CHAPTER XI.THE UNIVERSITY OF PISA. MANUSCRIPTS AND CRITICISM. PRINTING. PLATONIC SYMPOSIA.Thecircle of Florentine celebrities which, though its members were continually changing, always retained its peculiar character, included men of smaller importance than many of those already described, but yet worthy of mention. Among these are the philologer-poets who, in endeavouring to follow Poliziano, lost their individuality in imitations of the Roman poets of the Flavian and following periods. Their verses have but an historical and local interest for posterity, and even the sixteenth century, so busy with Latin verse-making, passed judgment upon them very freely.[87]Ugolino Vieri, who Latinised his name into Verino, celebrated his native city and its famous men in three books of a poem, ‘De Illustratione urbis Florentiæ,’ which spite of a few happy characteristics, is barely more than a dry catalogue. Naldo Naldi has acquired a more lasting reputation by his biographical works than by his numerous verses. People sang each other’s praises without end; and such laudations, though endurable from a Poliziano, are tiresome from inferior hands. Alessandro Bracci, one of the secretaries of state; Giovan Battista Cantalicio, afterwards Bishop of Penne and Adria; Tommaso Baldinotti of Pistoja; Alessandro Cortesi, the talented scion of a family of San Gemignano very intimate with the Medici; Piero Riccio, knownunder the Latinised name of Crinitus, and author of a history of the old Latin poets; these and many other pupils of Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano, belong to thedii minorum gentium. Verses by some of them have been printed, while heaps lie in manuscript in the Laurentian library to testify to the intellectual activity of the time.[88]The verses of the Roman Carlo de’ Massimi in praise of Pisa University have some interest for the history of literature. Literary productions of every kind were sent to Lorenzo from all quarters; he was the great patron of authors. Much of what he received he sent on to San Marco and to the Abbey of Fiesole, as may be seen by the inscriptions in the volumes.All these men, small and great, found in Lorenzo their Mæcenas. But he showed very early that he invested the position of patron with more serious importance than his predecessors had done. When scarcely three-and-twenty he brought about the restoration of the University of Pisa, which was not only an act of justice, but, apart from its literary importance, a token of ripe political insight that helped to counterbalance in some degree the miseries inflicted on Volterra in the same year (1472). The university, formed in the fourth decade of the fourteenth century out of the existing public schools, and confirmed in 1343 by Clement VI., fell into decay from political causes later in the century, and finally succumbed to Florentine enmity. The mutual animosity of the two cities is only to be paralleled in the history of antiquity. Twenty-five years after the subjection of Pisa, the Ministry of War at Florence wrote to Averardo de’ Medici, their commissioner in the subject town:[89]‘According to general opinion here, the most effectualmeans of securing the town is to empty it entirely of Pisan citizens and peasants, concerning which we have written to the Captain of the People till we are tired. He answers that he is hindered by the soldiery and officers. We now command thee to go to him and persuade him to spare no harshness or severity, as we perceive that no other remedy will avail. We have confidence in thee that thou wilt at once set everything to work, for thou couldst do nothing more pleasing to this whole people.’ The efficacious result was that the city was ruined, the marshy neighbourhood left fallow to become the home of fever, and the fleet vanished. So rooted was this hatred that when Pisa had freed herself amid the confusion which followed on Lorenzo’s death, Bernardo del Nero—a usually moderate man of the Medicean party—declared that against the Pisans nothing availed save force; all prisoners of war must be slain after the example of the Genoese, who let the Pisan captives taken at Meloria languish to death in prison.[90]Lorenzo early perceived that the blind enmity which ruined Pisa was overshooting the mark. As his family held considerable property in the district he frequently had occasion to visit the city, whose position made it a halting-place for many travellers between northern and southern Italy. Pisa must not be allowed to give the Florentines any more trouble, but neither should it be allowed to perish. Two considerations in particular seem to have prompted the re-establishment of the old university. The first was the quiet, which was more favourable to study than the busy life of Florence; the second was the number and cheapness of dwellings, which were in increasing danger of falling to ruin since trade had departed from its old abodes, and the inhabitants were nearly all poor people. Yet Lorenzo needed great power and moral courage to set himself against rooted hatred and stubborn prejudices. On December 19, 1472,was issued the decree by which the university was restored to life.[91]A board of management was appointed—the Officiales studii—consisting of five Florentine citizens: Tommaso Ridolfi, Donato Acciaiuolo, Andrea Puccini, Alamanno Rinuccini, and Lorenzo de’ Medici. The yearly endowment was to consist of 6,000 gold florins, and the statutes of the University of Florence were to be in force at that of Pisa. Members of the state were to be entitled to academical honours and the authority to practise in Pisa alone. To raise the salaries of the professors, Pope Sixtus IV. consented to a tax on the clergy to the amount of 5,000 florins in five years, a tax which was renewed by his successor in 1497 for another five years, and drew complaints from Ficino, Poliziano, and others. Only the philosophical and literary branches of study were to continue at Florence.The credit of all this was justly given to Lorenzo. ‘I heard a few days ago,’ wrote Antonio de’ Pazzi to him from Padua, January 29, 1473,[92]‘that by your direction a new university is to be founded at Pisa; at which not only we Florentine students, but foreign ones too, are greatly delighted, seeing that Pisa is a city eminently suited for it, and because the scheme proceeds from a man who will strive to acquire honour by this as by all else that he undertakes.’ Scholars came flocking from all parts, and first among them Francesco Filelfo. He had found an asylum with the Sforza at Milan; but, dissatisfied and restless, extravagant and in debt, he tried to change his position. During the pontificate of Pius II. he made several attempts to this end, but, failing in his hopes, he attacked the pontiff before and after death with his usual invectives, and in consequence was imprisoned for a time. In April 1473 he applied to Lorenzo. Sometime before he had managed to flatter Lorenzo’s father into forgetting his offences against Cosimo so far as to hold one of his sons over the font; and when in Florence in the autumn of 1469, shortly before Piero’s death, he obtained a loan from Lorenzo.[93]The letter which he now addressed to the latter[94]is curiously characteristic of the man. He attacks those who had long been in their graves—Marsuppini, Poggio, and their ‘synagogue.’ He begins by declaring that the Milanese chancellor, Cecco Simonetta, had advised him to prefer Pisa to Rome, where he was much wanted; and he ends with the artless assurance that Lorenzo must know well he cannot find in all the world a second Filelfo nor one more devoted to him. In another letter he remarks in the same style: ‘You are aware that at the present time no one can stand a comparison with me in my own branch.’ Simonetta, from Pavia, seconded the appeal, and sang the vain man’s praises. Lorenzo answered by asking what salary would be required, but the negotiation fell through, which Medici probably did not much regret, as he must have felt some hesitation in attaching the quarrelsome old man to his young establishment. Besides, the sentence of banishment once passed on Filelfo was still in force, and his services in the way of literary invective after the conspiracy of the Pazzi had not yet smoothed the way to his return. When he was at last summoned to Florence as professor of eloquence and moral philosophy, he had scarcely time to greet the city he had left for nearly half a century before he died, a few days after his arrival, in the summer of 1481, in his eighty-third year.The new-born university, which was opened in November 1473, soon took its share in the working of many active forces in diverse directions. In its very earliest years it would have risen to the highly flourishing condition it afterwards attained had not various unfavourable circumstancescome in the way. The unhealthy air of the city and neighbourhood had not been sufficiently taken into consideration. War, desolation, poverty, made matters worse, just at the time when Florence was also a prey to disease. For six years the establishment kept moving from place to place. Professors and students wandered away to Pistoja and Prato, and sometimes to Florence—even Empoli and San Miniato were thought of—till the state of affairs was improved, and the hitherto scattered lecturers were brought together in a university building erected by the care of Lorenzo. There was no lack of difficulties with the professors; the Sienese Bartolommeo Sozzini and the Milanese brothers Decio, all professors of law, gave Lorenzo a great deal of trouble by their unruly conduct. Among the best professors at the outset were the jurists Baldo Bartolini of Perugia and Francesco Accolti of Arezzo, brother of the Florentine chancellor, and a pupil of Filelfo; Piero Leoni of Spoleto, already mentioned, who afterwards, to his misfortune, became Lorenzo’s family doctor; the humanists Lorenzo Lippi of Colle and Bartolommeo of Pratovecchio. Special honours fell to the share of the Roman Francesco de’ Massimi, who came to the university at its opening as professor of law, was made Principal the next year, and gained such esteem both by his lectures and by his endeavours to establish and maintain a better understanding between the two hostile cities, that the rights of citizenship were conferred on him and his descendants, and he was permitted to add the arms of Pisa to his own.[95]The salaries of the professors weremostly considerable, and Lorenzo repeatedly contributed to them out of his own funds. The archbishop, Filippo de’ Medici, supported him in his efforts to benefit the institution, which was conducive both to the honour and advantage of the see. That pecuniary difficulties could not be escaped, however, is clear from the fact that in 1485, in consequence of the non-payment of the papal allowance, a retrenchment of 2,000 florins was deemed needful.The philosophical and philological lectures continued, as has been said, at Florence, and scholarly activity there seemed in nowise diminished by the re-animation of the sister city. Among the native professors, Bartolommeo della Fonte (Fontius) made a name equally distinguished in Latin and Greek literature, and left Latin memoirs on contemporary events from 1448 to 1493, the value of which is not to be measured by their brevity.[96]His friendship with Poliziano became clouded when he obtained the chair of eloquence vacant by Filelfo’s death. He does not seem to have held it long, as he undertook the superintendence of Matthias Corvinus’ library at Ofen. The study of Greek flourished. The chair once occupied by Argyropulos and Theodoros was filled by the Athenian Demetrios Chalcondylas, who kept it longer than anyone else, and left a better reputation, both for learning and morality, than many Greek grammarians. Poliziano, who is supposed to have perfected his knowledge of the Hellenic tongue under him, addressed him in several Greek epigrams, which give no hint of the rivalry afterwards said to exist between them. A fine testimony to his Homeric studies is the edition of the ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ which came out in 1488. Three years before,at the age of nearly seventy, he left Florence for Milan, where he long continued to teach, having been gladly welcomed by Lodovico Sforza, who rivalled the Medici in his patronage of science and art. Chalcondylas’ place at Florence was taken by Johannes Lascaris, who formed many fruitful connections with Milan, France, and Rome, in the days of Lorenzo’s son. The knowledge of Greek was, perhaps, never so widespread among high-born youths anywhere as in those days in the Tuscan city to which, Poliziano said, Athens with its native soil and all its possessions had transferred itself. In truth, strangers eager to learn came from all quarters—England, Germany, Portugal—just as of old everybody went to Athens. Here Alessandro Farnese acquired that knowledge of the language and literature of Greece which the greyhaired Pope Paul III. had not yet lost. Poliziano thus addressed the hearers of Chalcondylas:Seek the Pierides not in their ancient home, O ye poets:For in this city of ours dwells now the heavenly choir.Where, do ye ask, have they chosen among us a place to abide in?All the nine ye will find safe in Chalcondylas’ breast.Textual criticism was a work taken up less by foreigners than by Italians: in Rome, especially by Lorenzo Valla and Pomponio Leto; in Florence, by Landino, Poliziano, and Pico. Lorenzo not only encouraged those personally intimate with him to this work, but urged others to it, particularly the members of the Academy, which, having weathered the storms of Paul II.’s reign, flourished with renewed vigour under Sixtus IV., a Pope who felt no fear of the baptized heathens. Bartolommeo Platina, writing to Lorenzo[97]to recommend the Milanese sculptor Andrea Fusina, adds that the man felt assured of obtaining his desire if he, Platina, interceded for him. ‘Farewell, and believe me, thou hast few who love and honour thee likePlatina.’ On March 30, 1488, Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini on behalf of a friend of Pomponio Leto:[98]‘Doubtless you know, at least by name, Pomponio, one of the most famous scholars in Rome, if not the very first, and a man much attached to me and our whole house, so that I am greatly desirous of doing him a favour.’The art of studying manuscripts had first to be put on a sound basis. The rich harvest of discoveries was now almost at an end, a few objects of interest turning up only occasionally. Collectors had naturally enough given themselves up to delight in the prizes thus gained, without troubling themselves much about criticism. The necessity of criticism became more strongly felt and exercised as continued study of the old authors involved a stricter examination of the correctness of the manuscripts. At first people had been too much inclined to believe generally in their great age, and had been misled in individual cases by the chronological notes at the end of the codices. Often, as in the Medicean codex of the later books of the Annals of Tacitus, the date was fixed in the fourth Christian century, when in reality the parchments were written on by a later copyist. The corrupt state of the manuscripts called for correction, but the correction was mostly arbitrary. Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Francesco Barbaro, and others, sought to supply what was needed, but of rules they knew nothing. In this, above all, shines the transcendent merit of Poliziano; though even he indulged largely in conjecture, when in his youth he self-complacently fancied that his work on Catullus surpassed everything of the kind. Nor did he stand alone in this respect. Ermolao Barbaro in his edition of Pliny in 1492, Marullus in his critical works on Lucretius, confess how often they had had recourse to emendations of their own devising. But Poliziano thoroughly perceived that a secure basis was only to be obtained by a comparison ofMSS. where more than one existed. When this was not the case he tried to get a foundation for his conjectures from notes and parallel passages. Many printed books from his library bear on their margins traces of this comparison of MSS., to which he alludes in one of his letters to Lorenzo.[99]The collection of critical studies which he published in 1489 under the title of ‘Miscellanea,’ at Lorenzo’s desire and with a dedication to him, is a lasting memorial of his learning and acumen. A painful impression is made by his dispute with Filelfo’s pupil Giorgio Merula,[100]the editor of ‘Plautus.’ This man had been invited to Milan by Ludovico il Moro, gave philosophical lectures there, and though previously an admirer of Poliziano, now professed to find errors and plagiarisms in his works. Sforza showed his good sense by trying to calm the irritation of the Florentine when appealed to by him.Poliziano’s critical work on the correction of the text of Justinian’s ‘Corpus Juris’ holds an honourable place in the history of this subject. This famous copy of the Pandects was avowedly acquired by Pisa at the conquest of Amalfi, whither it had doubtless come as a gift from some Greek emperor, and on the overthrow of Pisa it was transferred to Florence. Poliziano’s views of its age and authorship may have been exploded by later criticism, but for the foundations of a better text than that of the later MSS., and the two editions printed from them, we still owe him thanks.[101]While the Latin works of the humanists were being done into the vulgar tongue, the practice of translating Greek works into Latin was continued. Alamanno Rinuccini translated Plutarch’s ‘Lives’ and moral writings, as well as Philostratos’ ‘Life of Apollonius of Tyana,’ which excited special interest in an age much busied with the theologising philosophy of the later Greeks. Alessandro Bracci did the same for the histories of Appian, and Poliziano, as has been mentioned, translated those of Herodian for Innocent VIII. The movement, begun in Florence and Venice, had spread all over Italy. In the most palmy days of these studies the invention of printing produced in the whole world of letters a change, the possible extent of which was at once felt, though it could not yet be measured. Books had hitherto been things for the great and opulent, and not seldom were to be obtained only by personal labour. There were difficulties even in the highest circles. The spread of the new art produced not only a material increase of literary productions, but led naturally to an immense increase of criticism. In earlier times bitter complaints had been heard of the corruption of the texts. The few attempts that had been made to attain greater correctness now became a recognised branch of study. Every corrector was not indeed a Poliziano, a Barbaro, or a Merula. The last complains, in his edition of ‘Plautus’ of 1472, that learned and unlearned alike busied themselves with correcting books; a circumstance which limits the value of more than oneeditio princepsto its mere rarity, and explains the fact that many of the correctors of that time rivalled their predecessors the copyists in the arbitrariness of their proceedings. But even in the case of the learned the canons of criticism were by no means fixed.It is remarkable that Florence, which, when printing was introduced into Italy, stood at the head of all literary movement, is by no means the first city that appears in the annals of typography. In 1465, three years after the capture of Mainz by Adolf of Nassau had scattered to the four winds the printers established there, two Germans set up the first printing-press in the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, whence ere long it was removed to the house of the Massimi at Rome. Four years later Venice followed, then theUmbrian and other cities. In November, 1471, appeared the first book printed in Florence, the commentary of Servius on Virgil’s ‘Bucolics,’ which was followed in the following January by the ‘Georgics,’ and in October, 1472, by the ‘Æneid.’ But if the city fell behind many others in point of priority, this honour is due to her, that one of her sons cut and founded his own types, without needing the services of a foreigner. The goldsmith Bernardo Cennini was the first Italian who set himself up as an independent artist in this line.[102]Born in Florence, January, 1415, he was first a silk-weaver and then a goldsmith, and was concerned in the bronze doors of the Baptistery, and other great works. His art led him to manufacture types for printing. The inscription in the book printed by him, with the help of his sons Domenico and Pietro, the first as compositor, the second as corrector of the press,[103]shows that he was proud of the achievement: ‘To Florentine minds nought is arduous.’ The book shows an artistic mind in its form and typographical arrangement, but the round type is lacking in sharpness and evenness. The pecuniary result can scarcely have been worth the trouble and outlay. When we find that Cennini, after spending sixteen months on the production of the folio volume, pledged his house for a loan of 120 florins, we can understand why he returned to his old occupation, and why no other book printed by him is forthcoming. In course of time Bernardo Cennini, whose sight had suffered greatly, became consul of his guild, and died in 1483, twelve yearsafter the attempt which brought him a name and somewhat tardy honours.Next a German who had established himself in Florence, Johannes, son of Peter of Mainz, printed Boccaccio’s ‘Filocolo’ in 1472, and afterwards joined the typographical society which took its name from the Dominican nunnery at Ripoli.[104]Its local habitation is still shown in one of the schoolrooms of the educational institute named after the same in the Via della Scala. From this establishment, founded by the spiritual directors of the convent and connected with a type-foundry, issued first, in 1476, some lauds and prayers, then the ‘Commentary of Donatus’ and the ‘Legend of S. Catherine of Siena,’ which, both in the common form and in copies with illuminated initials, obtained a great circulation. This printing establishment, in which many both of the clergy and laity had a share, and in which the nuns were employed as compositors, produced a great deal of work during its short existence of eight years. In 1477 printing was begun by Nicolaus of Breslau, already mentioned; in 1478 he brought out the ‘editio princeps’ of Celsus, and three years later Landino’s ‘Dante.’ In 1481, Antonio Miscomini printed Savonarola’s ‘Triumphus Crucis,’ a proof of the increasing notice attracted by the eloquent and learned Dominican. Next came Ficino’s ‘Platonic Theology,’ and translation of ‘Plotinus.’ In 1488 the series of Greek books issued in Florence opened brilliantly with the ‘Homer,’ dedicated to Lorenzo’s eldest son. Chalcondylas undertook the correction, the difficulty of which called forth his remark, in the preface, that the text had been so corrupted by the carelessness of copyists that it was, so to say, impossible to find it entire in any codex, however old. The expenses were borne by Bernardo andNeri, sons of Tanai de’ Nerli, a noble citizen. Lorenzo Alopa of Venice is said to have printed the beautiful volume, which was soon followed by numerous others. The most celebrated Florentine family of typographers, that of the Giunta, did not begin their labours till Lorenzo de’ Medici had long been in his grave.The extended use of typography had, however, as yet by no means diminished the value of manuscripts or put an end to the work of the copyists, while the need and difficulty of unearthing literary treasures was as great as ever. The explanation of this is to be found in the material perfection to which the art of the copyists had been brought, a perfection of which the proud consciousness was expressed in Vespasiano’s disdainful remark on printing. This branch of industry went on flourishing for many years, to disappear at last and leave scarcely a trace behind. One of the most brilliant, though not the most important, of the treasures of the Laurentiana, the works of St. Augustine in sixteen folio volumes full of miniatures and ornaments, was begun in the time of Piero de’ Medici and finished shortly before the death of Lorenzo (two of the volumes are dated 1491). It may not have been completed till the time of his second son, unless the escutcheon with the balls and the Triregnum points to Leo X. only as the possessor of the work and not as concerned in its execution.In the diffusion of literary treasures, both of classical and modern works, and in the relations of the latter to the general public, who now for the first time became really acquainted with them, was brought about that great change which gives to this period double importance in the history of intellectual development. At Lorenzo’s death this revolution had hardly reached its first stage; but his keen vision perceived its growing importance when he observed that in the course of twenty-eight years Italy had come to take a more prominent share than other lands in the activity of the press. This showed, quite as much as the previous rapiddevelopment of Greek literature, that the country was ready to make an independent and profitable use of the gifts of foreign countries. The invention of printing and the discovery of America were in some degree the two great landmarks of Lorenzo’s life. The first created actual publicity, the second opened a new horizon to the world.Never were manuscripts more eagerly collected and copied than in those days. The sum of the collections was not so great as in the days of Poggio and Leonardo Bruni; still the libraries were increasing everywhere. Greece, which had contributed so largely to enrich the West in the first half of the century, and after the fall of the Eastern empire, was still the principal mine. Witness the two journeys of Johannes Lascaris, the second of which, like that of Bernardo Michelozzi, was entirely devoted to searching the monastery of Mount Athos. Its results, as already stated, reached Florence after Lorenzo’s death. As early as 1472 Lorenzo had projected a building, probably near the palace in the Via Larga, destined to contain the great number of manuscripts collected by his grandfather, his father, and himself. This appears from a letter addressed to him by Vespasiano da Bisticci, in which the latter recalls their frequent conversations on the subject, and adds that such an undertaking would do great honour to Lorenzo as well as to the town; and that he had written about it to the Duke of Calabria, the Count of Urbino, and Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, knowing how much pleasure it would give them. Doubtless the manifold cares and disturbances which prevented Lorenzo from imitating his grandfather in the number and splendour of his buildings hindered him from executing this plan in good time. Consequently at his premature death the library was but half finished. It is now impossible to make out even the site of the building, since it is uncertain whether it was the same chosen many years afterwards by his nephew Pope Clement VII. for the existing Mediceo-Laurentian library. We still possess the inventory of theprivate library of the Medici, drawn up in 1495, when the books were made over to the convent of San Marco. There they remained, through many vicissitudes, till 1508, when Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici bought them and transferred them to Rome; after his death they returned to Florence, to form the chief part of the San Lorenzo collection.[105]It may be imagined that many of Lorenzo’s fellow-citizens were his rivals in book-collecting. A fine library had once been formed by Piero de’ Pazzi, son of Andrea. Francesco and Angelo Gaddi followed his example, and the great public library of their native city contains many books once in their possession. Poliziano’s friend, the accomplished merchant Filippo Sassetti the elder, also made a large collection. The good custom of making special bequests to secure these literary treasures from dispersion was kept up. Boccaccio had done this, and Riccoli, Traversari, Cardinal Piero Corsini and others; and in like manner Ugolini Guigni, Bishop of Volterra, left his books to the Benedictine abbey at Florence.[106]In 1477, Jacopo Salvini, Bishop of Cortona, bequeathed his collection to Lorenzo de’ Medici.[107]The latter had literary correspondents everywhere. In 1476 we find him corresponding with the Milanese Gio. Francesco della Torre, who, with Maestro Bonaccorso of Pisa, had purchased the books of Andronikos Kallistos, when the latter purposed returning from Lombardy to his own home.[108]Giovanni Rossi of Candia, who had been employed by Cardinal Bessarion, was also made use of by Lorenzo, apparently to look after copies of manuscripts.[109]Among those more closely connected with him in later years, Poliziano, Pico, andErmolao Barbaro took charge of the enrichment of his collection and that of the convent libraries of San Marco, Fiesole, and San Gallo. Ho said once to Poliziano, he wished that he and Pico could procure him so many books that his income would not suffice to buy them, and he should be obliged to pawn his household goods. He kept copyists in many places, especially at Padua, which, as the residence of so many great scholars and from its connection with the Levant through Venice, was a spot favourable to book collectors.The difficulty and expense of obtaining manuscripts in earlier times has been already noticed. Even in Lorenzo’s latter years it was by no means easy, and his correspondence shows that once, in the very height of his glory, he had to apply in his own handwriting to a prince who was probably under obligation to him, in order to obtain the loan of Dion Cassius. ‘There is in your Excellency’s library,’ he wrote on February 5, 1486, to Duke Ercole d’Este, ‘a historian, by name Dio,de Romanis historiis, that I earnestly desire to see, both on account of the enjoyment and consolation which history affords me, and because my son Piero, who has some knowledge of Greek literature, has begged me to help him to become acquainted with this author, who, I understand, is very rare in Italy. Your Excellency can understand how highly I shall prize the favour, if you will lend me the book for a few days.’ Notwithstanding their intimacy, the Duke did not send the original, but allowed a copy to be made by a copyist sent to Ferrara for the purpose. Two years later he had Niccolò Leoniceno’s translation copied for Lorenzo, on condition that it was neither to be printed nor allowed to go any further.[110]In the spring of 1491 Poliziano was, as we have seen, in Venice, where he bought for his patron a quantity of manuscripts now in the Laurentiana. He was refused permission to see Cardinal Bessarion’s collection ofbooks, although the Ferrarese ambassador used his influence with the Doge Agostino Barbarigo—a strange token of petty mistrust.[111]‘Your diligence in having Greek works copied, and the favour you show to scholars,’ wrote Poliziano to Lorenzo about this time, ‘procures for you such honour and attachment as no one has enjoyed for many years past.’ He mentioned at the same time the admiration for Lorenzo expressed by a Venetian poetess honoured by all scholars and literary men, as well as by popes and kings. ‘Last evening I visited Cassandra Fedele,[112]to whom I presented your salutations, Lorenzo; she is really admirable, both in Latin and in the vulgar tongue, withal very modest, and, in my opinion, also beautiful. I left her astonished. She is devoted to you, and speaks of you as if she knew all about you. Some day she will certainly come to Florence to visit you, so prepare to do her honour.’Lorenzo’s example did not fail to bring forth fruit in his own house. Leo X. laboured all his life to follow it, with a zeal in collecting which showed that his father’s spirit survived in him. Piero, with his tutor Poliziano, superintended the arrangement and enrichment of the library, sending reports about it to his father, when the latter was ill at the baths. We learn from one of his letters[113]that the Medici, in the interests of their library, took advantage of the death of King Matthias Corvinus (April 4, 1490) to secure a number of his copyists and agents who were then thrown out of employment. That monarch vied with the book collectors of his time, and spent more than 30,000 gold florins yearly on the increase of his library at Ofen. In 1488 he sent an agent to Florence with full power to make purchases and superintend the taking of copies. The efforts made by this active and high-minded ruler of a people still half barbarous, however capable of development,were always assisted by Lorenzo, as became his friendly relations with Matthias. Long before the days of Matthias Corvinus there had been a literary and artistic connection between Florence and Hungary through Filippo Scolari, commonly called Pippo Spano by his countrymen, from his title of Count Palatine (Obergespann) of Temesvar; he held an influential position under Sigismund of Luxemburg. The connection with the Italian literary world had been actively kept up by the powerful Archbishop of Gran, Johann Vitez, who founded a high school at Ofen; still more by his nephew, Janus Pannonius, Bishop of Fünfkirchen, who studied at Padua under Guarino, and visited Cosimo de’ Medici at Careggi.From his youth Lorenzo had extended his attention beyond what are called literary treasures in the narrower sense. In another field, bordering at once on the study of antiquity and on that of history, his name must also be mentioned with distinction. The range of classical studies was extended to ancient monuments. Rome, for centuries active only in destruction, began to be ashamed of the bad name which such barbarism had brought upon her. The time of Sixtus IV., with all its sins, was the turning-point. Like his successor and namesake, Sixtus V., the Pope did not entirely refrain from demolishing ancient monuments; but works of art and inscriptions were safe. The Roman Academy strove to wipe out the blot pointed at in an epigram by Pius II.The great increase in the collection of old inscriptions drew attention to those valuable witnesses of old times. At the same time the disappearance of these memorials through decay and careless removal gave warning that their contents must be secured by copying. What had been once undertaken by Nicola Signorini, Giovanni Dondi, Poggio, Ciriaco, perhaps even before them by Cola di Rienzi, was now continued under the guidance of Pomponio Leto and his friends, with the sympathy of all Italy. Inscribed stones were diligently collected in Rome, Naples, and northern Italy. BernardoRucellai copied a number of epigraphs from the originals in Rome. One of the most valuable of these collections of transcriptions was dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici by its author, the Dominican Fra Giocondo of Verona. He was one of those many-sided geniuses frequent at the time; versed in classical literature and in knowledge of antiquity. His pupil, Julius Cæsar Scaliger, called him a living library of ancient and modern learning. He was an engineer and architect, active in many ways at Rome, at Venice, and in France, and at an advanced age master-builder of the Vatican Basilica, under Leo X. The copy of the collection of inscriptions presented by Fra Giocondo to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who came in contact with him through Alessandro Cortesi, has disappeared, but other copies remain. The dedication of the work is an eloquent lamentation over the state of ancient Rome, and over the dispersion or destruction of stone and bronze tablets. It offers a warm tribute to their value, and an acknowledgment of Lorenzo’s interest in these studies. Poliziano and other friends made use of the careful work of the energetic Veronese, who was in communication both with the future Pope and his brother Giuliano, to whom he dedicated his commentary on Cæsar’s ‘Gallic War,’ and the later edition of ‘Vitruvius.’[114]Such were the literary tendencies which, notwithstanding the rivalry of other cities, had their chief centre and focus at Florence; such was the circle of men which had gathered together in this city. Vacant places were soonfilled up again. Like Lorenzo himself, several of the most prominent were in the prime of life, and younger men began to make good their claims. Such were Marcello Virgilio Adriani, who, after Scala’s death, restored the chancellorship to its pristine glory, and Bernardo Dovizj, who grew up in the house of the Medici, and afterwards gained a worldwide reputation as Cardinal of Bibiena. Whatever personal divergences there might be in the group, Lorenzo held them all together: all did homage to him, all acknowledged him as their leader. It was no cringing homage to a mighty lord; many of those who stood nearest to him gained little in worldly goods by their position, and others were too high and independent to need his help. It was the homage due to a richly endowed mind with noble aims and endeavours. Regardless of all inequalities of rank and position, freedom and ease reigned in this circle. When the meetings were academical, they were free from the formality which afterwards crept into academical life. Lorenzo de’ Medici, cheerful and sociable, maintained unconstrained intercourse with his literary friends. He received them everywhere: in the house in Via Larga, in the garden of San Marco, in the villas at Careggi and Poggio a Cajano. The more intimate of them accompanied him also when he went to the baths or to Pisa, or when he paced the convent cloisters in serious discourse with the clergy. The Platonic Academy, an inheritance from his grandfather, was only one manifestation of this multiform social life. It was so strangely composed that it is not surprising the Platonists sometimes fell into very un-Platonic ways. There is something half comic about a letter of Landino’s dated 1464, the year Cosimo died;[115]it is a petition on behalf of the herald of the Priory Palace, who had been dismissed from his post for keeping a girl hidden two days in his room. He solicits pardon upon the following pleas: his wife was expecting her confinement,he had two little daughters and an aged mother, and was a member of the Platonic Academy.Lorenzo sometimes took part in the meetings of the learned society, which he was fond of summoning to Careggi, being less disturbed there than in the city. In both places the Symposia were renewed which, according to Alexandrian tradition, were to celebrate the day of Plato’s birth and death (November 7). Marsilio Ficino has described one of these banquets which took place under the presidency either of Lorenzo or Francesco Bandini.[116]Among the guests were Marsilio and his father, Landino, Antonio degli Agli Bishop of Fiesole, Carlo and Cristoforo Marsuppini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Bernardo Nuzzi, and Tommaso Benci. The academical celebration or exercise succeeded the repast. Plato’s ‘Symposion’—the book which treats of the tokens of love at similar happy meetings, and a commentary on which Marsilio furnished in his treatise on love—was used as a starting-point for free disputation, the parts being divided among the persons present. Giovanni Cavalcanti developed the ‘Phædro,’ and showed how the birth of Eros from the conjunction of the earth with chaos, amid the throes of creation and the struggle for light, signified the original motive force of all that is good, noble, and beautiful in mankind. With this discourse was connected the exposition, also allotted to Cavalcanti, of the speech of Pausanias on the double Aphrodite, and Urania; on the distinction and confusion between moral and physical affections, their emanation, extension, stages of purification, and participation in the manifold forces of nature. Landino undertook to explain the speech of Aristophanes. According to this, love is the never-sleeping longing of man for a return to his former state of oneness with the Divine, from which Zeus, in wrath, had divided him by means of his earthly form and by sin. To Carlo Marsuppini fell the discourse of Agathon, which glorifies the qualities of the god who is at once sovarious and yet blends all variety into unity. Tommaso Benci devoted himself to pointing out the connection between the Christian view and the supposed inspired words of the priestess Diotima, who disclosed to Socrates the nature of a love that raises man to the highest good or sinks him to the lowest depths of evil. Cristoforo Marsuppini undertook to bring into harmony with the Socratic doctrine of Love the poems of Guido Cavalcanti, to which, as an emanation of Greek philosophy in the arena of the new-born Italian literature, great importance was attached by contemporaries, especially by Lorenzo de’ Medici. Such were the occupations of these famous assemblies. Their positive scientific results were not great, yet they afford a brilliant testimony to the cultivation which enabled the upper classes in Florence to take part in the noblest intellectual efforts.While poetry and philosophy were thus flourishing, the exact sciences were making considerable progress. It is doubtful whether Fra Luca Paciolo, of Borgo San Sepolcro—who first recalled true geometry to life by his exposition of Euclid, and who exercised so much influence on Leonardo da Vinci—began his labours during the lifetime of Lorenzo. But Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, the physician, philosopher, naturalist, and mathematician, commenced his studies as early as the days of Cosimo the Elder. In 1468 he laid down the famous meridian in Sta. Maria del Fiore, primarily for the purpose of ascertaining exactly the solstices in order to fix the festivals of the Church. The importance of the work was appreciated by later generations, and the task was performed more perfectly 300 years afterwards, at the suggestion of La Condamine.[117]It is well known that Toscanelli, who died in 1482, aged seventy-five, exerted great influence on the mind of Christopher Columbus by his calculations of the longitudinal extent of Eastern Asia, which, however,rested chiefly on Marco Polo’s mistaken hypotheses. Long after Toscanelli’s death, Columbus—when upon his first voyage—made use of the map, marked with the latitudes and longitudes, which the former had once sent to Lisbon. It was in the last years of Lorenzo’s life that a man whose name is more famous than his deeds, and who has been the subject of renewed controversy in our own times, left his home to seek a new one in Southern Spain.[118]The family of Amerigo Vespucci, which reckoned among the navigator’s near relatives men of both scientific and political importance, was sometimes on friendly, sometimes on hostile terms with the Medici; but we hear nothing of any personal relation between him and Lorenzo. About the age of forty, Amerigo settled in Seville, where he joined the banking and commercial house of his fellow-countryman Giovanni Berardi. Well furnished with knowledge, to which his learned uncle Giorgio Antonio had contributed not a little, he began a course of practical preparations for the undertaking which led him to the Far West. Not with the Florentines, but with a schoolman of Lorraine, originated the name of the new continent which, as long as the world stands, will recall Amerigo Vespucci. Still the Florentines rightly rejoiced in the fame of their countryman. A later generation has seen the house of his forefathers turned into a hospital, and has inscribed on it in homage to his memory: ‘Ob repertam Americam sui et patriæ nominis illustratori amplificatori orbis terrarum.’ When the news of his discoveries made in the voyage of 1497 reached Florence, the Signoria had the above-named house illuminated for three nights, a distinction they were wont to bestow only on the most conspicuous merit.
CHAPTER XI.THE UNIVERSITY OF PISA. MANUSCRIPTS AND CRITICISM. PRINTING. PLATONIC SYMPOSIA.Thecircle of Florentine celebrities which, though its members were continually changing, always retained its peculiar character, included men of smaller importance than many of those already described, but yet worthy of mention. Among these are the philologer-poets who, in endeavouring to follow Poliziano, lost their individuality in imitations of the Roman poets of the Flavian and following periods. Their verses have but an historical and local interest for posterity, and even the sixteenth century, so busy with Latin verse-making, passed judgment upon them very freely.[87]Ugolino Vieri, who Latinised his name into Verino, celebrated his native city and its famous men in three books of a poem, ‘De Illustratione urbis Florentiæ,’ which spite of a few happy characteristics, is barely more than a dry catalogue. Naldo Naldi has acquired a more lasting reputation by his biographical works than by his numerous verses. People sang each other’s praises without end; and such laudations, though endurable from a Poliziano, are tiresome from inferior hands. Alessandro Bracci, one of the secretaries of state; Giovan Battista Cantalicio, afterwards Bishop of Penne and Adria; Tommaso Baldinotti of Pistoja; Alessandro Cortesi, the talented scion of a family of San Gemignano very intimate with the Medici; Piero Riccio, knownunder the Latinised name of Crinitus, and author of a history of the old Latin poets; these and many other pupils of Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano, belong to thedii minorum gentium. Verses by some of them have been printed, while heaps lie in manuscript in the Laurentian library to testify to the intellectual activity of the time.[88]The verses of the Roman Carlo de’ Massimi in praise of Pisa University have some interest for the history of literature. Literary productions of every kind were sent to Lorenzo from all quarters; he was the great patron of authors. Much of what he received he sent on to San Marco and to the Abbey of Fiesole, as may be seen by the inscriptions in the volumes.All these men, small and great, found in Lorenzo their Mæcenas. But he showed very early that he invested the position of patron with more serious importance than his predecessors had done. When scarcely three-and-twenty he brought about the restoration of the University of Pisa, which was not only an act of justice, but, apart from its literary importance, a token of ripe political insight that helped to counterbalance in some degree the miseries inflicted on Volterra in the same year (1472). The university, formed in the fourth decade of the fourteenth century out of the existing public schools, and confirmed in 1343 by Clement VI., fell into decay from political causes later in the century, and finally succumbed to Florentine enmity. The mutual animosity of the two cities is only to be paralleled in the history of antiquity. Twenty-five years after the subjection of Pisa, the Ministry of War at Florence wrote to Averardo de’ Medici, their commissioner in the subject town:[89]‘According to general opinion here, the most effectualmeans of securing the town is to empty it entirely of Pisan citizens and peasants, concerning which we have written to the Captain of the People till we are tired. He answers that he is hindered by the soldiery and officers. We now command thee to go to him and persuade him to spare no harshness or severity, as we perceive that no other remedy will avail. We have confidence in thee that thou wilt at once set everything to work, for thou couldst do nothing more pleasing to this whole people.’ The efficacious result was that the city was ruined, the marshy neighbourhood left fallow to become the home of fever, and the fleet vanished. So rooted was this hatred that when Pisa had freed herself amid the confusion which followed on Lorenzo’s death, Bernardo del Nero—a usually moderate man of the Medicean party—declared that against the Pisans nothing availed save force; all prisoners of war must be slain after the example of the Genoese, who let the Pisan captives taken at Meloria languish to death in prison.[90]Lorenzo early perceived that the blind enmity which ruined Pisa was overshooting the mark. As his family held considerable property in the district he frequently had occasion to visit the city, whose position made it a halting-place for many travellers between northern and southern Italy. Pisa must not be allowed to give the Florentines any more trouble, but neither should it be allowed to perish. Two considerations in particular seem to have prompted the re-establishment of the old university. The first was the quiet, which was more favourable to study than the busy life of Florence; the second was the number and cheapness of dwellings, which were in increasing danger of falling to ruin since trade had departed from its old abodes, and the inhabitants were nearly all poor people. Yet Lorenzo needed great power and moral courage to set himself against rooted hatred and stubborn prejudices. On December 19, 1472,was issued the decree by which the university was restored to life.