Chapter III (5)

Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp,
When Agrican with all his northern powers
Besieged Albracca, as romances tell,
The city of Gallaphron, from thence to win
The fairest of her sex, Angelica,
His daughter, sought by many prowest knights,
Both paynim and the peers of Charlemagne.[473]

[470] Fontanini, dell’Eloquenza Italiana, edit. di Zeno, p. 270.

[471] See my friend Mr. Panizzi’s excellent introduction to his edition
of the Orlando Innamorato. This poem had never been reprinted since
1544; so much was Roscoe deceived in fancying that “the simplicity
of the original has caused it to be preferred to the same work, as
altered or reformed by Francesco Berni.” Life of Leo X., ch. ii.

[472] Camillo Pellegrino, in his famous controversy with the Academy of
Florence on the respective merits of Ariosto and Tasso, having
asserted this, they do not deny the fact, but say it stands on the
authority of Castelvetro. Opere di Tasso, 4to, ii. 94. The critics
held rather a pedantic doctrine; that though the names of private
men may be feigned, the poet has no right to introduce kings
unknown to history, as this destroys the probability required for
his fiction.

[473] Book iii.

|Francesco Bello.|

121. The Mambriano of Francesco Bello, sirnamed il Cieco, another poem of the same romantic class, was published posthumously in 1497. Apostolo Zeno, as quoted by Roscoe, attributes the neglect of the Mambriano to its wanting an Ariosto to continue its subject, or a Berni to reform its style.[474] But this seems a capricious opinion. Bello composed it at intervals to amuse the courtiers of the marquis of Mantua. The poem, therefore, wants unity. “It is a reunion,” says Mr. Panizzi, “of detached tales, without any relation to each other, except in so far as most of the same actors are before us.”[475] We may perceive by this, how little a series of rhapsodies, not directed by a controlling unity of purpose, even though the work of a single man, are likely to fall into a connected poem. But that a long poem, of singular coherence and subordination of parts to an end, should be framed from the random and insulated songs of a great number of persons, is almost as incredible as that the annals of Ennius, to use Cicero’s argument against the fortuitous origin of the world, should be formed by shaking together the letters of the alphabet.

[474] Leo X., ch. ii.

[475] Panizzi’s Introduction to Boiardo, p. 360. He does not highly
praise the poem, of which he gives an analysis with extracts. See
too Ginguéné, vol. iv.

|Italian poetry near the end of the century.|

122. Near the close of the fifteenth century we find a great increase of Italian poetry, to which the patronage and example of Lorenzo had given encouragement. It is not easy to place within such narrow limits as a decennial period, the names of writers whose productions were frequently not published, at least collectively, during their lives. Serafino d’Aquila, born in 1466, seems to fall, as a poet, within this decade; and the same may be said of Tibaldeo and Benivieni. Of these the first is perhaps the best known; his verses are not destitute of spirit, but extravagance and bad taste deform the greater part.[476] Tibaldeo unites false thoughts with rudeness and poverty of diction. Benivieni, superior to either of these, is reckoned by Corniani a link between the harshness of the fifteenth and the polish of the ensuing century. The style of this age was far from the grace and sweetness of Petrach; forced in sentiment, low in choice of words, deficient in harmony, it has been condemned by the voice of all Italian critics.[477]

[476] Bouterwek, Gesch. der Ital. Poesie, i. 321. Corniani.

[477] Corniani. Muratori, della perfetta Poesia. Crescimbeni, Storia
della volgar poesia.

