CHAPTER III.THE COUNCIL OF UNION AND PLATONISM. COSIMO DE’ MEDICI’S LATER YEARS.Learnedstudies were at their height in Florence when Pope Eugenius IV. arrived on June 23, 1434, and soon afterwards saw his court assembled around him. It was, as we have said, the time when Rinaldo degli Albizzi felt the ground unsafe beneath his feet, when he hoped to secure power to himself by proceeding against Cosimo de’ Medici, and had been urged to the violent attempt which ended in his own ruin. Except in the removal of Francesco Filelfo, the peaceful but decisive revolution seems to have exercised no influence on literary affairs. The presence of the Papal court was of service to studies of science and those who fostered them: their long residence in the city, which was then the centre of all scientific and literary effort, had, too, a powerful and decided influence on the course pursued by that court under Eugenius’ successor. This successor, Tommaso of Sarzana, was the former tutor of the sons of Rinaldo degli Albizzi and Palla Strozzi and, as secretary to Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, the excellent bishop of Bologna, revisited the city in which he had once resided in comparative poverty. The two men who had been most intimate with him were forced into an exile which only terminated in death. Tommaso, however, who showed himself grateful to their descendants in the days of his greatness, found friendly reception and patronage from Cosimo de’ Medici; and till the death of Nicholas V. thisfriendship continued to be a great assistance to them and to science generally. Vespasiano da Bisticci, who has left us an attractive picture of the good and learned Pope, describes how Tommaso, after he had accompanied his cardinal to the palace, met in the corner of the square the men who represented learning in Florence at that time, namely, Leonardo, and Carlo of Arezzo, Gianozzo Manetti, Giovanni Aurispa, Gasparo of Bologna, and Poggio Bracciolini. The latter, after much danger from Piccinino’s mercenaries, into whose hands he fell in his flight to Rome, had been liberated for a heavy ransom and had followed Pope Eugenius.[364]Here they conversed on learned subjects morning and evening in the open air, with the simplicity which characterised the manners of the time. Carlo Marsuppini, freed from a troublesome rival by Filelfo’s removal, was the most celebrated teacher. Cardinals and prelates might be seen among his listeners.We now approach an occurrence, the result of which was rather a great stir than any practical effect in the history of the Church. The Council of Florence exercised great influence on the progress of learning at a time when the impetus had been already given in a certain direction. But a small number of the Greek fathers who came to Italy were able to participate in scientific research, and the majority of them were surpassed by the Florentines; yet the presence of so many Greeks did exercise a decided influence on the connection between Eastern and Western Europe, especially as the final destruction of the eastern empire happened scarcely more than a decade later. Many Greeks who sought a new home after the conquest of Constantinople had the way shown to them by the council, although the Rome of Nicholas V. had already begun to rival Florence. Among the Greek fathers, Cardinal Bessarion, who promoted the interests of learning to the end of his life, was perhaps the only man of scientific importance for the West. Among the assistants and interpreters,many may be named who made themselves famous in the history of the revival of classical literature in Italy. In the foremost of these rank Georgios Gemistos, surnamed Plethon, Nicolas Secundinus of Eubœa, and Theodore Gaza of Thessalonica.Georgios Gemistos,[365]a native of the Morea, had been tutor to Chrysoloras, whom he survived many years, attaining to a great age. He had also instructed Bessarion. Plato’s writings and doctrines formed his chief study. His zealous research into and dissemination of them, and his labours for the construction of a new philosophical system with their aid, was so great that he gave lectures everywhere on his favourite author. He did so in Florence, where Cosimo de’ Medici mingled among his hearers, and soon gained an interest in doctrines the intellectual meaning of which made a deep impression on one who, like him, inclined to peaceful meditation, seems to have found as little to satisfy him in the lectures of the theologians of the time as in the disputations of the philosophers, which commonly degenerated into dialectic subtleties. As Cosimo did not understand Greek, Gemistos must have employed the Latin language. It was his lectures which awoke in Cosimo the idea of reviving the study of Platonic philosophy in his native country. This is shown by the words of the man whom he chose to carry his intention into execution. ‘The great Cosimo,’ says Marsilio Ficino, in the translation of the works of Plotinus, dedicated to the grandson of his first patron not long before his death, ‘at the time when the council of Greeks and Latins summoned by Pope Eugenius IV. was sitting at Florence, frequently heard the lectures of the Greek philosopher called Plethon, who disputed on Platonic mysteries like another Plato. The lively style of this man inspired him with such enthusiasm, that there arose immediately in his lofty mind the thought of forming an academy as soon as a favourablemoment should be found.’ The history of the origin of the Platonic Academy presents two peculiar phenomena: first, that a man who had already passed middle life should be so strongly attracted by an author whose acquaintance he had made through the medium of a foreign language; secondly, that he selected as his chief companion and special instrument in carrying out his intentions a boy who, at the time when the project was thought of, scarcely numbered seven years.Marsilio Ficino[366]was born in October, 1433, the turning-point in the fortunes of the Medici, at Figline, a not insignificant place in the upper valley of the Arno. His father was a skilful surgeon, who removed to Florence, where the Medici among others employed him. The son, educated at the university, seems to have entered the Medicean house at the age of eighteen or nineteen years. He says himself that he had two fathers, Ficino and Cosimo de’ Medici. He owed his birth to the one, and his second birth to the other; the first had dedicated him to Galen, the second to the divine Plato. Both were physicians, one for the body and the other for the soul. The youth did not deceive Cosimo’s expectations. Of a delicate constitution, he united a keen feeling for poetry and music with a profound and delicate faculty for investigating natural phenomena and the doctrines of ancient wisdom. He began the study of Platonic doctrines before he understood Greek, but even without the counsel of Cosimo and his friend Landino, his senior by nine years, he would hardly have satisfied himself with knowledge derived from later Roman authors, as not only the prevalenttendency of the time, but his own intellectual bent must have urged him to seek the fountain head. When Marsilio began his Greek studies, namely in 1456, John Argyropulos, who about the middle of the century did as much for a knowledge of language and literature as Chrysoloras at the beginning, must have already begun his lectures at the university, and these were probably of assistance to Marsilio. During his exile at Padua, Palla Strozzi had attracted him, and Cosimo de’ Medici afterwards gained him for Florence, where for fifteen years he taught, besides Greek literature, Aristotelian philosophy, and in 1464 was presented with the rights of citizenship. The favour shown by Cosimo to the Peripatetic Argyropulos was continued to his sons and grandsons, and we shall find this useful man busy in later years, while at the time now under consideration many who made themselves an honourable name were among his disciples; as, for instance, Donato Acciaiuoli, Pandolfo Pandolfini, and finally Poliziano, and Lorenzo de’ Medici.Marsilio was thirty years old when, at Cosimo’s wish, he undertook the translation of the Hermetic writings, and Plato’s works. That the former, a production of scientific mysticism and sentimentality of the new Platonic school at Alexandria, excited so strongly the interest of a new school, which aimed at and laid claim to the revival of Platonic tradition, shows clearly what danger this school was in of amalgamating true Platonism with its Alexandrian outgrowths, and of falling, like the new Platonists, into the fundamental error of confounding true doctrine with arbitrary forms. But the circumstance that Argyropulos translated writings of Aristotle for Cosimo at the same time indicates, in a manner most honourable to the latter, how anxious he was to form an independent opinion for himself by comparison of the doctrines of the two great philosophers in whose systems all ancient and even the germs of modern thought were preserved for later times. This was an aspiration which certainly deserves recognition, however imperfectthe results may have been compared with the means employed. Cosimo’s kindness towards Marsilio Ficino remained unchanged to the end. He presented him with a house in the neighbourhood of Sta. Maria Nuova, and a country residence at Careggi, where the little farm of Montevecchio still reminds us of the friendly and pious man. When in the summer of 1464 Cosimo retired seriously ill to Careggi, he invited Marsilio thither.[367]It was in listening to the books on the One Origin of Things and the Highest Good that the last days of the sick man were spent. The epoch of the perfect development and most important labours of Marsilio Ficino belongs, however, to the times of Cosimo’s grandson.The most fruitful labours of a man no less intimately connected with the Medicean house belong to the same time. In the village of Borgo alla Collina, right in the heart of the Casentino, not far from Poppi, on the right bank of the Arno, are still to be seen the mortal remains, dried to a mummy, of Cristoforo Landino,[368]who, descended from a family of the neighbouring Pratovecchio, was born at Florence in 1424.