[91]A board of management was appointed—the Officiales studii—consisting of five Florentine citizens: Tommaso Ridolfi, Donato Acciaiuolo, Andrea Puccini, Alamanno Rinuccini, and Lorenzo de’ Medici. The yearly endowment was to consist of 6,000 gold florins, and the statutes of the University of Florence were to be in force at that of Pisa. Members of the state were to be entitled to academical honours and the authority to practise in Pisa alone. To raise the salaries of the professors, Pope Sixtus IV. consented to a tax on the clergy to the amount of 5,000 florins in five years, a tax which was renewed by his successor in 1497 for another five years, and drew complaints from Ficino, Poliziano, and others. Only the philosophical and literary branches of study were to continue at Florence.The credit of all this was justly given to Lorenzo. ‘I heard a few days ago,’ wrote Antonio de’ Pazzi to him from Padua, January 29, 1473,[92]‘that by your direction a new university is to be founded at Pisa; at which not only we Florentine students, but foreign ones too, are greatly delighted, seeing that Pisa is a city eminently suited for it, and because the scheme proceeds from a man who will strive to acquire honour by this as by all else that he undertakes.’ Scholars came flocking from all parts, and first among them Francesco Filelfo. He had found an asylum with the Sforza at Milan; but, dissatisfied and restless, extravagant and in debt, he tried to change his position. During the pontificate of Pius II. he made several attempts to this end, but, failing in his hopes, he attacked the pontiff before and after death with his usual invectives, and in consequence was imprisoned for a time. In April 1473 he applied to Lorenzo. Sometime before he had managed to flatter Lorenzo’s father into forgetting his offences against Cosimo so far as to hold one of his sons over the font; and when in Florence in the autumn of 1469, shortly before Piero’s death, he obtained a loan from Lorenzo.[93]The letter which he now addressed to the latter[94]is curiously characteristic of the man. He attacks those who had long been in their graves—Marsuppini, Poggio, and their ‘synagogue.’ He begins by declaring that the Milanese chancellor, Cecco Simonetta, had advised him to prefer Pisa to Rome, where he was much wanted; and he ends with the artless assurance that Lorenzo must know well he cannot find in all the world a second Filelfo nor one more devoted to him. In another letter he remarks in the same style: ‘You are aware that at the present time no one can stand a comparison with me in my own branch.’ Simonetta, from Pavia, seconded the appeal, and sang the vain man’s praises. Lorenzo answered by asking what salary would be required, but the negotiation fell through, which Medici probably did not much regret, as he must have felt some hesitation in attaching the quarrelsome old man to his young establishment. Besides, the sentence of banishment once passed on Filelfo was still in force, and his services in the way of literary invective after the conspiracy of the Pazzi had not yet smoothed the way to his return. When he was at last summoned to Florence as professor of eloquence and moral philosophy, he had scarcely time to greet the city he had left for nearly half a century before he died, a few days after his arrival, in the summer of 1481, in his eighty-third year.The new-born university, which was opened in November 1473, soon took its share in the working of many active forces in diverse directions. In its very earliest years it would have risen to the highly flourishing condition it afterwards attained had not various unfavourable circumstancescome in the way. The unhealthy air of the city and neighbourhood had not been sufficiently taken into consideration. War, desolation, poverty, made matters worse, just at the time when Florence was also a prey to disease. For six years the establishment kept moving from place to place. Professors and students wandered away to Pistoja and Prato, and sometimes to Florence—even Empoli and San Miniato were thought of—till the state of affairs was improved, and the hitherto scattered lecturers were brought together in a university building erected by the care of Lorenzo. There was no lack of difficulties with the professors; the Sienese Bartolommeo Sozzini and the Milanese brothers Decio, all professors of law, gave Lorenzo a great deal of trouble by their unruly conduct. Among the best professors at the outset were the jurists Baldo Bartolini of Perugia and Francesco Accolti of Arezzo, brother of the Florentine chancellor, and a pupil of Filelfo; Piero Leoni of Spoleto, already mentioned, who afterwards, to his misfortune, became Lorenzo’s family doctor; the humanists Lorenzo Lippi of Colle and Bartolommeo of Pratovecchio. Special honours fell to the share of the Roman Francesco de’ Massimi, who came to the university at its opening as professor of law, was made Principal the next year, and gained such esteem both by his lectures and by his endeavours to establish and maintain a better understanding between the two hostile cities, that the rights of citizenship were conferred on him and his descendants, and he was permitted to add the arms of Pisa to his own.[95]The salaries of the professors weremostly considerable, and Lorenzo repeatedly contributed to them out of his own funds. The archbishop, Filippo de’ Medici, supported him in his efforts to benefit the institution, which was conducive both to the honour and advantage of the see. That pecuniary difficulties could not be escaped, however, is clear from the fact that in 1485, in consequence of the non-payment of the papal allowance, a retrenchment of 2,000 florins was deemed needful.The philosophical and philological lectures continued, as has been said, at Florence, and scholarly activity there seemed in nowise diminished by the re-animation of the sister city. Among the native professors, Bartolommeo della Fonte (Fontius) made a name equally distinguished in Latin and Greek literature, and left Latin memoirs on contemporary events from 1448 to 1493, the value of which is not to be measured by their brevity.[96]His friendship with Poliziano became clouded when he obtained the chair of eloquence vacant by Filelfo’s death. He does not seem to have held it long, as he undertook the superintendence of Matthias Corvinus’ library at Ofen. The study of Greek flourished. The chair once occupied by Argyropulos and Theodoros was filled by the Athenian Demetrios Chalcondylas, who kept it longer than anyone else, and left a better reputation, both for learning and morality, than many Greek grammarians. Poliziano, who is supposed to have perfected his knowledge of the Hellenic tongue under him, addressed him in several Greek epigrams, which give no hint of the rivalry afterwards said to exist between them. A fine testimony to his Homeric studies is the edition of the ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ which came out in 1488. Three years before,at the age of nearly seventy, he left Florence for Milan, where he long continued to teach, having been gladly welcomed by Lodovico Sforza, who rivalled the Medici in his patronage of science and art. Chalcondylas’ place at Florence was taken by Johannes Lascaris, who formed many fruitful connections with Milan, France, and Rome, in the days of Lorenzo’s son. The knowledge of Greek was, perhaps, never so widespread among high-born youths anywhere as in those days in the Tuscan city to which, Poliziano said, Athens with its native soil and all its possessions had transferred itself. In truth, strangers eager to learn came from all quarters—England, Germany, Portugal—just as of old everybody went to Athens. Here Alessandro Farnese acquired that knowledge of the language and literature of Greece which the greyhaired Pope Paul III. had not yet lost. Poliziano thus addressed the hearers of Chalcondylas:Seek the Pierides not in their ancient home, O ye poets:For in this city of ours dwells now the heavenly choir.Where, do ye ask, have they chosen among us a place to abide in?All the nine ye will find safe in Chalcondylas’ breast.Textual criticism was a work taken up less by foreigners than by Italians: in Rome, especially by Lorenzo Valla and Pomponio Leto; in Florence, by Landino, Poliziano, and Pico. Lorenzo not only encouraged those personally intimate with him to this work, but urged others to it, particularly the members of the Academy, which, having weathered the storms of Paul II.’s reign, flourished with renewed vigour under Sixtus IV., a Pope who felt no fear of the baptized heathens. Bartolommeo Platina, writing to Lorenzo[97]to recommend the Milanese sculptor Andrea Fusina, adds that the man felt assured of obtaining his desire if he, Platina, interceded for him. ‘Farewell, and believe me, thou hast few who love and honour thee likePlatina.’ On March 30, 1488, Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini on behalf of a friend of Pomponio Leto:[98]‘Doubtless you know, at least by name, Pomponio, one of the most famous scholars in Rome, if not the very first, and a man much attached to me and our whole house, so that I am greatly desirous of doing him a favour.’The art of studying manuscripts had first to be put on a sound basis. The rich harvest of discoveries was now almost at an end, a few objects of interest turning up only occasionally. Collectors had naturally enough given themselves up to delight in the prizes thus gained, without troubling themselves much about criticism. The necessity of criticism became more strongly felt and exercised as continued study of the old authors involved a stricter examination of the correctness of the manuscripts. At first people had been too much inclined to believe generally in their great age, and had been misled in individual cases by the chronological notes at the end of the codices. Often, as in the Medicean codex of the later books of the Annals of Tacitus, the date was fixed in the fourth Christian century, when in reality the parchments were written on by a later copyist. The corrupt state of the manuscripts called for correction, but the correction was mostly arbitrary. Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Francesco Barbaro, and others, sought to supply what was needed, but of rules they knew nothing. In this, above all, shines the transcendent merit of Poliziano; though even he indulged largely in conjecture, when in his youth he self-complacently fancied that his work on Catullus surpassed everything of the kind. Nor did he stand alone in this respect. Ermolao Barbaro in his edition of Pliny in 1492, Marullus in his critical works on Lucretius, confess how often they had had recourse to emendations of their own devising. But Poliziano thoroughly perceived that a secure basis was only to be obtained by a comparison ofMSS. where more than one existed. When this was not the case he tried to get a foundation for his conjectures from notes and parallel passages. Many printed books from his library bear on their margins traces of this comparison of MSS., to which he alludes in one of his letters to Lorenzo.[99]The collection of critical studies which he published in 1489 under the title of ‘Miscellanea,’ at Lorenzo’s desire and with a dedication to him, is a lasting memorial of his learning and acumen. A painful impression is made by his dispute with Filelfo’s pupil Giorgio Merula,[100]the editor of ‘Plautus.’ This man had been invited to Milan by Ludovico il Moro, gave philosophical lectures there, and though previously an admirer of Poliziano, now professed to find errors and plagiarisms in his works. Sforza showed his good sense by trying to calm the irritation of the Florentine when appealed to by him.Poliziano’s critical work on the correction of the text of Justinian’s ‘Corpus Juris’ holds an honourable place in the history of this subject. This famous copy of the Pandects was avowedly acquired by Pisa at the conquest of Amalfi, whither it had doubtless come as a gift from some Greek emperor, and on the overthrow of Pisa it was transferred to Florence. Poliziano’s views of its age and authorship may have been exploded by later criticism, but for the foundations of a better text than that of the later MSS., and the two editions printed from them, we still owe him thanks.[101]While the Latin works of the humanists were being done into the vulgar tongue, the practice of translating Greek works into Latin was continued. Alamanno Rinuccini translated Plutarch’s ‘Lives’ and moral writings, as well as Philostratos’ ‘Life of Apollonius of Tyana,’ which excited special interest in an age much busied with the theologising philosophy of the later Greeks. Alessandro Bracci did the same for the histories of Appian, and Poliziano, as has been mentioned, translated those of Herodian for Innocent VIII. The movement, begun in Florence and Venice, had spread all over Italy. In the most palmy days of these studies the invention of printing produced in the whole world of letters a change, the possible extent of which was at once felt, though it could not yet be measured. Books had hitherto been things for the great and opulent, and not seldom were to be obtained only by personal labour. There were difficulties even in the highest circles. The spread of the new art produced not only a material increase of literary productions, but led naturally to an immense increase of criticism. In earlier times bitter complaints had been heard of the corruption of the texts. The few attempts that had been made to attain greater correctness now became a recognised branch of study. Every corrector was not indeed a Poliziano, a Barbaro, or a Merula. The last complains, in his edition of ‘Plautus’ of 1472, that learned and unlearned alike busied themselves with correcting books; a circumstance which limits the value of more than oneeditio princepsto its mere rarity, and explains the fact that many of the correctors of that time rivalled their predecessors the copyists in the arbitrariness of their proceedings. But even in the case of the learned the canons of criticism were by no means fixed.It is remarkable that Florence, which, when printing was introduced into Italy, stood at the head of all literary movement, is by no means the first city that appears in the annals of typography. In 1465, three years after the capture of Mainz by Adolf of Nassau had scattered to the four winds the printers established there, two Germans set up the first printing-press in the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, whence ere long it was removed to the house of the Massimi at Rome. Four years later Venice followed, then theUmbrian and other cities. In November, 1471, appeared the first book printed in Florence, the commentary of Servius on Virgil’s ‘Bucolics,’ which was followed in the following January by the ‘Georgics,’ and in October, 1472, by the ‘Æneid.’ But if the city fell behind many others in point of priority, this honour is due to her, that one of her sons cut and founded his own types, without needing the services of a foreigner. The goldsmith Bernardo Cennini was the first Italian who set himself up as an independent artist in this line.[102]Born in Florence, January, 1415, he was first a silk-weaver and then a goldsmith, and was concerned in the bronze doors of the Baptistery, and other great works. His art led him to manufacture types for printing. The inscription in the book printed by him, with the help of his sons Domenico and Pietro, the first as compositor, the second as corrector of the press,[103]shows that he was proud of the achievement: ‘To Florentine minds nought is arduous.’ The book shows an artistic mind in its form and typographical arrangement, but the round type is lacking in sharpness and evenness. The pecuniary result can scarcely have been worth the trouble and outlay. When we find that Cennini, after spending sixteen months on the production of the folio volume, pledged his house for a loan of 120 florins, we can understand why he returned to his old occupation, and why no other book printed by him is forthcoming. In course of time Bernardo Cennini, whose sight had suffered greatly, became consul of his guild, and died in 1483, twelve yearsafter the attempt which brought him a name and somewhat tardy honours.Next a German who had established himself in Florence, Johannes, son of Peter of Mainz, printed Boccaccio’s ‘Filocolo’ in 1472, and afterwards joined the typographical society which took its name from the Dominican nunnery at Ripoli.