|Progress of learning in France and Germany.|

123. A greater activity than before was now perceptible in the literary spirit of France and Germany. It was also regularly progressive. The press of Paris gave twenty-six editions of ancient Latin authors, nine of which were in the year 1500. Twelve were published at Lyons. Deventer and Leipsic, especially the latter, which now took a lead in the German press, bore a part in this honourable labour; a proof of the rapid and extensive influence of Conrad Celtes on that part of Germany. It is to be understood that a very large proportion, or nearly the whole, of the Latin editions printed in Germany were for the use of schools.[478] We should be warranted in drawing an inference as to the progress in literary instruction in these countries from the increase in the number of publications, small as that number still is, and trifling as some of them may appear. It may be accounted for by the gradual working of the schools at Munster and other places, which had now sent out a race of pupils well fitted to impart knowledge in their turn to others; and by the patronage of some powerful men, among whom the first place, on all accounts, is due to the emperor Maximilian. Nothing was so likely to contribute to the intellectual improvement of Germany as the public peace of 1495, which put an end to the barbarous customs of the middle ages, not unaccompanied by generous virtues, but certainly as incompatible with the steady cultivation of literature as with riches and repose. Yet there seems to be no proof that the Greek language had obtained much more attention; no book connected with it is recorded to have been printed, and I do not find mention that it was taught, even superficially, in any university or school, at this time, though it might be conjectured without improbability. Reuchlin had now devoted his whole thoughts to cabbalistic philosophy, and the study of Hebrew; and Eichhorn, though not unwilling to make the most of early German learning, owns that, at the end of the century, no other person had become remarkable for a skill in Greek.[479]

[478] A proof of this may be found in the books printed at Deventer
from 1491 to 1500. They consisted of Virgil’s Bucolics three times,
Virgil’s Georgics twice, and the eclogues of Calpurnius once, or
perhaps twice. At Leipsic the list is much longer, but in great
measure of the same kind; single treatises of Seneca or Cicero, or
detached parts of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, sometimes very short, as
the Culex or the Ibis, form, with not many exceptions, the
Cisalpine classical bibliography of the fifteenth century.

[479] Eichhorn, iii. 236. This section in Eichhorn is valuable, but
not without some want of precision.

Reuchlin had been very diligent in purchasing Greek manuscripts.
But these were very scarce, even in Italy. A correspondent of his,
Streler by name, one of the young men who went from Germany to
Florence for education, tells him, in 1491, Nullos libros Græcis
hic venales reperio; and again, de Græcis libris coemendis hoc
scias; fui penes omnes hic librarios, nihil horum prorsus reperio.
Epist. ad Reuchl. (1562) fol. 7. In fact, Reuchlin’s own library
was so large as to astonish the Italian scholars when they saw the
catalogue, who plainly owned they could not procure such books
themselves. They had of course been originally purchased in Italy,
unless we suppose some to have been brought by way of Hungary.

It is not to be imagined that the libraries of ordinary scholars
were to be compared with that of Reuchlin, probably more opulent
than most of them. The early printed books of Italy, even the most
indispensable, were very scarce, at least in France. A Greek
grammar was a rarity at Paris in 1499. Grammaticen Græcam, says
Erasmus to a correspondent, summo studio vestigavi, ut emptam tibi
mitterem, sed jam utraque divendita fuerat, et Constantini quæ
dicitur, quæque Urbani. Epist. lix. See too Epist. lxxiii.

|Erasmus.|

|His diligence.|

124. Two men, however, were devoting incessant labour to the acquisition of that language at Paris, for whom was reserved the glory of raising the knowledge of it in Cisalpine Europe to a height which Italy could not attain. These were Erasmus and Budæus. The former, who had acquired as a boy the mere rudiments of Greek under Hegius at Deventer, set himself in good earnest to that study about 1499, hiring a teacher at Paris, old Hermonymus of Sparta, of whose extortion he complains; but he was little able to pay anything; and his noble endurance of privations for the sake of knowledge deserves the high reward of glory it received. “I have given my whole soul,” he says, “to Greek learning, and as soon as I get any money I shall first buy Greek books, and then clothes.”[480] “If any new Greek book comes to hand, I would rather pledge my cloak than not obtain it; especially if it be religious, such as a psalter or a gospel.”[481] It will be remembered that the books of which he speaks must have been frequently manuscripts.

[480] Epist. xxix.

