the year 1360—a description of visionary travels, in which the author is accompanied by the old geo¬ grapher Solinus, as Dante was by Virgil. They visit Bari in memory of St. Nicholas, and Monte Gargano 1 Epp. Familiares, vi. 2 ; references to Rome before he had seen it, and expressions of his longing for the city, Epp. Fain. 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 com¬ plaints 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 (1. c. 41). ROME , THE CITY OF RUINS. 249 of the archangel Michael, and in Rome the legends of Araceli and of Santa Maria in Trastevere are men¬ tioned. Still, the pagan splendour of ancient Rome unmistakably exercises a greater charm upon them. A venerable matron in torn garments—Rome herself is meant—tells them of the glorious past, and gives them a minute description of the old triumphs ; 1 she then leads the strangers through the city, and points out to them the seven hills and many of the chief ruins—‘ che comprender potrai, quanto fui bella.’ Unfortunately this Rome of the schismatic and Avignonese popes was no longer, in respect of classical remains, what it had been some generations earlier. The destruction of 140 fortified houses of the Roman nobles by the senator Brancaleone in 1257 must have wholly altered the character of the most important buildings then standing ; for the nobles had no doubt ensconced themselves in the loftiest and best-preserved of the ruins. 2 Nevertheless, far more was left than we now find, and probably many of the remains had 1 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 archaeological value (Gregorovius, vi. 697, note 1). According to Polistoro (Murat, xxiv. col. 845), Niccolo and Ugo of Este journeyed in 1366 to Rome, ‘ per vedere quelle magnificenze antiche, che al presente sipossono vedere in Roma.’ 2 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 than getting hold of the granite monoliths of the Baths of Diocletian, but afterwards changed his mind. See ‘ Sugerii Libellus Alter,’ in Duchesne, Hist. Fra?ic. Scriptores , iv. p. 352. 250 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. still their marble incrustation, their pillared entrances, and their other ornaments, where we now see nothing but the skeleton of brickwork. In this state of things, the first beginnings of a topographical study of the old city were made. In Poggio’s walks through Rome 1 the study of the remains themselves is for the first time more intimately combined with that of the ancient authors and inscrip¬ tions—the latter he sought out from among all the vegetation in which they were imbedded 2 —the writer’s imagination is severely restrained, and the memories of Christian Rome carefully excluded. The only pity is that Poggio’s work was not fuller and was not illus¬ trated with sketches. Far more was left in his time than was found by Raphael eighty years later. He saw the tomb of Caecilia Metella and the columns in front of one of the temples on the slope of the Capitol first in full preservation, and then afterwards half destroyed, owing to that unfortunate quality which marble possesses of being easily burnt into lime. A vast colonnade near the Minerva fell piecemeal a victim to the same fate. A witness in the year 1443 1 P°ggii Opera , fol. 50 sqq. 1 Ruinarum Urbis Romas 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. ' 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 Epistolce , xxv. 42. A little book which Poggio wrote on inscriptions seems to have been lost. Shepherd, Life of Poggio, trad- Tonelli, i. 154 sqq. ROME , THE CITY OE RUINS . 2 5 * tells us that this manufacture of lime still went on ; ‘ which is a shame, for the new buildings are pitiful, and the beauty of Rome is in its ruins.’ 1 The inha¬ bitants of that day, in their peasants’ cloaks and boots, looked to foreigners like cowherds ; and in fact the cattle were pastured in the city up to the Banchi. The only opportunities for social gatherings were the services at church, on which occasion it was possible to get a sight of the beautiful women. In the last years of Eugenius IV. (d. 1447) Blondus of Forli wrote his ‘ Roma Instaurata,’ making use of Frontinus and of the old ‘ Libri Regionali,’ as well as, it seems, of Anastasius. His object is not only the description of what existed, but still more the recovery of what was lost. In accordance with the dedication to the Pope, he consoles himself for the general ruin by the thought of the precious relics of the saints in which Rome was so rich. 2 With Nicholas V. (1447-1455) that new monu¬ mental spirit which was distinctive of the age of the Renaissance appeared on the papal throne. The new passion for embellishing the city brought with it on the one hand a fresh danger for the ruins, on the other a respect for them, as forming one of Rome’s claims to 1 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. 277 ; and during the absence of Eugenius IV., see Vespasiano Fiorent. p. 21. 2 Roma Instaurata , written in 1447, and dedicated to the Pope ; first printed, Rome, 1474. 252 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY distinction. Pius II. was wholly possessed by anti¬ quarian enthusiasm, and if he speaks little of the antiquities of Rome, 1 he closely studied those of all other parts of Italy, and was the first to know and describe accurately the remains which abounded in the districts for miles around the capital, 2 It is true that, both as priest and cosmographer, he is interested alike in classical and Christian monuments and in the marvels of nature. Or was he doing violence to him¬ self when he wrote that Nola was more highly honoured by the memory of St. Paulinus than by all its classical reminiscences and by the heroic struggle of Marcellus ? Not, indeed, that his faith in relics was assumed; but his mind was evidently rather disposed to an inquiring interest in nature and anti¬ quity, to a zeal for monumental works, to a keen and delicate observation of human life. In the last years of his Papacy, afflicted with the gout and yet in the most cheerful mood, he was borne in his litter over hill and dale to Tusculum, Alba, Tibur, Ostia, Falerii, and Ocriculum, and whatever he saw he noted down. He followed the line of the Roman roads and aque¬ ducts, and tried to fix the boundaries of the old tribes 1 See, nevertheless, his distichs in Voigt, Wiederbelebung des Alter- thiims , 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. - What follows is from Jo. Ant. Campanus, Vita Pii //., in Muratori, iii. ii. col. 980 sqq. Pii II. Commentarii , pp. 48, 72 sqq., 206, 248 sqq., 501, and elsewhere. ROME , THE CITY OF RUINS. 2 53 who dwelt round the city. On an excursion to Tivoli with the great Federigo of Urbino the time was happily spent in talk on the military system of the ancients, and particularly on the Trojan war. Even on his journey to the Congress of Mantua (1459) he searched, though unsuccessfully, for the labyrinth of Clusium mentioned by Pliny, and visited the so-called villa of Virgil on the Mincio. That such a Pope should demand a classical Latin style from his abbre¬ viate rs, is no more than might be expected. It was he who, in the war with Naples, granted an amnesty to the men of Arpinum, as countrymen of Cicero and Marius, after whom many of them were named. It was to him alone, as both judge and patron, that Blondus could dedicate his 4 Roma Triumphans,’ the first great attempt at a complete exposition of Roman antiquity. 1 Nor was the enthusiasm for the classical past of Italy confined at this period to the capital. Boccaccio 2 had already called the vast ruins of Baiae ‘ old walls, yet new for modern spirits ; ’ and since his time they were held to be the most interesting sight near Naples. Collections of antiquities of all sorts now became common. Ciriaco of Ancona (d. 1457), who explained (1433) the Roman monuments to the Emperor Sigismund, travelled, not only through Italy, but through other countries of the old world, Hellas, and 1 First dated edition, Brixen, 1482. 2 Boccaccio, Fiammctta , cap. 5. Operc , ed. Montier, vi. 91. t 254 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. the islands of the Archipelago, and even parts of Asia and Africa, and brought back with him countless inscriptions and sketches. When asked why he took all this trouble, he replied, ‘To wake the dead.’ 1 The histories of the various cities of Italy had from the earliest times laid claim to some true or imagined connection with Rome, had alleged some settlement or colonisation which started from the capital; 2 and the obliging manufacturers of pedigrees seem constantly to have derived various families from the oldest and most famous blood of Rome. So highly was the distinction valued, that men clung to it even in the light of the dawning criticism of the fifteenth century. When Pius II. was at Viterbo 3 he said frankly to the Roman deputies who begged him to return, ‘ Rome is as much my home as Siena, for my House, the Pic- colomini, come in early times from the capital to Siena, as is proved by the constant use of the names ./Eneas and Sylvius in my family/ He would probably have had no objection to be held a descendant of the Julii. Paul II., a Barbo of Venice, found his vanity flattered by deducing his House, notwithstanding an 1 His work, Cyriaci Anconitani Itinerarium , ed. Mehus, Florence, 1742. Comp. Leandro Alberti, Descriz. di tutta FItalia, fol. 285. 2 Two instances out of many : the fabulous origin of Milan in Mani- pulus (Murat, xi. 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. 3 Commentarii , p. 206, in the fourth book. ROME , THE CITY OF RUINS. 2 55 adverse pedigree, according to which it came from Germany, from the Roman Ahenobarbus, who led a colony to Parma, and whose successors were driven by party conflicts to migrate to Venice. 1 That the Massimi claimed descent from Q. Fabius Maximus, and the Cornaro from the Cornelii, cannot surprise us. On the other hand, it is a strikingly exceptional fact for the sixteenth century that the novellist Bandello tried to connect his blood with a noble family of Ostrogoths (i. nov, 23.). To return to Rome. The inhabitants, ‘who then called themselves Romans,’ accepted greedily the homage which was offered them by the rest of Italy. Under Paul II., Sixtus IV., and Alexander VI. magnificent processions formed part of the Carnival, representing the scene most attractive to the imagina¬ tion of the time —the triumph of the old Roman Imperator. The sentiment of the people expressed itself naturally in this shape and others like it. In this mood of public feeling, a report arose, that on April 15, 1485, the corpse of a young Roman lady of the classical period—wonderfully beautiful and 1 Mich. Cannesius, Vita Pauli //., 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, 1 De quo verum Scriptores multa ac diversa commemorant.’ The family of Plato in Milan went still farther, and - flattered 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 Giovan- antonio 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.’ 256 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. in perfect preservation—had been discovered. 1 Some Lombard masons digging out an ancient tomb on an estate of the convent of Santa Maria Novella, on the Appian Way beyond the Csecilia Metella, were said to have found a marble sarcophagus with the inscription, ‘ Julia, daughter of Claudius.’ On this basis the following story was built. The Lombards disappeared with the jewels and treasure which were found with the corpse in the sarcophagus. The body had been coaled with an antiseptic essence, and was as fresh and flexible as that of a girl of fifteen the hour after death. It was said that she still kept the colours of life, with eyes and mouth half open. She was taken to the palace of the ‘ Conservatori ’ on the Capitol ; and then a pilgrimage to see her began. Among the crowd were many who came to paint her; 4 for she was more beautiful than can be said or written, and, were it said or written, it would not be believed by those who had not seen her.’ By the order of Innocent VIII. she was secretly buried one night outside the Pincian Gate ; the empty sarcophagus remained in the court of the ‘ Conservatori.’ Probably a coloured mask of wax or some other material was modelled in the classical style on the face of the corpse, with which the gilded hair of which we read would harmonise admirably. The touching point in 1 See on this point, Nangiporto, in Murat, iii. ii. col. 1094 ; Infessura, in Eccard, Scriptores , ii. col. 1951 ; Matarozzo, in th z Arch. Stor. xvi. ii. p. 180. Nangiporto, however, admits that it was no longer possible to decide whether the corpse was male or female. 7 ^ ROME , THE CITY OF RUINS. 257 the story is not the fact itself, but the firm belief that an ancient body, which was now thought to be at last really before mens eyes, must of necessity be far more beautiful than anything of modern date. Meanwhile the material knowledge of old Rome was increased by excavations. Under Alexander VI. the so-called ‘ Grotesques,’ that is, the mural decorations of the ancients, were discovered, and the Apollo of the Belvedere was found at Porto d’Anzo. Under Julius II. followed the memorable discoveries of the Laocoon, of the Venus of the Vatican, of the Torso, of the Cleopatra. 1 The palaces of the nobles and the cardinals began to be filled with ancient statues and fragments. Raphael undertook for Leo X. that ideal restoration of the whole ancient city which his cele¬ brated letter (1518 or 1519) speaks of. 2 After a bitter complaint over the devastations which had not even then ceased, and which had been particularly frequent under Julius II., he beseeches the Pope to protect the few relics which were left to testify to the power and greatness of that divine soul of antiquity whose memory was inspiration to all who were capable of higher things. He then goes on with penetrating 1 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. 2 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. If is printed frdm a Munich MS. in Passavant, Leben Raphael’s , iii. p. 44. Comp. Gruyer, Raphael et VAntiquity 1864, i- 435~457- VOL. I. vS 258 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY .i judgment to lay the foundations of a comparative history of art, and concludes by giving the definition of an architectural survey which has been accepted since his time ; he requires the ground plan, section, and elevation separately of every building that remained. How archaeology devoted itself after his day to the study of the venerated city and grew into a special science, and how the Vitruvian Academy at all events proposed to itself great aims, 1 cannot here be related. Let us rather pause at the days of Leo X., under whom the enjoyment of antiquity combined with all other pleasures to give to Roman life a unique stamp and consecration. 1 The Vatican resounded with song and music, and their echoes were heard through the city as a call to joy and gladness, though Leo did not succeed thereby in banishing care and pain from his own life, and his deliberate calculation to prolong his days by cheerfulness was frustrated by an early death. 3 The Rome of Leo, as described by Paolo Giovio, forms a picture too splendid to turn away from, unmistakable as are also its darker aspects—the slavery of those who were struggling to rise; the secret misery of the prelates, who, notwithstanding heavy debts, were forced to live in a style befitting their rank; the 1 Lettere Pittoriche , ii. 1, Tolomei to Landi, 14 Nov., 1542. 2 He tried ‘ curis animique doloribus quacunque ratione aditum inter- cludere ; ’ 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. 3 This point is referred to in the Satires of Ariosto. See the first ( c Perc’ ho molto/ &c.), and the fourth (‘ Poiche, Annibale ’). ROME, THE CITY OF RUINS. 2 59 system of literary patronage, which drove men to be parasites or adventurers ; and, lastly, the scandalous maladministration of the finances of the state. 1 Yet the same Ariosto who knew and ridiculed all this so well, gives in the sixth satire a longing picture of his expected intercourse with the accomplished poets who would conduct him through the city of ruins, of the learned counsel which he would there find for his own literary, efforts, and of the treasures of the Vatican library. These, he says, and not the long-abandoned hope of Medicean protection, were the real baits which attracted him, when he was asked to go as Ferrarese ambassador to Rome. But the ruins within and outside Rome awakened not only archaeological zeal and patriotic enthusiasm, but an elegiac or sentimental melancholy. In Petrarch and Boccaccio we find touches of this feeling (pp. 248, 253). Poggio (p. 250) often visited the temple of Venus and Rome, in the belief that it was that of Castor and Pollux, where the senate used so often to meet, and would lose himself in memories of the great orators Crassus, Hortensius, Cicero. The lan¬ guage of Pius II., especially in describing Tivoli, has a thoroughly sentimental ring, 2 and soon afterwards 1 Ranke, Pci fiste , i. 408 sqq. f Lettere dei Princifii , p. 107. Letter of Negri, September 1, 1522. . . . ‘ tutti questi cortigiani esausti da Papa Leone et falliti.’ They avenged themselves after the death of Leo by satirical verses and inscriptions. 2 Pii II. Cojnmentarii , p. 251 in the 5th book. Comp. Sannazaro’s elegy,‘ Ad Ruinas Cumanim urbis vetustissimse ’ ( Ofiera , fol. 236 sqq.) S 2 260 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. (1467) appeared the first pictures of ruins, with a commentary by Polifilo. 1 Ruins of mighty arches and colonnades, half hid in plane-trees, laurels, cypresses, and brushwood, figure in his pages. In the sacred legends it became the custom, we can hardly say how, to lay the scene of the birth of Christ in the ruins of a magnificent palace. 2 That artificial ruins became afterwards a necessity of landscape gardening, is only a practical consequence of this feeling. 1 Polifilo (i.e. Franciscus Columna) c Hypnerotomachia, ubi humana omnia non nisi somnum esse clocet atque obiter plurima scita sane quam digna commemorat,' Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1499. Comp, on this remarkable book and others, A. Didot, Aide Manuce , Paris, 1875, pp. 132-142 ; and Gruyer, Raphael cl VAntiquity i. pp. 191 sqq ; J. Burck- hardt, Ges chi elite der Renaissance in Italien, pp. 43 sqq., and the work of A. Ilg, Vienna, 1872. - 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, Dc Partu Virgin is, 1 . ii. j 261 CHAPTER III. THE OLD AUTHORS. But the literary bequests of antiquity, Greek as well as Latin, were of far more importance than the architectural, and indeed than all the artistic remains which it had left. They were held in the most abso¬ lute sense to be the springs of all knowledge. The literary conditions of that age of great discoveries have been often set forth; no more can be here attempted than to point out a few less-known features of the picture. 1 Great as. was the influence of the old writers on the Italian mind in the fourteenth century and before, yet that influence was due rather to the wide diffusion of what had long been known, than to the discovery of much that was new. The most popular Latin poets, historians, orators, and letter-writers, together with a number of Latin translations of single works of Aristotle, Plutarch, and a few other Greek authors, constituted the treasure from which 1 Chiefly from Vespasiano Fiorentino, in the first vol. of the Spicileg. Romanian , 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. 262 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. a few favoured individuals in the time of Petrarch and Boccaccio drew their inspiration. The former, as is well known, owned and kept with religious care a Greek Homer, which he was unable to read. A complete Latin translation of the ‘ Iliad’ and ‘ Odyssey,’ though a very bad one, was made at Petrarch’s sug¬ gestion and with Boccaccio’s help by a Calabrian Greek, Leonzio Pilato. 1 But with the fifteenth cen¬ tury began the long list of new discoveries, the systematic creation of libraries by means of copies, and the rapid multiplication of translations from the Greek. 2 Had it not been for the enthusiasm of a few collectors of that age, who shrank from no effort or privation in their researches, we should certainly possess only a small part of the literature, especially that of the Greeks, which is now in our hands. Pope Nicholas V., when only a simple monk, ran deeply into debt through buying manuscripts or having them copied. Even then he made no secret of his passion for the two great interests of the Renaissance, books and buildings. 3 As Pope he kept his word. Copyists 1 Comp. Petr. Epist. Fam. ed. Fracass. 1 . 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. 2 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. 3 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 Tuna e l’altra fece nel suo pontificato.’ With respect to his translation, see THE OLD AUTHORS. 2 63 wrote and spies searched for him through half the world. Perotto received 500 ducats for the Latin translation of Polybius; Guarino, t,ooo gold florins for that of Strabo, and he would have been paid 500 more but for the death of the Pope. Filelfo was to have received 10,000 gold florins for a metrical translation of Homer, and was only prevented by the Pope’s death from coming from Milan to Rome. Nicholas left a collection of 5,000, or, according to another way of calculating, of 9,000 volumes, 1 for the use of the members of the Curia, which became the foundation of the library of the Vatican. It was to be preserved in the palace itself, as its noblest ornament, like the library of Ptolemy Philadelphus at Alexandria. When the plague (1450) drove him and his court to Fabriano, whence then, as now, the best paper was procured, he took his translators and compilers with him, that he might run no risk of losing them. The Florentine Niccolo Niccoli, 2 a member of that accomplished circle of friends which surrounded the elder Cosimo de’ Medici, spent his whole fortune in buying books. At last, when his money was all gone, the Medici put their purse at his disposal for vEen. Sylvius, De Eurofia, cap. 58, p. 459, and Papencordt, Ges. der Stadt Rom. p. 502. See esp. Voigt, op. cit. book v. 1 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 Calix- tus III. partly dispersed the library again, see Vespas. Fiorent. p. 284, with Mai’s note. 2 Vespas. Fior. pp. 617 sqq. 264 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. any sum which his purpose might require. We owe to him the completion of Ammianus Marcellinus, of the ‘ De Oratore ’ of Cicero, the text of Lucretius which still has most authority, and other works ; he persuaded Cosimo to buy the best manuscript of Pliny from a monastery at Ltibeck. With noble confidence he lent his books to those who asked for them, allowed all comers to study them in his own house, and was ready to converse with the students on what they had read. His collection of 800 volumes, valued at 6,000 gold florins, passed after his death, through Cosimo’s intervention, to the monastery of San Marco, on the condition that it should be accessible to the public, and is now one of the jewels of the Laurentian library. Of the two great book-finders, Guarino and Poggio, the latter, 1 on the occasion of the Council of Constanz and acting partly as the agent of Niccoli, searched industriously among the abbeys of South Germany. He there discovered six orations of Cicero, and the first complete Quintilian, that of St. Gall, now at Zurich ; in thirty-two days he is said to have copied the whole of it in a beautiful handwriting. He was able to make important additions to Silius Italicus, Manilius, Lucretius, Valerius Flaccus, As- conius Pedianus, Columella, Celsus, Aulus Gellius, Statius, and others; and with the help of Lionardo Aretino he unearthed the last twelve comedies of 1 Vespas. Fior. pp. 457 sqq. THE OLD AUTHORS. 265 Plautus, as well as the Verrine orations, the ‘ Brutus’ and the ‘ De Oratore ’ of Cicero. The famous Greek, Cardinal Bessarion, 1 in whom patriotism was mingled with a zeal for letters, col¬ lected, at a great sacrifice (30,000 gold florins), 600 manuscripts of pagan and Christian authors. He then looked round for some receptacle where they could safely lie until his unhappy country, if she ever regained her freedom, could reclaim her lost literature. The Venetian government declared itself ready to erect a suitable building, and to this day the library of St. Mark retains a part of these treasures. 2 The formation of the celebrated Medicean library has a history of its own, into which we cannot here enter. The chief collector for Lorenzo Magnihco was Johannes Lascaris. It is well known that the collection, after the plundering in the year 1494, had to be recovered piecemeal by the Cardinal Giovanni Medici, afterwards Leo X. The library of Urbino, 8 now in the Vatican, was wholly the work of the great Frederick of Montefeltro 1 Vespas. Fiorent. p. 193. Comp. Marin Sanudo, in Murat, xxii. col. 1185 sqq. 2 How the matter was provisionally treated is related in Malipiero, Ann. Veneti , Arch. Stor. vii. ii. pp. 653, 655. 3 Vespas. Fior. pp. 124 sqq., and c Inventario della Libreria Urbinata compilata nel SecoloXV. da Federigo Veterano, bibliotecario di Federigo I. da Montefeltro Duca d’Urbino/ given by C. Guasti in the Giornale Storico degli Archivi Toscani , vi. (1862), 127-147 and vii. (1863) 46-55, 130-154. For contemporary opinions on the library, see Favre, Melanges d’Hist. Lit. i. 127, note 6. 266 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. (p. 62 sqq.). As a boy he had begun to collect ; in after years he kept thirty or forty ‘ scrittori ’ employed in various places, and spent in the course of time no less than 30,000 ducats on the collection. It was systematically^ extended and completed, chiefly by the help of Vespasiano, and his account of it forms an ideal picture of a library of the Renaissance. At Urbino there were catalogues of the libraries of the Vatican, of St. Mark at Florence, of the Visconti at Pavia, and even of the library at Oxford. It was noted with pride that in richness and completeness none could rival Urbino. Theology and the Middle Ages were perhaps most fully represented. There was a com¬ plete Thomas Aquinas, a complete Albertus Magnus, a complete Buonaventura. The collection, however, was a many-sided one, and included every work on medicine which was then to be had. Among the ‘ moderns ’ the great writers of the fourteenth century —Dante and Boccaccio, with their complete works- occupied the first place. Then followed twenty-five select humanists, invariably with both their Latin and Italian writings and with all their translations. Among the Greek manuscripts the Fathers of the Church far outnumbered the rest; yet in the list of the classics we find all the works of Sophocles, all of Pindar, and all of Menander. The last must have quickly dis¬ appeared from Urbino, 1 else the philologists would 1 Perhaps at the capture of Urbino by the troops of Caesar Borgia. The existence of the manuscript has been doubted ; but I cannot believe THE OLD AUTHORS . 267 have soon edited it. There were men, however, in this book-collecting age who raised a warning voice against the vagaries of the passion. These were not the enemies of learning, but its friends, who feared that harm would come from a pursuit which had become a mania. Petrarch himself protested against the fashionable folly of a useless heaping up of books ; and in the same century Giovanni Manzini ridiculed Andreolo de Ochis, a septuagenarian from Brescia, who was ready to sacrifice house and land, his wife and himself, to add to the stores of his library. We have, further, a good deal of information as to the way in which manuscripts and libraries were 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 de¬ scription, 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 : 1 Pindarus Olimpia et Pithia.’ The catalogue makes no distinction between ancient and modern books, contains the works of Dante (among others, Comoedice Thusco Carmine ), and Boccaccio, in a very imperfect form ; those of Petrarch, however, in all complete¬ ness. 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.] 268 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. multiplied. 1 The purchase of an ancient manuscript, which contained a rare, or the only complete, or the only existing text of an old writer, was naturally a lucky accident of which we need take no further account. Among the professional copyists those who understood Greek took the highest place, and it was they especially who bore the honourable name of ‘ scrittori.’ Their number was always limited, and the pay they received very large. 2 The rest, simply called ‘ copisti,’ were partly mere clerks who made their living by such work, partly schoolmasters and needy men of learning, who desired an addition to their income, partly monks, or even nuns, who re¬ garded the pursuit as a work pleasing to God. In the early stages of the Renaissance the professional copyists were few and untrustworthy; their ignorant and dilatory ways were bitterly complained of by Petrarch. In the fifteenth century they were more numerous, and brought more knowledge to their calling, but in accuracy of work they never attained 1 For what follows and in part for what has gone before, see W. Wattenbach, Das Schi'iftwesen irn Mittelalter, 2nd ed. Leipzig 1875, pp. 392 sqq., 405 sqq., 505. Comp, also the poem, De Officio Scribce, of Phil. Beroaldus, who, however, is rather speaking of the public scrivener. 2 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, con¬ tinued to be numerous throughout all Italy. Fabroni, Laurent. Magn. Adnot. 156. Comp. Adnot. 154. THE OLD AUTHORS. 269 the conscientious precision of the old monks. They seem to have done their work in a sulky and perfunc¬ tory fashion, seldom putting their signatures at the foot of the codices, and showed no traces of that cheerful humour, or of that proud consciousness of a beneficent activity, which often surprises us in the French and German manuscripts of the same period. This is more curious, as the copyists at Rome in the time of Nicholas V. were mostly Germans or French¬ men 1 —‘barbarians’ as the Italian humanists called them, probably men who were in search of favours at the papal court, and who kept themselves alive meanwhile by this means. When Cosimo de’ Medici was in a hurry to form a library for his favourite foundation, the Badia below Fiesole, he sent for Vespasiano, and received from him the advice to give up all thoughts of purchasing books, since those which were worth getting could not be had easily, but rather to make use of the copyists ; whereupon Cosimo bargained to pay him so much a day, and Vespasiano, with forty-five writers under him, delivered 200 volumes in twenty two months. 2 The catalogue of 1 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 Peint 7 ire , tab. 78. On German copyists in Italy, see further G. Campori, Artisti Italiani e Stra- nieri negli Stati Estensi, Modena, 1855, p. 277, and Giornale di Erudi- zio7ie Artisiica , vol. ii. pp. 360 sqq. Wattenbach, Schriftwesen, 411, note 5. For German printers, see below. 2 Vespas. Fior. p. 335. 270 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. the works to be copied was sent to Cosimo by Nicholas V., 1 who wrote it with his own hand. Ecclesiastical literature and the books needed for the choral services naturally held the chief place in the list. The handwriting was that beautiful modern Italian which was already in use in the preceding century, and which makes the sight of one of the books of that time a pleasure. Pope Nicholas V., Poggio, Giannozzo Manetti, Niccolo Niccoli, and other distin¬ guished scholars, themselves wrote a beautiful hand, and desired and tolerated none other. The decorative adjuncts, even when miniatures formed no part of them, were full of taste, as may be seen especially in the Laurentian manuscripts, with the light and graceful scrolls which begin and end the lines. The material used to write on, when the work was ordered by great or wealthy people, was always parchment; the binding, both in the Vatican and at Urbino, was a uniform crimson velvet with silver clasps. Where there was so much care to show honour to the contents of a book by the beauty of its outward form, it is intelligible that the sudden appearance of printed books was greeted at first with anything but favour. The envoys of Cardinal Bessarion, when they saw for the first time a printed book in the house of Constantine Lascaris, laughed at the discovery ‘ made among the 1 Ambr. Trav. Efiist. i. p. 63. The Pope was equally serviceable to the libraries of Urbino and Pesaro (that of Aless. Sforza, p. 38). THE OLD AUTHORS. 271 barbarians in some German city,’ and Frederick of Urbino ‘would have been ashamed to own a printed book.’ 1 But the weary copyists—not those who lived by the trade, but the many who were forced to copy a book in order to have it—rejoiced at the German inven¬ tion, 2 ‘ notwithstanding the praises and encouragements which the poets awarded to caligraphy.’ It was soon applied in Italy to the multiplication first of the Latin and then of the Greek authors, and for a long period nowhere but in Italy, yet it spread with by no means the rapidity which might have been expected from the general enthusiasm for these works. After a while the modern relation between author and publisher began to develop itself, 8 and under Alexander VI., when it was no longer easy to destroy a book, as Cosimo could make Filelfo promise to do, 4 the pro¬ hibitive censorship made its appearance. 1 Vespas. Fior. p. 129. 2 1 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 Mathd- matiques , ii. 278 sqq. (See also the eulogy of Lor. Valla, Hist. Zeitschr. xxxii. 62.) For the printers at Rome (the first were Germans : Hahn, Pan- nartz, Schweinheim), see Gaspar. Veron. Vita Pauli II. in Murat, iii. ii. col. 1046 ; and Laire, Spec. Hist. Typographies Romanae, xv. sec. Romas, 1778 ; Gregorovius, vii. 525-33. For the first Privilegium in Venice, see Marin Sanudo, in Muratori, xxii. col. 1189. 3 Something of the sort had already existed in the age of manuscripts. See Vespas. Fior. p. 656, on the Cro 7 iaco del Mondo of Zembino of Pistoia. 4 Fabroni, Laurent. MagJi. Adnot, 212. It happened in the case of the libel, De Exilio. 272 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. The growth of textual criticism which accompanied the advancing study of languages and antiquity, belongs as little to the subject of this book as the history of scholarship in general. We are here occu¬ pied, not with the learning of the Italians in itself, but with the reproduction of antiquity in literature and life. One word more on the studies themselves may still be permissible. Greek scholarship was chiefly confined to Florence and to the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. It was never so general as Latin scholar¬ ship, partly because of the far greater difficulties which it involved, partly and still more because the conscious¬ ness of Roman supremacy and an instinctive hatred of the Greeks more than counterbalanced the attrac¬ tions which Greek literature had for the Italians. 1 The impulse which proceeded from Petrarch and Boccaccio, superficial as was their own acquaintance with Greek, was powerful, but did not tell imme- 1 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, ./Eneas Sylvius writes (Comm, to Panormita, ‘ De Dictis et Factis Alfonsi/Append.) : ‘ Alfonsus tanto est Socrate major quanto gravior Romanus homo quam Grsecus 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, Melanges dHisf. Liter, i. passim. A work is in preparation by Carlo Malagola on Hellenism at Bologna. THE OLD AUTHORS. 273 diately on their contemporaries ; 1 on the other hand, the study of Greek literature died out about the year 1520 2 with the last of the colony of learned Greek exiles, and it was a singular piece of fortune that northerners like Agricola, Reuchlin, Erasmus, the Stephani, and Budseus had meanwhile made them¬ selves masters of the language. That colony had begun with Manuel Chrysoloras and his relation John, and with George of Trebizond. Then followed, about and after the time of the conquest of Constantinople, John Argyropulos, Theodore Gaza, Demetrios Chal- condylas, who brought up his sons Theophilos and Basilios to be excellent Hellenists, Andronikos Kal- listos, Marcos Musuros and the family of the Lascaris, not to mention others. But after the subjugation of Greece by the Turks was completed, the succession of scholars was maintained only by the sons of the fugitives and perhaps here and there by some Candian or Cyprian refugee. That the decay of Hellenistic studies began about the time of the death of Leo X. was owing partly to a general change of intellectual 1 See above p. 261, note 1, and comp. C. Voigt, Wiederbelebung , 323 sqq. 2 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 literse non latinae modo cum pudore nostro, sed graecse et hebraicae in eorum terras fatali commigratione transierint ’ (about 1540). Similarly, sixty years before (1482), Joh. Argyropulos had exclaimed, when he heard young Reuchlin translate Thucydides in his lecture-room at Rome, ‘ Graecia nostra exilio trans- volavit Alpes.’ Geiger, Reuchlin (Lpzg. 1871), pp. 26 sqq. VOL. I. T 274 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. attitude, 1 and to a certain satiety of classical influences which now made itself felt; but its coincidence with the death of the Greek fugitives was not wholly a matter of accident. The study of Greek among the Italians appears, if we take the year 1500 as our standard, to have been pursued with extraordinary zeal. The youths of that day learned to speak the language, and half a century later, like the Popes Paul III. and Paul IV., they could still do so in their old age. 2 But this sort of mastery of the study presup¬ poses intercourse with native Greeks. Besides Florence, Rome and Padua nearly always maintained paid teachers of Greek, and Verona, Ferrara, Venice, Perugia, Pavia and other cities occa¬ sional teachers. 3 Hellenistic studies owed a priceless debt to the press of Aldo Manucci at Venice, where the most important and voluminous writers were for the first time printed in the original. Aldo ventured his all in the enterprise; he was an editor and publisher whose like the world has rarely seen. 4 Along with this classical revival, Oriental studies 1 Ranke, Pdpste , i. 486 sqq. Comp, the end of this part of our work. 2 Tommaso Gar, Relazionidella Corte di Roma, i. pp. 338, 379. 3 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. 4 Exhaustive information on the subject in the admirable work of A. F. Didot, Aide Mamice et VHillenisme d Venise, Paris, 1875. THE OLD AUTHORS. 275 now assumed considerable proportions. 1 Dante him¬ self set a high value on Hebrew, though we cannot suppose that he understood it. From the fifteenth century onwards scholars were no longer content merely to speak of it with respect, but applied them¬ selves to a thorough study of it. This scientific interest in the language was, however, from the beginning either furthered or hindered by religious considerations. Poggio, when resting from the labours of the Council of Constance, learnt Hebrew at that place and at Baden from a baptized Jew, whom he describes as ‘ stupid, peevish, and ignorant, like most converted Jews;’ but he had to defend his conduct against Lionardo Bruni, who endeavoured to prove to him that Hebrew was useless or even injurious. The controversial writings of the great Florentine statesman and scholar, Giannozzo Manetti 2 (d. 1459) against the Jews afford an early instance of a complete mastery of their language and science. His son Agnolo was from his childhood instructed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The father, at the bidding of Nicholas V., translated the Psalms, but had to defend the principles of his translation in a work addressed to Alfonso. Commissioned by the same Pope, who had offered a reward of 5,000 ducats for the discovery of 1 For what follows see A. de Gubernatis, MatSriaux pour servir d THistoire des Etudes Orientates en Italie , Paris, Florence, &c., 1876. Additions by Soave in the Bolletino Italiano degli Studi Orientali , i. 178 sqq. More precise details below. 2 See below. 2 76 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. the original Hebrew text of the Evangelist Matthew, he made a collection of Hebrew manuscripts, which is still preserved in the Vatican, and began a great apologetic work against the Jews. 1 The study of Hebrew was thus enlisted in the service of the Church. The Camaldolese monk Ambrogio Traversari learnt the language, 2 and Pope Sixtus IV., who erected the building for the Vatican library, and added to the collection extensive purchases of his own, took into his service ‘scrittori’ ( librarios ) for Hebrew as well as for Greek and Latin. 3 The study of the language now became more general; Hebrew manuscripts were collected, and in some libraries, like that of Urbino, formed a specially valuable part of the rich treasure there stored up ; the printing of Hebrew books began in Italy in 1475, and made the study easier both to the Italians themselves and to the other nations of Europe, who for many years drew their supply from Italy. Soon there was no good-sized town where there were not individuals who were masters of the language and many anxious to learn it, and in 1488 a chair for Hebrew was founded at Bologna, and another in 1514 at Rome. The study became so popular that it was even preferred to Greek. 4 1 See Commentario della Vita di Messer Gianozzo Manetti , scritto da Vespasiano Bisticci , Torino, 1862, esp. pp. 11, 44, 91 sqq. 2 Vesp. Fior. p. 320. A. Trav. Epist. lib. xi. 16. 3 Platina, Vita Sixti IV. p. 332. 4 Benedictus Faleus, De Origine Hebraicarum Grcecarum Latina- rumque Liter arum, Naples 1520. THE OLD AUTHORS. 277 Among all those who busied themselves with Hebrew in the fifteenth century, no one was of more importance than Pico della Mirandola. He was not satisfied with a knowledge of the Hebrew grammar and Scriptures, but penetrated into the Jewish Cabbalah For Dante, see Wegele, Dante , 2nd ed. p. 268, and Lasinio, Dante e le Lingue semitiche in the Rivista Orientate (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 pub¬ lished in French and Latin under the title, Les Bams de Bade par Pogge , by Antony Meray, Paris, 1876. Poggio desired to know on what prin¬ ciples 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 Stein- schneider, in the work quoted below. For the Hebrew manuscripts in the library at Urbino, see the catalogue quoted above (266, note 1). They were sixty-one in all. Among them a Bible ‘ opus mirabile et integrum, cum glossis mirabiliter scriptis 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 print¬ ing 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 Hyp?ieroto2nachia of Polifilo, written 1467, printed 1499, f°l- 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. Stein¬ schneider 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. Costi- iuzione , discipline e riforme delV antico studio Bolog 7 iese. 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. 278 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. and even made himself familiar with the literature of the Talmud. That such pursuits, though they may not have gone very far, were at all possible to him, he owed to his Jewish teachers. Most of the instruction in Hebrew was in fact given by Jews, some of whom, though generally not till after conversion to Christi¬ anity, became distinguished University professors and much-esteemed writers. 1 1 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 II Buonarotti , vols. vi. viii. xi. xii. ; Rome, 1871-77 (also printed sepa¬ rately) ; 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 Stein¬ schneider, 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 , 1 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 brethren 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, THE OLD AUTHORS. 279 Among the Oriental languages, Arabic was studied as well as Hebrew. The science of medicine, no Das Judenthum und seine Geschichte , Breslau, bd. ii. 1865, p. 170 ; and the same author’s Nachgelassene Schriften , bd. ii. Berlin, 1875, PP- I2 9 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, Niccolo di Giovinazzo, studied with a Jew, Mose 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, EAverroes et VAverroisme y third edition, Paris, 1866, p. 290). These measures prove the acquaintance of learned Jews with Latin, which rendered intercourse possible between them and Christians—an inter¬ course 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 Hebrew 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, Jiid. Zeitsch. v. 286-301, 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 2 So THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. long-er satisfied with the older Latin translations of the great Arabian physicians, had constant recourse to the originals, to which an easy access was offered by the Venetian consulates in the East, where Italian doctors were regularly kept. But the Arabian scholar¬ ship of the Renaissance is only a feeble echo of the influence which Arabian civilisation in the Middle Ages exercised over Italy and the whole cultivated world—an influence which not only preceded that of the Renaissance, but in some respects was hostile to it, and which did not surrender without a struggle the place which it had long and vigorously asserted. Hieronimo Ramusio, a Venetian physician, translated a great part of Avicenna from the Arabic and died at Damascus in i486. Andrea Mongajo of Belluno, 1 a 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). 1 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 seqq. For a translation made 1341 from Arabic into Italian, comp. THE OLD AUTHORS . 281 disciple of the same Avicenna, lived long at Damascus, learnt Arabic, and improved on his master. The Venetian government afterwards appointed him as professor of this subject at Padua. The example set by Venice was followed by other governments. Princes and wealthy men rivalled one another in collecting Arabic manuscripts. The first Arabic printing-press was begun at Fano under Julius II. and consecrated in 1514 under Leo X. 1 We must here linger for a moment over Pico della Mirandola, before passing on to the general effects of humanism. He was the only man who loudly and vigorously defended the truth and science of all ages against the one-sided worship of classical antiquity. 2 He knew how to value not only Averrhoes and the Jewish investigators, but also the scholastic writers of the Middle Ages, according to the matter of their writings. He seems to hear them say, ‘ We shall live for ever, not in the schools of the word-catchers, but in the circle of the wise, where they talk not of the mother Narducci, Intorno ad una tradizioiie italiana di una composizione astro- nomica di Alfonso X. re di Castiglia, Roma, 1865. On Ramusio, see Sansovino, Venezia , fol. 250. 1 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. 2 Especially in the important letter of the year 1485 to Ermolao Barbaro, in Ang. Politian. Efistolce , 1 . 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. 282 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. of Andromache or of the sons of Niobe, but of the deeper causes of things human and divine ; he who looks closely will see that even the barbarians had intelligence ( mercurium ), not on the tongue but in the breast.’ Himself writing a vigorous and not inelegant Latin, and a master of clear exposition, he despised the purism of pedants and the current over-estimate of bor¬ rowed forms, especially when joined, as they often are, with one-sidedness, and involving indifference to the wider truth of the things themselves. Looking at Pico, we can guess at the lofty flight which Italian philosophy would have taken had not the counter¬ reformation annihilated the higher spiritual life of the people. 283 CHAPTER IV. HUMANISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Who now were (those who acted as mediators between their own age and a venerated antiquity, and made the latter a chief element in the culture of the They were a crowd of the most miscellaneous sort, wearing one face to-day and another to-morrow ; but they clearly felt themselves, and it was clearly recog¬ nised by their time, that they formed a wholly new element in society. The ‘ clerici vagantes ’ of the twelfth century, whose poetry we have already referred to (p. 244), may perhaps be taken as their forerunners —the same unstable existence, the same free and more than free views of life, and the germs at all events of the same pagan tendencies in their poetry. But now, as competitor with the whole culture of the Middle Ages, which was essentially clerical and was fostered by the Church, there appeared a new civilisation, founding itself on that which lay on the other side of the Middle Ages. Its active representatives became influential 1 because they knew what the ancients knew, 1 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. 284 THE REVIVAL 01 ANTIQUITY. because they tried to write as the ancients wrote, because they began to think, and soon to feel, as the ancients thought and felt. The tradition to which they devoted themselves passed at a thousand points into genuine reproduction. Some modern writers deplore the fact that the germs of a far more independent and essentially national culture, such as appeared in Florence about the year 1300, were afterwards so completely swamped by the humanists. 1 There was then, we are told, nobody in Florence who could not read ; even the donkey-men sang the verses of Dante; the best Italian manuscripts which we possess belonged originally to Florentine artisans ; the publication of a popular ency¬ clopaedia, like the ‘Tesoro’ of Brunetto Latini, was then possible ; and all this was founded on a strength and soundness of character due to the universal par¬ ticipation in public affairs, to commerce and travel, and to the systematic reprobation of idleness. The Florentines, it is urged, were at that time respected and influential throughout the whole world, and were called in that year, not without reason, by Pope Boni¬ face VIII., ‘the fifth element.’ The rapid progress of humanism after the year 1400 paralysed native impulses. Henceforth men looked to antiquity only for the solution of every problem, and consequently allowed literature to sink into mere quotation!) Nay, the very fall of civil freedom is partly to be ascribed to Esp. Libri, Histoires des Sciences Mathiin. ii. 159 sqq., 258 sqq. 1 HUMANISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 285 all this, since the new learning rested on obedience to authority, sacrificed municipal rights to Roman law, and thereby both sought and found the favour of the despots. These charges will occupy us now and then at a later stage of our inquiry, when we shall attempt to reduce them to their true value, and to weigh the losses against the gains of this movement. For the present we must confine ourselves to showing how the civilisation even of the vigorous fourteenth century necessarily prepared the way for the complete victory of humanism, and how precisely the greatest repre¬ sentatives of the national Italian spirit were them¬ selves the men who opened wide the gate for the measureless devotion to antiquity in the fifteenth century. To begin with Dante. If a succession of men of equal genius had presided over Italian culture, what¬ ever elements their natures might have absorbed from the antique, they still could not fail to retain a characteristic and strongly-marked national stamp. But neither Italy nor Western Europe produced another Dante, and he was and remained the man who first thrust antiquity into the foreground of national culture. In the ‘ Divine Comedy ’ he treats the ancient and the Christian worlds, not indeed as of equal authority, but as parallel to one another. Just as, at an earlier period of the Middle Ages, types and antitypes were sought in the history of 286 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. the Old and New Testaments, so does Dante con¬ stantly bring together a Christian and a pagan illustration of the same fact. 1 It must be remem¬ bered that the Christian cycle of history and legend was familiar, while the ancient was relatively unknown, was full of promise and of interest, and must neces¬ sarily have gained the upper hand in the competition for public sympathy when there was no longer a Dante to hold the balance between the two. Petrarch, who lives in the memory of most people nowadays chiefly as a great Italian poet, owed his fame among his contemporaries far rather to the fact that he was a kind of living representative of antiquity, that he imitated all styles of Latin poetry, endeavoured by his voluminous historical and philo¬ sophical writings not to supplant but to make known the works of the ancients, and wrote letters that, as treatises on matters of antiquarian interest, obtained a reputation which to us is unintelligible, but which was natural enough in an age without handbooks. Petrarch himself trusted and hoped that his Latin writings would bring him fame with his contempo¬ raries and with posterity, and thought so little of his Italian poems that, as he often tells us, he would gladly have destroyed them if he could only have 1 Purgatorio , xviii. contains striking instances. Mary hastens over the mountains, Caesar 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 Dittcunondo (i. cap. 14, 15), about 1360. HUMANISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 287 succeeded thereby in blotting them out from the memory of men. It was the same with Boccaccio. For two cen¬ turies, when but little was known of the ‘ Decameron’ 1 north of the Alps, he was famous all over Europe simply on account of his Latin compilations on mythology, geography, and biography. 2 One of these,. ‘ De Genealogia Deorum,’ contains in the fourteenth and fifteenth books a remarkable appendix, in which he discusses the position of the then youthful hu¬ manism with regard to the age. We must not be misled by his exclusive references to ‘ poesia,’ as closer observation shows that he means thereby the whole mental activity of the poet-scholars. 3 This it is whose enemies he so vigorously combats—the frivolous ignoramuses who have no soul for anything but debauchery; the sophistical theologian, to whom Helicon, the Castalian fountain, and the grove of Apollo were foolishness; the greedy lawyers, to whom poetry was a superfluity, since no money was 1 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. 2 These Latin writings of Boccaccio have been admirably discussed recently by Schiick, Zur Characteristik des ital. Hum. im 14 und 15 Jahrh. Breslau, 1865 ; and in an article in Fleckeisen and Masius, Jahrbiicher fur Phil, und Pddag . bd. xx. (1874). 3 ‘ 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. 288 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. to be made by it; finally, the mendicant friars, de¬ scribed periphrastically, but clearly enough, who made free with their charges of paganism and immorality. 