[104]Its local habitation is still shown in one of the schoolrooms of the educational institute named after the same in the Via della Scala. From this establishment, founded by the spiritual directors of the convent and connected with a type-foundry, issued first, in 1476, some lauds and prayers, then the ‘Commentary of Donatus’ and the ‘Legend of S. Catherine of Siena,’ which, both in the common form and in copies with illuminated initials, obtained a great circulation. This printing establishment, in which many both of the clergy and laity had a share, and in which the nuns were employed as compositors, produced a great deal of work during its short existence of eight years. In 1477 printing was begun by Nicolaus of Breslau, already mentioned; in 1478 he brought out the ‘editio princeps’ of Celsus, and three years later Landino’s ‘Dante.’ In 1481, Antonio Miscomini printed Savonarola’s ‘Triumphus Crucis,’ a proof of the increasing notice attracted by the eloquent and learned Dominican. Next came Ficino’s ‘Platonic Theology,’ and translation of ‘Plotinus.’ In 1488 the series of Greek books issued in Florence opened brilliantly with the ‘Homer,’ dedicated to Lorenzo’s eldest son. Chalcondylas undertook the correction, the difficulty of which called forth his remark, in the preface, that the text had been so corrupted by the carelessness of copyists that it was, so to say, impossible to find it entire in any codex, however old. The expenses were borne by Bernardo andNeri, sons of Tanai de’ Nerli, a noble citizen. Lorenzo Alopa of Venice is said to have printed the beautiful volume, which was soon followed by numerous others. The most celebrated Florentine family of typographers, that of the Giunta, did not begin their labours till Lorenzo de’ Medici had long been in his grave.The extended use of typography had, however, as yet by no means diminished the value of manuscripts or put an end to the work of the copyists, while the need and difficulty of unearthing literary treasures was as great as ever. The explanation of this is to be found in the material perfection to which the art of the copyists had been brought, a perfection of which the proud consciousness was expressed in Vespasiano’s disdainful remark on printing. This branch of industry went on flourishing for many years, to disappear at last and leave scarcely a trace behind. One of the most brilliant, though not the most important, of the treasures of the Laurentiana, the works of St. Augustine in sixteen folio volumes full of miniatures and ornaments, was begun in the time of Piero de’ Medici and finished shortly before the death of Lorenzo (two of the volumes are dated 1491). It may not have been completed till the time of his second son, unless the escutcheon with the balls and the Triregnum points to Leo X. only as the possessor of the work and not as concerned in its execution.In the diffusion of literary treasures, both of classical and modern works, and in the relations of the latter to the general public, who now for the first time became really acquainted with them, was brought about that great change which gives to this period double importance in the history of intellectual development. At Lorenzo’s death this revolution had hardly reached its first stage; but his keen vision perceived its growing importance when he observed that in the course of twenty-eight years Italy had come to take a more prominent share than other lands in the activity of the press. This showed, quite as much as the previous rapiddevelopment of Greek literature, that the country was ready to make an independent and profitable use of the gifts of foreign countries. The invention of printing and the discovery of America were in some degree the two great landmarks of Lorenzo’s life. The first created actual publicity, the second opened a new horizon to the world.Never were manuscripts more eagerly collected and copied than in those days. The sum of the collections was not so great as in the days of Poggio and Leonardo Bruni; still the libraries were increasing everywhere. Greece, which had contributed so largely to enrich the West in the first half of the century, and after the fall of the Eastern empire, was still the principal mine. Witness the two journeys of Johannes Lascaris, the second of which, like that of Bernardo Michelozzi, was entirely devoted to searching the monastery of Mount Athos. Its results, as already stated, reached Florence after Lorenzo’s death. As early as 1472 Lorenzo had projected a building, probably near the palace in the Via Larga, destined to contain the great number of manuscripts collected by his grandfather, his father, and himself. This appears from a letter addressed to him by Vespasiano da Bisticci, in which the latter recalls their frequent conversations on the subject, and adds that such an undertaking would do great honour to Lorenzo as well as to the town; and that he had written about it to the Duke of Calabria, the Count of Urbino, and Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, knowing how much pleasure it would give them. Doubtless the manifold cares and disturbances which prevented Lorenzo from imitating his grandfather in the number and splendour of his buildings hindered him from executing this plan in good time. Consequently at his premature death the library was but half finished. It is now impossible to make out even the site of the building, since it is uncertain whether it was the same chosen many years afterwards by his nephew Pope Clement VII. for the existing Mediceo-Laurentian library. We still possess the inventory of theprivate library of the Medici, drawn up in 1495, when the books were made over to the convent of San Marco. There they remained, through many vicissitudes, till 1508, when Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici bought them and transferred them to Rome; after his death they returned to Florence, to form the chief part of the San Lorenzo collection.[105]It may be imagined that many of Lorenzo’s fellow-citizens were his rivals in book-collecting. A fine library had once been formed by Piero de’ Pazzi, son of Andrea. Francesco and Angelo Gaddi followed his example, and the great public library of their native city contains many books once in their possession. Poliziano’s friend, the accomplished merchant Filippo Sassetti the elder, also made a large collection. The good custom of making special bequests to secure these literary treasures from dispersion was kept up. Boccaccio had done this, and Riccoli, Traversari, Cardinal Piero Corsini and others; and in like manner Ugolini Guigni, Bishop of Volterra, left his books to the Benedictine abbey at Florence.[106]In 1477, Jacopo Salvini, Bishop of Cortona, bequeathed his collection to Lorenzo de’ Medici.[107]The latter had literary correspondents everywhere. In 1476 we find him corresponding with the Milanese Gio. Francesco della Torre, who, with Maestro Bonaccorso of Pisa, had purchased the books of Andronikos Kallistos, when the latter purposed returning from Lombardy to his own home.[108]Giovanni Rossi of Candia, who had been employed by Cardinal Bessarion, was also made use of by Lorenzo, apparently to look after copies of manuscripts.[109]Among those more closely connected with him in later years, Poliziano, Pico, andErmolao Barbaro took charge of the enrichment of his collection and that of the convent libraries of San Marco, Fiesole, and San Gallo. Ho said once to Poliziano, he wished that he and Pico could procure him so many books that his income would not suffice to buy them, and he should be obliged to pawn his household goods. He kept copyists in many places, especially at Padua, which, as the residence of so many great scholars and from its connection with the Levant through Venice, was a spot favourable to book collectors.The difficulty and expense of obtaining manuscripts in earlier times has been already noticed. Even in Lorenzo’s latter years it was by no means easy, and his correspondence shows that once, in the very height of his glory, he had to apply in his own handwriting to a prince who was probably under obligation to him, in order to obtain the loan of Dion Cassius. ‘There is in your Excellency’s library,’ he wrote on February 5, 1486, to Duke Ercole d’Este, ‘a historian, by name Dio,de Romanis historiis, that I earnestly desire to see, both on account of the enjoyment and consolation which history affords me, and because my son Piero, who has some knowledge of Greek literature, has begged me to help him to become acquainted with this author, who, I understand, is very rare in Italy. Your Excellency can understand how highly I shall prize the favour, if you will lend me the book for a few days.’ Notwithstanding their intimacy, the Duke did not send the original, but allowed a copy to be made by a copyist sent to Ferrara for the purpose. Two years later he had Niccolò Leoniceno’s translation copied for Lorenzo, on condition that it was neither to be printed nor allowed to go any further.[110]In the spring of 1491 Poliziano was, as we have seen, in Venice, where he bought for his patron a quantity of manuscripts now in the Laurentiana. He was refused permission to see Cardinal Bessarion’s collection ofbooks, although the Ferrarese ambassador used his influence with the Doge Agostino Barbarigo—a strange token of petty mistrust.[111]‘Your diligence in having Greek works copied, and the favour you show to scholars,’ wrote Poliziano to Lorenzo about this time, ‘procures for you such honour and attachment as no one has enjoyed for many years past.’ He mentioned at the same time the admiration for Lorenzo expressed by a Venetian poetess honoured by all scholars and literary men, as well as by popes and kings. ‘Last evening I visited Cassandra Fedele,[112]to whom I presented your salutations, Lorenzo; she is really admirable, both in Latin and in the vulgar tongue, withal very modest, and, in my opinion, also beautiful. I left her astonished. She is devoted to you, and speaks of you as if she knew all about you. Some day she will certainly come to Florence to visit you, so prepare to do her honour.’Lorenzo’s example did not fail to bring forth fruit in his own house. Leo X. laboured all his life to follow it, with a zeal in collecting which showed that his father’s spirit survived in him. Piero, with his tutor Poliziano, superintended the arrangement and enrichment of the library, sending reports about it to his father, when the latter was ill at the baths. We learn from one of his letters[113]that the Medici, in the interests of their library, took advantage of the death of King Matthias Corvinus (April 4, 1490) to secure a number of his copyists and agents who were then thrown out of employment. That monarch vied with the book collectors of his time, and spent more than 30,000 gold florins yearly on the increase of his library at Ofen. In 1488 he sent an agent to Florence with full power to make purchases and superintend the taking of copies. The efforts made by this active and high-minded ruler of a people still half barbarous, however capable of development,were always assisted by Lorenzo, as became his friendly relations with Matthias. Long before the days of Matthias Corvinus there had been a literary and artistic connection between Florence and Hungary through Filippo Scolari, commonly called Pippo Spano by his countrymen, from his title of Count Palatine (Obergespann) of Temesvar; he held an influential position under Sigismund of Luxemburg. The connection with the Italian literary world had been actively kept up by the powerful Archbishop of Gran, Johann Vitez, who founded a high school at Ofen; still more by his nephew, Janus Pannonius, Bishop of Fünfkirchen, who studied at Padua under Guarino, and visited Cosimo de’ Medici at Careggi.From his youth Lorenzo had extended his attention beyond what are called literary treasures in the narrower sense. In another field, bordering at once on the study of antiquity and on that of history, his name must also be mentioned with distinction. The range of classical studies was extended to ancient monuments. Rome, for centuries active only in destruction, began to be ashamed of the bad name which such barbarism had brought upon her. The time of Sixtus IV., with all its sins, was the turning-point. Like his successor and namesake, Sixtus V., the Pope did not entirely refrain from demolishing ancient monuments; but works of art and inscriptions were safe. The Roman Academy strove to wipe out the blot pointed at in an epigram by Pius II.The great increase in the collection of old inscriptions drew attention to those valuable witnesses of old times. At the same time the disappearance of these memorials through decay and careless removal gave warning that their contents must be secured by copying. What had been once undertaken by Nicola Signorini, Giovanni Dondi, Poggio, Ciriaco, perhaps even before them by Cola di Rienzi, was now continued under the guidance of Pomponio Leto and his friends, with the sympathy of all Italy. Inscribed stones were diligently collected in Rome, Naples, and northern Italy. BernardoRucellai copied a number of epigraphs from the originals in Rome. One of the most valuable of these collections of transcriptions was dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici by its author, the Dominican Fra Giocondo of Verona. He was one of those many-sided geniuses frequent at the time; versed in classical literature and in knowledge of antiquity. His pupil, Julius Cæsar Scaliger, called him a living library of ancient and modern learning. He was an engineer and architect, active in many ways at Rome, at Venice, and in France, and at an advanced age master-builder of the Vatican Basilica, under Leo X. The copy of the collection of inscriptions presented by Fra Giocondo to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who came in contact with him through Alessandro Cortesi, has disappeared, but other copies remain. The dedication of the work is an eloquent lamentation over the state of ancient Rome, and over the dispersion or destruction of stone and bronze tablets. It offers a warm tribute to their value, and an acknowledgment of Lorenzo’s interest in these studies. Poliziano and other friends made use of the careful work of the energetic Veronese, who was in communication both with the future Pope and his brother Giuliano, to whom he dedicated his commentary on Cæsar’s ‘Gallic War,’ and the later edition of ‘Vitruvius.’[114]Such were the literary tendencies which, notwithstanding the rivalry of other cities, had their chief centre and focus at Florence; such was the circle of men which had gathered together in this city. Vacant places were soonfilled up again. Like Lorenzo himself, several of the most prominent were in the prime of life, and younger men began to make good their claims. Such were Marcello Virgilio Adriani, who, after Scala’s death, restored the chancellorship to its pristine glory, and Bernardo Dovizj, who grew up in the house of the Medici, and afterwards gained a worldwide reputation as Cardinal of Bibiena. Whatever personal divergences there might be in the group, Lorenzo held them all together: all did homage to him, all acknowledged him as their leader. It was no cringing homage to a mighty lord; many of those who stood nearest to him gained little in worldly goods by their position, and others were too high and independent to need his help. It was the homage due to a richly endowed mind with noble aims and endeavours. Regardless of all inequalities of rank and position, freedom and ease reigned in this circle. When the meetings were academical, they were free from the formality which afterwards crept into academical life. Lorenzo de’ Medici, cheerful and sociable, maintained unconstrained intercourse with his literary friends. He received them everywhere: in the house in Via Larga, in the garden of San Marco, in the villas at Careggi and Poggio a Cajano. The more intimate of them accompanied him also when he went to the baths or to Pisa, or when he paced the convent cloisters in serious discourse with the clergy. The Platonic Academy, an inheritance from his grandfather, was only one manifestation of this multiform social life. It was so strangely composed that it is not surprising the Platonists sometimes fell into very un-Platonic ways. There is something half comic about a letter of Landino’s dated 1464, the year Cosimo died;[115]it is a petition on behalf of the herald of the Priory Palace, who had been dismissed from his post for keeping a girl hidden two days in his room. He solicits pardon upon the following pleas: his wife was expecting her confinement,he had two little daughters and an aged mother, and was a member of the Platonic Academy.Lorenzo sometimes took part in the meetings of the learned society, which he was fond of summoning to Careggi, being less disturbed there than in the city. In both places the Symposia were renewed which, according to Alexandrian tradition, were to celebrate the day of Plato’s birth and death (November 7). Marsilio Ficino has described one of these banquets which took place under the presidency either of Lorenzo or Francesco Bandini.