[369]A papal secretary, Angelo of Todi, facilitated by a legacy the youth’s studies, first in Volterra and then in Florence, where he was soon recommended to Cosimo. He has gratefully acknowledged what he owed to his patron in verse and prose,[370]and, as with others, the affection of the head of the house was transmitted to sons and grandsons. Among learned men Carlo Marsuppini seems to have exercised especial influence on him; Landino himself assisted in determining the bent of Marsilio Ficino’s studies. He soon formed friendships with all who devoted themselves to science—with the excellent Jacopo Ammannato, who rosefrom poverty and distress to the ecclesiastical purple, and, as an affluent man, preserved an affectionate feeling for the city in which he had gained a scanty living as teacher. Cristoforo also became acquainted with literary men, and such as associated themselves with them, as Antonio and Bernardo Canigiani, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Roberto Salviati, &c. In 1457, the three-and-thirtieth year of his life, the chair of rhetoric and poetry at the university was confided to him, and a career began for him in which we shall meet him again an aged man. If he had had no other pupils than Lorenzo de’ Medici and Angelo Poliziano, they would have sufficed to prove the superiority of his teaching.While the Council of Union contributed directly to promote Greek studies and the adoption of Greek philosophy, it had no influence in the province of native theological literature. He who made himself the greatest name as a theological writer, and took an active part in the ecclesiastical councils, was entirely outside the literary circle. The character of Antonio Pierozzi, who is venerated by the Florentines of the present day as Saint Antoninus, and was the model of a pious and active pastor, shone alike in his writings and his life—godfearing, zealous, learned, untiring, simple and modest withal, and void of all pomp and studied form. Born in 1389, he entered priestly orders when about sixteen years old, and the cell in St. Mark’s convent which he inhabited, and which preserves many memorials of him, is still shown. His youth coincided with the first active movements of the learned class styled humanists, but it did not concern him. His studies were strictly theological; but as he never withdrew from public life when the commissions given him did not clash with his pastoral duties, so he included in his labours the field of history, which often afforded him guidance in the science of his calling. His ‘Summa Theologiæ,’ first printed entire eighteen years after his death, and republished in the last century, is considered in his native country as the first text-book of moral theology.His letters, chiefly addressed to a pious lady of high rank, Madonna Diodata degli Adimari, are moral and theological treatises, full of apostolic zeal and love, with correct and clear judgment, that knew how to combine active and contemplative life; and though he advises his reader to occupy herself rather with edifying literature than with the heroic deeds of the Paladins, he by no means neglects the affairs of this world.[371]His chronicle, reaching down to the year of his death, 1459, makes no pretensions to artistic form, and the humanistic historiographers would have certainly looked with some scorn on the work, which appeared in 1474, if they had noticed it at all. Entire portions of this work are taken from others, a proceeding which we meet with in the nineteenth century, and which was less scrupled at in the times of the pious archbishop than later, as such works were often only intended for the most intimate circle of friends, or for a single convent. Nevertheless, the chronicle had a value of its own for the fifteenth century, so that the number of editions which it passed through is explained. His biography relates how Saint Antoninus himself practised in his life what he taught and advised in his writings, how he influenced the moral and religious conduct of the Florentines, and put down disorders, which had become prevalent under prelates like Vitelleschi, Scarampi, and Zabarella, archbishops only in name or for a short time. His example had an encouraging and elevating effect on Orlando Bonarli, his immediate successor. ‘As much as lay in him,’ says Vespasiano,[372]‘he attempted to emulate the pattern afforded him by his predecessor. Although some in the city endured him against their will, for every one tries to escape as much as he can from the effects of the laws, he neverallowed himself to falter in the fulfilment of his duty, and knew no respect of persons where it was a question of reason and justice. He thus left his diocese in a praiseworthy state. Would to God that this had lasted so!’Cosimo de’ Medici’s position, his warm sympathy for intellectual effort, his liberality towards men of letters, explain the number of addresses and petitions that reached him from all sides at a time when patronage was at its height. No treatise or dialogue could be written, no ode or elegy composed, no book translated from a classical author without a dedication to him—a practice connected with the epistolography of the fourteenth century, which arose less from the requirements of personal intercourse than from its adaptation to learned purposes, besides being an imitation of classical models which scholars thought to excel by remodelling letters into treatises. Letters always remained in fashion from the days of Petrarch; and though a good portion of the literary and even political history of the time is found in printed collections of letters, which might be indefinitely increased, in most of these epistolaries there is much mere wordiness. In the matter of dedications even men of high standing were not unfrequently influenced by pecuniary considerations. Many made an actual business of it. Of course this circumstance did not exclude friendly relations. When Poggio on his marriage in 1435, at the age of fifty-five, with Vaggia Buondelmonti, then only eighteen years old, dedicated to Cosimo the dialogue ‘Shall an old man marry?’ (‘An seni uxor sit ducenda’), in which Niccoli and Marsuppini appear as interlocutors, it was only an expression of old friendship. The Medicean manuscripts are full of dedications. The most striking, however, is that of a book which has left a mournful name in the literature of the Renaissance, and which only in later years, and in other lands, was allowed to appear in print—the century accustomed to grossness even to satiety having lacked the courage to print it. This was the Hermaphroditus, thelicentious production of an otherwise learned and elegant author, Antonio Beccadelli, usually named, after his birthplace, Panormita. When King Alfonso of Naples, the enthusiastic admirer of antiquity, patronised and rewarded the poet, and the Emperor Sigismund bestowed on him the laurel which had once adorned Petrarca’s chaste and noble muse, we should scarcely be surprised that Cosimo de’ Medici accepted the dedication, if it were not that the work, which revelled in indecent allusions to modern circumstances and persons, was so little in conformity with his whole character. Beccadelli’s connections with Cosimo originated in the year 1432, when the former taught ecclesiastical law so successfully in Florence, that they could not part with him when Padua and Bologna attempted to gain him for themselves.[373]Strange contrasts! on the one side, the council and the pious archbishop; on the other, productions of the worst paganism. The popular orators of the time, Bernardino of Siena and Roberto of Lecce, burned the book of Panormita at Milan and Bologna in the public square (that it was done at Ferrara in the presence of Pope Eugenius is not proved). Poggio, Filelfo, and Valla appeared in arms against it. Would that they had observed morality and decency better in their own writings instead of drawing down upon the entire literature of humanism the deserved reproach of cynical immorality and indecency on the one hand, and servility and unbounded vanity on the other!It is an honour to the learned Florentine world, in the epoch here to be considered, to have remained freer from these sins and offences than was the case in most other places. If we except the undignified disputes which were principally caused by a foreigner, Filelfo, and ascribe Poggio’s reported dishonourable quarrel with Valla to Roman tradition, Cosimo’s time offers hardly anything of this sad kind. The circumstance that so many disciples of learning in thehigher orders did not consider it as a means of gain,nor belong to that class of literati who consider themselves bound by no personal considerations, certainly contributed to this pleasing state of things. How beneficially the share in literature eagerly taken by those highly placed affected the attitude and position of literature in general life, we see from many accounts. They afford an insight into the circumstances of the time when patriarchal manners still went hand in hand with the requirements of freedom of thought and more general culture in the city as well as in the country-houses. Pastime alternated with serious conversation in which such as filled the first offices of State and went repeatedly as ambassadors to Popes and princes associated themselves with the literary men whom they often fully equalled in scientific cultivation. The meetings at Careggi were not the only ones. Agnolo Pandolfini did even more than the Medici, in his beautiful villa at Signa, where the Arno, on leaving the Pistojan plain, flows to the mountain pass of the Golfolina—a villa which received Pope Eugenius and René of Anjou, Francesco Sforza and Niccolò of Este.