[481] Epist. lviii.

|Budæus; his early studies.|

125. Budæus, in his proper name Budé, nearly of the same age as Erasmus, had relinquished every occupation for intense labour in literature. In an interesting letter, addressed to Cuthbert Tunstall in 1517, giving an account of his own early studies, he says that he learned Greek very ill from a bad master at Paris, in 1491. This was certainly Hermonymus, of whom Reuchlin speaks more favourably; but he was not quite so competent a judge.[482] Some years afterwards Budæus got much better instruction; “ancient literature having derived within a few years great improvement in France by our intercourse with Italy, and by the importation of books in both the learned languages.” Lascaris, who now lived at the court of Charles VIII., having returned with him from the Neapolitan expedition, gave Budæus some assistance, though not, according to the latter’s biographer, to any great extent.

[482] Hody (de Græcis Illustribus, p. 238) thinks that the master of
Budæus could not have been Hermonymus; probably because the praise
of Reuchlin seemed to him incompatible with the contemptuous
language of Budæus. But Erasmus is very explicit on this subject,
Ad Græcas literas utcunque puero degustatas jam grandior redii; hoc
est, annos natus plus minus triginta, sed turn cum apud nos nulla
Græcorum codicum esset copia, neque minor penuria doctorum. Lutetiæ
tantum unus Georgius Hermonymus Græce balbutiebat; sed talis, ut
neque potuisset docere si voluisset, neque voluisset si potuisset.
Itaque coactus ipse mihi præceptor esse, &c. (A.D. 1524.) I
transcribe from Jortin, ii. 419. Of Hermonymus it is said by Beatus
Rhenanus in a letter to Reuchlin, that he was non tam doctrina quam
patria clarus. (Epist. ad Reuchl. fol. 52.) Roy, in his Life of
Budæus, says, that the latter, having paid Hermonymus 500 gold
pieces, and read Homer and other books with him, nihilo doctior est
factus.

|Latin not well written in France.|

126. France had as yet no writer of Latin, who could be endured in comparison with those of Italy. Robert Gaguin praises Fichet, rector of the Sorbonne, as learned and eloquent, and the first who had taught many to employ good language in Latin. The more certain glory of Fichet is to have introduced the art of printing into France. Gaguin himself enjoyed a certain reputation for his style, and his epistles have been printed. He possessed at least, what is most important, a love of knowledge, and an elevated way of thinking. But Erasmus says of him, that “whatever he might have been in his own age, he would now scarcely be reckoned to write Latin at all.” If we could rely on a panegyrist of Faustus Andrelinus, an Italian who came about 1489 to Paris, and was authorised, in conjunction with one Balbi, and with Cornelio Vitelli, to teach in the university,[483] he was the man who brought polite literature into France, and changed its barbarism for classical purity. But Andrelinus, who is best known as a Latin poet of by no means a high rank, seems not to merit his commendation. Whatever his capacities of teaching may have been, we have little evidence of his success. Yet the number of editions of Latin authors published in France during this decade proves some diffusion of classical learning; and we must admit the circumstance to be quite decisive of the inferiority of England.

[483] This I find quoted in Bettinelli, Risorgimento d’ltalia, i. 250.
See also Bayle, and Biogr. Univ., art. Andrelini. They were only
allowed to teach for one hour in the evening; the jealousy of the
logicians not having subsided. Crevier, iv. 439.

|Dawn of Greek learning in England.|

127. A gleam of light, however, now broke out there. We have seen already that a few, even in the last years of Henry VI., had overcome all obstacles in order to drink at the fountain-head of pure learning in Italy. One or two more names might be added for the intervening period; Milling, abbot of Westminister, and Selling, prior of a convent at Canterbury.[484] It is reported by Polydore Virgil, and is proved by Wood, that Cornelio Vitelli, an Italian, came to Oxford about 1488, in order to give that most barbarous university some notion of what was going forward on the other side of the Alps; and it has been probably conjectured, or rather may be assumed, that he there imparted the rudiments of Greek to William Grocyn.[485] It is certain, at least, that Grocyn had acquired some insight into that language, before he took a better course, and, travelling into Italy, became the disciple of Chalcondyles and Politian. He returned home in 1491, and began to communicate his acquisitions, though chiefly to deaf ears, teaching in Exeter College at Oxford. A diligent emulator of Grocyn, but some years younger, and, like him, a pupil of Politian and Hermolaus, was Thomas Linacre, a physician; but though a first edition of his translation of Galen has been supposed to have been printed at Venice in 1498, it seems to be ascertained that none preceded that of Cambridge in 1521. His only contribution to literature in the fifteenth century was a translation of the very short mathematical treatise of Proclus on the sphere, published in a volume of ancient writers on astronomy, by Aldus Manutius, in 1499.[486]

[484] Warton, iii. 247. Johnson’s Life of Linacre, p. 5. This is
mentioned on Selling’s monument now remaining in Canterbury
cathedral.