[116]Among the guests were Marsilio and his father, Landino, Antonio degli Agli Bishop of Fiesole, Carlo and Cristoforo Marsuppini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Bernardo Nuzzi, and Tommaso Benci. The academical celebration or exercise succeeded the repast. Plato’s ‘Symposion’—the book which treats of the tokens of love at similar happy meetings, and a commentary on which Marsilio furnished in his treatise on love—was used as a starting-point for free disputation, the parts being divided among the persons present. Giovanni Cavalcanti developed the ‘Phædro,’ and showed how the birth of Eros from the conjunction of the earth with chaos, amid the throes of creation and the struggle for light, signified the original motive force of all that is good, noble, and beautiful in mankind. With this discourse was connected the exposition, also allotted to Cavalcanti, of the speech of Pausanias on the double Aphrodite, and Urania; on the distinction and confusion between moral and physical affections, their emanation, extension, stages of purification, and participation in the manifold forces of nature. Landino undertook to explain the speech of Aristophanes. According to this, love is the never-sleeping longing of man for a return to his former state of oneness with the Divine, from which Zeus, in wrath, had divided him by means of his earthly form and by sin. To Carlo Marsuppini fell the discourse of Agathon, which glorifies the qualities of the god who is at once sovarious and yet blends all variety into unity. Tommaso Benci devoted himself to pointing out the connection between the Christian view and the supposed inspired words of the priestess Diotima, who disclosed to Socrates the nature of a love that raises man to the highest good or sinks him to the lowest depths of evil. Cristoforo Marsuppini undertook to bring into harmony with the Socratic doctrine of Love the poems of Guido Cavalcanti, to which, as an emanation of Greek philosophy in the arena of the new-born Italian literature, great importance was attached by contemporaries, especially by Lorenzo de’ Medici. Such were the occupations of these famous assemblies. Their positive scientific results were not great, yet they afford a brilliant testimony to the cultivation which enabled the upper classes in Florence to take part in the noblest intellectual efforts.While poetry and philosophy were thus flourishing, the exact sciences were making considerable progress. It is doubtful whether Fra Luca Paciolo, of Borgo San Sepolcro—who first recalled true geometry to life by his exposition of Euclid, and who exercised so much influence on Leonardo da Vinci—began his labours during the lifetime of Lorenzo. But Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, the physician, philosopher, naturalist, and mathematician, commenced his studies as early as the days of Cosimo the Elder. In 1468 he laid down the famous meridian in Sta. Maria del Fiore, primarily for the purpose of ascertaining exactly the solstices in order to fix the festivals of the Church. The importance of the work was appreciated by later generations, and the task was performed more perfectly 300 years afterwards, at the suggestion of La Condamine.[117]It is well known that Toscanelli, who died in 1482, aged seventy-five, exerted great influence on the mind of Christopher Columbus by his calculations of the longitudinal extent of Eastern Asia, which, however,rested chiefly on Marco Polo’s mistaken hypotheses. Long after Toscanelli’s death, Columbus—when upon his first voyage—made use of the map, marked with the latitudes and longitudes, which the former had once sent to Lisbon. It was in the last years of Lorenzo’s life that a man whose name is more famous than his deeds, and who has been the subject of renewed controversy in our own times, left his home to seek a new one in Southern Spain.[118]The family of Amerigo Vespucci, which reckoned among the navigator’s near relatives men of both scientific and political importance, was sometimes on friendly, sometimes on hostile terms with the Medici; but we hear nothing of any personal relation between him and Lorenzo. About the age of forty, Amerigo settled in Seville, where he joined the banking and commercial house of his fellow-countryman Giovanni Berardi. Well furnished with knowledge, to which his learned uncle Giorgio Antonio had contributed not a little, he began a course of practical preparations for the undertaking which led him to the Far West. Not with the Florentines, but with a schoolman of Lorraine, originated the name of the new continent which, as long as the world stands, will recall Amerigo Vespucci. Still the Florentines rightly rejoiced in the fame of their countryman. A later generation has seen the house of his forefathers turned into a hospital, and has inscribed on it in homage to his memory: ‘Ob repertam Americam sui et patriæ nominis illustratori amplificatori orbis terrarum.’ When the news of his discoveries made in the voyage of 1497 reached Florence, the Signoria had the above-named house illuminated for three nights, a distinction they were wont to bestow only on the most conspicuous merit.
THE UNIVERSITY OF PISA. MANUSCRIPTS AND CRITICISM. PRINTING. PLATONIC SYMPOSIA.
Thecircle of Florentine celebrities which, though its members were continually changing, always retained its peculiar character, included men of smaller importance than many of those already described, but yet worthy of mention. Among these are the philologer-poets who, in endeavouring to follow Poliziano, lost their individuality in imitations of the Roman poets of the Flavian and following periods. Their verses have but an historical and local interest for posterity, and even the sixteenth century, so busy with Latin verse-making, passed judgment upon them very freely.[87]Ugolino Vieri, who Latinised his name into Verino, celebrated his native city and its famous men in three books of a poem, ‘De Illustratione urbis Florentiæ,’ which spite of a few happy characteristics, is barely more than a dry catalogue. Naldo Naldi has acquired a more lasting reputation by his biographical works than by his numerous verses. People sang each other’s praises without end; and such laudations, though endurable from a Poliziano, are tiresome from inferior hands. Alessandro Bracci, one of the secretaries of state; Giovan Battista Cantalicio, afterwards Bishop of Penne and Adria; Tommaso Baldinotti of Pistoja; Alessandro Cortesi, the talented scion of a family of San Gemignano very intimate with the Medici; Piero Riccio, knownunder the Latinised name of Crinitus, and author of a history of the old Latin poets; these and many other pupils of Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano, belong to thedii minorum gentium. Verses by some of them have been printed, while heaps lie in manuscript in the Laurentian library to testify to the intellectual activity of the time.[88]The verses of the Roman Carlo de’ Massimi in praise of Pisa University have some interest for the history of literature. Literary productions of every kind were sent to Lorenzo from all quarters; he was the great patron of authors. Much of what he received he sent on to San Marco and to the Abbey of Fiesole, as may be seen by the inscriptions in the volumes.
All these men, small and great, found in Lorenzo their Mæcenas. But he showed very early that he invested the position of patron with more serious importance than his predecessors had done. When scarcely three-and-twenty he brought about the restoration of the University of Pisa, which was not only an act of justice, but, apart from its literary importance, a token of ripe political insight that helped to counterbalance in some degree the miseries inflicted on Volterra in the same year (1472). The university, formed in the fourth decade of the fourteenth century out of the existing public schools, and confirmed in 1343 by Clement VI., fell into decay from political causes later in the century, and finally succumbed to Florentine enmity. The mutual animosity of the two cities is only to be paralleled in the history of antiquity. Twenty-five years after the subjection of Pisa, the Ministry of War at Florence wrote to Averardo de’ Medici, their commissioner in the subject town:[89]‘According to general opinion here, the most effectualmeans of securing the town is to empty it entirely of Pisan citizens and peasants, concerning which we have written to the Captain of the People till we are tired. He answers that he is hindered by the soldiery and officers. We now command thee to go to him and persuade him to spare no harshness or severity, as we perceive that no other remedy will avail. We have confidence in thee that thou wilt at once set everything to work, for thou couldst do nothing more pleasing to this whole people.’ The efficacious result was that the city was ruined, the marshy neighbourhood left fallow to become the home of fever, and the fleet vanished. So rooted was this hatred that when Pisa had freed herself amid the confusion which followed on Lorenzo’s death, Bernardo del Nero—a usually moderate man of the Medicean party—declared that against the Pisans nothing availed save force; all prisoners of war must be slain after the example of the Genoese, who let the Pisan captives taken at Meloria languish to death in prison.[90]
Lorenzo early perceived that the blind enmity which ruined Pisa was overshooting the mark. As his family held considerable property in the district he frequently had occasion to visit the city, whose position made it a halting-place for many travellers between northern and southern Italy. Pisa must not be allowed to give the Florentines any more trouble, but neither should it be allowed to perish. Two considerations in particular seem to have prompted the re-establishment of the old university. The first was the quiet, which was more favourable to study than the busy life of Florence; the second was the number and cheapness of dwellings, which were in increasing danger of falling to ruin since trade had departed from its old abodes, and the inhabitants were nearly all poor people. Yet Lorenzo needed great power and moral courage to set himself against rooted hatred and stubborn prejudices. On December 19, 1472,was issued the decree by which the university was restored to life.[91]A board of management was appointed—the Officiales studii—consisting of five Florentine citizens: Tommaso Ridolfi, Donato Acciaiuolo, Andrea Puccini, Alamanno Rinuccini, and Lorenzo de’ Medici. The yearly endowment was to consist of 6,000 gold florins, and the statutes of the University of Florence were to be in force at that of Pisa. Members of the state were to be entitled to academical honours and the authority to practise in Pisa alone. To raise the salaries of the professors, Pope Sixtus IV. consented to a tax on the clergy to the amount of 5,000 florins in five years, a tax which was renewed by his successor in 1497 for another five years, and drew complaints from Ficino, Poliziano, and others. Only the philosophical and literary branches of study were to continue at Florence.
The credit of all this was justly given to Lorenzo. ‘I heard a few days ago,’ wrote Antonio de’ Pazzi to him from Padua, January 29, 1473,[92]‘that by your direction a new university is to be founded at Pisa; at which not only we Florentine students, but foreign ones too, are greatly delighted, seeing that Pisa is a city eminently suited for it, and because the scheme proceeds from a man who will strive to acquire honour by this as by all else that he undertakes.’ Scholars came flocking from all parts, and first among them Francesco Filelfo. He had found an asylum with the Sforza at Milan; but, dissatisfied and restless, extravagant and in debt, he tried to change his position. During the pontificate of Pius II. he made several attempts to this end, but, failing in his hopes, he attacked the pontiff before and after death with his usual invectives, and in consequence was imprisoned for a time. In April 1473 he applied to Lorenzo. Sometime before he had managed to flatter Lorenzo’s father into forgetting his offences against Cosimo so far as to hold one of his sons over the font; and when in Florence in the autumn of 1469, shortly before Piero’s death, he obtained a loan from Lorenzo.[93]The letter which he now addressed to the latter[94]is curiously characteristic of the man. He attacks those who had long been in their graves—Marsuppini, Poggio, and their ‘synagogue.’ He begins by declaring that the Milanese chancellor, Cecco Simonetta, had advised him to prefer Pisa to Rome, where he was much wanted; and he ends with the artless assurance that Lorenzo must know well he cannot find in all the world a second Filelfo nor one more devoted to him. In another letter he remarks in the same style: ‘You are aware that at the present time no one can stand a comparison with me in my own branch.’ Simonetta, from Pavia, seconded the appeal, and sang the vain man’s praises. Lorenzo answered by asking what salary would be required, but the negotiation fell through, which Medici probably did not much regret, as he must have felt some hesitation in attaching the quarrelsome old man to his young establishment. Besides, the sentence of banishment once passed on Filelfo was still in force, and his services in the way of literary invective after the conspiracy of the Pazzi had not yet smoothed the way to his return. When he was at last summoned to Florence as professor of eloquence and moral philosophy, he had scarcely time to greet the city he had left for nearly half a century before he died, a few days after his arrival, in the summer of 1481, in his eighty-third year.
The new-born university, which was opened in November 1473, soon took its share in the working of many active forces in diverse directions. In its very earliest years it would have risen to the highly flourishing condition it afterwards attained had not various unfavourable circumstancescome in the way. The unhealthy air of the city and neighbourhood had not been sufficiently taken into consideration. War, desolation, poverty, made matters worse, just at the time when Florence was also a prey to disease. For six years the establishment kept moving from place to place. Professors and students wandered away to Pistoja and Prato, and sometimes to Florence—even Empoli and San Miniato were thought of—till the state of affairs was improved, and the hitherto scattered lecturers were brought together in a university building erected by the care of Lorenzo. There was no lack of difficulties with the professors; the Sienese Bartolommeo Sozzini and the Milanese brothers Decio, all professors of law, gave Lorenzo a great deal of trouble by their unruly conduct. Among the best professors at the outset were the jurists Baldo Bartolini of Perugia and Francesco Accolti of Arezzo, brother of the Florentine chancellor, and a pupil of Filelfo; Piero Leoni of Spoleto, already mentioned, who afterwards, to his misfortune, became Lorenzo’s family doctor; the humanists Lorenzo Lippi of Colle and Bartolommeo of Pratovecchio. Special honours fell to the share of the Roman Francesco de’ Massimi, who came to the university at its opening as professor of law, was made Principal the next year, and gained such esteem both by his lectures and by his endeavours to establish and maintain a better understanding between the two hostile cities, that the rights of citizenship were conferred on him and his descendants, and he was permitted to add the arms of Pisa to his own.[95]The salaries of the professors weremostly considerable, and Lorenzo repeatedly contributed to them out of his own funds. The archbishop, Filippo de’ Medici, supported him in his efforts to benefit the institution, which was conducive both to the honour and advantage of the see. That pecuniary difficulties could not be escaped, however, is clear from the fact that in 1485, in consequence of the non-payment of the papal allowance, a retrenchment of 2,000 florins was deemed needful.