[374]This distinguished and wealthy man, who filled the highest offices with honour, and had gained a large experience which doubly disgusted him with the factions that had got the upper hand in the latter times of the Albizzi, had exercised a pacifying influence on the conflict of 1433. All the more deeply was he pained by the inconsiderate use of that victory, and by the circumstance that Cosimo should allow free course to the hatred and covetousness of his partisans. He resided, therefore, much at his villa in order to avoid city matters, and exercised the noblest hospitality in a circle of the most important men, scholars and others. Domestic politics were not allowed to be discussed. The much-read book on the government of families was once ascribed to this country life, and stands in high repute as amirror of the times and the expression of the feelings and views of a benevolent, sensible, and experienced man: a book of which we shall speak more further on (p. 483). We obtain a view of the country life of a learned and respected citizen in the characteristic sketch of Franco Sacchetti, a grandson of the well-known novelist.[375]He was not rich, but lived very respectably. He had no lack of honours and experience, as he had been ambassador to Pope Pius II. and King Alfonso, and had attained the highest honours. On friendly terms with the Medici, he remained aloof from party-spirit. His knowledge of Greek and Latin literature was extensive. He was intimately connected with John Argyropulos and supported him whenever he could. When he resided at his villa, situated in the neighbourhood of the city, the learned Greek frequently visited him accompanied by his pupils, and the time passed in erudite conversation. Twice in the year he arranged great banquets where only respected and cultivated men were invited.Even under the more modest circumstances that generally prevail among literary men properly so called, villas and meetings there were not uncommon. When Poggio Bracciolini, to whom the Florentine citizenship had been granted in 1415,[376]was still in the service of the Pope, fifteen years and more before he entered the Florentine exchequer, he purchased an estate near his birthplace, Terranova.[377]‘I will,’ thus he wrote to Niccoli, ‘adorn with the collected remains of antiquity, my Valdarnesian academy, where I hope to rest when rest be granted me from the stormy sea of life.’ Sculptures, Greek and Roman, gems, coins, and inscriptions embellished not only the library but the house and garden. He has expressed his admiration for antique art in a letter to the dealer in antiquities, Francesco of Pistoja.[378]‘When I see nature so admirably imitated in marble, an awe of artistic genius inspires me. Every one has his weakness; mine is to admirethe works of distinguished sculptors with a perhaps too lively enthusiasm. But how should I not wonder when I see the expression given to lifeless material by art?’ Learned friends, among them Lorenzo, Cosimo’s brother, and Niccoli, came to visit him and inspect his collection. Of these visits and conversations traces remain to us in the literary history of the time and the traditions still preserved in the Valdarnese Academy, a learned society which, combining the names of two sons of the Arno valley, Petrarca and Poggio, has its seat in Montevarchi opposite Terranova, which lies on the right bank of the stream surrounded by green hills. When, in later years, Poggio bought another villa in the Piano di Ripoli, only four miles to the south-east of Florence, it may be easily understood that there was no lack of visitors from the adjacent city.The brilliancy of the learned society and intellectual life in Florence extended into foreign countries. The connections with England were various. Poggio was disappointed in his expectations of Cardinal Beaufort, an acquaintance from the Council of Constance; and even Duke Humphrey of Gloucester did not answer to those of Leonardo Bruni. But William Gray, afterwards Bishop of Ely, who, after he had pursued his studies at Cologne, continued them at Padua and Ferrara, and represented his native country, England, at Rome in Pope Nicolas V.’s time, had influential connections with the learned world in Italy, particularly with Niccolò Perotto of Sassoferrato. The latter was intimate with the Florentine circle and became subsequently Archbishop of Manfredonia, owing his advance to Gray. Many literary treasures bought by Gray at Florence and elsewhere went to England. So did those which were afterwards collected by John, Earl of Worcester, who, at the expulsion of King Edward IV. in 1470, fell a victim to the hatred excited by the cruelty with which he had exercised his office of Constable. He purchased manuscripts everywhere when on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land he stayedfor a time in Italy. ‘On his residence for several days in Florence,’ relates Vespasiano, ‘he wished to inspect the whole city, and wandered about without any servant except a guide at his left hand. As the name of John Argyropulos was well known to him, he wished to hear his lectures, repaired one morning to the university incognito, and was much pleased.’[379]Even at the time when Pope Eugenius IV. still resided at Florence, the English representative at the Papal court, whom Vespasiano[380]calls Andrea Ols (Holles?), maintained friendly intercourse with Marsuppini, Manetti, Palmieri, &c., and had collected such a number of manuscripts, old and new, that he was obliged to engage a vessel to transport them to his native country. Eneas Silvio Piccolomini had more influence than the Florentine circle on the connections with Germany. We shall speak later of those with Hungary.[381]Cosimo de’ Medici lived long enough to see the entire generation of the first Florentine humanists descend into the grave. Leonardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini and Poggio Bracciolini died as chancellors of the Republic; Ambrogio Traversari as general of the Camaldulese, a dignity to which Pope Eugenius IV. had elevated him, a promotion by which he was removed from his true field of action, that of science and literature, into an overwhelming current of petty affairs; Roberto de’ Rossi and Niccolò Niccoli had died in their native land years before; Giannozzo Manetti in voluntary exile at Naples; Palla Strozzi, at the age of ninety, in the spring of 1462, at Padua, after eight-and-twenty years of exile borne with noble resignation. Cosimo lived to see the man whom he had known as a humble teacher and whom he afterwards supported as Pope Nicolas V., emulate him in the most earnest and discriminating fostering of science, during the few years of his papacy. For but a few weeks didÆneas Sylvius the successor of Nicolas survive him. In Sylvius humanism ascended the Papal throne, for Pope Pius II. had the most elegant and in many respects the most comprehensive intellect of the time. A new world arose round the man who nearly all his life had guided the fortunes of his native land. Much which he had planted flourished luxuriantly; much also assumed a new shape. Classical literature had become the principal object in his time. The most illustrious humanists wrote only in Latin. The unassuming sister of this classical literature, who spoke the popular language, studded as it was in the preceding century with the most brilliant flowers, but not yet considered equal in birth, lived unhonoured by a glance from the learned men who, uninstructed by the fate of Petrarca’s ‘Africa,’ continued to sing the deeds of Alfonso of Aragon and Francesco Sforza in Latin, and were guilty of a far greater error than that of Petrarca. Yet the time was not far distant when this despised language of the people should once more spread its wings in freedom and soar aloft.
CHAPTER III.THE COUNCIL OF UNION AND PLATONISM. COSIMO DE’ MEDICI’S LATER YEARS.Learnedstudies were at their height in Florence when Pope Eugenius IV. arrived on June 23, 1434, and soon afterwards saw his court assembled around him. It was, as we have said, the time when Rinaldo degli Albizzi felt the ground unsafe beneath his feet, when he hoped to secure power to himself by proceeding against Cosimo de’ Medici, and had been urged to the violent attempt which ended in his own ruin. Except in the removal of Francesco Filelfo, the peaceful but decisive revolution seems to have exercised no influence on literary affairs. The presence of the Papal court was of service to studies of science and those who fostered them: their long residence in the city, which was then the centre of all scientific and literary effort, had, too, a powerful and decided influence on the course pursued by that court under Eugenius’ successor. This successor, Tommaso of Sarzana, was the former tutor of the sons of Rinaldo degli Albizzi and Palla Strozzi and, as secretary to Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, the excellent bishop of Bologna, revisited the city in which he had once resided in comparative poverty. The two men who had been most intimate with him were forced into an exile which only terminated in death. Tommaso, however, who showed himself grateful to their descendants in the days of his greatness, found friendly reception and patronage from Cosimo de’ Medici; and till the death of Nicholas V. thisfriendship continued to be a great assistance to them and to science generally. Vespasiano da Bisticci, who has left us an attractive picture of the good and learned Pope, describes how Tommaso, after he had accompanied his cardinal to the palace, met in the corner of the square the men who represented learning in Florence at that time, namely, Leonardo, and Carlo of Arezzo, Gianozzo Manetti, Giovanni Aurispa, Gasparo of Bologna, and Poggio Bracciolini. The latter, after much danger from Piccinino’s mercenaries, into whose hands he fell in his flight to Rome, had been liberated for a heavy ransom and had followed Pope Eugenius.