1 Then follows the defence of poetry, the proof that the poetry of the ancients and of their modern followers contains nothing mendacious, the praise of it, and especially of the deeper and allegorical meanings which we must always attribute to it, and of that calculated obscurity which is intended to repel the dull minds of the ignorant. And finally, with a clear reference to his own scholarly work, 2 the writer justifies the new relation in which his age stood to paganism. The case was wholly different, he pleads, when the Early Church had to fight its way among the heathen. Now— praised be Jesus Christ!—true religion was strength¬ ened, paganism destroyed, and the victorious Church in possession of the hostile camp. It was now pos¬ sible to touch and study paganism almost ( fere ) without danger. Boccaccio, however, did not hold this liberal view consistently. The ground of his 1 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. Fain. 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. Invectivcc in Medicum Objurgantem , lib. i. and ii.). 2 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. HUMANISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 289 apostasy lay partly in the mobility of his character, partly in the still powerful and widespread prejudice that classical pursuits were unbecoming in a theolo¬ gian. To these reasons must be added the warning given him in the name of the dead Pietro Petroni by the monk Gioacchino Ciani to give up his pagan studies under pain of early death. He accordingly determined to abandon them, and was only brought back from this cowardly resolve by the earnest exhor¬ tations of Petrarch, and by the latter’s able demonstra¬ tion that humanism was reconcileable with religion. 1 There was thus a new cause in the world and a new class of men to maintain it. It is idle to ask if this cause ought not to have stopped short in its career of victory, to have restrained itself deliberately, and conceded the first place to purely national elements of culture. No conviction was more firmly rooted in the popular mind, than that antiquity was the highest title to glory which Italy possessed. There was a symbolical ceremony familiar to this first generation of poet-scholars which lasted on into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though losing the higher sentiment which inspired it—the coronation of the poets with the laurel wreath. The origin of this system in the Middle Ages is obscure, and the ritual of the ceremony never became fixed. It was a public demonstration, an outward and visible expression of 1 Petr. Epp. Senil. lib. i. ep. 5. VOL. I. U 290 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. literary enthusiasm, 1 and naturally its form was variable. Dante, for instance, seems to have understood it in the sense of a half-religious consecration ; he desired to assume the wreath in the baptistery of San Giovanni, where, like thousands of other Florentine children, he had received baptism. 2 He could, says his biographer, have anywhere received the crown in virtue of his fame, but desired it nowhere but in his native city, and therefore died uncrowned. From the same source we learn that the usage was till then uncommon, and was held to be inherited by the ancient Romans from the Greeks. The most recent source to which the practices could be referred is to be found in the Capitoline contests of musicians, poets, and other artists, founded by Domitian in imitation of the Greeks and celebrated every five years, which may possibly have survived for a time the fall of the Roman Empire ; but as few other men would venture to crown themselves, as Dante desired to do, the question arises, to whom did this office belong ? Albertino Mussato (p. 198) was crowned at Padua in 1310 by the bishop and the rector of the Univer¬ sity. The University of Paris, the rector of which was then a Florentine (1341), and the municipal authorities of Rome, competed for the honour of crowning Petrarch. His self-elected examiner, King 1 Boccaccio (Vita di Dante , p. 50) : 'La quale (laurea) non scienza accresce, ma & dell’ acquistata certissimo testimonio e ornamento.’ 2 Paradiso, xxv. 1 sqq. Boccaccio, Vita di Dante , p. 50. f Sopra le fonti di San Giovanni si era disporto di coronare/ Comp. Paradiso, i. 25. HUMANISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 291 Robert of Anjou, would gladly have performed the ceremony at Naples, but Petrarch preferred to be crowned on the Capitol by the senator of Rome. This honour was long the highest object of ambition, and so it seemed to Jacobus Pizinga, an illustrious Sicilian magistrate. 1 Then came the Italian journey of Charles IV., whom it amused to flatter the vanity of ambitious men, and impress the ignorant multitude by means of gorgeous ceremonies. Starting from the fiction that the coronation of poets was a prero¬ gative of the old Roman emperors, and consequently was no less his own, he crowned (May 15, 1355) the Florentine scholar, Zanobi della Strada, at Pisa, to the annoyance of Petrarch, who complained that ‘the barbarian laurel had dared to adorn the man loved by the Ausonian Muses,’ and to the great disgust of Boccaccio, who declined to recognise this ‘ laurea Pisana ’ as legitimate. 2 Indeed it might be fairly asked with what right this stranger, half Slavonic by birth, came to sit in judgment on the merits of Italian poets. But from henceforth the emperors crowned poets wherever they went on their travels ; and in the fifteenth century the popes and other 1 See Boccaccio’s letter to him in the Oftere Volgari , vol. xvi. p. 36 : 1 Si prsestet Deus, concedente senatu Romuleo.’ .... 2 Matt. Villani, v. 26. There was a solemn procession on horseback round the city, when the followers of the Emperor, his ‘ baroni,’ accom¬ panied the poet. Boccaccio, 1 . c. Petrarch : Invectivce contra Med. Prcef See also Efifi. Fam. Volgarizzate da Fracassetti, iii. 128. For the speech of Zanobi at the coronation, Friedjung, 1 . c. 308 sqq. Fazio degli Uberti was also crowned, but it is not known where or by whom. U 2 292 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. princes assumed the same right, till at last no regard whatever was paid to place .or circumstances. In Rome, under Sixtus IV., the academy 1 of Pom- ponius Laetus gave the wreath on its own authority. The Florentines had the good taste not to crown their famous humanists till after death. Carlo Aretino and Lionardo Aretino were thus crowned ; the eulogy of the first was pronounced by Matteo Palmieri, of the latter by Giannozzo Manetti, before the members of the council and the whole people, the orator stand¬ ing at the head of the bier, on which the corpse lay clad in a silken robe* 2 Carlo Aretino was further honoured by a tomb in Santa Croce, which is among the most beautiful in the whole course of the Renaissance. 1 Jac. Volaterran. in Murat, xxiii. col. 185. 2 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, Melanges dHist. Lit. (1856), i. 65 sqq. 293 CHAPTER V. THE UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS. The influence of antiquity on culture, of which we have now to speak, presupposes that the new learning had gained possession of the universities. This was so, but by no means to the extent and with the results which might have been expected. Few of the Italian universities 1 show themselves in their full vigour till the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the increase of wealth rendered a more systematic care for education possible. At first there were generally three sorts of professorships—one for civil law, another for canonical law, the third for medicine ; in course of time professorships of rhetoric, 1 Comp. Libri, Histoire des Sciences Mathem. 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, 1 ad solatium veteris amissae libertatis/ as Giovio says, Vita Leonis X. 1 . 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 1348, 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 com¬ monly united with the professorship of philology and rhetoric, as when Filelfo held it. 294 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. of philosophy, and of astronomy were added, the last commonly, though not always, identical with astrology. The salaries varied greatly in different cases. Some¬ times a capital sum was paid down. With the spread of culture competition became so active that the different universities tried to entice away distinguished teachers from one another, under which circumstances Bologna is said to have sometimes devoted the half of its public income (20,000 ducats) to the university. The appointments were as a rule made only for a certain time, 1 sometimes for only half a year, so that the teachers were forced to lead a wandering life, like actors. Appointments for life were, however, not unknown. Sometimes the promise was exacted not to teach elsewhere what had already been taught at one place. There were also voluntary, unpaid professors. Of the chairs which have been mentioned, that of rhetoric was especially sought by the humanist; yet it depended only on his familiarity with the matter of ancient learning whether or no he could aspire to those of law, medicine, philosophy, or astronomy. The inward conditions of the science of the day were as variable as the outward conditions of the teacher. Certain jurists and physicians received by far the largest salaries of all, the former chiefly as consulting lawyers for the suits and claims of the state which 1 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. THE UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS '. 2 95 employed them. In Padua a lawyer of the fifteenth century received a salary of 1,000 ducats, 1 and it was proposed to appoint a celebrated physician with a yearly payment of 2,000 ducats, and the right of private practice, 2 the same man having previously received 700 gold florins at Pisa. When the jurist Bartolommeo Socini, professor at Pisa, accepted a Venetian appointment at Padua, and was on the point of starting on his journey, he was arrested by the Florentine government and only released on payment of bail to the amount of 18,000 gold florins. 3 The high estimation in which these branches of science were held makes it intelligible why distinguished philologists turned their attention to law and medicine, while on the other hand specialists were more and more compelled to acquire something of a wide literary culture. We shall presently have occasion to speak of the work of the humanists in other departments of practical life. Nevertheless, the position of the philologists, as such, even where the salary was large, 4 and did not exclude other sources of income, was on the whole uncertain and temporary, so that one and the same teacher could be connected with a great variety of 1 Marin Sanudo, in Murat, xxii. col. 990. 2 Fabroni, Laurent . Magn. Adnot, 52, in the year 1491. 3 Allegretto, Diari Sanest , in Murat, xiii. col. 824. 4 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 s.dary asked for. 296 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. institutions. It is evident that change was desired for its own sake, and something fresh expected from each new, comer, as was natural at a time when science was in the making, and consequently depended to no small degree on the personal influence of the teacher. Nor was it always the case that a lecturer on classical authors really belonged to the university of the town where he taught. Communication was so easy, and the supply of suitable accommodation, in monasteries and elsewhere, was so abundant, that a private under¬ taking was often practicable. In the first decades of the fifteenth century, 1 when the University of Florence was at its greatest brilliance, when the courtiers of Eugenius IV., and perhaps even of Martin V. thronged to the lecture-rooms, when Carlo Aretino and Filelfo were competing for the largest audience, there existed, not only an almost complete university among the Augustinians of Santo Spirito, not only an associa¬ tion of scholars among the Camaldolesi of the Angeli, but individuals of mark, either singly or in common, arranged to provide philosophical and philological teaching for themselves and others. Linguistic and antiquarian studies in Rome had next to no connection with the university (Sapienza), and depended almost exclusively either on the favour of individual popes and prelates, or on the appointments made in the Papal chancery. It was not till Leo X. (1513) that the great 1 Comp. Vespasian. Fiorent. pp. 271, 572, 580, 625. Vita Jan . Manetti , in Murat, xx. col. 531 sqq. THE UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS. 297 reorganisation of the Sapienza took place, with its eighty-eight lecturers, among whom there were able men, though none of the first rank, at the head of the archaeological department. But this new brilliancy was of short duration. We have already spoken briefly of the Greek and Hebrew professorships in Italy (pp. 272 sqq.). To form an accurate picture of the method of scientific instruction then pursued, we must turn away our eyes as far as possible from our present academic system. Personal intercourse between the teachers and the taught, public disputations, the constant use of Latin and often of Greek, the frequent changes of lecturers and the scarcity of books, gave the studies of that time a colour which we cannot represent to ourselves without effort. There were Latin schools in every town of the least importance, not by any means merely as prepara¬ tory to higher education, but because, next to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the knowledge of Latin was a necessity ; and after Latin came logic. It is to be noted particularly that these schools did not depend on the Church, but on the municipality ; some of them, too, were merely private enterprises. This school system, directed by a few distinguished humanists, not only attained a remarkable perfection of organisation, but became an instrument of higher education in the modern sense of the phrase. With the education of the children of two princely houses in 298 YHE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. North Italy institutions were connected which may be called unique of their kind. At the court of Giovan Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua (reg. 1407 to 1444) appeared the illustrious Vittorino da Feltre 1 (b. 1397, d. 1446), otherwise Vittore dai Rambaldoni—he preferred to be called a Mantuan rather than a Feltrese—one of those men who devote their whole life to an object for which their natural gifts constitute a special vocation. He wrote almost nothing, and finally destroyed the few poems of his youth which he had long kept by him. He studied with unwearied industry; he never sought after titles, which, like all outward distinctions, he scorned; and he lived on terms of the closest friend¬ ship with teachers, companions, and pupils, whose goodwill he knew how to preserve. He excelled in bodily no less than in mental exercises, was an admirable rider, dancer, and fencer, wore the same clothes in winter as in summer, walked in nothing but sandals even during the severest frost, and lived so that till his old age he was never ill. He so restrained his passions, his natural inclination to sensuality and anger, that he remained chaste his whole life through, and hardly ever hurt anyone by a hard word. 1 Vespas. Fiorent. p. 1460. Prendilacqua (a pupil of Vitt.), Intorno alia Vita di V. da F., first ed. by Natale dalle Laste, 1774, translated by Guiseppe Brambilla, Como, 1871. C. Rosmini, Idea dell 9 ottimo Precel tore nella Vita e Disciplina di Vittorino da Feltre e dd snoi Discepoli , Bassano, 1801. Later works by Racheli (Milan, 1832), and Venoit (Paris, THE UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS. 299 He directed the education of the sons and daughters of the princely house, and one of the latter became ‘under his care a woman of learning. When his reputation extended far and wide over Italy, and members of great and wealthy families came from far and wide, even from Germany, in search of his instruc¬ tions, Gonzaga was not only willing that they should be received, but seems to have held it an honour for Mantua to be the chosen school of the aristocratic world. Here for the first time gymnastics and all noble bodily exercises were treated along with scientific instruction as indispensable to a liberal education. Besides these pupils came others, whose instruction Vittorino probably held to be his highest earthly aim, the gifted poor, often as many as seventy together, whom he supported in his house and educated, ‘ per l'amore di Dio/ along with the high-born youths who here learned to live under the same roof with untitled genius. The greater the -crowd of pupils who flocked to Mantua, the more teachers were needed to impart the instruction which Vittorino only directed—an instruction which aimed at giving each pupil that sort of learning which he was most fitted to receive. Gonzaga paid him a yearly salary of 240 gold florins, built him besides a splendid house, ‘ La Giocosa/ in which the master lived with his scholars, and con¬ tributed to the expenses caused by the poorer pupils. What was still further needed Vittorino begged from princes and wealthy people, who did not always, it is 300 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. true, give a ready ear to his entreaties, and forced him by their hardheartedness to run into debt. Yet in the end he found himself in comfortable circumstances, owned a small property in town and an estate in the country, where he stayed with his pupils during the holidays, and possessed a famous collection of books which he gladly lent or gave away, though he was not a little angry when they were taken without leave. In the early morning he read religious books, then scourged himself and went to church; his pupils were also compelled to go to church, like him to • confess once a month, and to observe fast days most strictly. His pupils respected him, but trembled before his glance. When they did anything wrong, they were punished immediately after the offence. He was honoured by all his contemporaries no less than by his pupils, and people took the journey to Mantua merely to see him. More stress was laid ‘on pure scholarship by Guarino of Verona 1 (1370-1460), who in the year 1429 was called to Ferrara by Niccolo d’Este to educate his son Lionello, and who, when his pupil was nearly grown up in 1436, began to teach at the university as professor of eloquence and of the ancient languages. While still acting as tutor to Lionello, he had many other pupils from various parts of the country, and in 1 Vespas. Fior. p. 646, of which, however, C. Rosmini, Vita e Disci plina di Guarino Veronese e de’ suoi Discepoli , Brescia, 1856 (3 vols.), says that it is (ii. 56), ‘formicolante di errori di fatto.’ THE UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS. 3 01 his own house a select class of poor scholars, whom he partly or wholly supported. His evening hours till far into the night were devoted to hearing lessons or to instructive conversation. His house, too, was the home of a strict religion and morality. Guarino was a student of the Bible, and lived in friendly intercourse with pious contemporaries, though he did not hesitate to write a defence of pagan literature against them. It signified little to him or to Vittorino that most of the humanists of their day deserved small praise in the matter of morals or religion. It is inconceivable how Guarino, with all the daily work which fell upon him, still found time to write translations from the Greek and voluminous original works. 1 He was wanting in that wise self-restraint and kindly sweetness which graced the character of Vittorino, and was easily betrayed into a violence of temper which led to frequent quarrels with his learned contemporaries. Not only in these two courts, but generally 1 For these and for Guarino generally, see Facius, De Vir. Illustribus , p. 17 sqq. ; and Cortesius, De Ho?n. 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 1 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. 3°2 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. throughout Italy, the education of the princely families was in part and for certain years in the hands of the humanists, who thereby mounted a step higher in the aristrocratic world. The writing of treatises on the education of princes, formerly the business of theo¬ logians, fell now within their province. From the time of Pier Paolo Vergerio the Italian princes were well taken care of in this respect, and the custom was transplanted into Germany by /Eneas Sylvius, w r ho addressed detailed exhortations to two young German princes of the House of Habsburg 1 on the subject of their further education, in which they are both urged, as might be expected, to cultivate and nurture humanism, but are chiefly bidden to make themselves able rulers and vigorous, hardy warriors. Perhaps /Eneas was aware that in addressing these youths he was talking in the air, and therefore took measures to put his treatise into public circulation, But the relations of the humanists to the rulers will be discussed separately. 1 To the Archduke Sigismond, Epist. 105, p. 600, and to King Ladislaus Postumus, p. 695 ; the latter as Tractatus de Liberorum Edu¬ cation# (1450). • 303 CHAPTER VI. THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM. We have here first to speak of those citizens, mostly Florentines, who made antiquarian interests one of the chief objects of their lives, and who were them¬ selves either distinguished scholars, or else distin¬ guished dilettanti who maintained the scholars. (Comp. pp. 269 sqq.) They were of peculiar sig¬ nificance during the period of transition at the beginning of the fifteenth century, since it was in them that humanism first showed itself practically as an indispensable element in daily life. It was not till after this time that the popes and princes began seriously to occupy themselves with it. Niccolo Niccoli and Giannozzo Manetti have been already spoken of more than once. Niccoli is described to us by Vespasiano 1 as a man who would tolerate nothing around him out of harmony with his own clas¬ sical spirit. His handsome long-robed figure, his kindly speech, his house adorned with the noblest remains of antiquity, made a singular impression. He was 1 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 Longcevis. 3 ° 4 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. scrupulously cleanly in everything, most of all at table, where ancient vases and crystal goblets stood before him on the whitest linen. 1 The way in which he won over a pleasure-loving young Florentine to intellectual interests is too charming not to be here described. 2 Piero de’ Pazzi, son of a distinguished merchant, and himself destined to the same calling, fair to behold, and much given to the pleasures of the world, thought about anything rather than literature. One day, as he was passing the Palazzo del Podesta, 8 Niccolo called the young man to him, and although they had never before exchanged a word, the youth obeyed the call of one so respected. Niccolo asked him who his father was.- He answered, ‘ Messer Andrea de’ Pazzi.’ When he was further asked what his pursuit was, Piero replied, as young people are wont to do, ‘I enjoy myself’ (‘attendo a darmi buon tempo.’) Niccolo said to him, ‘As son of such a father, and so fair to look upon, it is a shame that thou knowest nothing of the Latin language, which would be so great an ornament to thee. If thou learnest it not, thou wilt be good for nothing, and as soon as the flower of youth is over, wilt be a man of no consequence ’ (virtu). When Piero heard this, he straightway perceived that it was true, and said that 1 The following words of Vespasiano are untranslatable : ‘ A vederlo in tavola cosi antico come era, era una gentilezza. 5 2 Ibid. p. 485. 3 According to Vespas. p. 271, learned men were in the habit of meeting here for discussion. THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM. 305 he would gladly take pains to learn, if only he had a teacher. Whereupon Niccolo answered that he would see to that. And he found him a learned man for Latin and Greek, named Pontano, whom Piero treated as one of his own house, and to whom he paid 100 gold florins a year. Quitting all the pleasures in which he had hitherto lived, he studied day and night, and became a friend of all learned men and a noble-minded statesman. He learned by heart the whole ‘yEneid’ and many speeches of Livy, chiefly on the way between Florence and his country house at Trebbio. 1 Antiquity was represented in another and higher sense by Giannozzo Manetti (1393 - 1459).' 2 Precocious 1 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 1 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. 2 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. VOL. I. X 3°6 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. from his first years, he was hardly more than a child when he had finished his apprenticeship in commerce, and became book-keeper in a bank. But soon the life he led seemed to him empty and perishable, and he began to yearn after science, through which alone man can secure immortality. He then busied himself with books as few laymen had done before him, and became, as has been said (p. 292), one of the most profound scholars of his time. When appointed by the government as its representative magistrate and tax-collector at Pescia and Pistoja, he fulfilled his duties in accofdance with the lofty ideal with which his religious feeling and humanistic studies combined to inspire him. He succeeded in collecting the most unpopular taxes which the Florentine state imposed, and declined payment for his services. As provin¬ cial governor he refused all presents, abhorred all bribes, checked gambling, kept the country well supplied with corn, required from his subordinates strict obedience and thorough disinterestedness, was indefatigable in settling law-suits amicably, and did wonders in calming inflamed passions by his goodness. The Pistojese loved and reverenced him as a saint, and were never able to discover to which of the two political parties he leaned ; when his term of office was over, both sent ambassadors to Florence to beg that it might be prolonged. As if to symbolise the common rights and interests of all, he spent his leisure hours in writing the history of the city, which was THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM. 307 preserved, bound in a purple cover, as a sacred relic in the town-hall. 1 When he took his leave the city presented him with a banner bearing the municipal arms and a splendid silver helmet. On diplomatic missions to Venice, Rome, and King Alfonso, Manetti represented, as at Pistoja, the interests of his native city, watching vigilantly over its honour, but declining the distinctions which were offered to him, obtained great glory by his speeches and negotiations, and acquired by his prudence and foresight the name of a prophet. For further information as to the learned citizens of Florence at this period the reader must all the more be referred to Vespasiano, who knew them all per¬ sonally, because the tone and atmosphere in which he writes, and the terms and conditions on which he mixed in their society, are of even more importance than the facts which he records. Even in a trans¬ lation, and still more in the brief indications to which we are here compelled to limit ourselves, this chief merit of his book is lost. Without being a great writer, he was thoroughly familiar with the subject he wrote on, and had a deep sense of its intellectual significance. If we seek to analyse the charm which the Medici of the fifteenth century, especially Cosimo the Elder (d. 1464) and Lorenzo the Magnificent (d. 1492) exer¬ cised over Florence and over all their contemporaries, we shall find that it lay less in their political capacity 1 The title of the work, in Latin and Italian* is given in Bisticci, Com -> mentario , pp. 109, 112. 