The philosophical and philological lectures continued, as has been said, at Florence, and scholarly activity there seemed in nowise diminished by the re-animation of the sister city. Among the native professors, Bartolommeo della Fonte (Fontius) made a name equally distinguished in Latin and Greek literature, and left Latin memoirs on contemporary events from 1448 to 1493, the value of which is not to be measured by their brevity.[96]His friendship with Poliziano became clouded when he obtained the chair of eloquence vacant by Filelfo’s death. He does not seem to have held it long, as he undertook the superintendence of Matthias Corvinus’ library at Ofen. The study of Greek flourished. The chair once occupied by Argyropulos and Theodoros was filled by the Athenian Demetrios Chalcondylas, who kept it longer than anyone else, and left a better reputation, both for learning and morality, than many Greek grammarians. Poliziano, who is supposed to have perfected his knowledge of the Hellenic tongue under him, addressed him in several Greek epigrams, which give no hint of the rivalry afterwards said to exist between them. A fine testimony to his Homeric studies is the edition of the ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ which came out in 1488. Three years before,at the age of nearly seventy, he left Florence for Milan, where he long continued to teach, having been gladly welcomed by Lodovico Sforza, who rivalled the Medici in his patronage of science and art. Chalcondylas’ place at Florence was taken by Johannes Lascaris, who formed many fruitful connections with Milan, France, and Rome, in the days of Lorenzo’s son. The knowledge of Greek was, perhaps, never so widespread among high-born youths anywhere as in those days in the Tuscan city to which, Poliziano said, Athens with its native soil and all its possessions had transferred itself. In truth, strangers eager to learn came from all quarters—England, Germany, Portugal—just as of old everybody went to Athens. Here Alessandro Farnese acquired that knowledge of the language and literature of Greece which the greyhaired Pope Paul III. had not yet lost. Poliziano thus addressed the hearers of Chalcondylas:
Seek the Pierides not in their ancient home, O ye poets:
For in this city of ours dwells now the heavenly choir.
Where, do ye ask, have they chosen among us a place to abide in?
All the nine ye will find safe in Chalcondylas’ breast.
Textual criticism was a work taken up less by foreigners than by Italians: in Rome, especially by Lorenzo Valla and Pomponio Leto; in Florence, by Landino, Poliziano, and Pico. Lorenzo not only encouraged those personally intimate with him to this work, but urged others to it, particularly the members of the Academy, which, having weathered the storms of Paul II.’s reign, flourished with renewed vigour under Sixtus IV., a Pope who felt no fear of the baptized heathens. Bartolommeo Platina, writing to Lorenzo[97]to recommend the Milanese sculptor Andrea Fusina, adds that the man felt assured of obtaining his desire if he, Platina, interceded for him. ‘Farewell, and believe me, thou hast few who love and honour thee likePlatina.’ On March 30, 1488, Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini on behalf of a friend of Pomponio Leto:[98]‘Doubtless you know, at least by name, Pomponio, one of the most famous scholars in Rome, if not the very first, and a man much attached to me and our whole house, so that I am greatly desirous of doing him a favour.’
The art of studying manuscripts had first to be put on a sound basis. The rich harvest of discoveries was now almost at an end, a few objects of interest turning up only occasionally. Collectors had naturally enough given themselves up to delight in the prizes thus gained, without troubling themselves much about criticism. The necessity of criticism became more strongly felt and exercised as continued study of the old authors involved a stricter examination of the correctness of the manuscripts. At first people had been too much inclined to believe generally in their great age, and had been misled in individual cases by the chronological notes at the end of the codices. Often, as in the Medicean codex of the later books of the Annals of Tacitus, the date was fixed in the fourth Christian century, when in reality the parchments were written on by a later copyist. The corrupt state of the manuscripts called for correction, but the correction was mostly arbitrary. Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Francesco Barbaro, and others, sought to supply what was needed, but of rules they knew nothing. In this, above all, shines the transcendent merit of Poliziano; though even he indulged largely in conjecture, when in his youth he self-complacently fancied that his work on Catullus surpassed everything of the kind. Nor did he stand alone in this respect. Ermolao Barbaro in his edition of Pliny in 1492, Marullus in his critical works on Lucretius, confess how often they had had recourse to emendations of their own devising. But Poliziano thoroughly perceived that a secure basis was only to be obtained by a comparison ofMSS. where more than one existed. When this was not the case he tried to get a foundation for his conjectures from notes and parallel passages. Many printed books from his library bear on their margins traces of this comparison of MSS., to which he alludes in one of his letters to Lorenzo.[99]The collection of critical studies which he published in 1489 under the title of ‘Miscellanea,’ at Lorenzo’s desire and with a dedication to him, is a lasting memorial of his learning and acumen. A painful impression is made by his dispute with Filelfo’s pupil Giorgio Merula,[100]the editor of ‘Plautus.’ This man had been invited to Milan by Ludovico il Moro, gave philosophical lectures there, and though previously an admirer of Poliziano, now professed to find errors and plagiarisms in his works. Sforza showed his good sense by trying to calm the irritation of the Florentine when appealed to by him.
Poliziano’s critical work on the correction of the text of Justinian’s ‘Corpus Juris’ holds an honourable place in the history of this subject. This famous copy of the Pandects was avowedly acquired by Pisa at the conquest of Amalfi, whither it had doubtless come as a gift from some Greek emperor, and on the overthrow of Pisa it was transferred to Florence. Poliziano’s views of its age and authorship may have been exploded by later criticism, but for the foundations of a better text than that of the later MSS., and the two editions printed from them, we still owe him thanks.[101]
While the Latin works of the humanists were being done into the vulgar tongue, the practice of translating Greek works into Latin was continued. Alamanno Rinuccini translated Plutarch’s ‘Lives’ and moral writings, as well as Philostratos’ ‘Life of Apollonius of Tyana,’ which excited special interest in an age much busied with the theologising philosophy of the later Greeks. Alessandro Bracci did the same for the histories of Appian, and Poliziano, as has been mentioned, translated those of Herodian for Innocent VIII. The movement, begun in Florence and Venice, had spread all over Italy. In the most palmy days of these studies the invention of printing produced in the whole world of letters a change, the possible extent of which was at once felt, though it could not yet be measured. Books had hitherto been things for the great and opulent, and not seldom were to be obtained only by personal labour. There were difficulties even in the highest circles. The spread of the new art produced not only a material increase of literary productions, but led naturally to an immense increase of criticism. In earlier times bitter complaints had been heard of the corruption of the texts. The few attempts that had been made to attain greater correctness now became a recognised branch of study. Every corrector was not indeed a Poliziano, a Barbaro, or a Merula. The last complains, in his edition of ‘Plautus’ of 1472, that learned and unlearned alike busied themselves with correcting books; a circumstance which limits the value of more than oneeditio princepsto its mere rarity, and explains the fact that many of the correctors of that time rivalled their predecessors the copyists in the arbitrariness of their proceedings. But even in the case of the learned the canons of criticism were by no means fixed.
It is remarkable that Florence, which, when printing was introduced into Italy, stood at the head of all literary movement, is by no means the first city that appears in the annals of typography. In 1465, three years after the capture of Mainz by Adolf of Nassau had scattered to the four winds the printers established there, two Germans set up the first printing-press in the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, whence ere long it was removed to the house of the Massimi at Rome. Four years later Venice followed, then theUmbrian and other cities. In November, 1471, appeared the first book printed in Florence, the commentary of Servius on Virgil’s ‘Bucolics,’ which was followed in the following January by the ‘Georgics,’ and in October, 1472, by the ‘Æneid.’ But if the city fell behind many others in point of priority, this honour is due to her, that one of her sons cut and founded his own types, without needing the services of a foreigner. The goldsmith Bernardo Cennini was the first Italian who set himself up as an independent artist in this line.[102]Born in Florence, January, 1415, he was first a silk-weaver and then a goldsmith, and was concerned in the bronze doors of the Baptistery, and other great works. His art led him to manufacture types for printing. The inscription in the book printed by him, with the help of his sons Domenico and Pietro, the first as compositor, the second as corrector of the press,[103]shows that he was proud of the achievement: ‘To Florentine minds nought is arduous.’ The book shows an artistic mind in its form and typographical arrangement, but the round type is lacking in sharpness and evenness. The pecuniary result can scarcely have been worth the trouble and outlay. When we find that Cennini, after spending sixteen months on the production of the folio volume, pledged his house for a loan of 120 florins, we can understand why he returned to his old occupation, and why no other book printed by him is forthcoming. In course of time Bernardo Cennini, whose sight had suffered greatly, became consul of his guild, and died in 1483, twelve yearsafter the attempt which brought him a name and somewhat tardy honours.
Next a German who had established himself in Florence, Johannes, son of Peter of Mainz, printed Boccaccio’s ‘Filocolo’ in 1472, and afterwards joined the typographical society which took its name from the Dominican nunnery at Ripoli.[104]Its local habitation is still shown in one of the schoolrooms of the educational institute named after the same in the Via della Scala. From this establishment, founded by the spiritual directors of the convent and connected with a type-foundry, issued first, in 1476, some lauds and prayers, then the ‘Commentary of Donatus’ and the ‘Legend of S. Catherine of Siena,’ which, both in the common form and in copies with illuminated initials, obtained a great circulation. This printing establishment, in which many both of the clergy and laity had a share, and in which the nuns were employed as compositors, produced a great deal of work during its short existence of eight years. In 1477 printing was begun by Nicolaus of Breslau, already mentioned; in 1478 he brought out the ‘editio princeps’ of Celsus, and three years later Landino’s ‘Dante.’ In 1481, Antonio Miscomini printed Savonarola’s ‘Triumphus Crucis,’ a proof of the increasing notice attracted by the eloquent and learned Dominican. Next came Ficino’s ‘Platonic Theology,’ and translation of ‘Plotinus.’ In 1488 the series of Greek books issued in Florence opened brilliantly with the ‘Homer,’ dedicated to Lorenzo’s eldest son. Chalcondylas undertook the correction, the difficulty of which called forth his remark, in the preface, that the text had been so corrupted by the carelessness of copyists that it was, so to say, impossible to find it entire in any codex, however old. The expenses were borne by Bernardo andNeri, sons of Tanai de’ Nerli, a noble citizen. Lorenzo Alopa of Venice is said to have printed the beautiful volume, which was soon followed by numerous others. The most celebrated Florentine family of typographers, that of the Giunta, did not begin their labours till Lorenzo de’ Medici had long been in his grave.
The extended use of typography had, however, as yet by no means diminished the value of manuscripts or put an end to the work of the copyists, while the need and difficulty of unearthing literary treasures was as great as ever. The explanation of this is to be found in the material perfection to which the art of the copyists had been brought, a perfection of which the proud consciousness was expressed in Vespasiano’s disdainful remark on printing. This branch of industry went on flourishing for many years, to disappear at last and leave scarcely a trace behind. One of the most brilliant, though not the most important, of the treasures of the Laurentiana, the works of St. Augustine in sixteen folio volumes full of miniatures and ornaments, was begun in the time of Piero de’ Medici and finished shortly before the death of Lorenzo (two of the volumes are dated 1491). It may not have been completed till the time of his second son, unless the escutcheon with the balls and the Triregnum points to Leo X. only as the possessor of the work and not as concerned in its execution.
In the diffusion of literary treasures, both of classical and modern works, and in the relations of the latter to the general public, who now for the first time became really acquainted with them, was brought about that great change which gives to this period double importance in the history of intellectual development. At Lorenzo’s death this revolution had hardly reached its first stage; but his keen vision perceived its growing importance when he observed that in the course of twenty-eight years Italy had come to take a more prominent share than other lands in the activity of the press. This showed, quite as much as the previous rapiddevelopment of Greek literature, that the country was ready to make an independent and profitable use of the gifts of foreign countries. The invention of printing and the discovery of America were in some degree the two great landmarks of Lorenzo’s life. The first created actual publicity, the second opened a new horizon to the world.
Never were manuscripts more eagerly collected and copied than in those days. The sum of the collections was not so great as in the days of Poggio and Leonardo Bruni; still the libraries were increasing everywhere. Greece, which had contributed so largely to enrich the West in the first half of the century, and after the fall of the Eastern empire, was still the principal mine. Witness the two journeys of Johannes Lascaris, the second of which, like that of Bernardo Michelozzi, was entirely devoted to searching the monastery of Mount Athos. Its results, as already stated, reached Florence after Lorenzo’s death. As early as 1472 Lorenzo had projected a building, probably near the palace in the Via Larga, destined to contain the great number of manuscripts collected by his grandfather, his father, and himself. This appears from a letter addressed to him by Vespasiano da Bisticci, in which the latter recalls their frequent conversations on the subject, and adds that such an undertaking would do great honour to Lorenzo as well as to the town; and that he had written about it to the Duke of Calabria, the Count of Urbino, and Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, knowing how much pleasure it would give them. Doubtless the manifold cares and disturbances which prevented Lorenzo from imitating his grandfather in the number and splendour of his buildings hindered him from executing this plan in good time. Consequently at his premature death the library was but half finished. It is now impossible to make out even the site of the building, since it is uncertain whether it was the same chosen many years afterwards by his nephew Pope Clement VII. for the existing Mediceo-Laurentian library. We still possess the inventory of theprivate library of the Medici, drawn up in 1495, when the books were made over to the convent of San Marco. There they remained, through many vicissitudes, till 1508, when Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici bought them and transferred them to Rome; after his death they returned to Florence, to form the chief part of the San Lorenzo collection.[105]
It may be imagined that many of Lorenzo’s fellow-citizens were his rivals in book-collecting. A fine library had once been formed by Piero de’ Pazzi, son of Andrea. Francesco and Angelo Gaddi followed his example, and the great public library of their native city contains many books once in their possession. Poliziano’s friend, the accomplished merchant Filippo Sassetti the elder, also made a large collection. The good custom of making special bequests to secure these literary treasures from dispersion was kept up. Boccaccio had done this, and Riccoli, Traversari, Cardinal Piero Corsini and others; and in like manner Ugolini Guigni, Bishop of Volterra, left his books to the Benedictine abbey at Florence.[106]In 1477, Jacopo Salvini, Bishop of Cortona, bequeathed his collection to Lorenzo de’ Medici.[107]The latter had literary correspondents everywhere. In 1476 we find him corresponding with the Milanese Gio. Francesco della Torre, who, with Maestro Bonaccorso of Pisa, had purchased the books of Andronikos Kallistos, when the latter purposed returning from Lombardy to his own home.[108]Giovanni Rossi of Candia, who had been employed by Cardinal Bessarion, was also made use of by Lorenzo, apparently to look after copies of manuscripts.[109]Among those more closely connected with him in later years, Poliziano, Pico, andErmolao Barbaro took charge of the enrichment of his collection and that of the convent libraries of San Marco, Fiesole, and San Gallo. Ho said once to Poliziano, he wished that he and Pico could procure him so many books that his income would not suffice to buy them, and he should be obliged to pawn his household goods. He kept copyists in many places, especially at Padua, which, as the residence of so many great scholars and from its connection with the Levant through Venice, was a spot favourable to book collectors.