[364]Here they conversed on learned subjects morning and evening in the open air, with the simplicity which characterised the manners of the time. Carlo Marsuppini, freed from a troublesome rival by Filelfo’s removal, was the most celebrated teacher. Cardinals and prelates might be seen among his listeners.We now approach an occurrence, the result of which was rather a great stir than any practical effect in the history of the Church. The Council of Florence exercised great influence on the progress of learning at a time when the impetus had been already given in a certain direction. But a small number of the Greek fathers who came to Italy were able to participate in scientific research, and the majority of them were surpassed by the Florentines; yet the presence of so many Greeks did exercise a decided influence on the connection between Eastern and Western Europe, especially as the final destruction of the eastern empire happened scarcely more than a decade later. Many Greeks who sought a new home after the conquest of Constantinople had the way shown to them by the council, although the Rome of Nicholas V. had already begun to rival Florence. Among the Greek fathers, Cardinal Bessarion, who promoted the interests of learning to the end of his life, was perhaps the only man of scientific importance for the West. Among the assistants and interpreters,many may be named who made themselves famous in the history of the revival of classical literature in Italy. In the foremost of these rank Georgios Gemistos, surnamed Plethon, Nicolas Secundinus of Eubœa, and Theodore Gaza of Thessalonica.Georgios Gemistos,[365]a native of the Morea, had been tutor to Chrysoloras, whom he survived many years, attaining to a great age. He had also instructed Bessarion. Plato’s writings and doctrines formed his chief study. His zealous research into and dissemination of them, and his labours for the construction of a new philosophical system with their aid, was so great that he gave lectures everywhere on his favourite author. He did so in Florence, where Cosimo de’ Medici mingled among his hearers, and soon gained an interest in doctrines the intellectual meaning of which made a deep impression on one who, like him, inclined to peaceful meditation, seems to have found as little to satisfy him in the lectures of the theologians of the time as in the disputations of the philosophers, which commonly degenerated into dialectic subtleties. As Cosimo did not understand Greek, Gemistos must have employed the Latin language. It was his lectures which awoke in Cosimo the idea of reviving the study of Platonic philosophy in his native country. This is shown by the words of the man whom he chose to carry his intention into execution. ‘The great Cosimo,’ says Marsilio Ficino, in the translation of the works of Plotinus, dedicated to the grandson of his first patron not long before his death, ‘at the time when the council of Greeks and Latins summoned by Pope Eugenius IV. was sitting at Florence, frequently heard the lectures of the Greek philosopher called Plethon, who disputed on Platonic mysteries like another Plato. The lively style of this man inspired him with such enthusiasm, that there arose immediately in his lofty mind the thought of forming an academy as soon as a favourablemoment should be found.’ The history of the origin of the Platonic Academy presents two peculiar phenomena: first, that a man who had already passed middle life should be so strongly attracted by an author whose acquaintance he had made through the medium of a foreign language; secondly, that he selected as his chief companion and special instrument in carrying out his intentions a boy who, at the time when the project was thought of, scarcely numbered seven years.Marsilio Ficino[366]was born in October, 1433, the turning-point in the fortunes of the Medici, at Figline, a not insignificant place in the upper valley of the Arno. His father was a skilful surgeon, who removed to Florence, where the Medici among others employed him. The son, educated at the university, seems to have entered the Medicean house at the age of eighteen or nineteen years. He says himself that he had two fathers, Ficino and Cosimo de’ Medici. He owed his birth to the one, and his second birth to the other; the first had dedicated him to Galen, the second to the divine Plato. Both were physicians, one for the body and the other for the soul. The youth did not deceive Cosimo’s expectations. Of a delicate constitution, he united a keen feeling for poetry and music with a profound and delicate faculty for investigating natural phenomena and the doctrines of ancient wisdom. He began the study of Platonic doctrines before he understood Greek, but even without the counsel of Cosimo and his friend Landino, his senior by nine years, he would hardly have satisfied himself with knowledge derived from later Roman authors, as not only the prevalenttendency of the time, but his own intellectual bent must have urged him to seek the fountain head. When Marsilio began his Greek studies, namely in 1456, John Argyropulos, who about the middle of the century did as much for a knowledge of language and literature as Chrysoloras at the beginning, must have already begun his lectures at the university, and these were probably of assistance to Marsilio. During his exile at Padua, Palla Strozzi had attracted him, and Cosimo de’ Medici afterwards gained him for Florence, where for fifteen years he taught, besides Greek literature, Aristotelian philosophy, and in 1464 was presented with the rights of citizenship. The favour shown by Cosimo to the Peripatetic Argyropulos was continued to his sons and grandsons, and we shall find this useful man busy in later years, while at the time now under consideration many who made themselves an honourable name were among his disciples; as, for instance, Donato Acciaiuoli, Pandolfo Pandolfini, and finally Poliziano, and Lorenzo de’ Medici.Marsilio was thirty years old when, at Cosimo’s wish, he undertook the translation of the Hermetic writings, and Plato’s works. That the former, a production of scientific mysticism and sentimentality of the new Platonic school at Alexandria, excited so strongly the interest of a new school, which aimed at and laid claim to the revival of Platonic tradition, shows clearly what danger this school was in of amalgamating true Platonism with its Alexandrian outgrowths, and of falling, like the new Platonists, into the fundamental error of confounding true doctrine with arbitrary forms. But the circumstance that Argyropulos translated writings of Aristotle for Cosimo at the same time indicates, in a manner most honourable to the latter, how anxious he was to form an independent opinion for himself by comparison of the doctrines of the two great philosophers in whose systems all ancient and even the germs of modern thought were preserved for later times. This was an aspiration which certainly deserves recognition, however imperfectthe results may have been compared with the means employed. Cosimo’s kindness towards Marsilio Ficino remained unchanged to the end. He presented him with a house in the neighbourhood of Sta. Maria Nuova, and a country residence at Careggi, where the little farm of Montevecchio still reminds us of the friendly and pious man. When in the summer of 1464 Cosimo retired seriously ill to Careggi, he invited Marsilio thither.[367]It was in listening to the books on the One Origin of Things and the Highest Good that the last days of the sick man were spent. The epoch of the perfect development and most important labours of Marsilio Ficino belongs, however, to the times of Cosimo’s grandson.The most fruitful labours of a man no less intimately connected with the Medicean house belong to the same time. In the village of Borgo alla Collina, right in the heart of the Casentino, not far from Poppi, on the right bank of the Arno, are still to be seen the mortal remains, dried to a mummy, of Cristoforo Landino,[368]who, descended from a family of the neighbouring Pratovecchio, was born at Florence in 1424.[369]A papal secretary, Angelo of Todi, facilitated by a legacy the youth’s studies, first in Volterra and then in Florence, where he was soon recommended to Cosimo. He has gratefully acknowledged what he owed to his patron in verse and prose,[370]and, as with others, the affection of the head of the house was transmitted to sons and grandsons. Among learned men Carlo Marsuppini seems to have exercised especial influence on him; Landino himself assisted in determining the bent of Marsilio Ficino’s studies. He soon formed friendships with all who devoted themselves to science—with the excellent Jacopo Ammannato, who rosefrom poverty and distress to the ecclesiastical purple, and, as an affluent man, preserved an affectionate feeling for the city in which he had gained a scanty living as teacher. Cristoforo also became acquainted with literary men, and such as associated themselves with them, as Antonio and Bernardo Canigiani, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Roberto Salviati, &c. In 1457, the three-and-thirtieth year of his life, the chair of rhetoric and poetry at the university was confided to him, and a career began for him in which we shall meet him again an aged man. If he had had no other pupils than Lorenzo de’ Medici and Angelo Poliziano, they would have sufficed to prove the superiority of his teaching.While the Council of Union contributed directly to promote Greek studies and the adoption of Greek philosophy, it had no influence in the province of native theological literature. He who made himself the greatest name as a theological writer, and took an active part in the ecclesiastical councils, was entirely outside the literary circle. The character of Antonio Pierozzi, who is venerated by the Florentines of the present day as Saint Antoninus, and was the model of a pious and active pastor, shone alike in his writings and his life—godfearing, zealous, learned, untiring, simple and modest withal, and void of all pomp and studied form. Born in 1389, he entered priestly orders when about sixteen years old, and the cell in St. Mark’s convent which he inhabited, and which preserves many memorials of him, is still shown. His youth coincided with the first active movements of the learned class styled humanists, but it did not concern him. His studies were strictly theological; but as he never withdrew from public life when the commissions given him did not clash with his pastoral duties, so he included in his labours the field of history, which often afforded him guidance in the science of his calling. His ‘Summa Theologiæ,’ first printed entire eighteen years after his death, and republished in the last century, is considered in his native country as the first text-book of moral theology.His letters, chiefly addressed to a pious lady of high rank, Madonna Diodata degli Adimari, are moral and theological treatises, full of apostolic zeal and love, with correct and clear judgment, that knew how to combine active and contemplative life; and though he advises his reader to occupy herself rather with edifying literature than with the heroic deeds of the Paladins, he by no means neglects the affairs of this world.