3°8 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. than in their leadership in the culture of the age. A man in Cosimos position—a great merchant and party leader, who also had on his side all the thinkers, writers, and investigators, a man who was the first of the Florentines by birth and the first of the Italians by culture—such a man was to all intents and pur¬ poses already a prince. To Cosimo belongs the special glory of recognising in the Platonic philosophy the fairest flower of the ancient world of thought, 1 of inspiring his friends with the same belief, and thus of fostering within humanistic circles themselves another and a higher resuscitation of antiquity. The story is known to us minutely. 2 It all hangs on the calling of the learned Johannes Argyropulos, and on the personal enthusiasm of Cosimo himself in his last years, which was such, that the great Marsilio Ficino could style himself, as far as Platonism was concerned, the spiritual son of Cosimo. Under Pietro Medici, Ficino was al¬ ready at the head of a school ; to him Pietro’s son and Cosimo’s grandson, the illustrious Lorenzo, came over 1 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. Aineas Sylvius, De Europa, cap. 52 ( Opera , p. 45°). 2 In Niccolo Valori, Life of Lorenzo the Mag 7 iificent. 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. THE FURTHERERS OE HUMANISM. 309 from the Peripatetics. Among his most distinguished fellow-scholars were Bartolommeo Valori, Donato Ac- ciajuoli, and Pierfilippo Pandolfini. The enthusiastic teacher declares in several passages of his writings that Lorenzo had sounded all the depths of the Pla¬ tonic philosophy, and had uttered his conviction that without Plato it would be hard to be a good Christian or a good citizen. The famous band of scholars which surrounded Lorenzo was united together, and distin¬ guished from all other circles of the kind, by this passion for a higher and idealistic philosophy. Only in such a world could a man like Pico della Miran- dola feel happy. But perhaps the best thing of all that can be said about it is, that, with all this worship of antiquity, Italian poetry found here a sacred refuge, and that of all the rays of light which streamed from the circle of which Lorenzo was the centre, none was more powerful than this. As a statesman, let each man judge him as he pleases; a foreigner will hesitate to pronounce what was due to human guilt and what to circumstances in the fate of Florence, but no more unjust charge was ever made than that in the held of culture Lorenzo was the pro¬ tector of Mediocrity, that through his fault Lionardo da Vinci and the mathematician Fra Luca Pacciolo lived abroad, and that Toscanella, Vespucci, and others at least remained unsupported. He was not, indeed, a man of universal mind ; but of all the great men who have striven to favour and promote spiritual interests, 3 IQ THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. few certainly have been so many-sided, and in none probably was the inward need to do so equally deep. The age in which we live is loud enough in pro¬ claiming the worth of of culture, and especially of the culture of antiquity. But the enthusiastic devotion to it, the recognition that the need of it is the first and greatest of all needs, is nowhere to be found but among the Florentines of the fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth centuries. On this point we have indirect proof which precludes all doubt. It would not have been so common to give the daughters of the house a share in the same studies, had they not been held to be the noblest of earthly pursuits ; exile would not have been turned into a happy retreat, as was done by Palla Strozzi; nor would men who indulged in every conceivable excess have retained the strength and the spirit to write critical treatises on the ‘ Natural History ’ of Pliny like Filippo Strozzi. 1 Our business here is not to deal out either praise or blame, but to understand the spirit of the age in all its vigorous individuality. Besides Florence, there were many cities of Italy where individuals and social circles devoted all their energies to the support of humanism and the protection of the scholars who lived among them. The corre¬ spondence of that period is full of references to personal relations of this kind. 2 The feeling of the instructed 1 Varchi, S/or. Fior. p. 321. An admirable sketch of character. 3 The lives of Guarino and Vittorino by Rosmini mentioned above THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM. 3 11 classes set strongly and almost exclusively in this direction. But it is now time to speak of humanism at the Italian courts. The natural alliance between the despot and the scholar, each relying solely on his per¬ sonal talent, has already been touched upon (p. n) ; that the latter should avowedly prefer the princely courts to the free cities, was only to be expected from the higher pay which they there received. At a time when the great Alfonso of Aragon seemed likely to become master of all Italy, Aineas Sylvius wrote to another citizen of Siena : 1 ‘ I had rather that Italy attained peace under his rule than under that of the free cities, for kingly generosity rewards excellence of every kind. 2 Too much stress has latterly been laid on the unworthy side of this relation, and the mercenary flattery to which it gave rise, just as formerly the eulogies of the humanists led to a too favourable judgment on their patrons. Taking all things together, it is greatly to the honour of the latter that they felt bound to place themselves at the head of the culture (p. 298, note 1 ; and 300, 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 Sfiicilegium , tom. x. Rome, 1844, pp. 221-272, all contain much on this subject. 1 Epist. 39 ; Opera , p. 526, to Mariano Socino. 2 We must not be misled by the fact that along with all this com¬ plaints 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 Ambrogia Traversal, Be Infelicitate Principum. It was impossible to satisfy all. 3 12 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. of their age and country, one-sided though this culture was. In some of the popes, 1 the fearlessness of the con¬ sequences to which the new' learning might lead strikes us as something truly, but unconsciously, imposing. Nicholas V. was confident of the future of the Church, since thousands of learned men supported her. Pius 11 . was far from making such splendid sacrifices for human¬ ism as were made by Nicholas, and the poets who fre¬ quented his court were few in number ; but he himself was much more the personal head of the republic of let¬ ters than his predecessor, and enjoyed his position with¬ out the least misgiving. Paul II. was the first to dread and mistrust the culture of his secretaries, and his three successors, Sixtus, Innocent, and Alexander, accepted dedications and allowed themselves to be sung to the hearts’ content of the poets—there even existed a ‘ Borgiad,’ probably in hexameters 2 —but were too busy elsewhere, and too occupied in seeking other foundations for their power, to trouble themselves much about the poet-scholars. Julius II. found poets to 1 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. 2 Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, De Poetis Nostri Temp oris, 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 Theodorus Gaza. He received for a translation and commentary of a work of Aristotle fifty gold florins, ‘ab eo a quo se totum inauratum iri spera- verat.’ 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. THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM. 3 Z 3 eulogise him, because he himself was no mean subject for poetry (p. 163), but he does not seem to have troubled himself much about them. He was followed by Leo X., ‘as Romulus by Nutria’—in other words, after the warlike turmoil of the first pontificate, a new one was hoped for wholly given to the muses. The enjoyment of elegant Latin prose and melodious verse was part of the programme of Leo’s life, and his patronage certainly had the result that his Latin poets have left us a living picture of that joyous and brilliant spirit of the Leonine days, with which the biography of Jovius is filled, in countless epigrams, elegies, odes, and orations. 1 Probably in all European history there is no prince who, in proportion to the few striking events of his life, has received such manifold homage. The poets had access to him chiefly about noon, when the musicians had ceased playing; 2 but one of the best among them 3 tell us how they also pursued him when he walked in his garden or withdrew to the privacy of his chamber, and if they failed to catch him there, would try to win him with a mendicant ode or elegy, filled, as usual, with the whole population of Olympus. 4 For Leo, prodigal of his money, and disliking to be sur- 1 The best are to be found in the Delicice 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. io, say frankly that they praise Leo in order themselves to become immortal. 2 Paul. Jov. Elogia, speaking of Guido Posthumus. 3 Pierio Valeriano in his Simia. 4 See the elegy of Joh. Aurelius Mutius in the Delicice Poetarum Italorum. 3*4 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. rounded by any but cheerful faces, displayed a gene¬ rosity in his gifts which was fabulously exaggerated in the hard times that followed. 1 His reorganisation of the Sapienza (p. 296) has been already spoken of. In order not to underrate Leo’s influence on humanism we must guard against being misled by the toy-work that was mixed up with it, and must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the apparent irony with which he himself sometimes treated these matters (p. 220). Our judgment must rather dwell on the countless spiritual possibilities which are included in the word ‘ stimulus,’ and which, though they cannot be measured as a whole, can still, on closer study, be actually followed out in par¬ ticular cases. Whatever influence in Europe the Italian humanists have had since 1520 depends in some way or other on the impulse which was given by Leo. He was the Pope who, in granting permission to print the newly found Tacitus, 2 could say that the great writers were a rule of life and a consolation in misfortune ; that helping learned men and obtaining excellent books had ever been one of his highest aims ; and that he now thanked heaven that he could benefit the human race by furthering the publication of this book. The sack of Rome in the year 1527 scattered the 1 The well-known story of the purple velvet purse tilled 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 1 improvisatori,’ when their verses were too faulty, were whipped. Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, De Poetis Nostri Temp ., Opp. ii. 398 (Basil, 1580). 2 Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, iv. 181. THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM, 3i5 scholars no less than the artists in every direction, and spread the fame of the great departed Maecenas to the furthest boundaries of Italy. Among the secular princes of the fifteenth century, none displayed such enthusiasm for antiquity as Alfonso the Great of Aragon, King of Naples (see p. 48). It appears that his zeal was thoroughly unaffected, and that the monuments and writings of the ancient world made upon him, from the time of his arrival in Italy, an impression deep and powerful enough to reshape his life. Possibly he was influenced by the example of his ancestor Robert, Petrarch’s great patron, whom he may have wished to rival or surpass. With strange readiness he surrendered the stubborn Aragon to his brother, and devoted himself wholly to his new possession. He had in his service, 1 either successively or together, George of Trebizond, the younger Chrysoloras, Lorenzo Valla, Bartolommeo Facio and Antonio Panormita, of whom the two latter were his historians ; Panormita daily instructed the King and his court in Livy, even during military expeditions. These men cost him yearly 20,000 gold florins. He gave Panormita 1,000 for his work; Facio received for the ‘ Historia Alfonsi,’ besides a yearly income of 500 ducats, a present of 1,500 more when it was finished, with the words, ‘ It is not given 1 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 yEneas Sylvius, ed. by Jacob Spiegel, Basel, 1538. 3 l6 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY ,: to pay you, for your work would not be paid for if I gave you the fairest of my cities ; but in time I hope to satisfy you.’ 1 When he took Giannozzo Manetti as his secretary on the most brilliant conditions, he said to him, ‘ My last crust I will share with you.’ When Giannozzo first came to bring the congratula¬ tions of the Florentine government on the marriage of Prince Ferrante, the impression he made was so great, that the King sat motionless on the throne, ‘ like a brazen statue, and did not even brush away a fly, which had settled on his nose at the beginning of the oration.’ In restoring the castle, he took Vitruvius as his guide; wherever he went, he had the ancient classics with him; he looked on a day as lost in which he had read nothing; when he was reading, he suffered no disturbance, not even the sound of music ; and he despised all contemporary princes who were not either scholars or the patrons of learning. His favourite haunt seems to have been the library of the castle at Naples, which he opened himself if the librarian was absent, and where he would sit at a window overlook¬ ing the bay, and listen to learned debates on the Trinity. For he was profoundly religious, and had the Bible, as well as Livy and Seneca, read to him, till after fourteen perusals he knew it almost by heart. He 1 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. III., ed. Mehus, p. 88, where he writes of Alfonso : ‘Ad ostentationem qucedam facit quibus videatur doctis viris favere and Poggio’s letter in Mai, Spill. tom. x. p. 241. THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM. 3i7 gave to those who wished to be nuns the money needed for their entrance to the monastery, was a zealous church-goer, and listened with great attention to the sermon. Who can fully understand the feeling with which he regarded the supposititious remains (p. 202) of Livy at Padua ? When, by dint of great entreaties, he obtained an arm-bone of the skeleton from the Venetians, and received it with solemn pomp at Naples, how strangely Christian and pagan senti¬ ment must have been blended in his heart! During a campaign in the Abruzzi, when the distant Salmona, the birthplace of Ovid, was pointed out to him, he saluted the spot and returned thanks to its tutelary genius. It gladdened him to make good the prophecy of the great poet as to his future fame. 1 Once indeed, at his famous entry into the conquered city of Naples (1443), he himself chose to appear before the world in ancient style. Not far from the market a breach forty ells wide was made in the wall, and through this he drove in a gilded chariot like a Roman Triumphator/ 2 The memory of the scene is preserved by a noble triumphal arch of marble in the Castello Nuovo. His Neapolitan successors (p. 49) inherited as little of this passion for antiquity as of his other good qualities. Alfonso was far surpassed in learning by Frederick of Urbino 8 —the great pupil of the great teacher Vitto- 1 Ovid. Amoves , iii. n, vs. ii.; Jovian. Pontan. De Principe. 2 Giorn. Napolet. in Murat, xxi. col. 1127. 3 Vespas. Fior. pp. 3, 119 sqq. ‘Voile aver piena notizia d’ogni cosa, cosi sacra come gentile.’ 318 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. rino da Feltre—who had but few courtiers around him, squandered nothing, and in his appropriation of anti¬ quity, as in all other things, went to work considerately. It was for him and for Nicholas V. that most of the translations from the Greek, and a number of the best commentaries and other such works, were written. He spent much on the scholars whose services he used, but spent it to good purpose. There were no traces of the official poet at Urbino, where the Duke himself was the most learned in the whole court. Classical antiquity, indeed, only formed a part of his culture. An accom¬ plished ruler, captain, and gentleman, he had mastered the greater part of the science of the day, and this with a view to its practical application. As a theologian, he was able to compare Scotus with Aquinas, and was familiar with the writings of the old fathers of the Eastern and Western Churches, the former in Latin translations. In philosophy, he seems to have left Plato altogether to his contemporary Cosimo, but he knew thoroughly not only the ‘Ethics’ and ‘Politics’ of Aristotle but the ‘Physics’ and some other works. The rest of his reading lay chiefly among the ancient historians, all of whom he possessed ; these, and not the poets, ‘he was always reading and having read to him.’ The Sforza, 1 too, were all of them men of more or 1 The last Visconti divided his interest between Livy, the French chivalrous romances, Dante, and Petrarch. The humanists who pre¬ sented themselves to him with the promise ‘to make him famous/ were THE EURTHERERS OF HUMANISM. 3i9 less learning and patrons of literature; they have been already referred to in passing (pp. 54 sqq.). Duke Francesco probably looked on humanistic culture as a matter of course in the education of his children, if only for political reasons. It was felt universally to be an advantage if the Prince could mix with the most in¬ structed men of his time on an equal footing. Ludo¬ vico Moro, himself an excellent Latin scholar, showed an interest in intellectual matters which extended far beyond classical antiquity (p. 57 sqq.). Even the petty despots strove after similar distinctions, and we do them injustice by thinking that they only supported the scholars at their courts as a means of diffusing their own fame. A ruler like Borso of Ferrara (p. 69), with all his vanity, seems by no means to have looked for immortality from the poets, eager as they were to propitiate him with a ‘Borseid’ and the like. He had far too proud a sense of his own position as a ruler for that. But intercourse with learned men, interest in antiquarian matters, and the passion for elegant Latin correspondence were a neces¬ sity for the princes of that age. What bitter complaints are those of Duke Alfonso, competent as he was in practical matters, that his weakliness in youth had forced him to seek recreation in manual pursuits only! 1 or was this merely an excuse to keep the humanists at generally sent away after a few days. Comp. Decembrio , in Murat, xx. col. 1114. 1 Paul. Jov. Vita A If oust Duels. THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. ) c 3 2 ° a distance ? A nature like his was not intelligible even to contemporaries. Even the most insignificant despots of Romagna found it hard to do without one or two men of letters about them. The tutor and secretary were often one and the same person, who sometimes, indeed, acted as a kind of court factotum. 1 We are apt to treat the small scale of these courts as a reason for dismissing them with a too ready contempt, forgetting that the highest spiritual things are not precisely matters of measure¬ ment. Life and manners at the court of Rimini must have been a singular spectacle under the bold pagan Condottiere Sigismondo Malatesta. He had a number of scholars around him, some of whom he provided for liberally, even giving them landed estates, while others earned at least a livelihood as officers in his army. 2 In his citadel—‘arx Sismundea’—they used to hold discussions, often of a very venomous kind, in the presence of the ‘rex,’ as they termed him. In their 1 On Collenuccio at the court of Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro (son of Alessandro, p. 38), who finally, in 1508, put him to death, see p. 191, note 3. 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, Senno , vi. Comp. Carlo Malagola, Della Vita lo 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. 2 Anecdota Literal\ 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.’ THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM. 3 21 Latin poems they sing his praises and celebrate his amour with the fair Isotta, in whose honour and as whose monument the famous rebuilding of San Fran¬ cesco at Rimini took place—‘Divae Isottae Sacrum.’ When the humanists themselves came to die, they were laid in or under the sarcophagi with which the niches of the outside walls of the church were adorned, with an inscription testifying that they were laid here at the time when Sigismundus, the son of Pandulfus, ruled. 1 It is hard for us nowadays to believe that a monster like this prince felt learning and the friendship of cultivated people to be a necessity of life; and yet the man who excommunicated him, made war upon him, and burnt him in effigy, Pope Pius II., says: ‘Sigismund knew history and had a great store of philosophy; he seemed born to all that he undertook. 2 1 For details respecting these graves, see Keyssler, Neueste Reisen, s. 924. 2 Pii II. Comment. 1 . ii. p. 92. By history he means all that has to do with antiquity. Cortesius also praises him highly, pp. 34 sqq. VOL. I. V 3 22 CHAPTER VII. THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY I LATIN CORRE¬ SPONDENCE AND ORATIONS. There were two purposes, however, for which the humanist was as indispensable to the republics as to princes or popes, namely, the official correspondence of the state, and the making of speeches on public and solemn occasions. Not only was the secretary required to be a com- petent Latinist, but conversely, only a humanist was credited with the knowledge and ability necessary for the post of secretary. And thus the greatest men in the sphere of science during the fifteenth century mostly devoted a considerable part of their lives to serve the state in this capacity. No importance was attached to a man’s home or origin. Of the four great Florentine secretaries who filled the office between 1427 and 1465, 1 three belonged to the 1 Fabroni, Cosmus, Adnot. 118. Vespasian. Fior. passim. An impor¬ tant passage respecting the demands made by the Florentines on their secretaries (‘ quod honor apud Florentines magnus habetur/ says B. Facius, speaking of Poggio’s appointment to the secretaryship, De Vir. III. p. 17), is to be found in yEneas Sylvius, De Euroftd, cap. 54 ( Opera , p. 454). THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY subject city of Arezzo, namely, Lionardo (Bruni), Carlo (Marsuppini), and Benedetto Accolti ; Poggio was from Terra Nuova, also in Florentine territory. For a long period, indeed, many of the highest offices of state were on principle given to foreigners. Lionardo, Poggio, and Giannozzo Manetti were at one time or another private secretaries to the popes, and Carlo Aretino was to have been so. Blondus of Forli, and, in spite of everything, at last even Lorenzo Valla, filled the same office. From the time of Nicholas V. and Pius II. onwards, 1 the Papal chancery continued more and more to attract the ablest men, and this was still the case even under the last popes of the fifteenth century, little as they cared for letters. In Platina’s ‘ History of the Popes,’ the life of Paul II. is a charming piece of vengeance taken by a humanist on the one Pope who did not know how to behave to his chancery—to that circle ‘ of poets and orators who bestowed on the Papal court as much glory as they received from it.’ It is delightful to see the indignation of these haughty and wealthy gentlemen, who knew as well as the Pope himself how to use their position to plunder foreigners, 2 when some squabble about precedence happened, when, for in¬ stance, the ‘ Advocati consistoriales ’ claimed equal 1 See above, pp. 146, 296, and Voigt, En. Silvio als Pdpst Pius IT. bd. iii. 488 sqq., for the often-discussed and often-misunderstood change which Pius II. made with respect to the Abbreviators. 2 Comp, the statement of Jacob Spiegel (1521) given in the reports of the Vienna Academy, lxxviii. 333. 324 THE REVIVAL OE ANTIQUITY. or superior rank to theirs. 1 The Apostle John, to whom the ‘ Secreta ccelestia ’ were revealed ; the se¬ cretary of Porsenna, whom Mucius Scaevola mistook for the king; Maecenas, who was private secretary to Augustus, the archbishops, who in Germany were called chancellors, are all appealed to in turn. 2 ‘ The apostolic secretaries have the most weighty business of the world in their hands. For who but they decides on matters of the Catholic faith, who else combats heresy, re-establishes peace, and mediates between great monarchs ? who but they write the statistical accounts of Christendom ? It is they who astonish kings, princes, and nations by what comes forth from the Pope. They write commands and instructions for the legates, and receive their orders only from the Pope, on whom they wait day and night.’ But the highest summit of glory was only attained by the two famous secretaries and stylists of Leo X. : Pietro Bembo and Jacopo Sadoleto. 3 1 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. 1 . c. 552, note). The humanistic claims of the ‘ advocati consistoriales J rested on their oratory, as that of the Secretaries on their correspondence. 2 The Imperial chancery under Frederick III. was best known to ./Eneas Sylvius. Comp. Epp. 23 and 105 ; Opera , pp. 516 and 607. 3 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 II 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 THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY. 325 All the chanceries did not turn out equally elegant documents. A leathern official style, in the impurest of Latin, was very common. In the Milanese do- cuments preserved by Corio there is a remarkable contrast between this sort of composition and the few letters written by members of the princely house, which must have been written, too, in moments of critical importance. 1 They are models of pure Latinity. To maintain a faultless style under all circumstances was a rule of good breeding, and a result of habit. Besides these officials, private scholars of all kinds naturally had correspondence of their own. The object of letter-writing was seldom what it is nowa¬ days, to give information as to the circumstances of the writer, or news of other people ; it was rather treated as a literary work done to give evidence of scholarship and to win the consideration of those to whom it was addressed. These letters began early to serve the purpose of learned disquisition; and 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 lin’guam expurgare quam inquinarunt nonnulli exquisitarum literarum omnino rudes et nullius judicii homines, qui partim a circum- padanis municipiis, partim ex transalpinis provinciis, in hanc urbem confluxerunt. Emendavit igitur eruditissimus hie vir corruptam et vitiosam linguae latinae consuetudinem, pura ac integra loquendi ratione.’ 1 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 Lettre 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. 