The difficulty and expense of obtaining manuscripts in earlier times has been already noticed. Even in Lorenzo’s latter years it was by no means easy, and his correspondence shows that once, in the very height of his glory, he had to apply in his own handwriting to a prince who was probably under obligation to him, in order to obtain the loan of Dion Cassius. ‘There is in your Excellency’s library,’ he wrote on February 5, 1486, to Duke Ercole d’Este, ‘a historian, by name Dio,de Romanis historiis, that I earnestly desire to see, both on account of the enjoyment and consolation which history affords me, and because my son Piero, who has some knowledge of Greek literature, has begged me to help him to become acquainted with this author, who, I understand, is very rare in Italy. Your Excellency can understand how highly I shall prize the favour, if you will lend me the book for a few days.’ Notwithstanding their intimacy, the Duke did not send the original, but allowed a copy to be made by a copyist sent to Ferrara for the purpose. Two years later he had Niccolò Leoniceno’s translation copied for Lorenzo, on condition that it was neither to be printed nor allowed to go any further.[110]In the spring of 1491 Poliziano was, as we have seen, in Venice, where he bought for his patron a quantity of manuscripts now in the Laurentiana. He was refused permission to see Cardinal Bessarion’s collection ofbooks, although the Ferrarese ambassador used his influence with the Doge Agostino Barbarigo—a strange token of petty mistrust.[111]‘Your diligence in having Greek works copied, and the favour you show to scholars,’ wrote Poliziano to Lorenzo about this time, ‘procures for you such honour and attachment as no one has enjoyed for many years past.’ He mentioned at the same time the admiration for Lorenzo expressed by a Venetian poetess honoured by all scholars and literary men, as well as by popes and kings. ‘Last evening I visited Cassandra Fedele,[112]to whom I presented your salutations, Lorenzo; she is really admirable, both in Latin and in the vulgar tongue, withal very modest, and, in my opinion, also beautiful. I left her astonished. She is devoted to you, and speaks of you as if she knew all about you. Some day she will certainly come to Florence to visit you, so prepare to do her honour.’
Lorenzo’s example did not fail to bring forth fruit in his own house. Leo X. laboured all his life to follow it, with a zeal in collecting which showed that his father’s spirit survived in him. Piero, with his tutor Poliziano, superintended the arrangement and enrichment of the library, sending reports about it to his father, when the latter was ill at the baths. We learn from one of his letters[113]that the Medici, in the interests of their library, took advantage of the death of King Matthias Corvinus (April 4, 1490) to secure a number of his copyists and agents who were then thrown out of employment. That monarch vied with the book collectors of his time, and spent more than 30,000 gold florins yearly on the increase of his library at Ofen. In 1488 he sent an agent to Florence with full power to make purchases and superintend the taking of copies. The efforts made by this active and high-minded ruler of a people still half barbarous, however capable of development,were always assisted by Lorenzo, as became his friendly relations with Matthias. Long before the days of Matthias Corvinus there had been a literary and artistic connection between Florence and Hungary through Filippo Scolari, commonly called Pippo Spano by his countrymen, from his title of Count Palatine (Obergespann) of Temesvar; he held an influential position under Sigismund of Luxemburg. The connection with the Italian literary world had been actively kept up by the powerful Archbishop of Gran, Johann Vitez, who founded a high school at Ofen; still more by his nephew, Janus Pannonius, Bishop of Fünfkirchen, who studied at Padua under Guarino, and visited Cosimo de’ Medici at Careggi.
From his youth Lorenzo had extended his attention beyond what are called literary treasures in the narrower sense. In another field, bordering at once on the study of antiquity and on that of history, his name must also be mentioned with distinction. The range of classical studies was extended to ancient monuments. Rome, for centuries active only in destruction, began to be ashamed of the bad name which such barbarism had brought upon her. The time of Sixtus IV., with all its sins, was the turning-point. Like his successor and namesake, Sixtus V., the Pope did not entirely refrain from demolishing ancient monuments; but works of art and inscriptions were safe. The Roman Academy strove to wipe out the blot pointed at in an epigram by Pius II.
The great increase in the collection of old inscriptions drew attention to those valuable witnesses of old times. At the same time the disappearance of these memorials through decay and careless removal gave warning that their contents must be secured by copying. What had been once undertaken by Nicola Signorini, Giovanni Dondi, Poggio, Ciriaco, perhaps even before them by Cola di Rienzi, was now continued under the guidance of Pomponio Leto and his friends, with the sympathy of all Italy. Inscribed stones were diligently collected in Rome, Naples, and northern Italy. BernardoRucellai copied a number of epigraphs from the originals in Rome. One of the most valuable of these collections of transcriptions was dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici by its author, the Dominican Fra Giocondo of Verona. He was one of those many-sided geniuses frequent at the time; versed in classical literature and in knowledge of antiquity. His pupil, Julius Cæsar Scaliger, called him a living library of ancient and modern learning. He was an engineer and architect, active in many ways at Rome, at Venice, and in France, and at an advanced age master-builder of the Vatican Basilica, under Leo X. The copy of the collection of inscriptions presented by Fra Giocondo to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who came in contact with him through Alessandro Cortesi, has disappeared, but other copies remain. The dedication of the work is an eloquent lamentation over the state of ancient Rome, and over the dispersion or destruction of stone and bronze tablets. It offers a warm tribute to their value, and an acknowledgment of Lorenzo’s interest in these studies. Poliziano and other friends made use of the careful work of the energetic Veronese, who was in communication both with the future Pope and his brother Giuliano, to whom he dedicated his commentary on Cæsar’s ‘Gallic War,’ and the later edition of ‘Vitruvius.’[114]
Such were the literary tendencies which, notwithstanding the rivalry of other cities, had their chief centre and focus at Florence; such was the circle of men which had gathered together in this city. Vacant places were soonfilled up again. Like Lorenzo himself, several of the most prominent were in the prime of life, and younger men began to make good their claims. Such were Marcello Virgilio Adriani, who, after Scala’s death, restored the chancellorship to its pristine glory, and Bernardo Dovizj, who grew up in the house of the Medici, and afterwards gained a worldwide reputation as Cardinal of Bibiena. Whatever personal divergences there might be in the group, Lorenzo held them all together: all did homage to him, all acknowledged him as their leader. It was no cringing homage to a mighty lord; many of those who stood nearest to him gained little in worldly goods by their position, and others were too high and independent to need his help. It was the homage due to a richly endowed mind with noble aims and endeavours. Regardless of all inequalities of rank and position, freedom and ease reigned in this circle. When the meetings were academical, they were free from the formality which afterwards crept into academical life. Lorenzo de’ Medici, cheerful and sociable, maintained unconstrained intercourse with his literary friends. He received them everywhere: in the house in Via Larga, in the garden of San Marco, in the villas at Careggi and Poggio a Cajano. The more intimate of them accompanied him also when he went to the baths or to Pisa, or when he paced the convent cloisters in serious discourse with the clergy. The Platonic Academy, an inheritance from his grandfather, was only one manifestation of this multiform social life. It was so strangely composed that it is not surprising the Platonists sometimes fell into very un-Platonic ways. There is something half comic about a letter of Landino’s dated 1464, the year Cosimo died;[115]it is a petition on behalf of the herald of the Priory Palace, who had been dismissed from his post for keeping a girl hidden two days in his room. He solicits pardon upon the following pleas: his wife was expecting her confinement,he had two little daughters and an aged mother, and was a member of the Platonic Academy.
Lorenzo sometimes took part in the meetings of the learned society, which he was fond of summoning to Careggi, being less disturbed there than in the city. In both places the Symposia were renewed which, according to Alexandrian tradition, were to celebrate the day of Plato’s birth and death (November 7). Marsilio Ficino has described one of these banquets which took place under the presidency either of Lorenzo or Francesco Bandini.[116]Among the guests were Marsilio and his father, Landino, Antonio degli Agli Bishop of Fiesole, Carlo and Cristoforo Marsuppini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Bernardo Nuzzi, and Tommaso Benci. The academical celebration or exercise succeeded the repast. Plato’s ‘Symposion’—the book which treats of the tokens of love at similar happy meetings, and a commentary on which Marsilio furnished in his treatise on love—was used as a starting-point for free disputation, the parts being divided among the persons present. Giovanni Cavalcanti developed the ‘Phædro,’ and showed how the birth of Eros from the conjunction of the earth with chaos, amid the throes of creation and the struggle for light, signified the original motive force of all that is good, noble, and beautiful in mankind. With this discourse was connected the exposition, also allotted to Cavalcanti, of the speech of Pausanias on the double Aphrodite, and Urania; on the distinction and confusion between moral and physical affections, their emanation, extension, stages of purification, and participation in the manifold forces of nature. Landino undertook to explain the speech of Aristophanes. According to this, love is the never-sleeping longing of man for a return to his former state of oneness with the Divine, from which Zeus, in wrath, had divided him by means of his earthly form and by sin. To Carlo Marsuppini fell the discourse of Agathon, which glorifies the qualities of the god who is at once sovarious and yet blends all variety into unity. Tommaso Benci devoted himself to pointing out the connection between the Christian view and the supposed inspired words of the priestess Diotima, who disclosed to Socrates the nature of a love that raises man to the highest good or sinks him to the lowest depths of evil. Cristoforo Marsuppini undertook to bring into harmony with the Socratic doctrine of Love the poems of Guido Cavalcanti, to which, as an emanation of Greek philosophy in the arena of the new-born Italian literature, great importance was attached by contemporaries, especially by Lorenzo de’ Medici. Such were the occupations of these famous assemblies. Their positive scientific results were not great, yet they afford a brilliant testimony to the cultivation which enabled the upper classes in Florence to take part in the noblest intellectual efforts.
While poetry and philosophy were thus flourishing, the exact sciences were making considerable progress. It is doubtful whether Fra Luca Paciolo, of Borgo San Sepolcro—who first recalled true geometry to life by his exposition of Euclid, and who exercised so much influence on Leonardo da Vinci—began his labours during the lifetime of Lorenzo. But Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, the physician, philosopher, naturalist, and mathematician, commenced his studies as early as the days of Cosimo the Elder. In 1468 he laid down the famous meridian in Sta. Maria del Fiore, primarily for the purpose of ascertaining exactly the solstices in order to fix the festivals of the Church. The importance of the work was appreciated by later generations, and the task was performed more perfectly 300 years afterwards, at the suggestion of La Condamine.[117]It is well known that Toscanelli, who died in 1482, aged seventy-five, exerted great influence on the mind of Christopher Columbus by his calculations of the longitudinal extent of Eastern Asia, which, however,rested chiefly on Marco Polo’s mistaken hypotheses. Long after Toscanelli’s death, Columbus—when upon his first voyage—made use of the map, marked with the latitudes and longitudes, which the former had once sent to Lisbon. It was in the last years of Lorenzo’s life that a man whose name is more famous than his deeds, and who has been the subject of renewed controversy in our own times, left his home to seek a new one in Southern Spain.[118]The family of Amerigo Vespucci, which reckoned among the navigator’s near relatives men of both scientific and political importance, was sometimes on friendly, sometimes on hostile terms with the Medici; but we hear nothing of any personal relation between him and Lorenzo. About the age of forty, Amerigo settled in Seville, where he joined the banking and commercial house of his fellow-countryman Giovanni Berardi. Well furnished with knowledge, to which his learned uncle Giorgio Antonio had contributed not a little, he began a course of practical preparations for the undertaking which led him to the Far West. Not with the Florentines, but with a schoolman of Lorraine, originated the name of the new continent which, as long as the world stands, will recall Amerigo Vespucci. Still the Florentines rightly rejoiced in the fame of their countryman. A later generation has seen the house of his forefathers turned into a hospital, and has inscribed on it in homage to his memory: ‘Ob repertam Americam sui et patriæ nominis illustratori amplificatori orbis terrarum.’ When the news of his discoveries made in the voyage of 1497 reached Florence, the Signoria had the above-named house illuminated for three nights, a distinction they were wont to bestow only on the most conspicuous merit.