[371]His chronicle, reaching down to the year of his death, 1459, makes no pretensions to artistic form, and the humanistic historiographers would have certainly looked with some scorn on the work, which appeared in 1474, if they had noticed it at all. Entire portions of this work are taken from others, a proceeding which we meet with in the nineteenth century, and which was less scrupled at in the times of the pious archbishop than later, as such works were often only intended for the most intimate circle of friends, or for a single convent. Nevertheless, the chronicle had a value of its own for the fifteenth century, so that the number of editions which it passed through is explained. His biography relates how Saint Antoninus himself practised in his life what he taught and advised in his writings, how he influenced the moral and religious conduct of the Florentines, and put down disorders, which had become prevalent under prelates like Vitelleschi, Scarampi, and Zabarella, archbishops only in name or for a short time. His example had an encouraging and elevating effect on Orlando Bonarli, his immediate successor. ‘As much as lay in him,’ says Vespasiano,[372]‘he attempted to emulate the pattern afforded him by his predecessor. Although some in the city endured him against their will, for every one tries to escape as much as he can from the effects of the laws, he neverallowed himself to falter in the fulfilment of his duty, and knew no respect of persons where it was a question of reason and justice. He thus left his diocese in a praiseworthy state. Would to God that this had lasted so!’Cosimo de’ Medici’s position, his warm sympathy for intellectual effort, his liberality towards men of letters, explain the number of addresses and petitions that reached him from all sides at a time when patronage was at its height. No treatise or dialogue could be written, no ode or elegy composed, no book translated from a classical author without a dedication to him—a practice connected with the epistolography of the fourteenth century, which arose less from the requirements of personal intercourse than from its adaptation to learned purposes, besides being an imitation of classical models which scholars thought to excel by remodelling letters into treatises. Letters always remained in fashion from the days of Petrarch; and though a good portion of the literary and even political history of the time is found in printed collections of letters, which might be indefinitely increased, in most of these epistolaries there is much mere wordiness. In the matter of dedications even men of high standing were not unfrequently influenced by pecuniary considerations. Many made an actual business of it. Of course this circumstance did not exclude friendly relations. When Poggio on his marriage in 1435, at the age of fifty-five, with Vaggia Buondelmonti, then only eighteen years old, dedicated to Cosimo the dialogue ‘Shall an old man marry?’ (‘An seni uxor sit ducenda’), in which Niccoli and Marsuppini appear as interlocutors, it was only an expression of old friendship. The Medicean manuscripts are full of dedications. The most striking, however, is that of a book which has left a mournful name in the literature of the Renaissance, and which only in later years, and in other lands, was allowed to appear in print—the century accustomed to grossness even to satiety having lacked the courage to print it. This was the Hermaphroditus, thelicentious production of an otherwise learned and elegant author, Antonio Beccadelli, usually named, after his birthplace, Panormita. When King Alfonso of Naples, the enthusiastic admirer of antiquity, patronised and rewarded the poet, and the Emperor Sigismund bestowed on him the laurel which had once adorned Petrarca’s chaste and noble muse, we should scarcely be surprised that Cosimo de’ Medici accepted the dedication, if it were not that the work, which revelled in indecent allusions to modern circumstances and persons, was so little in conformity with his whole character. Beccadelli’s connections with Cosimo originated in the year 1432, when the former taught ecclesiastical law so successfully in Florence, that they could not part with him when Padua and Bologna attempted to gain him for themselves.[373]Strange contrasts! on the one side, the council and the pious archbishop; on the other, productions of the worst paganism. The popular orators of the time, Bernardino of Siena and Roberto of Lecce, burned the book of Panormita at Milan and Bologna in the public square (that it was done at Ferrara in the presence of Pope Eugenius is not proved). Poggio, Filelfo, and Valla appeared in arms against it. Would that they had observed morality and decency better in their own writings instead of drawing down upon the entire literature of humanism the deserved reproach of cynical immorality and indecency on the one hand, and servility and unbounded vanity on the other!It is an honour to the learned Florentine world, in the epoch here to be considered, to have remained freer from these sins and offences than was the case in most other places. If we except the undignified disputes which were principally caused by a foreigner, Filelfo, and ascribe Poggio’s reported dishonourable quarrel with Valla to Roman tradition, Cosimo’s time offers hardly anything of this sad kind. The circumstance that so many disciples of learning in thehigher orders did not consider it as a means of gain,nor belong to that class of literati who consider themselves bound by no personal considerations, certainly contributed to this pleasing state of things. How beneficially the share in literature eagerly taken by those highly placed affected the attitude and position of literature in general life, we see from many accounts. They afford an insight into the circumstances of the time when patriarchal manners still went hand in hand with the requirements of freedom of thought and more general culture in the city as well as in the country-houses. Pastime alternated with serious conversation in which such as filled the first offices of State and went repeatedly as ambassadors to Popes and princes associated themselves with the literary men whom they often fully equalled in scientific cultivation. The meetings at Careggi were not the only ones. Agnolo Pandolfini did even more than the Medici, in his beautiful villa at Signa, where the Arno, on leaving the Pistojan plain, flows to the mountain pass of the Golfolina—a villa which received Pope Eugenius and René of Anjou, Francesco Sforza and Niccolò of Este.[374]This distinguished and wealthy man, who filled the highest offices with honour, and had gained a large experience which doubly disgusted him with the factions that had got the upper hand in the latter times of the Albizzi, had exercised a pacifying influence on the conflict of 1433. All the more deeply was he pained by the inconsiderate use of that victory, and by the circumstance that Cosimo should allow free course to the hatred and covetousness of his partisans. He resided, therefore, much at his villa in order to avoid city matters, and exercised the noblest hospitality in a circle of the most important men, scholars and others. Domestic politics were not allowed to be discussed. The much-read book on the government of families was once ascribed to this country life, and stands in high repute as amirror of the times and the expression of the feelings and views of a benevolent, sensible, and experienced man: a book of which we shall speak more further on (p. 483). We obtain a view of the country life of a learned and respected citizen in the characteristic sketch of Franco Sacchetti, a grandson of the well-known novelist.[375]He was not rich, but lived very respectably. He had no lack of honours and experience, as he had been ambassador to Pope Pius II. and King Alfonso, and had attained the highest honours. On friendly terms with the Medici, he remained aloof from party-spirit. His knowledge of Greek and Latin literature was extensive. He was intimately connected with John Argyropulos and supported him whenever he could. When he resided at his villa, situated in the neighbourhood of the city, the learned Greek frequently visited him accompanied by his pupils, and the time passed in erudite conversation. Twice in the year he arranged great banquets where only respected and cultivated men were invited.Even under the more modest circumstances that generally prevail among literary men properly so called, villas and meetings there were not uncommon. When Poggio Bracciolini, to whom the Florentine citizenship had been granted in 1415,[376]was still in the service of the Pope, fifteen years and more before he entered the Florentine exchequer, he purchased an estate near his birthplace, Terranova.[377]‘I will,’ thus he wrote to Niccoli, ‘adorn with the collected remains of antiquity, my Valdarnesian academy, where I hope to rest when rest be granted me from the stormy sea of life.’ Sculptures, Greek and Roman, gems, coins, and inscriptions embellished not only the library but the house and garden. He has expressed his admiration for antique art in a letter to the dealer in antiquities, Francesco of Pistoja.[378]‘When I see nature so admirably imitated in marble, an awe of artistic genius inspires me. Every one has his weakness; mine is to admirethe works of distinguished sculptors with a perhaps too lively enthusiasm. But how should I not wonder when I see the expression given to lifeless material by art?’ Learned friends, among them Lorenzo, Cosimo’s brother, and Niccoli, came to visit him and inspect his collection. Of these visits and conversations traces remain to us in the literary history of the time and the traditions still preserved in the Valdarnese Academy, a learned society which, combining the names of two sons of the Arno valley, Petrarca and Poggio, has its seat in Montevarchi opposite Terranova, which lies on the right bank of the stream surrounded by green hills. When, in later years, Poggio bought another villa in the Piano di Ripoli, only four miles to the south-east of Florence, it may be easily understood that there was no lack of visitors from the adjacent city.The brilliancy of the learned society and intellectual life in Florence extended into foreign countries. The connections with England were various. Poggio was disappointed in his expectations of Cardinal Beaufort, an acquaintance from the Council of Constance; and even Duke Humphrey of Gloucester did not answer to those of Leonardo Bruni. But William Gray, afterwards Bishop of Ely, who, after he had pursued his studies at Cologne, continued them at Padua and Ferrara, and represented his native country, England, at Rome in Pope Nicolas V.’s time, had influential connections with the learned world in Italy, particularly with Niccolò Perotto of Sassoferrato. The latter was intimate with the Florentine circle and became subsequently Archbishop of Manfredonia, owing his advance to Gray. Many literary treasures bought by Gray at Florence and elsewhere went to England. So did those which were afterwards collected by John, Earl of Worcester, who, at the expulsion of King Edward IV. in 1470, fell a victim to the hatred excited by the cruelty with which he had exercised his office of Constable. He purchased manuscripts everywhere when on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land he stayedfor a time in Italy. ‘On his residence for several days in Florence,’ relates Vespasiano, ‘he wished to inspect the whole city, and wandered about without any servant except a guide at his left hand. As the name of John Argyropulos was well known to him, he wished to hear his lectures, repaired one morning to the university incognito, and was much pleased.’[379]Even at the time when Pope Eugenius IV. still resided at Florence, the English representative at the Papal court, whom Vespasiano[380]calls Andrea Ols (Holles?), maintained friendly intercourse with Marsuppini, Manetti, Palmieri, &c., and had collected such a number of manuscripts, old and new, that he was obliged to engage a vessel to transport them to his native country. Eneas Silvio Piccolomini had more influence than the Florentine circle on the connections with Germany. We shall speak later of those with Hungary.[381]Cosimo de’ Medici lived long enough to see the entire generation of the first Florentine humanists descend into the grave. Leonardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini and Poggio Bracciolini died as chancellors of the Republic; Ambrogio Traversari as general of the Camaldulese, a dignity to which Pope Eugenius IV. had elevated him, a promotion by which he was removed from his true field of action, that of science and literature, into an overwhelming current of petty affairs; Roberto de’ Rossi and Niccolò Niccoli had died in their native land years before; Giannozzo Manetti in voluntary exile at Naples; Palla Strozzi, at the age of ninety, in the spring of 1462, at Padua, after eight-and-twenty years of exile borne with noble resignation. Cosimo lived to see the man whom he had known as a humble teacher and whom he afterwards supported as Pope Nicolas V., emulate him in the most earnest and discriminating fostering of science, during the few years of his papacy. For but a few weeks didÆneas Sylvius the successor of Nicolas survive him. In Sylvius humanism ascended the Papal throne, for Pope Pius II. had the most elegant and in many respects the most comprehensive intellect of the time. A new world arose round the man who nearly all his life had guided the fortunes of his native land. Much which he had planted flourished luxuriantly; much also assumed a new shape. Classical literature had become the principal object in his time. The most illustrious humanists wrote only in Latin. The unassuming sister of this classical literature, who spoke the popular language, studded as it was in the preceding century with the most brilliant flowers, but not yet considered equal in birth, lived unhonoured by a glance from the learned men who, uninstructed by the fate of Petrarca’s ‘Africa,’ continued to sing the deeds of Alfonso of Aragon and Francesco Sforza in Latin, and were guilty of a far greater error than that of Petrarca. Yet the time was not far distant when this despised language of the people should once more spread its wings in freedom and soar aloft.
THE COUNCIL OF UNION AND PLATONISM. COSIMO DE’ MEDICI’S LATER YEARS.
Learnedstudies were at their height in Florence when Pope Eugenius IV. arrived on June 23, 1434, and soon afterwards saw his court assembled around him. It was, as we have said, the time when Rinaldo degli Albizzi felt the ground unsafe beneath his feet, when he hoped to secure power to himself by proceeding against Cosimo de’ Medici, and had been urged to the violent attempt which ended in his own ruin. Except in the removal of Francesco Filelfo, the peaceful but decisive revolution seems to have exercised no influence on literary affairs. The presence of the Papal court was of service to studies of science and those who fostered them: their long residence in the city, which was then the centre of all scientific and literary effort, had, too, a powerful and decided influence on the course pursued by that court under Eugenius’ successor. This successor, Tommaso of Sarzana, was the former tutor of the sons of Rinaldo degli Albizzi and Palla Strozzi and, as secretary to Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, the excellent bishop of Bologna, revisited the city in which he had once resided in comparative poverty. The two men who had been most intimate with him were forced into an exile which only terminated in death. Tommaso, however, who showed himself grateful to their descendants in the days of his greatness, found friendly reception and patronage from Cosimo de’ Medici; and till the death of Nicholas V. thisfriendship continued to be a great assistance to them and to science generally. Vespasiano da Bisticci, who has left us an attractive picture of the good and learned Pope, describes how Tommaso, after he had accompanied his cardinal to the palace, met in the corner of the square the men who represented learning in Florence at that time, namely, Leonardo, and Carlo of Arezzo, Gianozzo Manetti, Giovanni Aurispa, Gasparo of Bologna, and Poggio Bracciolini. The latter, after much danger from Piccinino’s mercenaries, into whose hands he fell in his flight to Rome, had been liberated for a heavy ransom and had followed Pope Eugenius.[364]Here they conversed on learned subjects morning and evening in the open air, with the simplicity which characterised the manners of the time. Carlo Marsuppini, freed from a troublesome rival by Filelfo’s removal, was the most celebrated teacher. Cardinals and prelates might be seen among his listeners.
We now approach an occurrence, the result of which was rather a great stir than any practical effect in the history of the Church. The Council of Florence exercised great influence on the progress of learning at a time when the impetus had been already given in a certain direction. But a small number of the Greek fathers who came to Italy were able to participate in scientific research, and the majority of them were surpassed by the Florentines; yet the presence of so many Greeks did exercise a decided influence on the connection between Eastern and Western Europe, especially as the final destruction of the eastern empire happened scarcely more than a decade later. Many Greeks who sought a new home after the conquest of Constantinople had the way shown to them by the council, although the Rome of Nicholas V. had already begun to rival Florence. Among the Greek fathers, Cardinal Bessarion, who promoted the interests of learning to the end of his life, was perhaps the only man of scientific importance for the West. Among the assistants and interpreters,many may be named who made themselves famous in the history of the revival of classical literature in Italy. In the foremost of these rank Georgios Gemistos, surnamed Plethon, Nicolas Secundinus of Eubœa, and Theodore Gaza of Thessalonica.
Georgios Gemistos,[365]a native of the Morea, had been tutor to Chrysoloras, whom he survived many years, attaining to a great age. He had also instructed Bessarion. Plato’s writings and doctrines formed his chief study. His zealous research into and dissemination of them, and his labours for the construction of a new philosophical system with their aid, was so great that he gave lectures everywhere on his favourite author. He did so in Florence, where Cosimo de’ Medici mingled among his hearers, and soon gained an interest in doctrines the intellectual meaning of which made a deep impression on one who, like him, inclined to peaceful meditation, seems to have found as little to satisfy him in the lectures of the theologians of the time as in the disputations of the philosophers, which commonly degenerated into dialectic subtleties. As Cosimo did not understand Greek, Gemistos must have employed the Latin language. It was his lectures which awoke in Cosimo the idea of reviving the study of Platonic philosophy in his native country. This is shown by the words of the man whom he chose to carry his intention into execution. ‘The great Cosimo,’ says Marsilio Ficino, in the translation of the works of Plotinus, dedicated to the grandson of his first patron not long before his death, ‘at the time when the council of Greeks and Latins summoned by Pope Eugenius IV. was sitting at Florence, frequently heard the lectures of the Greek philosopher called Plethon, who disputed on Platonic mysteries like another Plato. The lively style of this man inspired him with such enthusiasm, that there arose immediately in his lofty mind the thought of forming an academy as soon as a favourablemoment should be found.’ The history of the origin of the Platonic Academy presents two peculiar phenomena: first, that a man who had already passed middle life should be so strongly attracted by an author whose acquaintance he had made through the medium of a foreign language; secondly, that he selected as his chief companion and special instrument in carrying out his intentions a boy who, at the time when the project was thought of, scarcely numbered seven years.