326 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. Petrarch, who introduced this form of letter-writing, revived the forms of the old epistolary style, putting the classical ‘thou' in place of the ‘you’ of mediaeval Latin. At a later period letters became collections of neatly-turned phrases, by which subjects were encouraged or humiliated, colleagues flattered or insulted, and patrons eulogised or begged from. 1 The letters of Cicero, Pliny, and others, were at this time diligently studied as models. As early as the fifteenth century a mass of forms and in¬ structions for Latin correspondence had appeared, as accessory to the great grammatical and lexicographic works, the mass of which is astounding to us even now when we look at them in the libraries. But just as the existence of these helps tempted many to undertake a task to which they had no vocation, so were the really capable men stimulated to a more faultless excellence, till at length the letters of Politian, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century those of Pietro Bembo, appeared, and took their place as unrivalled masterpieces, not only of Latin style in general, but also of the more special art of letter¬ writing. Together with these there appeared in the sixteenth century the classical style of Italian correspondence, at the head of which stands Bembo again. 2 Its form is 1 For the correspondence of the period in general, see Voigt, Wieder- belebung , 414-427. 2 Bembo thought it necessary to excuse himself for writing in Italian : ‘Ad Sempronium,’ Bembi Opei'a , Bas. 1556, vol. iii. 156 sqq. THE REPRODUCTION 01 ANTIQUITY. 327 wholly modern, and deliberately kept free from Latin influence, and yet its spirit is thoroughly penetrated and possessed by the ideas of antiquity. These letters, though partly of a confidential nature, are mostly written with a view to possible publication in the future, and always on the supposition that they might be worth showing on account of their elegance. After the year 1530, printed collections began to appear, either the letters of miscellaneous correspondents in irregular succession, or of single writers ; and the same Bembo whose fame was so great as a Latin corre¬ spondent won as high a position in his own language. 1 But, at a time and among a people where ‘ listening ’ was among the chief pleasures of life, and where every imagination was filled with the memory of the Roman senate and its great speakers, the orator occupied a far more brilliant place than the letter-writer. 2 Elo¬ quence had shaken off the influence of the Church, in which it had found a refuge during the Middle Ages, and now became an indispensable element and ornament of all elevated lives. Many of the social hours which are now filled with music were then given to Latin or Italian oratory ; and yet Bartolommeo Fazio com¬ plained that the orators of his time were at a disadvan- % 1 On the collection of the letters of Aretino, see above, pp. 230 sqq., and the note. Collections of Latin letters had been printed even in the fifteenth century. 2 Comp, the speeches in the Opera of Philelphus, Sabellicus, Bero- aldus, &c. ; and the writings and lives of Giann. Manetti, yEneas Sylvius, and others. 3 28 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. tage compared with those of antiquity ; of three kinds of oratory which were open to the latter, one only was left to the former, since forensic oratory was abandoned to the jurists, and the speeches in the councils of the government had to be delivered in Italian. 1 The social position of the speaker was a matter of perfect indifference; what was desired was simply the most cultivated humanistic talent. At the court of Borso of Ferrara, the Duke’s physician, Jeronimo da Castello, was chosen to deliver the congratulatory address on the visits of Frederick III. and of Pius II. 2 i Married laymen ascended the pulpits of the churches at any scene of festivity or mourning, and even on the feast-days of the saints. It struck the non-Italian members of the Council of Basel as something strange, that the Archbishop of Milan should summon /Eneas Sylvius, who was then unordained, to deliver a public discourse at the feast of Saint Ambrogius ; but they suffered it in spite of the murmurs of the theologians, and listened to the speaker with the greatest curiosity. 3 Let us glance for a moment at the most frequent and important occasions of public speaking. It was not for nothing, in the first place, that the ambassadors from one state to another received the 1 B. F. De Viris Illustribns , 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 1 Eloquentia.’ 2 Diario Ferrarese , in Murat, xxiv. col. 198, 205. 3 Pii II. Comment. 1 . i. p. 10. THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY. 329 title of orators. Whatever else might be done in the way of secret negotiation, the envoy never failed to make a public appearance and deliver a public speech, under circumstances of the greatest possible pomp and ceremony. 1 As a rule, however numerous the embassy might be, one individual spoke for all; but it happened to Pius II., a critic before whom all were glad tc be heard, to be forced to sit and listen to a whole depu¬ tation, one after another. 2 Learned princes who had the gift of speech were themselves fond of discoursing in Latin or Italian. The children of the House of Sforza were trained to this exercise. The boy Galeazzo Maria delivered in 1455 a fluent speech before the Great Council at Venice, 3 and his sister Ippolita saluted Pope Pius II. with a graceful address at the Congress of Mantua. 4 Pius himself through all his life did much by his oratory to prepare the way for his final elevation to the Papal chair.' Great as he was 1 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 Honesta Disciplina , v. cap. 3. Comp. Vespas. Fior. pp. 319, 430. 2 Pii II. Co 7 nme?it. 1 . 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 eloquentia 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 Alexandrer VI., is seriously placed by Guicciardini (at the beginning of book i.) among the causes which helped to produce the disaster of 1494. 3 Told by Marin Sanudo, in Murat, xxii. col. 1160. 4 Pii II. Comment. 1 . 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. 330 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. both as scholar and diplomatist, he would probably never have become Pope without the fame and the charm of his eloquence. ‘For nothing was more lofty than the dignity of his oratory.’ 1 Without doubt this was a reason why multitudes held him to be the fittest man for the office, even before his election. Princes were also commonly received on public occasions with speeches, which sometimes lasted for hours. This happened of course only when the prince was known as a lover of eloquence, or wished to pass for such, 2 and when a competent speaker was present, whether university professor, official, ecclesiastic, phy- cician, or court-scholar. * Every other political opportunity was seized with the same eagerness, and according to the reputation of the speaker, the concourse of the lovers of culture was great or small. At the yearly change of public officers, and even at the consecration of new bishops, a humanist was sure to come forward, and sometimes addressed his audience in hexameters or Sapphic verses. 3 Often 1 De Expeditione in Turcas, in Murat, xxiii. col. 68. c Nihil enim Pii concionantis majestate sublimius.’ Not to speak of the naive 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, E 7 iea Silvio , ii. 275 sqq. 2 Charles V., when unable on one occasion to follow the flourishes of a Latin orator at Genoa, replied in the ear of Giovio : 1 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 re¬ plied to these speeches through their official orators; Frederick III. through Enea Silvio, in answer to Giannozzo Manetti. Vesp. Bist. Comment, p. 64. 3 Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, De poetis Nostri Temp, speaking of Collen- THE REPRODUCTION 01 ANTIQUITY. a newly appointed official was himself forced to deliver a speech more or less relevant to his department, as for instance, on justice ; and lucky for him if he were well up in his part! At Florence even the Condottieri, what¬ ever their origin or education might be, were compelled to accommodate themselves to the popular sentiment, and on receiving the insignia of their office, were harangued before the assembled people by the most learned secretary of state. 1 It seems that beneath or close to the Loggia dei Lanzi—the porch where the government was wont to appear solemnly before the people—a tiibune or platform (rostra ringhiera) was erected for such purposes. Anniversaries, especially those of the death of princes, were commonly celebrated by memorial speeches. Even the funeral oration strictly so-called was generally entrusted to a humanist, who delivered it in church, clothed in a secular dress ; nor was it only princes, but officials, or persons otherwise distinguished, to whom this honour was paid. 2 This was also the case with the speeches delivered at weddings or be¬ trothals, with the difference that they seem to have been made in the palace, instead of in church, like that of Filelfo at the betrothal of Anna Sforza with Alfonso nuccio. 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. 1 Fabroni, Cosmus , Adnot. 52. 2 Which, nevertheless, gave some offence to Jac. Volaterranus (in Murat, xxiii. col. 171) at the service in memory of Platina. 332 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. of Este in the castle of Milan. It is still possible that the ceremony may have taken place in the chapel of the castle. Private families of distinction no doubt also employed such wedding orators as one of the luxuries of high life. At Ferrara, Guarino was requested on these occasions to send some one or other of his pupils . 1 The church simply took charge of the religious cere¬ monies at weddings and funerals. The academical speeches, both those made at the installation of a new teacher and at the opening of a new course of lectures , 2 were delivered by the professor himself, and treated as occasions of great rhetorical display. The ordinary university lectures had also usually an oratorical character . 3 With regard to forensic eloquence, the quality of 1 Anecdota Lit. i. p. 299, in Fedra’s funeral oration on Lod. Podaca- taro, whom Guarino commonly employed on these occasions. Guarino himself delivered over fifty speeches at festivals and funerals, which are enumerated in Rosmini, Guarmo, ii. 139-146. 2 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.’ 3 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 pre¬ paration. 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, laetitiam, 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.) THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY. 333 the audience determined the form of the speech. In case of need it was enriched with all sorts of philoso¬ phical and antiquarian learning. As a special class of speeches we may mention the addresses made in Italian on the battle-field, either before or after the combat. Frederick of Urbino 1 was esteemed a classic in this style ; he used to pass round among his squadrons as they stood drawn up in order of battle, inspiring them in turn with pride and enthusiasm. Many of the speeches in the military historians of the fifteenth century, as for instance in Porcellius (p. 138), may be, in fact at least, imaginary, but may be also in part faithful representations of words actually spoken. The addresses again which were delivered to the Florentine Militia, 2 organised in 1506 chiefly through the influence of Macchiavelli, and which were spoken first at reviews, and afterwards at special annual festivals, were of another kind. They were simply general appeals to the patriotism of the hearers, and were addressed to the assembled troops in the church of each quarter of the city by a citizen in armour, sword in hand. Finally, the oratory of the pulpit began in the fifteenth century to lose its distinctive peculiarities. Many of the clergy had entered into the circle of 1 Vespas. Fior. p. 103. Comp. p. 598, where he describes how Giannozzo Manetti came to him in the camp. 2 Archiv. Stor. xv. p. 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). 334 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. classical culture, and were ambitious of success in it. The street-preacher Bernardino da Siena, who even in his lifetime passed for a saint and who was worshipped by the populace, was not above taking lessons in rhetoric from the famous Guarino, although he had only to preach in Italian. Never indeed was more expected from preachers than at that time—especially from the Lenten preachers ; and there were not a few audiences which could not only tolerate, but which demanded a strong dose, of philosophy from the pulpit. 1 But we have here especially to speak of the distin¬ guished occasional preachers in Latin. Many of their opportunities had been taken away from them, as has been observed, by learned laymen. Speeches on particular saints’ days, at weddings and funerals, or at the installation of a bishop, and even the introductory speech at the first mass of a clerical friend, or the address at the festival of some religious order, were all left to laymen. 2 But at all events at the Papal court in the fifteenth century, whatever the occasion might be, the preachers were generally monks. U nder Sixtus IV., Giacomo da Volterra regularly enumerates these preachers, and criticises them according to the rules of the art. 3 Fedra Inghirami, famous as an orator 1 On this point see Faustinus Terdoceus, in his satire De Triumpho Stultitiae, lib. ii. 2 Both of these extraordinary cases occur in Sabellicus, Opera , fol. 61-82. De Origine et Anctu Religionis , delivered at Verona from the pulpit before the barefoot friars ; and De Sacerdotii Laudifais, delivered at Venice. Comp. p. 331, note 2. 3 Jac. Volaterrani, Diar. Roman, in Murat, xxiii. passim. In col. 173 THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY. 335 under Julius II., had at least received holy orders and was canon at St. John Lateran ; and besides him, elegant Latinists were now common enough among the prelates. In this matter, as in others, the exaggerated privileges of the profane humanists appear lessened in the sixteenth century—on which point we shall presently speak more fully. What now was the subject and general character of these speeches ? The national gift of eloquence # was not wanting to the Italians of the Middle Ages, and a so-called ‘ rhetoric ’ belonged from the first to the seven liberal arts; but so far as the revival of the ancient methods is concerned, this merit must be ascribed, according to Filippo Villani, 1 to the Florentine Bruno Casini, who died of the plague in 1348. With the practical purpose of fitting his countrymen to speak with ease and effect in public, he treated, after the pattern of the ancients, invention, declamation, bearing, and gesticulation each in its proper connection. Elsewhere too we read of an oratorical training- directed solely to practical application. No accomplish¬ ment was more highly esteemed than the power of elegant improvisation in Latin. 2 The growing study of Cicero’s speeches and theoretical writings, of Quintilian and of the imperial panegyrists, the appear- 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 it, he smiled. 1 Fil. Villani, Vitae, ed. Galetti, p. 30. 2 See above, p. 332, note 3. 336 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. ance of new and original treatises, 1 the general progress of antiquarian learning, and the stores of ancient matter and thought which now could and must be drawn from—all combined to shape the character of the new eloquence. This character nevertheless differed widely ac¬ cording to the individual. Many speeches breathe a spirit of true eloquence, especially those which keep to the matter treated of; of this kind is the mass of what is left to us of Pius II. The miraculous effects produced by Giannozzo Manetti 2 point to an orator the like of whom has not been often seen. His great audiences as envoy before Nicholas V. and before the Doge and Council of Venice were events not to be soon forgotten. Many orators, on the contrary, would seize the opportunity, not only to flatter the vanity of distinguished hearers, but to load their speeches with an enormous mass of antiquarian rubbish. How it was possible to endure this infliction for two and even 1 Georg. Trapezunt, Rhetorica , the first complete system of instruction, ZEn. Sylvius, Artis Rhetoricae Praecepta, in the Opera , p. 992, treats pur¬ posely 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. 3 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, & ben la cosa la piii meschina che potesse udirsi, piena di puerilita volgare nello stile, irrelevante negli argomenti e d’una prolissita insopportabileZ THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY. 337 three hours, can only be understood when we take into account the intense interest then felt in everything connected with antiquity, and the rarity and defective¬ ness of treatises on the subject at a time when print¬ ing was but little diffused. Such orations had at least the value which we have claimed (p. 326) for many of Petrarchs letters. But some speakers went too far. Most of Filelfo’s speeches are an atrocious patchwork of classical and biblical quotations, tacked on to a string of commonplaces, among which the great people he wishes to flatter are arranged under the head of the cardinal virtues, or some such category, and it is only with the greatest trouble, in his case and in that of many others, that we can extri¬ cate the few historical notices of value which they really contain. The speech, for instance, of a scholar and professor of Piacenza at the reception of the Duke Galeazzo Maria, in 1467, begins with Julius Caesar, then proceeds to mix up a mass of classical quotations with a number from an allegorical work by the speaker himself, and concludes with some exceedingly indiscreet advice to the ruler. 1 Fortu¬ nately it was late at night, and the orator had to be satisfied with handing his written panegyric to the prince. Filelfo begins a speech at a betrothal with the words : ‘ Aristotle, the peripatetic.’ Others start with P. Cornelius Scipio, and the like, as though 1 Annales Placentini in Murat, xx. col. 918. VOL. I. Z 33 8 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. neither they nor their hearers could wait a moment for a quotation. At the end of the fifteenth century public taste suddenly improved, chiefly through Flo¬ rentine influence, and the practice of quotation was restricted within due limits. Many works of reference were now in existence, in which the first comer could find as much as he wanted of what had hitherto been the admiration of princes and people. As most of the speeches were written out before¬ hand in the study, the manuscripts served as a means of further publicity afterwards. The great extempo¬ raneous speakers, on the other hand, were attended by shorthand writers. 1 We must further remember, that all the orations which have come down to us were not intended to be actually delivered. The panegyric, for example, of the elder jBeroaldus on Ludovico Moro was presented to him in manuscript. 2 In fact, just as letters were written addressed to all conceivable persons and parts of the world as exer¬ cises, as formularies, or even to serve a controversial end, so there were speeches for imaginary occasions 3 1 E.g. Manetti. Comp. Vesp. Commentario , p. 30; so, too, Savonarola. Comp. Perrens, Vie de Savonarole , i. p. 163. The shorthand writers, how¬ ever, could not always follow him, or, indeed, any rapid ‘ Improvisator^ Savonarola preached in Italian. See Pasq. Villari : Vita di Savonarola. 2 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. 3 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. 339 THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY. V to be used as models for the reception of princes, bishops, and other dignitaries. For oratory, as for the other arts, the death of Leo X. (1521) and the sack of Rome (1527) mark the epoch of decadence. Giovio, 1 but just escaped from the desolation of the eternal city, describes, not exhaustively, but on the whole truly, the causes of this decline. ‘The plays of Plautus and Terence, once a school of Latin style for the educated Romans, are banished to make room for Italian comedies. Graceful speakers no longer find the recognition and reward which they once did. The Consistorial advocates no longer pre¬ pare anything but the introductions to their speeches, and deliver the rest—>a confused muddle—on the in¬ spiration of the moment. Sermons and occasional speeches have sunk to the same level. If a funeral oration is wanted for a cardinal or other great per¬ sonage, the executors do not apply to the best orators in the city, to whom they would have to pay a hundred pieces of gold, but they hire for a trifle the first impudent pedant whom they come across, and who only wants to be talked of, whether for good or ill. The dead, they say, is none the wiser if an ape stands 1 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. 340 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. in a black dress in the pulpit, and beginning with a hoarse, whimpering mumble, passes little by little into a loud howling. Even the sermons preached at great papal ceremonies are no longer profitable, as they used to be. Monks of all orders have again got them into their hands, and preach as if they were speaking to the mob. Only a few years ago a sermon at mass, before the Pope, might easily lead the way to a bishopric.’ 34i CHAPTER VIII. LATIN TREATISES AND HISTORY. From the oratory and the epistolary writings of the humanists, we shall here pass on to their other creations, which were all, to a greater or less extent, reproductions of antiquity. Among these must be placed the treatise, which often took the shape of a dialogue. 1 In this case it was borrowed directly from Cicero. In order to do anything like justice to this class of literature—in order not to throw it aside at first sight as a bore—two things must be taken into consideration. The century which escaped from the influence of the Middle Ages felt the need of something to mediate between itself and antiquity in many questions of morals and philo¬ sophy ; and this need was met by the writer of treatises and dialogues. Much which appears to us as mere commonplace in their writings, was for them and their contemporaries a new and hardly-won view of things 1 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. 342 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. upon which mankind had been silent since the days of antiquity. The language too, in this form of writing, whether Italian or Latin, moved more freely and flexibly than in historical narrative, in letters, or in oratory, and thus became in itself the source of a special pleasure. Several Italian compositions of this kind still hold their place as patterns of style. Many of these works have been, or will be mentioned on account of their contents ; we here refer to them as a class. From the time of Petrarch’s letters and treatises down to near the end of the fifteenth century, the heaping up of learned quotations, as in the case of the orators, is the main business of most of these writers. The whole style, especially in Italian, was then sud¬ denly clarified, till, in the ‘ Asolani,’ of Bembo and the ‘ Vita Sobria,’ of Luigi Cornaro, 1 a classical perfection was reached. Here too the decisive fact was, that anti¬ quarian matter of every kind had meantime begun to be deposited in encyclopaedic works (now printed), and no longer stood in the way of the essayist. It was inevitable too that the humanistic spirit should control the writing of history. A superficial comparison of the histories of this period with the earlier chronicles, especially with works so full of life, colour, and brilliancy as those of the Villani, will lead us loudly to deplore the change. How insipid and conventional appear by their side the best of the humanists, and particularly their immediate and most 1 See below, part iv. chap. 5. LATIN TREATISES A NT HISTORY. 343 famous successors among the historians of Florence, Leonardo Aretino and Poggio! 1 The enjoyment of the reader is incessantly marred by the sense that, in the classical phrases of Facius, Sabellicus, Folieta, Senarega, Platina in the chronicles of Mantua, Bembo in the annals of Venice, and even of Giovio in his histories, the best local and individual colouring and the full sincerity of interest in the truth of events have been lost. Our mistrust is increased when we hear that Livy, the pattern of this school of writers, was copied just where he is least worthy of imitation on the ground, namely, 2 ‘ that he turned a dry and naked tradition into grace and richness/ In the same place we meet with the suspicious declaration, that it is the function of the historian—-just as if he were one with the poet—to excite, charm, or overwhelm the reader. We must further remember that many hu¬ manistic historians knew but little of what happened outside their own sphere, and this little they were often compelled to adapt to the taste of their patrons and employers. We ask ourselves finally, whether the contempt for modern things, which these same human¬ ists sometimes avowed openly, 3 must not necessarily 1 Comp, the epigram of Sannazaro : ( Dum patriam laudat, damnat dum Poggius hostem, Nec malus est civis, nec bonus historicus. 2 Benedictus : Caroli VIII. Hist, in Eccard, Scriptt. vi., col. 1577 * 3 Petrus Crinitus deplores this contempt, De honesta disciplina , 1 . xviii. cap. 9. The humanists here resemble the writers in the decline of antiquity, who also severed themselves from their own age. Comp. 344 THE REVIVAL OE ANTIQUITY. have had an unfortunate influence on their treatment of them. Unconsciously the reader finds himself looking with more interest and confidence on the unpretending Latin and Italian annalists, like those of Bologna and Ferrara, who remained true to the old style, and still more grateful does he feel to the best of the genuine chroniclers who wrote in Italian—to Marin Sanudo, Corio, and Infessura—who were followed at the be¬ ginning of the sixteenth century by that new and illustrious band of great national historians who wrote in their mother tongue. Contemporary history, no doubt, was written far better in the language of the day than when forced into Latin. Whether Italian was also more suitable for the narrative of events long past, or for historical research, is a question which admits, for that period, of more answers than one. Latin was, at that time, the ‘ Lingua franca ’ of instructed people, not only in an international sense, as a means of intercourse between Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Italians, but also in an interprovincial sense. The Lombard, the Venetian, and the Neapolitan modes of writing, though long modelled on the Tuscan, and bearing but slight traces of the dialect, were still not recognised by the Floren¬ tines. This was of less consequence in local contem¬ porary histories, which were sure of readers at the place Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantin’s des Grossen , p. 285 sqq. See for the other side several declarations of Poggio in Voigt, Wiederbelebung , p. 443 sqq. LATIN TREATISES AND HISTORY. 