Doctor theologus Selling Græca atque Latina Lingua perdoctus.

Selling, however, did not go to Italy till after 1480, far from
returning in 1460, as Warton has said, with his usual indifference
to anachronisms.

[485] Polydore says nothing about Vitelli’s teaching Greek, though
Knight, in his Life of Colet, translates bonæ literæ, “Greek and
Latin.” But the following passages seem decisive as to Grocyn’s
early studies in the Greek language. Grocinus, qui prima Græcaæ et
Latinæ linguæ, rudimenta in Britannia hausit, mox solidiorem iisdem
operam sub Demetrio Chalcondyle et Politiano præceptoribus in
Italia hausit. Lilly, Elogia virorum doctorum, in Knight’s Life of
Colet, p. 24. Erasmus as positively: Ipse Grocinus, cujus exemplum
affers, nonne primum in Anglia Græcæ linguæ rudimenta didicit? Post
in Italiam profectus audivit summos viros, sed interim lucro fuit
ilia prius a qualibuscunque didicisse. Epist. ccclxiii. Whether the
_qualescunque_ were Vitelli or any one else, this can leave no
doubt as to the existence of some Greek instruction in England
before Grocyn; and as no one can be suggested, so far as appears,
except Vitelli, it seems reasonable to fix upon him as the first
preceptor of Grocyn. Vitelli had returned to Paris in 1489, and
taught in the university, as has just been mentioned; so that he
could have little time, if Polydore’s date of 1488 be right, for
giving much instruction at Oxford.

[486] Johnson’s Life of Linacre, p. 152.

|Erasmus comes to England.|

128. Erasmus paid his first visit to England in 1497, and was delighted with everything that he found, especially at Oxford. In an epistle dated Dec. 5th, after praising Grocyn, Colet, and Linacre to the skies, he says of Thomas More, who could not then have been eighteen years old, “What mind was ever framed by nature more gentle, more pleasing, more gifted?--It is incredible, what a treasure of old books is found here far and wide.--There is so much erudition, not of a vulgar and ordinary kind, but recondite, accurate, ancient, both Latin and Greek, that you would seek nothing in Italy but the pleasure of travelling.”[487] But this letter is addressed to an Englishman, and the praise is evidently much exaggerated; the scholars were few, and not more than three or four could be found, or at least could now be mentioned, who had any tincture of Greek,--Grocyn, Linacre, William Latimer, who, though an excellent scholar, never published anything, and More, who had learned at Oxford under Grocyn.[488] It should here be added, that, in 1497, Terence was printed by Pynson, being the first edition of a strictly classical author in England; though Boethius had already appeared with Latin and English on opposite pages.

[487] Thomæ Mori ingenio quid unquam finxit natura vel mollius, vel
dulcius, vel felicius?... Mirum est dictu, quam hic passim, quam
dense veterum librorum seges efflorescat ... tantum eruditionis non
illius protritæ ac trivialis, sed reconditæ, exactæ, antiquæ,
Latinæ Græcæque, ut jam Italiam nisi visendi gratia non multum
desideres. Epist. xiv.

[488] A letter of Colet to Erasmus from Oxford in 1497, is written in
the style of a man who was conversant with the best Latin authors.
Sir Thomas More’s birth has not been placed by any biographer
earlier than 1480.