Marsilio Ficino[366]was born in October, 1433, the turning-point in the fortunes of the Medici, at Figline, a not insignificant place in the upper valley of the Arno. His father was a skilful surgeon, who removed to Florence, where the Medici among others employed him. The son, educated at the university, seems to have entered the Medicean house at the age of eighteen or nineteen years. He says himself that he had two fathers, Ficino and Cosimo de’ Medici. He owed his birth to the one, and his second birth to the other; the first had dedicated him to Galen, the second to the divine Plato. Both were physicians, one for the body and the other for the soul. The youth did not deceive Cosimo’s expectations. Of a delicate constitution, he united a keen feeling for poetry and music with a profound and delicate faculty for investigating natural phenomena and the doctrines of ancient wisdom. He began the study of Platonic doctrines before he understood Greek, but even without the counsel of Cosimo and his friend Landino, his senior by nine years, he would hardly have satisfied himself with knowledge derived from later Roman authors, as not only the prevalenttendency of the time, but his own intellectual bent must have urged him to seek the fountain head. When Marsilio began his Greek studies, namely in 1456, John Argyropulos, who about the middle of the century did as much for a knowledge of language and literature as Chrysoloras at the beginning, must have already begun his lectures at the university, and these were probably of assistance to Marsilio. During his exile at Padua, Palla Strozzi had attracted him, and Cosimo de’ Medici afterwards gained him for Florence, where for fifteen years he taught, besides Greek literature, Aristotelian philosophy, and in 1464 was presented with the rights of citizenship. The favour shown by Cosimo to the Peripatetic Argyropulos was continued to his sons and grandsons, and we shall find this useful man busy in later years, while at the time now under consideration many who made themselves an honourable name were among his disciples; as, for instance, Donato Acciaiuoli, Pandolfo Pandolfini, and finally Poliziano, and Lorenzo de’ Medici.
Marsilio was thirty years old when, at Cosimo’s wish, he undertook the translation of the Hermetic writings, and Plato’s works. That the former, a production of scientific mysticism and sentimentality of the new Platonic school at Alexandria, excited so strongly the interest of a new school, which aimed at and laid claim to the revival of Platonic tradition, shows clearly what danger this school was in of amalgamating true Platonism with its Alexandrian outgrowths, and of falling, like the new Platonists, into the fundamental error of confounding true doctrine with arbitrary forms. But the circumstance that Argyropulos translated writings of Aristotle for Cosimo at the same time indicates, in a manner most honourable to the latter, how anxious he was to form an independent opinion for himself by comparison of the doctrines of the two great philosophers in whose systems all ancient and even the germs of modern thought were preserved for later times. This was an aspiration which certainly deserves recognition, however imperfectthe results may have been compared with the means employed. Cosimo’s kindness towards Marsilio Ficino remained unchanged to the end. He presented him with a house in the neighbourhood of Sta. Maria Nuova, and a country residence at Careggi, where the little farm of Montevecchio still reminds us of the friendly and pious man. When in the summer of 1464 Cosimo retired seriously ill to Careggi, he invited Marsilio thither.[367]It was in listening to the books on the One Origin of Things and the Highest Good that the last days of the sick man were spent. The epoch of the perfect development and most important labours of Marsilio Ficino belongs, however, to the times of Cosimo’s grandson.
The most fruitful labours of a man no less intimately connected with the Medicean house belong to the same time. In the village of Borgo alla Collina, right in the heart of the Casentino, not far from Poppi, on the right bank of the Arno, are still to be seen the mortal remains, dried to a mummy, of Cristoforo Landino,[368]who, descended from a family of the neighbouring Pratovecchio, was born at Florence in 1424.[369]A papal secretary, Angelo of Todi, facilitated by a legacy the youth’s studies, first in Volterra and then in Florence, where he was soon recommended to Cosimo. He has gratefully acknowledged what he owed to his patron in verse and prose,[370]and, as with others, the affection of the head of the house was transmitted to sons and grandsons. Among learned men Carlo Marsuppini seems to have exercised especial influence on him; Landino himself assisted in determining the bent of Marsilio Ficino’s studies. He soon formed friendships with all who devoted themselves to science—with the excellent Jacopo Ammannato, who rosefrom poverty and distress to the ecclesiastical purple, and, as an affluent man, preserved an affectionate feeling for the city in which he had gained a scanty living as teacher. Cristoforo also became acquainted with literary men, and such as associated themselves with them, as Antonio and Bernardo Canigiani, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Roberto Salviati, &c. In 1457, the three-and-thirtieth year of his life, the chair of rhetoric and poetry at the university was confided to him, and a career began for him in which we shall meet him again an aged man. If he had had no other pupils than Lorenzo de’ Medici and Angelo Poliziano, they would have sufficed to prove the superiority of his teaching.
While the Council of Union contributed directly to promote Greek studies and the adoption of Greek philosophy, it had no influence in the province of native theological literature. He who made himself the greatest name as a theological writer, and took an active part in the ecclesiastical councils, was entirely outside the literary circle. The character of Antonio Pierozzi, who is venerated by the Florentines of the present day as Saint Antoninus, and was the model of a pious and active pastor, shone alike in his writings and his life—godfearing, zealous, learned, untiring, simple and modest withal, and void of all pomp and studied form. Born in 1389, he entered priestly orders when about sixteen years old, and the cell in St. Mark’s convent which he inhabited, and which preserves many memorials of him, is still shown. His youth coincided with the first active movements of the learned class styled humanists, but it did not concern him. His studies were strictly theological; but as he never withdrew from public life when the commissions given him did not clash with his pastoral duties, so he included in his labours the field of history, which often afforded him guidance in the science of his calling. His ‘Summa Theologiæ,’ first printed entire eighteen years after his death, and republished in the last century, is considered in his native country as the first text-book of moral theology.His letters, chiefly addressed to a pious lady of high rank, Madonna Diodata degli Adimari, are moral and theological treatises, full of apostolic zeal and love, with correct and clear judgment, that knew how to combine active and contemplative life; and though he advises his reader to occupy herself rather with edifying literature than with the heroic deeds of the Paladins, he by no means neglects the affairs of this world.[371]His chronicle, reaching down to the year of his death, 1459, makes no pretensions to artistic form, and the humanistic historiographers would have certainly looked with some scorn on the work, which appeared in 1474, if they had noticed it at all. Entire portions of this work are taken from others, a proceeding which we meet with in the nineteenth century, and which was less scrupled at in the times of the pious archbishop than later, as such works were often only intended for the most intimate circle of friends, or for a single convent. Nevertheless, the chronicle had a value of its own for the fifteenth century, so that the number of editions which it passed through is explained. His biography relates how Saint Antoninus himself practised in his life what he taught and advised in his writings, how he influenced the moral and religious conduct of the Florentines, and put down disorders, which had become prevalent under prelates like Vitelleschi, Scarampi, and Zabarella, archbishops only in name or for a short time. His example had an encouraging and elevating effect on Orlando Bonarli, his immediate successor. ‘As much as lay in him,’ says Vespasiano,[372]‘he attempted to emulate the pattern afforded him by his predecessor. Although some in the city endured him against their will, for every one tries to escape as much as he can from the effects of the laws, he neverallowed himself to falter in the fulfilment of his duty, and knew no respect of persons where it was a question of reason and justice. He thus left his diocese in a praiseworthy state. Would to God that this had lasted so!’
Cosimo de’ Medici’s position, his warm sympathy for intellectual effort, his liberality towards men of letters, explain the number of addresses and petitions that reached him from all sides at a time when patronage was at its height. No treatise or dialogue could be written, no ode or elegy composed, no book translated from a classical author without a dedication to him—a practice connected with the epistolography of the fourteenth century, which arose less from the requirements of personal intercourse than from its adaptation to learned purposes, besides being an imitation of classical models which scholars thought to excel by remodelling letters into treatises. Letters always remained in fashion from the days of Petrarch; and though a good portion of the literary and even political history of the time is found in printed collections of letters, which might be indefinitely increased, in most of these epistolaries there is much mere wordiness. In the matter of dedications even men of high standing were not unfrequently influenced by pecuniary considerations. Many made an actual business of it. Of course this circumstance did not exclude friendly relations. When Poggio on his marriage in 1435, at the age of fifty-five, with Vaggia Buondelmonti, then only eighteen years old, dedicated to Cosimo the dialogue ‘Shall an old man marry?’ (‘An seni uxor sit ducenda’), in which Niccoli and Marsuppini appear as interlocutors, it was only an expression of old friendship. The Medicean manuscripts are full of dedications. The most striking, however, is that of a book which has left a mournful name in the literature of the Renaissance, and which only in later years, and in other lands, was allowed to appear in print—the century accustomed to grossness even to satiety having lacked the courage to print it. This was the Hermaphroditus, thelicentious production of an otherwise learned and elegant author, Antonio Beccadelli, usually named, after his birthplace, Panormita. When King Alfonso of Naples, the enthusiastic admirer of antiquity, patronised and rewarded the poet, and the Emperor Sigismund bestowed on him the laurel which had once adorned Petrarca’s chaste and noble muse, we should scarcely be surprised that Cosimo de’ Medici accepted the dedication, if it were not that the work, which revelled in indecent allusions to modern circumstances and persons, was so little in conformity with his whole character. Beccadelli’s connections with Cosimo originated in the year 1432, when the former taught ecclesiastical law so successfully in Florence, that they could not part with him when Padua and Bologna attempted to gain him for themselves.[373]Strange contrasts! on the one side, the council and the pious archbishop; on the other, productions of the worst paganism. The popular orators of the time, Bernardino of Siena and Roberto of Lecce, burned the book of Panormita at Milan and Bologna in the public square (that it was done at Ferrara in the presence of Pope Eugenius is not proved). Poggio, Filelfo, and Valla appeared in arms against it. Would that they had observed morality and decency better in their own writings instead of drawing down upon the entire literature of humanism the deserved reproach of cynical immorality and indecency on the one hand, and servility and unbounded vanity on the other!