345 where they were written, than in the narratives of the past, for which a larger public was desired. In these the local interests of the people had to be sacrificed to the general interests of the learned. How far would the influence of a man like Blondus of Forli have reached if he had written his great monuments of learning in the dialect of the Romagna ? They would have assuredly sunk into neglect, if only through the contempt of the Florentines, while written in Latin they exercised the profoundest influence on the whole European world of learning. And even the Florentines in the fifteenth century wrote Latin, not only because their minds were imbued with humanism, but in order to be more widely read. Finally, there exist certain Latin essays in con¬ temporary history, which stand on a level with the best Italian works of the kind. When the continuous narrative after the manner of Livy—that Procrustean bed of so many writers—is abandoned, the change is marvellous. The same Platina and Giovio, whose great histories we only read because and so far as we must, suddenly come forward as masters in the biogra¬ phical style. We have already spoken of Tristan Caracciolo, of the biographical works of Facius and of the Venetian topography of Sabellico, and others will be mentioned in the sequel. Historical composi¬ tion, like letters and oratory, soon had its theory. Following the example of Cicero, it proclaims with pride the worth and dignity of history, boldly claims 346 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. Moses and the Evangelists as simple historians, and concludes with earnest exhortations to strict impar¬ tiality and love of truth. 1 The Latin treatises on past history were naturally concerned, for the most part, with classical antiquity. What we are more surprised to find among these humanists are some considerable works on the history of the Middle Ages. The first of this kind was the chronicle of Matteo Palmieri (449-1449), beginning where Prosper Aquitanus ceases, the style of which was certainly an offence to later critics like Paolo Cortese. On opening the ‘ Decades ’ of Blondus of Forli, we are surprised to find a universal history, ‘ab inclinatione Romanorum imperii,’ as in Gibbon, full of original studies on the authors of each century, and occupied, through the first 300 folio pages, with early mediaeval history down to the death of Frederick II. And this when in Northern countries nothing more was wanted than chronicles of the popes and emperors, and the ‘ Fasciculus temporum.’ We cannot here stay to show what writings Blondus made use of, and where he found his materials, though this justice will some day be done to him by the historians of literature. This book alone would entitle us to say that it was the study of antiquity which made the 1 study of the Middle Ages possible, by first training 1 Lorenzo Valla, in the preface t© the Historia Ferdina 7 idi Regis A rag. ; in opposition to him, Giacomo Zeno in the Vita Caroli Zeni, Murat, xix. p. 204. See, too, Guarino, in Rosmini, ii. 62 sqq. 177 sqq. LATIN TREATISES AND HISTORY. 347 the mind to habits of impartial historical criticism. To this must be added, that the Middle Ages were now over for Italy, and that the Italian mind could the better appreciate them, because it stood outside them. It cannot, nevertheless, be said that it at once judged them fairly, and still less that it judged them with piety. In art a fixed prejudice showed itself against all that those centuries had created, and the humanists date the new era from the time of their own appearance. ‘ I begin,’ says Boccaccio, 1 'to hope and believe that God has had mercy on the Italian name, since I see that His infinite goodness puts souls into the breasts of the Italians like those of the ancients— souls which seek fame by other means than robbery and violence, but rather, on the path of poetry, which makes men immortal.’ But this narrow and unjust temper did not preclude investigation in the minds of the more gifted men, at a time, too, when elsewhere in Europe any such investigation would have been out of the question. A historical criticism 2 of the Middle Ages was practicable, just because the rational treat¬ ment of all subjects by the humanists had trained the historical spirit. In the fifteenth century this spirit had so far penetrated the history even of the indivi- 1 In the letter to Pizinga, Opere Volgari , vol. xvi. p. 38. With Raph. Volaterranus, 1 . xxi., the intellectual world begins in the fourteenth cen¬ tury. He is the same writer whose early books contain so many notices —excellent for his time—of the history of all countries. 2 Here, too, Petrarch cleared the way. See especially his critical investigation of the Austrian Charter, claiming to descend from Caesar. Epp . Sen. xvi. 1. 34 § THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. dual cities of Italy, that the stupid fairy tales about the origin of Florence, Venice, and Milan vanished, while at the same time, and long after, the chronicles of the North were stuffed with this fantastic rubbish, destitute for the most part of all poetical value, and invented as late as the fourteenth century. The close connection between local history and the sentiment of glory has already been touched on in reference to Florence (part i. chap. vii.). Venice would not be behindhand. Just as a great rhetorical triumph of the Florentines 1 would cause a Venetian embassy to write home post-haste for an orator to be sent after them, so too the Venetians felt the need of a history which would bear comparison with those of Lionardo Aretino and Poggio. And it was to satisfy this feeling that, in the fifteenth century, after negotiations with Giovanni Maria Filelfo and others had failed, the ‘ Decades ’ of Sabellico appeared, and in the sixteenth the ‘ Historia rerum Venetarum ’ of Pietro Bembo, \ both written at the express charge of the republic, the latter a continuation of the former. The great Florentine historians at the beginning of the sixteenth century (pp, 113 sqq.) were men of a wholly different kind from the Latinists Bembo and Giovio. They wrote Italian, not only because they 1 Like that of Giannozzo Manetti in the presence of Nicholas V., of the whole papal court, and of a great concourse of strangers from all parts. Comp. Vespas. Fior. p. 591, and more fully in the CommentariOy pp. 37-40. LATIN TREATISES AND HISTORY. 349 could not vie with the Ciceronian elegance of the philologists, but because, like Macchiavelli, they could only record in a living tongue the living results of their own immediate observations—and we may add in the case of Macchiavelli, of his observation of the past—and because, as in the case of Guicciardini, Varchi, and many others, what they most desired was, that their view of the course of events should have as wide and deep a practical effect as possible. Even when they only write for a few friends, like Francesco Vettori, they feel an inward need to utter their testimony on men and events, and to explain and justify their share in the latter. And yet, with all that is characteristic in their language and style, they were powerfully affected by antiquity, and, without its influence, would be incon¬ ceivable. They were not humanists, but they had passed through the school of humanism, and they have in them more of the spirit of the ancient historians than most of the imitators of Livy. Like the ancients, they were citizens who wrote for citizens. CHAPTER IX. GENERAL LATINISATION OF CULTURE. We cannot attempt to trace the influence of humanism in the special sciences. Each has its own history, in which the Italian investigators of this period, chiefly through their rediscovery of the results attained by an¬ tiquity, 1 mark a new epoch, with which the modern period of the science in question begins with more or less distinctness. With regard to philosophy, too, we must refer the reader to the special historical works on the subject. The influence of the old philosophers on Italian culture will appear at times immense, at times 1 In fact, it was already said that Homer alone contained the whole of the arts and sciences—that he was an encyclopaedia. Comp. Codri Urcei Opera, Sermo xiii. at the end. It is true that we meet with a similar opinion in several ancient writers. The words of C. U. (Sermo xiii., habitus in laudem liberalium artium ; Opera , ed. Ven. 1506, fol. xxxviii. b.) are as follows : ‘ Eia ergo bono animo esto ; ego graecas litteras tibi ex- ponam ; et praecipue divinum Homerum, a quo ceu fonte perenni, ut scribit Naso, vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis. Ab Homero grammaticam dicere poteris, ab Homero rhetoricam, ab Homero medicinam, ab Homero astrologiam, ab Homero fabulas, ab Homero historias, ab Homero mores, ab Homero philosophorum dogmata, ab Homero artem militarem, ab Homero coquinariam, ab Homero architecturam, ab Homero regendarum urbium modum percipies ; et in summa, quidquid boni quidquid honesti animus hominis discendi cupidus optare potest, in Homero facile poteris in venire? To the same effect ‘ Sermo ’ vii. and viii. Opera, fol. xxvi. sqq., fvhich treat of Homer only. GENERAL LATINISAT!ON OF CULTURE. 351 inconsiderable; the former, when we consider how the doctrines of Aristotle, chiefly drawn from the Ethics 1 and Politics—both widely diffused at an early period— became the common property of educated Italians, and how the whole method of abstract thought was governed by him ; 2 the latter, when we remember how slight was the dogmatic influence of the old philosophies, and even of the enthusiastic Florentine Platonists, on the spirit of the people at large. What looks like such an influence is generally no more than a consequence of the new culture in general, and of the special growth and development of the Italian mind. When we come to speak of religion, we shall have more to say on this head. But in by far the greater number of cases, we have to do, not with the general culture of the people, but with the utterances of individuals or of learned circles; and here, too, a distinction must be drawn be¬ tween the true assimilation of ancient doctrines and fashionable make-believe. For with many antiquity was only a fashion, even among very learned people. Nevertheless, all that looks like affectation to our age, need not then have been actually so. The giving of Greek and Latin names to children, for example, is better and more respectable than the present practice of taking them, especially the female names, from 1 A cardinal under Paul II. had his cooks instructed in the Ethics of Aristotle. Comp. Gaspar. Veron. Vita Pauli II. in Muratori iii. ii. col. 1034. 2 For the study of Aristotle in general, a speech of Hermolaus Bar- barus is specially instructive. 35 2 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY novels. When the enthusiasm for the ancient world was greater than for the saints, it was simple and natural enough that noble families called their sons Agamemnon, Tydeus, and Achilles, 1 and that a painter named his son Apelles and his daughter Minerva. 2 Nor will it appear unreasonable that, instead of a family name, which people were often glad to get rid of, a 0 well-sounding ancient name was chosen. A local name, shared by all residents in the place, and not yet trans¬ formed into a family name, was willingly given up, especially when its religious associations made it incon¬ venient; Filippo da San Gemignano called himself Callimachus. The man, misunderstood and insulted by his family, who made his fortune as a scholar in foreign cities, could afford, even if he were a Sanseverino, to change his name to Julius Pomponius Laetus. Even the simple translation of a name into Latin or Greek, as was almost uniformly the custom in Germany, may be excused to a generation which spoke and wrote 1 Bursellis, Ann. Bonon. in Murat, xxiii. col. 898. 2 Vasari xi. pp. 189, 257. Vite di Sodoma e di Garofalo. It is not surprising that the profligate women at Rome took the most harmonious ancient names—Julia, Lucretia, Cassandra, Portia, Virginia, Penthesilea, under which they appear in Aretino. It was, perhaps, then that the Jews took the names of the great Semitic enemies of the Romans—Hannibal, Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, which even now they commonly bear in Rome. [This last assertion cannot be maintained. Neither Zunz, Namen der Juden , Leipzig, 1837, reprinted in Zunz Gesammelte Schriften , Berlin, 1876, nor Steinschneider in his collection in II Buonarotti , ser. ii. vol. vi. 1871, pp. 196-199, speaks of any Jew of that period who bore these names, and even now, according to the enquiries of Prince Buoncompagni from Signor Tagliacapo, in charge of the Jewish archives in Rome, there are only a few who are named Asdrubale, and none Amilcare or Annibale. L. G.] GENERAL LATINISATION OF CULTURE. 353 j! I Latin, and which needed names that could be not only declined, but used with facility in verse and prose. What was blameworthy and ridiculous was, the change of half a name, baptismal or family, to give it a classical sound and a new sense. Thus Giovanni was turned into Jovianus or Janus, Pietro to Petreius or Pierius, Antonio to Aonius, Sannazzaro to Syncerus, Luca Grasso to Lucius Crassus. Ariosto, who speaks with such derision of all this, 1 lived to see children called after his own heroes and heroines. 2 Nor must we judge too severely the Latinisation of many usages of social life, such as the titles of officials, of ceremonies, and the like, in the writers of the period. As long as people were satisfied with a simple, fluent Latin style, as was the case with most writers from Petrarch to Aeneas Sylvius, this practice was not so frequent and striking; it became inevitable when a faultless, Ciceronian Latin was demanded. Modern names and things no longer harmonised with the style, unless they were first artificially changed. Pedants found a pleasure in addressing municipal counsellors as ‘ Patres Conscripti,’ nuns as ‘Virgines Vestales/ and entitling every saint ‘Divus’ or ‘Deus;’ but men of better taste, such as Paolo Giovio, only did so when 1 ‘ Quasi che ’1 nonle i buon giudici ingannl, E che quel meglio t ’ abbia a far poeta, Che non fark lo studio di molt’ anni ! * So jests Ariosto, to whom fortune had certainly given a harmonious name, in the Seventh Satire , vs. 64. 2 Or after those of Bojardo, which are in part the same as his. VOL. I. A A 354 THE REVIVAL OE ANTIQUITY. and because they could not help it. But as Giovio does it naturally, and lays no special stress upon it, we are not offended if, in his melodious language, the car¬ dinals appear as ‘Senatores,’ their dean as ‘Princeps Senatus,’ excommunication as ‘Dirae,’ 1 and the carnival as ‘ Lupercalia.’ This example of this author alone is enough to warn us against drawing a hasty inference from these peculiarities of style as to the writer’s whole mode of thinking. The history of Latin composition cannot here be traced in detail. For fully two centuries the humanists acted as if Latin were, and must remain, the only language worthy to be written. Poggio 2 deplores that Dante wrote his great poem in Italian ; and Dante, as is well known, actually made the attempt in. Latin, and wrote the beginning of the ‘ Inferno ’ first in hexa¬ meters. The whole future of Italian poetry hung on his not continuing in the same style, 3 but even Petrarch 1 The soldiers of the French army in 1512 were ‘omnibus diris ad inferos devocati ! ’ The honest canon, Tizio, who, in all seriousness, pro¬ nounced a curse from Macrobius against foreign troops, will be spoken of further on. 2 De infelicitate principum, in Poggii Opera, fol. 152 : ‘Cujus (Dantis) exstat poema praeclarum, neque, si literis Latinis constaret, ulla ex parte poetis superioribus (the ancients) postponendum.’ According to Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 74, ‘ Many wise men * even then discussed the question why Dante had not written in Latin. Cortesius (De homini- bus doctis, p. 7) complains : ‘ Utinam tarn bene cogitationes suas Latinis litteris mandare potuisset, quam bene patrium sermonem illustravit ! ’ He makes the same complaint in speaking of Petrarch and Boccaccio. 3 His work De vulgari eloquio was for long almost unknown, and, valuable as it is to us, could never have exercised the influence of the Divina Commedia. w * \ GENERAL LATINISATION OF CULTURE. 355 relied more on his Latin poetry than on the Sonnets and ‘ Canzoni,’ and Ariosto himself was desired by some to write his poem in Latin. A stronger coercion never existed in literature ; 1 but poetry shook it off for the most part, and it may be said, without the risk of too great optimism, that it was well for Italian poetry to have had both means of expressing itself. In both something great and characteristic was achieved, and in each we can see the reason why Latin or Italian was chosen. Perhaps the same may be said of prose. The position and influence of Italian culture throughout the world depended on the fact that certain subjects were treated in Latin 2 —‘ urbi et orbi ’—while Italian prose was written best of all by those to whom it cost an inward struggle not to write in Latin. 1 To know how far this fanaticism went, we have only to refer to Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, De poetis nostri temp oris, passim. Vespasiano Bisticci is one of the few Latin writers of that time who openly confessed that they knew little of Latin ( Comentario della vita di G. Manetti , p. 2), but he knew enough to introduce Latin sentences here and there in his writings, and to read Latin letters (ibid. 96, 165). In reference to this exclusive regard for Latin, the following passage may be quoted from Petr. Alcyonius, De exilio, ed. Menken, p. 213. He says that if Cicero could rise up and behold Rome, ‘ Omnium maxime ilium credo pertur- barent ineptiae quorumdam qui, amisso studio veteris linguae quae eadem hujus urbis et universae Italiae propria erat, dies noctesque incumbunt in linguam Geticam aut Dacicam discendam eandemque omni ratione ampliendam, cum Goti, Visigothi et Vandali (qui erant olim Getae et Daci) earn in Italos invexerant, ut artes et linguam et nomen Romanum delerent.’ 2 There were regular stylistic exercises, as in the Oratio?ies of the elder Beroaldus, where there are two tales of Boccaccio, and even a ‘ Canzone ’ of Petrarch translated into Latin. A A 2 356 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. From the fourteenth century Cicero was recog¬ nised universally as the purest model of prose. This was by no means due solely to a dispassionate opinion in favour of his choice of language, of the structure of his sentences, and of his style of composition, but rather to the fact that the Italian spirit responded fully and instinctively to the amiability of the letter- writer, to the brilliancy of the orator, and to the lucid exposition of the philosophical thinker. Even Petrarch recognised clearly the weaknesses of Cicero as a man and a statesman, 1 though he respected him too much to rejoice over them. After Petrarch's time, the epistolary style was formed entirely on the pattern of Cicero ; and the rest, with the exception of the narrative style, followed the same influence. Yet the true Ciceronianism, which rejected every phrase which could not be justified out of the great authority, did not appear till the end of the fifteenth century, when the grammatical writings of Lorenzo Valla had begun to tell on all Italy, and when the opinions of the Roman historians of literature had been sifted and compared. 2 Then every shade of difference in the style of the ancients was studied with closer and closer attention, till the consoling conclusion was at last reached, that in Cicero alone was the perfect model 1 Comp. Petrarch’s letter from the earth to illustrious shades below. Opera , p. 704 sqq. See also p. 372 in the work De rep. optime adminis- tranda : ‘ Sic esse doleo, sed sic est.’ 2 A burlesque picture of the fanatical purism prevalent in Rome is given by Jovian. Pontanus in his Antonias. ( GENERAL LA TINTS A TION OF CULTURE . 357 to be found, or, if all forms of literature were to be embraced, in ‘ that immortal and almost heavenly age of Cicero.’ 1 Men like Pietro Bembo and Pierio Valeriano now turned all their energies to this one object. Even those who had long resisted the tendency, and had formed for themselves an archaic style from the earlier authors, 2 yielded at last, and joined in the worship of Cicero. Longolius, at Bembo’s advice, determined to read nothing but Cicero for five years long, and finally took an oath to use no word which did not occur in this author. It was this temper which broke out at last in the great war among the scholars, in which Erasmus and the elder Scaliger led the battle. For all the admirers of Cicero were by no means so one-sided as to consider him the only source of language. In the fifteenth century, Politian and Ermolao Barbaro made a conscious and deliberate effort to form a style of their own, 3 naturally on 1 Hadriani ( Cornetani ) Card. S. Chrvsogoni de sermone latino liber, especially the introduction. He finds in Cicero and his contemporaries Latinity in its absolute form ( an sick). The same Codrus Urceus, who found in Homer the sum of all science (see above, p. 350, note 1) says ( Opp . ed. 1506, fob Ixv.) : ‘ Quidquid temporibus meis aut vidi aut studui libens omne illud Cicero mihi felici dedit omine/ and goes so far as to say in another poem (ibid.) : ‘Non habet huic similem doctrinae Graecia mater/ 2 Paul. Jov. Elogia doct. vir. p. 187 sqq., speaking of Bapt. Pius. 3 Paul. Jov. Elogia , on Naugerius. Their ideal, he says, was : ‘Aliquid in stylo proprium, quod peculiarem ex certa nota mentis effigiem referret, ex naturae genio effinxisse.’ Politian, when in a hurry, objected to write his letters in Latin. Comp. Raph. Volat. Comme 7 it urban, 1 . xxi. Poli¬ tian to Cortesius (Epist. lib. viii. ep. 16) : ‘Mihi vero longe honestior v\ 358 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. the basis of their ‘ overflowing ’ learning, though they failed to inspire their pupils with a similar desire for independence; and our informant of this fact, Paolo Giovio, pursued the same end. He first attempted, not always successfully, but often with remarkable power and elegance, and at no small cost of effort, to reproduce in Latin a number of modern, particularly of aesthetic, ideas. His Latin characteristics of the great painters and sculptors of his time contain a mixture of the most intelligent and of the most blundering interpretation . 1 Even Leo X., who placed his glory in the fact, ‘ ut lingua latina nostra pontificatu dicatur facta auctior ,’ 2 was inclined to a liberal and not too exclusive Latinity, which, indeed, was in har¬ mony with his pleasure-loving nature. He was satisfied when the Latin which he had to read and hear was lively, elegant, and idiomatic. Then, too, Cicero offered no model for Latin conversation, so that here other gods had to be worshipped beside him. The want was supplied by representations of the comedies of Plautus and Terence, frequent both tauri facies, aut item leonis, quam simiae videtur; ’ to which Cortesius replied : ‘ Ego malo esse assecla et simia Ciceronis quam alumnus.’ For Pico’s opinion on the Latin language, see the letter quoted above, pp. 281, 282. 1 Paul. Jov. Dialogus de viris literis ilhistribus , in Tiraboschi, ed. Venez. 1766, tom. vii. p. iv. It is well known that Giovio was long anxious to undertake the great work which Vasari accomplished. In the dialogue mentioned above it is foreseen and deplored that Latin would now altogether lose its supremacy. 2 In the ‘ Breve’ of 1517 to Franc, de’ Rosi,composed by Sadoleto, in Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi vi. p. 172. GENERAL LA TINTS A TION OF CULTURE. 359 in and out of Rome, which for the actors were an incomparable exercise in Latin as the language of daily life. The impulse to the study of the old Latin comedies and to modern imitations of them w r as given by the discovery of plays by Plautus in the * Cod. Ursinianus,’ which was brought to Rome in T428 or 1429. A few years later, in the pontificate of Paul II., the learned Cardinal of Teano 1 (probably Niccolo Forteguerra of Pistoja) became famous for his critical labours in this branch of scholarship. He set to work upon the most defective plays of Plautus, which were destitute even of the list of the characters, and went carefully through the whole remains of this author, chiefly with an eye to the language. Possibly it was he who gave the first impulse for the public representations of these plays. Afterwards Pomponius Laetus took up the same subject, and acted as manager when Plautus was put on the stage in the houses of • _ great churchmen. 2 That these representations became less common after 1520, is mentioned by Giovio, as 1 Gasp. Veronens. Vita Pauli II. in Murat, iii., ii., col. 1031. The plays of Seneca and Latin translations of Greek dramas were also per¬ formed. 2 At Ferrara, Plautus was played chiefly in the Italian adaptations of Collenuccio, the younger Guarino, and others, and principally for the sake of the plots. Isabella Gonzaga took the liberty of finding him dull. For Latin comedy in general, see R. Peiper in Fleckeisen and Masius, Neue Jahrb. fur Phil. 21. Padag ., Lpzg. 1874, xx. 131- 138, and Archiv fur Literaturgesch. v. 541 sqq. On Pomp. Laetus, see Sabellici Opera , Epist. 1 . xi. fol. 56 sqq., and below, at the close of Part III. 360 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. we have seen (p. 339), among the causes of the decline of eloquence. We may mention, in conclusion, the analogy between Ciceronianism in literature and the revival of Vitruvius by the architects in the sphere of art. 1 And here, too, the law holds good which prevails elsewhere in the history of the Renaissance, that each artistic movement is preceded by a corresponding movement in the general culture of the age. In this case, the interval is not more than about twenty years, if we reckon from Cardinal Hadrian of Corneto (1505 ?) to the first avowed Vitruvians. 1 Comp. Burckhardt, Gesch. der Renaissance in It alien y 38-41. 36i CHAPTER X. MODERN LATIN POETRY. The chief pride of the humanists, is, however, their modern Latin poetry. It lies within the limits of our task to treat of it, at least in so far as it serves to characterise the humanistic movement. How favourable public opinion was to that form of poetry,, and how nearly it supplanted all others, has been already shown (p. 354). We may be very sure that the most gifted and highly developed nation then existing in the world did not renounce the use of a language such as the Italian out of mere folly and without knowing what they were doing. It must have been a weighty reason which led them to do so. This cause was the devotion to antiquity. Like all ardent and genuine devotion it necessarily prompted men to imitation. At other times and among other nations we find many isolated attempts of the same kind. But only in Italy were the two chief conditions present which were needful for the continuance and development of neo-Latin poetry : a general interest in the subject among the instructed classes, and a partial reawakening of the old Italian genius among 3 62 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. the poets themselves—the wondrous echo of a far-off strain. The best of what is produced under these conditions is not imitation, but free production. If we decline to tolerate any borrowed forms in art, if we either set no value on antiquity at all, or attribute to it some magical and unapproachable virtue, or if we will pardon no slips in poets who were forced, for instance, to guess or to discover a multitude of syllabic quan¬ tities, then we had better let this class of literature alone. Its best works were not created in order to defy criticism, but to give pleasure to the poet and to thousands of his contemporaries. 