It has been sometimes asserted, on the authority of Antony Wood,
that Erasmus taught Greek at Oxford; but there is no foundation for
this, and in fact he did not know enough of the language. Knight,
on the other hand, maintains that he learned it there under Grocyn
and Linacre; but this rests on no evidence; and we have seen that
he gives a different account of his studies in Greek. Life of
Erasmus, p. 22.

|He publishes his Adages.|

129. In 1500 was printed at Paris the first edition of Erasmus’s Adages, doubtless the chief prose work of this century beyond the limits of Italy; but this edition should, if possible, be procured, in order to judge with chronological exactness of the state of literature; for as his general knowledge of antiquity, and particularly of Greek, which was now very slender, increased, he made vast additions. The Adages, which were now about eight hundred, amounted in his last edition to 4151; not that he could find so many which properly deserve that name, but the number is made up by explanations of Latin and Greek idioms, or even of single words. He declares himself, as early as 1504, ashamed of the first edition of his Adages, which already seemed meagre and imperfect.[489] Erasmus had been preceded in some measure by Polydore Virgil, best known as the historian of this country, where he resided many years as collector of papal dues. He published a book of adages, which must have been rather a juvenile, and is a superficial production, at Venice in 1498.

[489] Epist. cii., jejunum atque inops videri cœpit, posteoquam Græcos
colui auctores.

|Romantic ballads of Spain.|

130. The Castilian poets of the fifteenth century have been collectively mentioned on a former occasion. Bouterwek refers to the latter part of this age most of the romances, which turn upon Saracen story, and the adventures of “knights of Granada, gentlemen, though Moors.” Sismondi follows him without, perhaps, much reflection, and endeavours to explain what he might have doubted. Fear having long ceased in the bosoms of the Castilian Christians, even before conquest had set its seal to their security, hate, the child of fear, had grown feebler; and the romancers felt themselves at liberty to expatiate in the rich field of Mohammedan customs and manners. These had already exercised a considerable influence over Spain. But this opinion seems hard to be supported; nor do I find that the Spanish critics claim so much antiquity for the Moorish class of romantic ballads. Most of them, it is acknowledged, belong to the sixteenth, and some to the seventeenth century; and the internal evidence is against their having been written before the Moorish wars had become matter of distant tradition. We shall therefore take no notice of the Spanish romance-ballads till we come to the age of Philip II., to which they principally belong.[490]

[490] Bouterwek, p. 121. Sismondi, iii. 222. Romances Moriscos, Madr.
1828.

|Pastoral romances.|

131. Bouterwek places in this decade the first specimens of the pastoral romance which the Castilian language affords.[491] But the style is borrowed from a neighbouring part of the peninsula, where this species of fiction seems to have been indigenous. The Portuguese nation cultivated poetry as early as the Castilian; and we have seen that some remains of a date anterior to the fourteenth century. But to the heroic romance they seem to have paid no regard; we do not find that it ever existed among them. Love chiefly occupied the Lusitanian muse; and to trace that passion through all its labyrinths, to display its troubles in a strain of languid melancholy, was the great aim of every poet. This led to the invention of pastoral romances, founded on the ancient traditions as to the felicity of shepherds and their proneness to love, and rendered sometimes more interesting for the time by the introduction of real characters and events under a slight disguise.[492] This artificial and effeminate sort of composition, which, if it may now and then be not unpleasing, cannot fail to weary the modern reader by its monotony, is due to Portugal, and having been adopted in languages better known, became for a long time highly popular in Europe.

[491] P. 123.

[492] Bouterwek’s Hist. of Portuguese Literature, p. 43.

|Portuguese lyric poetry.|

132. The lyrical poems of Portugal were collected by Garcia de Resende, in the Cancioneiro Geral, published in 1516. Some few of these are of the fourteenth century, for we find the name of King Pedro, who died in 1369. Others are by the Infante Don Pedro, son of John I., in the earlier part of the fifteenth. But a greater number belong nearly to the present or preceding decade, or even to the ensuing age, commemorating the victories of the Portuguese in Asia. This collection is of extreme scarcity; none of the historians of Portuguese literature have seen it. Bouterwek and Sismondi declare that they have caused search to be made in various libraries of Europe without success. There is, however, a copy in the British Museum; and M. Raynouard has given a short account of one that he had seen in the Journal des Savans for 1826. In this article he observes, that the Cancioneiro is a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish pieces. I believe, however, that very little Spanish will be found, with the exception of the poems of the Infante Pedro, which occupy some leaves. The whole number of poets is but one hundred and thirty-two, even if some names do not occur twice; which I mention, because it has been erroneously said to exceed considerably that of the Spanish Cancioneiro. The volume is in folio, and contains two hundred and twenty-seven leaves. The metres are those usual in Spanish; some _versos de arte mayor_; but the greater part in trochaic redondillas. I observed no instance of the assonant rhyme; but there are several glosses, or, in the Portuguese word, _grosas_.[493] The chief part is amatory; but there are lines on the death of kings, and other political events.[494]