It is an honour to the learned Florentine world, in the epoch here to be considered, to have remained freer from these sins and offences than was the case in most other places. If we except the undignified disputes which were principally caused by a foreigner, Filelfo, and ascribe Poggio’s reported dishonourable quarrel with Valla to Roman tradition, Cosimo’s time offers hardly anything of this sad kind. The circumstance that so many disciples of learning in thehigher orders did not consider it as a means of gain,nor belong to that class of literati who consider themselves bound by no personal considerations, certainly contributed to this pleasing state of things. How beneficially the share in literature eagerly taken by those highly placed affected the attitude and position of literature in general life, we see from many accounts. They afford an insight into the circumstances of the time when patriarchal manners still went hand in hand with the requirements of freedom of thought and more general culture in the city as well as in the country-houses. Pastime alternated with serious conversation in which such as filled the first offices of State and went repeatedly as ambassadors to Popes and princes associated themselves with the literary men whom they often fully equalled in scientific cultivation. The meetings at Careggi were not the only ones. Agnolo Pandolfini did even more than the Medici, in his beautiful villa at Signa, where the Arno, on leaving the Pistojan plain, flows to the mountain pass of the Golfolina—a villa which received Pope Eugenius and René of Anjou, Francesco Sforza and Niccolò of Este.[374]This distinguished and wealthy man, who filled the highest offices with honour, and had gained a large experience which doubly disgusted him with the factions that had got the upper hand in the latter times of the Albizzi, had exercised a pacifying influence on the conflict of 1433. All the more deeply was he pained by the inconsiderate use of that victory, and by the circumstance that Cosimo should allow free course to the hatred and covetousness of his partisans. He resided, therefore, much at his villa in order to avoid city matters, and exercised the noblest hospitality in a circle of the most important men, scholars and others. Domestic politics were not allowed to be discussed. The much-read book on the government of families was once ascribed to this country life, and stands in high repute as amirror of the times and the expression of the feelings and views of a benevolent, sensible, and experienced man: a book of which we shall speak more further on (p. 483). We obtain a view of the country life of a learned and respected citizen in the characteristic sketch of Franco Sacchetti, a grandson of the well-known novelist.[375]He was not rich, but lived very respectably. He had no lack of honours and experience, as he had been ambassador to Pope Pius II. and King Alfonso, and had attained the highest honours. On friendly terms with the Medici, he remained aloof from party-spirit. His knowledge of Greek and Latin literature was extensive. He was intimately connected with John Argyropulos and supported him whenever he could. When he resided at his villa, situated in the neighbourhood of the city, the learned Greek frequently visited him accompanied by his pupils, and the time passed in erudite conversation. Twice in the year he arranged great banquets where only respected and cultivated men were invited.
Even under the more modest circumstances that generally prevail among literary men properly so called, villas and meetings there were not uncommon. When Poggio Bracciolini, to whom the Florentine citizenship had been granted in 1415,[376]was still in the service of the Pope, fifteen years and more before he entered the Florentine exchequer, he purchased an estate near his birthplace, Terranova.[377]‘I will,’ thus he wrote to Niccoli, ‘adorn with the collected remains of antiquity, my Valdarnesian academy, where I hope to rest when rest be granted me from the stormy sea of life.’ Sculptures, Greek and Roman, gems, coins, and inscriptions embellished not only the library but the house and garden. He has expressed his admiration for antique art in a letter to the dealer in antiquities, Francesco of Pistoja.[378]‘When I see nature so admirably imitated in marble, an awe of artistic genius inspires me. Every one has his weakness; mine is to admirethe works of distinguished sculptors with a perhaps too lively enthusiasm. But how should I not wonder when I see the expression given to lifeless material by art?’ Learned friends, among them Lorenzo, Cosimo’s brother, and Niccoli, came to visit him and inspect his collection. Of these visits and conversations traces remain to us in the literary history of the time and the traditions still preserved in the Valdarnese Academy, a learned society which, combining the names of two sons of the Arno valley, Petrarca and Poggio, has its seat in Montevarchi opposite Terranova, which lies on the right bank of the stream surrounded by green hills. When, in later years, Poggio bought another villa in the Piano di Ripoli, only four miles to the south-east of Florence, it may be easily understood that there was no lack of visitors from the adjacent city.
The brilliancy of the learned society and intellectual life in Florence extended into foreign countries. The connections with England were various. Poggio was disappointed in his expectations of Cardinal Beaufort, an acquaintance from the Council of Constance; and even Duke Humphrey of Gloucester did not answer to those of Leonardo Bruni. But William Gray, afterwards Bishop of Ely, who, after he had pursued his studies at Cologne, continued them at Padua and Ferrara, and represented his native country, England, at Rome in Pope Nicolas V.’s time, had influential connections with the learned world in Italy, particularly with Niccolò Perotto of Sassoferrato. The latter was intimate with the Florentine circle and became subsequently Archbishop of Manfredonia, owing his advance to Gray. Many literary treasures bought by Gray at Florence and elsewhere went to England. So did those which were afterwards collected by John, Earl of Worcester, who, at the expulsion of King Edward IV. in 1470, fell a victim to the hatred excited by the cruelty with which he had exercised his office of Constable. He purchased manuscripts everywhere when on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land he stayedfor a time in Italy. ‘On his residence for several days in Florence,’ relates Vespasiano, ‘he wished to inspect the whole city, and wandered about without any servant except a guide at his left hand. As the name of John Argyropulos was well known to him, he wished to hear his lectures, repaired one morning to the university incognito, and was much pleased.’[379]Even at the time when Pope Eugenius IV. still resided at Florence, the English representative at the Papal court, whom Vespasiano[380]calls Andrea Ols (Holles?), maintained friendly intercourse with Marsuppini, Manetti, Palmieri, &c., and had collected such a number of manuscripts, old and new, that he was obliged to engage a vessel to transport them to his native country. Eneas Silvio Piccolomini had more influence than the Florentine circle on the connections with Germany. We shall speak later of those with Hungary.[381]
Cosimo de’ Medici lived long enough to see the entire generation of the first Florentine humanists descend into the grave. Leonardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini and Poggio Bracciolini died as chancellors of the Republic; Ambrogio Traversari as general of the Camaldulese, a dignity to which Pope Eugenius IV. had elevated him, a promotion by which he was removed from his true field of action, that of science and literature, into an overwhelming current of petty affairs; Roberto de’ Rossi and Niccolò Niccoli had died in their native land years before; Giannozzo Manetti in voluntary exile at Naples; Palla Strozzi, at the age of ninety, in the spring of 1462, at Padua, after eight-and-twenty years of exile borne with noble resignation. Cosimo lived to see the man whom he had known as a humble teacher and whom he afterwards supported as Pope Nicolas V., emulate him in the most earnest and discriminating fostering of science, during the few years of his papacy. For but a few weeks didÆneas Sylvius the successor of Nicolas survive him. In Sylvius humanism ascended the Papal throne, for Pope Pius II. had the most elegant and in many respects the most comprehensive intellect of the time. A new world arose round the man who nearly all his life had guided the fortunes of his native land. Much which he had planted flourished luxuriantly; much also assumed a new shape. Classical literature had become the principal object in his time. The most illustrious humanists wrote only in Latin. The unassuming sister of this classical literature, who spoke the popular language, studded as it was in the preceding century with the most brilliant flowers, but not yet considered equal in birth, lived unhonoured by a glance from the learned men who, uninstructed by the fate of Petrarca’s ‘Africa,’ continued to sing the deeds of Alfonso of Aragon and Francesco Sforza in Latin, and were guilty of a far greater error than that of Petrarca. Yet the time was not far distant when this despised language of the people should once more spread its wings in freedom and soar aloft.