1 The least success of all was attained by the epic narratives drawn from the history or legends of antiquity. The essential conditions of a living epic poetry were denied, not only to the Romans who now served as models, but even to the Greeks after Homer. They could not be looked for among the Latins of the Renaissance. And yet the ‘Africa’ of Petrarch 2 probably found as many and as enthusiastic readers and hearers as any epos of modern times, The purpose and origin of the poem are not without interest. The fourteenth century recognised with sound historical tact the time of the second Punic war 1 For what follows see Deliciae poetarum Itciloriim ; Paul. Jov. Elogia ; Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, De poetis nostri teinporis\ and the Appendices to Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi. 2 There are two new editions of the poem, that of Pingaud (Paris, 1872), and that of Corradini (Padua, 1874). In 1874 two Italian trans¬ lations also appeared by G. B. Gaudo and A. Palesa. On the Africa , compare L. Geiger : Petrarca pp. 122 sqq., and p. 270, note 7. MODERN LATIN POETRY. 3 6 3 as the noon-day of Roman greatness ; and Petrarch could not resist writing of this time. Had Silius Italicus been then discovered, Petrarch would probably have chosen another subject; but, as it was, the glori¬ fication of Scipio Africanus the Elder was so much in accordance with the spirit of the fourteenth century, that another poet, Zanobi di Strada, also proposed to himself the same task, and only from respect for Petrarch withdrew the poem with which he had already made great progress. 1 If any justification were needed for the ‘ Africa/ it lies in the fact that in Petrarch’s time and afterwards Scipio was as much an object of public interest as if he were then alive, and that he was held by many to be a greater man than Alexander, Pompey, and Caesar. 2 How many modern epics treat of a subject at once so popular, so historical in its basis, and so striking to the imagi¬ nation ? For us, it is true, the poem is unreadable. P'or other themes of the same kind the reader may be referred to the histories of literature. A richer and more fruitful vein was discovered in expanding and completing the Greco-Roman mytho- 1 Filippo Villani, Vile, ed. Galetti, p. 16. 2 Franc. Aleardi Oratio in laudem Franc. Sfortiae , in Murat, xxv. col. 384. In comparing Scipio with Caesar, Guarino and Cyriacus An- conitanus held the latter, Poggio ( Opera , epp. fol. 125, 134 sqq.) the former, to be the greater. For Scipio and Hannibal in the miniatures of Attavante, see Vasari, iv. 41. Vita di Fiesole. The names of both used for Picinino and Sforza. See p. 138. There were great disputes as to the relative greatness of the two. Shepherd-Tonelli, i. 262 sqq. and Ros mini : Guarino, ii. 97-111. 364 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. logy. In this too Italian poetry began early to take a part, beginning with the ‘ Teseide ’ of Boccaccio, which passes for his best poetical work. Under Martin V. Maffeo Vegio wrote in Latin a thirteenth book to the Aeneid ; besides which we meet with many less con¬ siderable attempts, especially in the style of Claudian— a ‘ Meleagris/ a ‘ Hesperis,’ and so forth. Still more curious were the newly-invented myths, which peopled the fairest regions of Italy with a primeval race of gods, nymphs, genii, and even shepherds, the epic and bucolic styles here passing into one another. In the narrative or conversational eclogue after the time of Petrarch, pas¬ toral life was treated in a purely conventional manner, 1 as a vehicle of all possible feelings and fancies ; and this point will be touched on again in the sequel. For the moment, we have only to do with the new myths. In them, more clearly than anywhere else, we see the double significance of the old gods to the men of the Renaissance. On the one hand, they replace abstract terms in poetry, and render allegorical figures super¬ fluous ; and, on the other, they serve as free and inde¬ pendent elements in art, as forms of beauty which can be turned to some account in any and every poem. The example was boldly set by Boccaccio, with his fanciful world of gods and shepherds who people the country round Florence in his ‘ Ninfale d’ Ameto’ and ‘Ninfale Fiesolano.’ Both these poems were written 1 The brilliant exceptions, where rural life is treated realistically, will also be mentioned below. MODERN LATIN POETRY. 365 in Italian. But the masterpiece in this style was the ‘Sarca’ of Pietro Bembo, 1 which tells how the river- god of that name wooed the nymph Garda; of the brilliant marriage feast in a cave of Monte Baldo; of the prophecies of Manto, daughter of Tiresias; of the birth of the child Mincius ; of the founding of Mantua, and of the future glory of Virgil, son of Mincius and of Maia, nymph of Andes. This humanistic rococo is set forth by Bembo in verses of great beauty, con¬ cluding with an address to Virgil, which any poet might envy him. Such works are often slighted as mere declamation. This is a matter of taste on which we are all free to form our own opinion. Further, we find long epic poems in hexameters on biblical or ecclesiastical subjects. The authors were by no means always in search of preferment or of papal favour. With the best of them, and even with less gifted writers, like Battista Mantovano, the author of the ‘ Parthenice,’ there was probably an honest desire to serve religion by their Latin verses—a desire with which their half-pagan conception of Catholicism har¬ monised well enough. Gyraldus goes through a list of these poets, among whom Vida, with his ‘ Christiad ’ and Sannazaro, with his three books, ‘ De partu Vir- ginis,’ 2 hold the first place. Sannazaro (b. 1458, d. 1 Printed in Mai, Spicilegium Romanum , vol. viii. pp. 488-504; about 500 hexameter verses. Pierio Valeriano followed out the myth in his poetry. See his Carpio , in the Delicicc poetarum Italorum. The frescoes of Bru- sasorci in the Pal. Murari at Verona represent the subject of the Sarca. 2 Newly edited and translated by Th. A. Fassnacht in Drei Perlcn 366 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. 1530) is impressive by the steady and powerful flow of his verse, in which Christian and pagan elements are mingled without scruple, by the plastic vigour of his description, and by the perfection of his workmanship. He could venture to introduce Virgil’s fourth eclogue into his song of the shepherds at the manger (III. 200 sqq.) without fearing a comparison. In treating of the unseen world, he sometimes gives proof of a boldness worthy of Dante, as when King David in the Limbo of the Patriarchs rises up to sing and prophesy (i. 236 sqq.), or when the Eternal, sitting on the throne clad in a mantle shining with pictures of all the elements, addresses the heavenly host (III. 17 sqq). At other times he does not hesitate to weave the old classical mythology into his subject, yet without spoiling the harmony of the whole, since the pagan deities are only accessory figures, and play no important part in the story. To appreciate the artistic genius of that age in all its bearings, we must not refuse to notice such works as these. The merit of Sannazaro will appear the greater, when we consider that the mixture of Christian \ and pagan elements is apt to disturb us much more in poetry than in the plastic arts. The latter can still satisfy the eye by beauty of form and colour, and in general are much more independent of the significance of the subject than poetry. With them, the imagi¬ nation is interested chiefly in the form, with poetry, in der neulateinischen Poesie. Leutkirch and Leipzig, 1875. See further, Goethe’s Werke (Hempel’sche Ausgabe), vol. xxii. pp. 157 and 411. MODERN LA TIN POE TRY 367 the matter. Honest Battista Mantovano in his calen¬ dar of the festivals, 1 tried another expedient. Instead of making the gods and demigods serve the purposes of sacred history, he puts them, as the Fathers of the Church did, in active opposition to it. When the angel Gabriel salutes the Virgin at Nazareth, Mercury flies after him from Carmel, and listens at the door. He then announces the result of his eavesdropping to the assembled gods, and stimulates them thereby to desperate resolutions. Elsewhere, 2 it is true, in his writings, Thetis, Ceres, Aeolus, and other pagan deities pay willing homage to the glory of the Madonna. The fame of Sannazaro, the number of his imitators, the enthusiastic homage which was paid to him by the greatest men—by Bembo, who wrote his epitaph, and by Titian, who painted his portrait— all show how dear and necessary he was to his age. On the threshold of the Reformation he solved for the Church the problem, whether it were possible for a poet to be a Christian as well as a classic ; and both Leo and Clement were loud in their thanks for his achievements. And, Anally, contemporary history was now treated in hexameters or distichs, sometimes in a narrative and sometimes in a panegyrical style, but most commonly to the honour of some prince or princely family. We thus meet with a Sforziad, 3 a 1 De sacris diebus. 2 E.g. in his eighth eclogue. 3 There are two unfinished an J unprinted Sforziads, one by the elder, 3 68 THE REVIVAL OE ANTIQUITY . Borseid, a Laurentiad, a Borgiad (see p. 312), a Triulziad, and the like. The object sought after was certainly not attained ; for those who became famous and are now immortal owe it to anything rather than to this sort of poems, to which the world has always had an ineradicable dislike, even when they happen to be written by good poets. A wholly different effect is produced by smaller, simpler and more unpretentious scenes from the lives of distin¬ guished men, such as the beautiful poem on Leo X/s ‘Hunt at Palo,’ 1 or the ‘Journey of Julius II/ by Hadrian of Corneto (p. 166). Brilliant descriptions of hunting-parties are found in Ercole Strozza, in the above-mentioned Hadrian, and in others ; and it is a pity that the modern reader should allow himself to be irritated or repelled by the adulation with which they are doubtless filled. The masterly treatment and the considerable historical value of many of these most graceful poems, guarantee to them a longer existence than many popular works of our own day are likely to attain. In general, these poems are good in proportion to the sparing use of the sentimental and the general. Some of the smaller epic poems, even of recognised the other by the younger Filelfo. On the latter, see Favre, Melanges d’Hist. Lit. i. 156; on the former, see Rosmini, Filelfo , ii. 157—175. It is said to be 12,800 lines long, and contains the passage : ‘ The sun falls in love with Bianca.’ 1 Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, viii. 184. A poem in a similar style, xii. 130. The poem of Angilbert on the Court of Charles the Great curiously reminds us of the Renaissance. Comp. Pertz. Monum. ii. MODERN LATIN POETRY. 3 6 9 masters, unintentionally produce, by the ill-timed introduction of mythological elements, an impression that is indescribably ludicrous. Such, for instance, is the lament of Ercole Strozza 1 on Caesar Borgia. We there listen to the complaint of Rome, who had set all her hopes on the Spanish Popes Calixtus III. and Alexander VI., and who saw her promised deliverer in Caesar. His history is related down to the catastrophe of 1503. The poet then asks the Muse what were the counsels of the gods at that moment, 2 and Crato tells how, upon Olympus, Pallas took the part of the Spaniards, Venus of the Italians, how both then embrace the knees of Jupiter, how thereupon he kisses them, soothes them, and explains I X to them that he can do nothing against the fate woven by the Parcae, but that the divine promises will be fulfilled by the child of the House of Este-Borgia 3 After relating the fabulous origin of both families, he declares that he can confer immortality on Caesar as little as he could once, in spite of all entreaties, on Memnon or Achilles ; and concludes with the consol¬ ing assuranqe that Caesar, before his own death, will destroy many people in war. Mars then hastens to Naples to stir up war and confusion, while Pallas goes 1 Strozzi, Poetce , p. 31 sqq. ‘ Caesaris Borgiae ducis epicedium/ 2 1 Pontificem addiderat, flammis lustralibus omneis Corporis ablutum labes, Dis Juppiter ipsis/ etc. 3 This was Ercole II. of Ferrara, b. April 4, 1508, probably either shortly before or shortly after the composition of this poem. 1 Nascere, magne puer, matri expectate patrique/ is said near the end. VOL. I. B B 37° THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. to Nepi, and there appears to the dying Caesar under the form of Alexander VI. After giving him the £ood advice to submit to his fate and be satisfied with o the glory of his name, the papal goddess vanishes ‘ like a bird; Yet we should needlessly deprive ourselves of an enjoyment, which is sometimes very great, if we threw aside everything in which classical mythology plays a more or less appropriate part. Here, as in painting and sculpture, art has often ennobled what is in itself purely conventional. The beginnings of parody are also to be found by lovers of that class of literature (pp. 223 sqq.) e.g. in the Macaroneid—to which the comic Feast of the Gods, by Giovanni Bellini, forms an early parallel. Many, too, of the narrative poems in hexameters are merely exercises, or adaptations of histories in prose, which latter the reader will prefer, where he can find them. At last, everything—every quarrel and every ceremony—came to be put into verse, and this even by the German humanists of the Reformation. 1 And yet it would be unfair to attribute this to mere want of occupation, or to an excessive facility in stringing verses together. In Italy, at all events, it was rather due to an abundant sense of style, as is further proved by the mass of contemporary reports, histories, and even pamphlets, in the ‘ terza rima.’ Just 1 Comp, the collections of the Scriptores by Schardius, Freher, etc., and see above p. 175, note 2. MODERN LATIN POETRY. 37i as Niccolo da Uzzano published his scheme for'a new constitution, Macchiavelli his view of the history of his own time, a third, the life of Savonarola, and a fourth, the siege of Piombino by Alfonso the Great, 1 in this difficult metre, in order to produce a stronger effect, so did many others feel the need of hexameters; in order to win their special public. What was then tolerated and demanded, in this shape, is best shown by the didactic poetry of the time. Its popularity in the sixteenth century is something astounding. The most distinguished humanists were ready to celebrate in Latin hexameters the most commonplace, ridiculous, or disgusting themes, such as the making of gold, the game of chess, the management of silkworms, astrology, and venereal diseases (morbus gal liens), to say nothing of many long Italian poems of the same kind. Now¬ adays this class of poems is condemned unread, and how far, as a matter of fact, they are really worth the reading, we are unable to say. 2 One thing is certain, that epochs far above our own in the sense of beauty —the Renaissance and the Greco-Roman world— 1 Uzzano, see Archiv. iv. i. 296. Macchiavelli, i Decennali. The life of Savonarola, under the title Cedrus Libani , by Fra Benedetto. Assedio di Piombino , Murat, xxv. We may quote as a parallel the Tcucr- dank and other northern works in rhyme (new ed. of that by Haltaus, Ouedlinb. and Leipzig, 1836). The popular historical songs of the Ger¬ mans, which were produced in great abundance in the fifteenth and six¬ teenth centuries, may be compared with these Italian poems. 2 We may remark of the Coltivazione of L. Alamanni, written in Italian ‘ versi sciolti/ that all the really poetical and enjoyable passages are directly or indirectly borrowed from the ancients (an old ed., Paris, 1540; new ed. of the works of A., 2 vols., Florence, 1867). B B 2 37 2 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. could not dispense with this form of poetry. It may be urged in reply, that it is not the lack of a sense of beauty, but the greater seriousness and the altered method of scientific treatment which renders the poetical form inappropriate, on which point it is unnecessary to enter. One of these didactic works has of late years been occasionally republished 1 —the ‘ Zodiac of Life,’ by Marcellus Palingenius (Pier Angello Manzolli), a secret adherent of Protestantism at Ferrara, written about 1528. With the loftiest speculations on God, virtue, and immortality, the writer connects the dis¬ cussion of many questions of practical life, and is, on this account, an authority of some weight in the history of morals. On the whole, however, his work must be considered as lying outside the boundaries of the Renaissance, as is further indicated by the fact that, in harmony with the serious didactic purpose of the poem, allegory tends to supplant mythology. But it was in lyric, and more particularly in elegiac poetry, that the poet-scholar came nearest to antiquity ; and next to this, in epigram. In the lighter style, Catullus exercised a perfect fascination over the Italians. Not a few elegant Latin 1 E.g. by C. G. Weise, Leipzig, 1832. The work, divided into twelve books, named after the twelve constellations, is dedicated to Hercules II. of Ferrara. In the dedication occur the remarkable words : ‘Nam quern alium patronum in tota Italia invenire possum, cui musae cordi sunt, qui carmen sibi oblatum aut intelligat, aut examine recto expendere sciat ? ; Palingenius uses ‘ Juppiter ’ L and ‘ Deus ’ indiscriminately. MODERN LATIN POETRY. 373 madrigals, not a few little satires and malicious epistles, are mere adaptations from him ; and the death of parrots and lapdogs is bewailed, even where there is no verbal imitation, in precisely the tone and style of the verses on Lesbia’s Sparrow. There are short poems of this sort, the date of which even a critic would be unable to fix, 1 in the absence of positive evidence that they are works of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. On the other hand, we can find scarcely an ode in the Sapphic or Alcaic metre, which does not clearly betray its modern origin. This is shown mostly by a rhetorical verbosity, rare in antiquity before the time of Statius, and by a singular want of the lyrical concentration which is indispensable to this style of poetry. Single passages in an ode, sometimes two or three strophes together, may look like an ancient fragment; but a longer extract will seldom keep this character throughout. And where it does so, as, for instance, in the fine Ode to Venus, by Andrea Nava- gero, it is easy to detect a simple paraphrase of ancient masterpieces. 2 Some of the ode-writers take the saints for their subject, and invoke them in verses tastefully modelled after the pattern of analogous odes of Horace and Catullus. This is the manner of Navagero, in the Ode to the Archangel Gabriel, and particularly of Sannazaro (p. 365), who goes still 1 L. B. Alberti’s first comic poem, which purported to be by an author Lepidus, was long considered a work of antiquity. 2 In this case (see below, p. 375, note 1) of the introduction to Lucre¬ tius, and of Horace, Od. iv. i. 374 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. further in his appropriation of pagan sentiment. He celebrates above all his patron saint, 1 whose chapel was attached to his lovely villa on the shores of Posilippo, ‘ there where the waves of the sea drink up the stream from the rocks, and surge against the walls of the little sanctuary.’ His delight is in the annual feast of S. Nazzaro, and the branches and i garlands, with which the chapel is hung on this day, seem to him like sacrificial gifts. Full of sorrow, and far off in exile, at St. Nazaire, on the banks of the Loire, with the banished Frederick of Aragon, he brings wreaths of box and oak leaves to his patron saint on the same anniversary, thinking of former years, when all the youth of Posilippo used to come forth to greet him on dower-hung boats, and praying that he may return home. 2 Perhaps the most deceptive likeness to the classical style is borne by a class of poems in elegiacs or hexameters, whose subject ranges from elegy, strictly so-called, to epigram. As the humanists dealt most freely of all with the text of the Roman elegiac poets, so they felt themselves most at home in imitating them. The elegy of Navagero addressed to the night, like 1 The invocation of a patron saint is an essentially pagan under¬ taking, as has been noticed at p. 81. On a more serious occasion, comp. Sannozaro’s Elegy : ‘ In festo die divi Nazarii martyrisd Sann. Elcgicc , 1 535? fol. 166 sqcp Si satis ventos tolerasse et imbres Ac minas fatorum hominumque fraudes Da Pater tecto salientem avito Cernerc fumum ! MODERN LATIN POETRY. 375 other poems of the same age and kind, is full of points which remind us of his models ; but it has the finest antique ring about it. Indeed Navagero 1 always begins by choosing a truly poetical subject, which he then treats, not with servile imitation, but with masterly freedom, in the style of the Anthology, of Ovid, of Catullus, or of the Virgilian eclogues. He makes a sparing use of mythology, only, for instance, to intro¬ duce a sketch of country life, in a prayer to Ceres and other rural divinities. An address to his country, on his return from an embassy to Spain, though left unfinished, might have been worthy of a place beside the ‘Bella Italia, amate sponde’ of Vincenzo Monti, if the rest had been equal to this beginning : ‘ Salve, cura Deum, mundi felicior ora, Formosse Veneris dulces salvete recessus ; Ut vos post tantos animi mentisque labores Aspicio lustroque libens, ut munere vestro Sollicitas toto depello e pectore curas ! ’ 2 The elegiac or hexametral form was that in which all higher sentiment found expression, both the noblest patriotic enthusiasm (see p. 166, the elegy on Julius II.) and the most elaborate eulogies on the ruling houses, 3 1 And?'. Naugerii , Orationesduac ccirminaqiie aliquot , Venet. 1530, 4 0 . The few ‘ Carmina J are to be found partly or wholly in the Deliciae. On N. and his death, see Pier. Val. De inf. lit. ed. Menken, 326 sqq. 2 Compare Petrarch’s greeting to Italy, written more than a century earlier (1353) in Petr. Canni/m Minora , ed. Rossetti, ii. pp. 266 sqq. 3 To form a notion of what Leo X. could swallow, see the prayer of Guido Postumo Silvestri to Christ, the Virgin, and all the Saints, that they would long spare this ‘ numen ’ to earth, since heaven had enough of such already. Printed in Roscoe, Leone X. t ed. Bossi, v. 337. 3 76 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. as well as the tender melancholy of a Tibullus. Fran¬ cesco Mario Molza, who rivals Statius and Martial in his flattery of Clement VII. and the Farnesi, gives us in his elegy to his ‘ comrades,’ written from a sick-bed, thoughts on death as beautiful and genuinely antique as can be found in any of the poets of antiquity, and this without borrowing anything worth speaking of from them. 1 The spirit and range of the Roman elegy were best understood and reproduced by Sannazaro, and no other writer of his time offers us so varied a choice of good poems in this style as he. We shall have occasion now and then to speak of some of these elegies in reference to the matter they treat of. The Latin epigram finally became in those days an affair of serious importance, since a few clever lines, engraved on a monument or quoted with laughter in society, could lay the foundation of a scholar s celebrity. This tendency showed itself early in Italy. When it was known that Guido della Polenta wished to erect a mo¬ nument at Dante’s grave, epitaphs poured in from all directions, 2 ‘writtenby such as wished to show themselves , or to honour the dead poet, or to win the favour of Polenta.’ On the tomb of the Archbishop Giovanni Visconti (d. 1354), in the Cathedral at Milan, we read at the foot of 36 hexameters: Master Gabrius de Zamoreis of Parma, Doctor of Laws, wrote these verses.’ In 1 Molza’s Poesie volgari e Latine, ed. by Pierantonio Serassi, Ber¬ gamo, 1747. 2 Boccaccio, Vita di Dan'*, p. 36. MODERN LATIN POETRY. 377 course of time, chiefly under the influence of Martial, and partly of Catullus, an extensive literature of this sort was formed. It was held the greatest of all triumphs, when an epigram was mistaken for a genuine copy from some old marble, 1 or when it was so good that all Italy learned it by heart, as happened in the case of some of Bembo’s. When the Venetian govern¬ ment paid Sannazaro 600 ducats for a eulogy in three distichs, 2 no one thought it an act of generous prodi¬ gality. The epigram was prized for what it was, in truth, to all the educated classes of that age—the con¬ centrated essence of fame. Nor, on the other hand, was any man then so powerful as to be above the reach of a satirical epigram, and even the most powerful needed, for every inscription which they set before the public eye, the aid of careful and learned scholars, lest some blunder or other should qualify it for a place in the collections of ludicrous epitaphs. 3 The epigraph and the epigram were branches of the same pursuit; the reproduction of the former was based on a diligent study of ancient monuments. 1 Sannazaro ridicules a man who importuned him with such forgeries : ‘ Sint vetera hasc aliis, mi nova semper emiit.’ (Ad Rufum, Opera , 1535, fol. 41 a.) 2 ‘ De mirabili urbe Venetiis J (Opera, fol. 38 b ) : Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis Stare urbem et toto ponere jura mari : Nunc mihi Tarpejas quantum vis Juppiter arceis Objice et ilia tui moenia Martis ait, Si pelago Tybrim praefers, urbem aspice utramque 111am homines dices, hanc posuisse deos. 3 Lettere de ) principi , i. 88, 98. 37$ THE REVIVAL OE ANTIQUITY The city of epigrams and inscriptions was, above all others, Rome. In this state without hereditary honours, each man had to look after his own immortality, and at the same time found the epigram an effective weapon against his competitors. Pius II. counts with satis¬ faction the distichs which his chief poet Campanus wrote on any event of his government which could be turned to poetical account. Under the following popes satirical epigrams came into fashion, and reached, in the opposition to Alexander VI. and his family, the highest pitch of defiant invective. Sannazaro, it is true, wrote his verses in a place of comparative safety, but others in the immediate neighbourhood of the court ventured on the most reckless attacks (p. 156). On one occasion when eight threatening distichs were found fastened to the door of the library, 1 Alexander strengthened his guard by 800 men; we can imagine what he would have done to the poet if he had caught him. Under Leo X., Latin epigrams were like daily bread. For complimenting or for reviling the pope, for punishing enemies and victims, named or unnamed, for real or imaginary subjects of wit, malice, grief, or contem¬ plation, no form was held more suitable. On the famous group of the Virgin with Saint Anna and the Child, which Andrea Sansovino carved forS. Agostino, no less than 120 persons wrote Latin verses, not so 1 Malipiero, Ann. Veneti , Arch . S/or. vii. i. p. 508. At the end we read, in reference to the bull as the arms of the Borgia : 1 Merge, Tyber, vitulos animosas ultor in undas ; B os cadat inferno victima magna Jovi ! ’ MODERN LATIN POETRY. 379 much, it is true, from devotion, as from regard for the patron who ordered the work. 1 This man, Johann Goritz of Luxemburg, papal referendary of petitions, not only held a religious service on the feast of Saint Anna, but gave a great literary dinner in his garden on the slopes of the Capitol. It was then worth while to pass in review, in a long poem ‘ De poetis urbanis,’ the whole crowd of singers who sought their fortune at the court of Leo. This was done by Franciscus Arsillus 2 * * — a man who needed the patronage neither of pope nor prince, and who dared to speak his mind, even against his colleagues. The epigram survived the pontificate of Paul III. only in a few rare echos, while the epigraph continued to flourish till the seventeenth century, when it perished finally of bombast. 