[493] Bouterwek, p. 30, has observed, that the Portuguese employ the
glosa, calling it volta. The word in the Cancioneiro is grosa.

[494] A manuscript collection of Portuguese lyric poetry of the
fifteenth century belonged to Mr. Heber, and was sold to Messrs.
Payne and Foss. It would probably be found on comparison to contain
many of the pieces in the Cancioneiro Geral, but it is not a copy
of it.

|German popular books.|

133. The Germans, if they did not as yet excel in the higher department of typography, were by no means negligent of their own great invention. The books, if we include the smallest, printed in the empire between 1470 and the close of the century, amount to several thousand editions. A large proportion of these were in their own language. They had a literary public, as we may call it, not merely in their courts and universities, but in their respectable middle class, the burghers of the free cities, and, perhaps, in the artizans whom they employed. Their reading was almost always with a serious end; but no people so successfully cultivated the art of moral and satirical fable. These, in many instances, spread with great favour through cisalpine Europe. Among the works of this kind, in the fifteenth century, two deserve mention; the Eulenspiegel, a book which became popular afterwards in England by the name of Howleglass, and a superior and better known production, the Narrenschiff, or Ship of Fools, by Sebastian Brandt of Strasburg, the first edition of which I do not find referred to any date; but the Latin translation appeared at Lyons in 1488. It was translated into English by Barclay, and published early in 1509. It is a metrical satire on the follies of every class, and may possibly have suggested to Erasmus his Encomium Moriæ. But the idea was not absolutely new; the theatrical company established at Paris, under the name of Enfans de San Souci, as well as the ancient office of jester or fool in our courts and castles, implied the same principle of satirising mankind with ridicule so general, that every man should feel more pleasure from the humiliation of his neighbours, than pain from his own. Brandt does not show much poetical talent; but his morality is clear and sound; he keeps the pure and right-minded reader on his side; and in an age when little better came into competition, his characters of men, though more didactic than descriptive, did not fail to please. The influence such books of simple fiction and plain moral would possess over a people, may be judged by the delight they once gave to children, before we had learned to vitiate the healthy appetite of ignorance by premature refinements and stimulating variety.[495]

[495] Bouterwek, ix. 332-354, v. 113. Heinsius, iv. 113. Warton,
iii. 74.

|Historical works.|

|Ph. de Comines.|

134. The historical literature of this century presents very little deserving of notice. The English writers of this class are absolutely contemptible; and if some annalists of good sense and tolerable skill in narration may be found on the Continent, they are not conspicuous enough to arrest our regard in a work which designedly passes over that department of literature, so far as it is merely conversant with particular events. But the memoirs of Philip de Comines, which, though not published till 1529, must have been written before the close of the fifteenth century, are not only of a higher value, but almost make an epoch in historical literature. If Froissart, by his picturesque descriptions, and fertility of historical _invention_, may be reckoned the Livy of France, she had her Tacitus in Philip de Comines. The intermediate writers, Monstrelet and his continuators, have the merits of neither, certainly not of Comines. He is the first modern writer, (or, if there had been any approach to an exception among the Italians, it has escaped my recollection,) who in any degree has displayed sagacity in reasoning on the characters of men, and the consequences of their actions, or who has been able to generalise his observation by comparison and reflection. Nothing of this could have been found in the cloister; nor were the philologers of Italy equal to a task which required capacities and pursuits very different from their own. An acute understanding and much experience of mankind gave Comines this superiority; his life had not been spent over books; and he is consequently free from that pedantic application of history, which became common with those who passed for political reasoners in the next two centuries. Yet he was not ignorant of former times; and we see the advantage of those translations from antiquity, made during the last hundred years in France, by the use to which he turned them.