1 On the whole affair, see Roscoe, Leone X., ed. Bossi, vii. 211, viii. 214 sqq. The printed collection, now rare, of these Coyyciana of the year 1524 contains only the Latin poems ; Vasari saw another book in the possession of the Augustinians in which were sonnets. So contagious was the habit of affixing poems, that the group had to be protected by a railing, and even hidden altogether. The change of Goritz into ‘ Corycius senex 5 is suggested by Virgil, Georg, iv. 127. For the miserable end of the man at the sack of Rome, see Pierio Valeriano, De infelic. literate ed. Menken, p. 369. 2 The work appeared first in the Coryciana , with introductions by Silvanus and Corycius himself; also reprinted in the Appendices to Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, and in the Deliciae. Comp. Paul. Jov., Elogia, speaking of Arsillus. Further, for the great number of the epigrammatists, see Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, 1 . c. One of the most biting pens was Marcan- tonio Casanova. Among the less known,'Jo. Thomas Muscanius (see Deliciae ) deserves mention. On Casanova, see Pier. Valer. De inf el. lit ed. Menken, p. 376 sqq. ; and Paul. Jov. Elogia , p. 142 sqq., who says of him : ‘ Nemo autem eo simplicitate ac innocentia vitae melior Arsillus ( 1 . c.) speaks of his ‘placidos sales. 5 Some few of his poems in the Coryciana , J. 3 a sqq. L. t a L. 4 b. 380 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY In Venice, also, this form of poetry had a history of its own, which we are able to trace with the help of the ‘Venezia’ of Francesco Sansovino. A standing task for the epigram-writers was offered by the mottos (Brievi) on the pictures of the Doges in the great hall of the ducal palace—two or four hexameters, setting forth the most noteworthy facts in the government of each. 1 In addition to this, the tombs of the Doges in the fourteenth century bore short inscriptions in prose, recording merely facts, and beside them turgid hexa¬ meters or leonine verses. In the fifteenth century more care was taken with the style ; in the sixteenth century it is seen at its best; and then soon after came pointless antithesis, prosopopsea, false pathos, praise of abstract qualities—in a word, affectation and bombast. A good many traces of satire can be detected, and veiled criticism of the living is implied in open praise of the dead. At a much later period we find a few instances of a deliberate recurrence to the old, simple style. Architectural works and decorative works in general were constructed with a view to receiving inscriptions, often in frequent repetition; while the Northern Gothic seldom, and with difficulty, offered a suitable place for them, and in sepulchral monuments, for example, left free only the most exposed parts—namely the edges. 1 Marin Sanudo, in the Vite de’ duchi di Venezia , Murat, xii., quotes them regularly. MODERN LATIN POETRY. 381 By what has been said hitherto we have, perhaps, failed to convince the reader of the characteristic value of this Latin poetry of the Italians. Our task was rather to indicate its position and necessity in the history of civilisation. In its own day, a caricature of it appeared 1 —the so-called maccaronic poetry. The masterpiece of this style, the ‘ opus maccaronicorum,’ was written by Merlinus Coccaius (Teohlo Folengo of Mantua). We shall now and then have occasion to refer to the matter of this poem. As to the form— hexameter and other verses, made up of Latin words and Italian words with Latin endings—its comic effect lies chiefly in the fact that these combinations sound like so many slips of the tongue, or the effusions of an over-hasty Latin ‘ improvisatore.’ The German imitations do not give the smallest notion of this effect. 1 Scardeonius, De urb. Patav. a?itiq. (Graev. thes. vi. 11, col. 270), names as the inventor a certain Odaxius of Padua, living about the middle of the fifteenth century. Mixed verses of Latin and the language of the country are found much earlier in many parts of Europe. CHAPTER XI. FALL OF THE HUMANISTS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. After a brilliant succession of poet-scholars had, since the beginning of the fourteenth century, filled Italy and the world with the worship of antiquity, had de¬ termined the forms of education and culture, had often taken the lead in political affairs, and had, to no small extent, reproduced ancient literature—at length in the sixteenth century, before their doctrines and scholar¬ ship had lost hold of the public mind, the whole class fell into deep and general disgrace. Though they still served as models to the poets, historians, and orators, personally no one would consent to be reckoned of their number. To the two chief accusations against them—that of malicious self-conceit, and that of abominable profligacy—a third charge of irreligion was now loudly added by the rising powers of the Counter-reformation. Why, it may be asked, were not these reproaches, whether true or false, heard sooner ? As a matter of fact, they were heard at a very early period, but the effect they produced was insignificant, for the plain reason that men were far too dependent on the FALL OF THE HUM A NLS TS. 3S3 scholars for their knowledge of antiquity—that the scholars were personally the possessors and diffusers of ancient culture. But the spread of printed editions of the classics , 1 and of large and well-arranged hand¬ books and dictionaries, went far to free the people from the necessity of personal intercourse with the humanists, and, as soon' as they could be but partly dispensed with, the change in popular feeling became manifest. It was a change under which the good and the bad suffered indiscriminately. The first to make these charges were certainly the humanists themselves. Of all men who ever formed a class, they had the least sense of their common interests, and least respected what there was of this sense. All means were held lawful, if one of them saw a chance of supplanting another. From literary discussion they passed with astonishing suddenness to the fiercest and the most groundless vituperation. Not satisfied with refuting, they sought to annihilate an opponent. Something of this must be put to the account of their position and circumstances ; we have seen how fiercely the age, whose loudest spokesmen they were, was borne to and fro by the passion for glory and the passion for satire. Their position, too, in practical life was one that they had continually to fight for. In such a temper they wrote and spoke and described one another. Poggio s works alone contain 1 It must not be forgotten that they were very soon printed with both the old Scholia and modern commentaries. 3*4 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. dirt enough to create a prejudice against the whole class—and these ‘ Opera Poggii ’ were just those most often printed, on the north, as well as on the south, side of the Alps. We must take care not to rejoice too soon, when we meet among these men a figure which seems immaculate ; on further enquiry there is always a danger of meeting with some foul charge, which, even when it is incredible, still discolours the picture. The mass of indecent Latin poems in circulation, and such things as the ribaldry on the subject of his own family, in Pontano’s dialogue, ‘ Antonius,’ did the rest to discredit the class. The sixteenth century was not only familiar with all these ugly symptoms, but had also grown tired of the type of the humanist. These men had to pay both for the misdeeds they had done, and for the excess of honour which had hitherto fallen to their lot. Their evil fate willed it that the greatest poet of the nation wrote of them in a tone of calm and sovereign contempt . 1 Of the reproaches which combined to excite so much hatred, many were only too well founded. Yet a clear and unmistakable tendency to strictness in matters of religion and morality was alive in many of the philologists, and it is a proof of small knowledge of the period, if the whole class is condemned. Yet many, and among them the loudest speakers, were guilty. Three facts explain, and perhaps diminish their 1 Ariosto, Satira, vii. Date 1531. FALL OF TLLE HUMANISTS. 3§5 guilt: the overflowing excess of favour and fortune, when the luck was on their side ; the uncertainty of the future, in which luxury or misery depended on the caprice of a patron or the malice of an enemy; and finally, the misleading influence of antiquity. This undermined their morality, without giving them its own instead ; and in religious matters, since they could never think of accepting the positive belief in the old gods, it affected them only on the negative and sceptical side. Just because they conceived of antiquity dog¬ matically—that is, took it as the model for all thought and action—its influence was here pernicious. But that an age existed, which idolised the ancient world and its products with an exclusive devotion, was not the. fault of individuals. It was the work of a historical providence, and all the culture of the ages which have followed, and of the ages to come, rests upon the fact that it was so, and that all the ends of life but this one were then deliberately put aside. The career of the humanists was, as a rule, of such a kind that only the strongest characters could pass through it unscathed. The first danger came, in some cases, from the parents, who sought to turn a precocious child into a miracle of learning , 1 with an eye to his 1 Of such children we meet with several, yet I cannot give an instance in which they were demonstrably so treated. The youthful prodigy Guilio Campagnola was not one of those who were forced with an ambitious object. Comp. Scardeonius, De urb . Patav. antiq ., in Graev. thes. vi. 3, col. 276. For the similar case of Cecchino Bracci, d. 1445 in his fifteenth year, comp. Trucchi, Poesie Ital. inedite , iii. p. 229. The father of Cardano tried ‘ memoriam artificialem instillare/ and taught him, C C VOL. I. 3 86 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. future position in that class which then was supreme. Youthful prodigies, however, seldom rise above a certain level; or, if they do, are forced to achieve their further progress and development at the cost of the bitterest trials. For an ambitious youth, the fame and the brilliant position of the humanists were a perilous temptation ; it seemed to him that he too ‘ through inborn pride could no longer regard the low and common things of life.' He was thus led to plunge into a life of excitement and vicissitude, in which ex¬ hausting studies, tutorships, secretaryships, professor¬ ships, offices in princely households, mortal enmities and perils, luxury and beggary, boundless admiration and boundless contempt, followed confusedly one upon the other, and in which the most solid worth and learning were often pushed aside by superficial impu¬ dence. But the worst of all was, that the position of the humanist was almost incompatible with a fixed home, since it either made frequent changes of dwelling necessary for a livelihood, or so affected the mind of the individual that he could never be happy for long in one place. He grew tired of the people, and had no peace among the enmities which he excited, while the people themselves in their turn demanded something new (p. 294). Much as this life reminds 11s of the when still a child, the astrology of the Arabians. See Cardanus, De ftropria vita , cap. 34. Manoello may be added to the list, unless we are to take his expression, c At the age of six years I am as good as at eighty,’ as a meaningless phrase. Comp. Litbl des Orients } 1843, p. 21. FALL OF TILE HUMANISTS, 3 s 7 Greek sophists of the Empire, as described to us by Philostratus, yet the position of the sophists was more favourable. They often had money, or could more easily do without it than the humanists, and as pro¬ fessional teachers of rhetoric, rather than men of learning, their life was freer and simpler. But the scholar of the Renaissance was forced to combine great learning with the power of resisting the influence of ever-changing pursuits and situations. Add to this the deadening effect of licentious excess, and—since do what he might, the worst was believed of him—a total indifference to the moral laws recognised by others. Such men can hardly be conceived to exist without an inordinate pride. They needed it, if only to keep their heads above water, and were confirmed in it by the admiration which alternated with hatred in the treat¬ ment they received from the world. They are the most striking examples and victims of an unbridled subjectivity. The attacks and the satirical pictures began, as we have said, at an early period. For all strongly marked individuality, for every kind of distinction, a corrective was at hand in the national taste for ridicule. And in this case the men themselves offered abundant and terrible materials which satire had but to make use of. In the fifteenth century, Battista Mantovano, in dis¬ coursing of the seven monsters, 1 includes the humanists, 1 Bapt. Mantuan., De calamitatibus tempomm, 1 . i. 3 88 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. with many others, under the head ‘ Superbia.’ He describes how, fancying themselves children of Apollo, they walk along with affected solemnity and with sullen, malicious looks, now gazing at their own shadow, now brooding over the popular praise they hunted after, like cranes in search of food. But in the six- teenth century the indictment was presented in full. Besides Ariosto, their own historian Gyraldus 1 gives evidence of this, whose treatise, written under Leo X., was probably revised about the year 1540. Warning examples from ancient and modern times of the moral disorder and the wretched existence of the scholars meet us in astonishing abundance, and along with these accusations of the most serious nature are brought formally against them. Among these are anger, vanity, obstinacy, self-adoration, a dissolute private life, immo¬ rality of all descriptions, heresy, atheism ; further, the habit of speaking without conviction, a sinister influence on government, pedantry of speech, thanklessness to¬ wards teachers, and abject flattery of the great, who first give the scholar a taste of their favours and then leave him to starve. The description is closed by a reference to the golden age, when no such thing as science existed on the earth. Of these charges, that of heresy soon became the most dangerous, and Gyraldus himself, when he afterwards republished a perfectly harmless 5 Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, Progymnasma advcrsus literas et literatos. Opp. ed. Basil., 1580, ii. 422-445. Dedications 1540-1541 ; the work itself addressed to Giov. Franc. Pico, and therefore finished before 1533 - FALL OF THE HUMANISTS. 3S9 youthful work, 1 was compelled to take refuge beneath the mantle of Duke Hercules II. of Ferrara, 2 since men now had the upper hand who held that people had better spend their time on Christian themes than on mythological researches. He justifies himself on the ground that the latter, on the contrary, were at such a time almost the only harmless branches of study, as they deal with subjects of a perfectly neutral character. But if it is the duty of the historian to seek for evidence in which moral judgment is tempered by human sympathy, he will find no authority comparable in value to the work so often quoted of Pierio Vale- riano, 3 ‘ On the Infelicity of the Scholar.’ It was written under the gloomy impressions left by the sack of Rome, which seems to the writer, not only the direct cause of untold misery to the men of learning, but, as it were, the fulfilment of an evil destiny which had long pursued them. Pierio is here led by a simple and, on the whole, just feeling. He does not introduce a special power, which plagued the men of genius on account of their genius, but he states facts, in which an unlucky chance often wears the aspect of fatality. Not wishing to write a tragedy or to 1 Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, Hercules. The dedication is a striking evidence of the first threatening movements of the Inquisition. 2 He passed, as we have seen, for the last protector of the scholars. 3 De infelicitate literatorum. On the editions, see above, p. 121, note 2. Pier. Val., after leaving Rome, lived long in a good position as professor at Padua. At the end of his work he expresses the hope that Charles V. and Clement VII. would bring about a better time for the scholars. 39° THE REVIVAL OE ANTIQUITY. refer events to the conflict of higher powers, he is content to lay before us the scenes of every-day life. We are introduced to men, who in times of trouble lose, first their incomes, and then their places ; to others, who in trying to get two appointments, miss both ; to unsociable misers, who carry about their money sewn into their clothes, and die mad when they are robbed of it; to others, who accept well- paid offices, and then sicken with a melancholy longing for their lost freedom. We read how some died young of a plague or fever, and how the writings which had cost them so much toil were burnt with their bed and clothes; how others lived in terror of the murderous threats of their colleagues ; how one was slain by a covetous servant, and another caught by highwaymen on a journey, and left to pine in a dungeon, because unable to pay his ransom. Many died of unspoken grief for the insults they received and the prizes of which they were defrauded. We are told of the death of a Venetian, because his son, a youthful prodigy, was dead; and the mother and brothers followed, as if the lost child drew them all after him. Many, especially Florentines, ended their lives by suicide; 1 others through the secret justice of a tyrant. Who, after all, is happy ?—and by what means ? By blunting all feeling for such misery ? One of the speakers in the dialogue in which Pierio clothed his 1 Comp. Dante, Inferno , xiii. 58 sqq., especially 93 sqq., where Petrus dc Vineis speaks of his own suicide. FALL OF THE HUM A NLS TS. 39 1 argument, can give an answer to these questions— the illustrious Gasparo Contarini, at the mention of whose name we turn with the expectation to hear at least something of the truest and deepest which • was then thought on such matters. As a type of the happy scholar, he mentions Fra Urbano Vale- riano of Belluno, 1 who was for years teacher of Greek at Venice, who visited Greece and the East, and towards the close of his life travelled, now through this country, now through that, without ever mounting a horse; who never had a penny of his own, rejected all honours and distinctions, and after a gay old age, died in his eighty-fourth year, without, if we except a fall from a ladder, having ever known an hour of sickness. And what was the difference between such a man and the humanists ? The latter had more free will, more subjectivity, than they could turn to purposes of happiness. The mendicant friar, who had lived from his boyhood in the monastery, and never eaten or slept except by rule, ceased to feel the compulsion under which he lived. Through the power of this habit he led, amid all outward hardships, a life of inward peace, by which he impressed his hearers far more than by his teaching. Looking at him, they could believe that it depends on ourselves whether we bear up against misfortune or surrender to it. ‘ Amid want and toil he was happy, because he willed to be so, because he had contracted no evil 1 Pier. Valer. pp. 397 sqq., 402. Me was the uncle of the writer. 39 2 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. habits, was not capricious, inconstant, immoderate; but was always contented with little or nothing.’ If we heard Contarini himself, religious motives would no doubt play a part in the argument—but the prac¬ tical philosopher in sandals speaks plainly enough. An allied character, but placed in other circumstances, is that of Fabio Calvi of Ravenna, the commentator of Hippocrates. 1 He lived to a great age in Rome, eating only pulse Hike the Pythagoreans,’ and dwelt in a hovel little better than the tub of Diogenes. Of the pension, which Pope Leo gave him, he spent enough to keep body and soul together, and gave the rest away. He was not a healthy man, like Fra Urbano, nor is it likely that, like him, he died with a smile on his lips. At the age of ninety, in the sack of Rome, he was dragged away by the Spaniards, who hoped for a ransom, and died of hunger in a hospital. But his name has passed into the kingdom of the immortals, for Raphael loved the old man like a father, and honoured him as a teacher, and came to him for advice in all things. Perhaps they discoursed chiefly of the projected restoration of ancient Rome (p. 257), perhaps of still higher matters. Who can tell what a share Fabio may have had in the conception of the School of Athens, and in other great works of the master ? 1 Caclii Calcagnini, Opera, ed. Basil., 1544, p. 101, in the Seventh Book of the Epistles, No. 27, letter to Jacob Ziegler. Comp. Pierio Val. De inf lit., ed. Menken, p. 369 sqq. FALL OF THE HUM A NLS TS. 393 We would gladly close this part of our essay with the picture of some pleasing and winning character. Pomponius Laetus, of whom we shall briefly speak, is known to us principally through the letter of his pupil Sabellicus, 1 in which an antique colouring is purposely given to his character. Yet many of its features are clearly recognisable. He was (p; 352) a bastard of the House of the Neapolitan Sanseverini, princes of Salerno, whom he nevertheless refused to recognise, , 4 writing, in reply to an invitation to live with them, the famous letter: ‘ Pomponius Laetus cognatis et pro- pinquis suis, salutem. Quod petitis fieri non potest. Valete.’ An insignificant little figure, with small, quick eyes, and quaint dress, he lived during the last decades of the fifteenth century, as professor in the University of Rome, either in his cottage in a garden on the Esquiline hill, or in his vineyard on the Ouirinal. In the one he bred his ducks and fowls : the other he cultivated according to the strictest precepts of Cato, Varro, and Columella. He spent his holidays in fishing or bird-catching in the Campagna, or in feasting by some shady spring or on the banks of the Tiber. Wealth and luxury he despised. Free himself from envy and uncharitable speech, he would not suffer them in others. It was only against the 1 M. Ant. Sabellici Opera , Epist. 1 . xi. fol. 56. See, too, the biography in the Elogia of Paolo Giovio, p. 76 sqq. The former appeared sepa¬ rately at Strasburg in 1510, under the title Sabellicus: Vita Pomponii Lacti. 394 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. hierarchy that he gave his tongue free play, and passed, till his latter years, for a scorner of religion altogether. He was involved in the persecution of the humanists begun by Pope Paul II., and sur¬ rendered to this pontiff by the Venetians ; but no means could be found to wring unworthy confessions from him. He was afterwards befriended and sup¬ ported by popes and prelates, and when his house was plundered in the disturbances under Sixtus IV., more was collected for him than he had lost. No teacher was more conscientious. Before daybreak he was to be seen descending the Esquiline with his lantern, and on reaching his lecture-room found it always filled to overflowing with pupils who had come at midnight to secure a place. A stutter compelled him to speak with care, but his delivery was even and effective. His few works give evidence of careful writing. No scholar treated the text of ancient authors more soberly and accurately. The remains of antiquity which surrounded him in Rome touched him so deeply, that he would stand before them as if entranced, or would suddenly burst into tears at the sight of them. As he was ready to lay aside his own studies in order to help others, he was much loved and had many friends; and at his death, even Alexander VI. sent his courtiers to follow the corpse, which was carried by the most distinguished of his pupils. The funeral service in the Araceli was FALL OF THE HUMANISTS.. 3 95 attended by forty bishops and by all the foreign am¬ bassadors. It was Lsetus who introduced and conducted the representations of ancient, chiefly Plautine, plays in Rome (p. 359). Every year, he celebrated the anni¬ versary of the foundation of the city by a festival, at which his friends and pupils recited speeches and poems. Such meetings were the origin of what acquired, and long retained, the name of the Roman Academy. It was simply a free union of individuals, and was connected with no fixed institution. Besides the occasions mentioned, it met 1 at the invitation of a patron, or to celebrate the memory of a deceased member, as of Platina. At such times, a prelate belonging to the academy would first say mass ; Pomponio would then ascend the pulpit and deliver a speech ; some one else would then follow him and recite an elegy. The customary banquet, with declamations and recitations, concluded the festival, whether joyous or serious, and the academicians, notably Platina himself, early acquired the reputation of epicures. 2 At other times, the guests performed farces in the old Atellan style. As a free association of very varied elements, the academy lasted in its original form down to the sack of Rome, and included among its guests Angelus Coloccius, Joh. Corycius 1 Jac. Volaterran, Diar. Rom. in Muratori xxiii. col. 161, 171, 185. Anecdota literarici, ii. pp. 168 sqq. 2 Paul. Jov. De Romanis piscibus , cap. 17 and 34. 39 6 THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY. (p. 379) and others. Its precise value as an element in the intellectual life of the people is as hard to estimate as that of any other social union of the same kind; yet a man like Sadoleto 1 reckoned it among the most precious memories of his youth. A large number of other academies appeared and passed away in many Italian cities, according to the number and significance of the humanists living in them, and to the patronage bestowed by the great and wealthy. Of these we may mention the Academy of Naples, of which Jovianus Pontanus was the centre, and which sent out a colony to Lecce, 2 and that of Pordenone, which formed the court of the Condottiere Alviano. The circle of Ludovico Moro, and its peculiar im¬ portance for that prince, has been already spoken of (p. 59). About the middle of the sixteenth century, these associations seem to have undergone a complete change. The humanists, driven in other spheres from their commanding position, and viewed askance by the men of the Counter-reformation, lost the control of the academies ; and here, as elsewhere, Latin poetry was replaced by Italian. Before long every town of the least importance had its academy, with some strange, fantastic name, 3 and its own endowment 1 Sadoleti, Epist. 106, of the year 1529. 2 Anton. Galatei Epist. io and 12, in Mai, Spicileg. Rom. vol. viii. 3 This was the case even before the middle of the century. Comp. Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, Dc poctis nostri temp ii. FALL OF THE HUMANISTS . 397 and subscriptions. Besides the recitation of verses, the new institutions inherited from their predecessors the regular banquets and the representation of plays, sometimes acted by the members themselves, some¬ times under their direction by young amateurs, and sometimes by paid players. The fate of the Italian stage, and afterwards of the opera, was long in the hands of these associations. 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