|Algebra.|

135. The earliest printed treatise of algebra, for that of Leonard Fibonacci is still in manuscript, was published in 1494, by Luca Pacioli di Borgo, a Franciscan, who taught mathematics in the university of Milan. This book is written in Italian, with a mixture of the Venetian dialect, and with many Latin words. In the first part, he explains the rules of commercial arithmetic in detail, and is the earliest Italian writer who shows the principles of Italian book-keeping by double entry. Algebra he calls l’arte maggiore, detta dal volgo la regola de la cosa, over alghebra e almacabala, which last he explains by restauratio et opposito. The known number is called _n_ᵒ or _numero_; _co._ or _cosa_ stands for the unknown quantity; whence algebra was sometimes called the cossic art. In the early Latin treatises _Res_ is used, or _R._, which is an approach to literal expression. The square is called _censo_ or _ce._; the cube, _cubo_ or _cu._; _p._ and _m._ stand for _plus_ and _minus_. Thus, _3co. p. 4ce. m. 5cu. p. 2ce. ce. m. 6nᵒ_ would have been written for what would now be expressed 3_x_ + 4_x_² - 5_x_³ + 2_x_⁴ - 6. Luca di Borgo’s algebra goes as far as quadratic equations; but though he had very good notions on the subject, it does not appear that he carried the science much beyond the point where Leonard Fibonacci had left it three centuries before. And its principles were already familiar to mathematicians; for Regiomontanus, having stated a trigonometrical solution in the form of a quadratic equation, adds, quod restat, præcepta artis edocebunt. Luca di Borgo perceived, in a certain sense, the application of algebra to geometry, observing, that the rules as to surd roots are referrible to incommensurable magnitudes.[496]

[496] Montucla. Kästner. Cossali. Hutton’s Mathem. Dict., art. Algebra.
The last writer, and perhaps the first, had never seen the book of
Luca Pacioli.

Mr. Colebrooke, in his Indian Algebra, has shown that the Hindoos
carried that science considerably farther than either the Greeks or
the Arabians (though he thinks they may probably have derived their
notions of the science from the former), anticipating some of the
discoveries of the sixteenth century.

|Events from 1490 to 1500.|

136. This period of ten years from 1490 to 1500, will ever be memorable in the history of mankind. It is here that we usually close the long interval between the Roman world and this our modern Europe, denominated the Middle Ages. The conquest of Granada, which rendered Spain a Christian kingdom; the annexation of the last great fief of the French crown, Britany, which made France an entire and absolute monarchy; the public peace of Germany; the invasion of Naples by Charles VIII., which revealed the weakness of Italy, while it communicated her arts and manners to the cisalpine nations, and opened the scene of warfare and alliances which may be deduced to the present day; the discovery of two worlds by Columbus and Vasco de Gama, all belong to this decade. But it is not, as we have seen, so marked an era in the progression of literature.

|Close of fifteenth century.|

137. In taking leave of the fifteenth century, to which we have been used to attach many associations of reverence, and during which the desire of knowledge was, in one part of Europe, more enthusiastic and universal than perhaps it has since ever been, it is natural to ask ourselves what harvest had already rewarded their zeal and labour, what monuments of genius and erudition still receive the homage of mankind?

|Its literature nearly neglected.|

138. No very triumphant answer can be given to this interrogation. Of the books then written how few are read! Of the men then famous how few are familiar in our recollection! Let us consider what Italy itself produced of any effective tendency to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, or to delight the taste and fancy. The treatise of Valla on Latin grammar, the miscellaneous observations of Politian on ancient authors, the commentaries of Landino and some other editors, the Platonic theology of Ficinus, the Latin poetry of Politian and Pontanus, the light Italian poetry of the same Politian and Lorenzo de’ Medici, the epic romances of Pulci and Boiardo. Of these, Pulci alone, in an original shape, is still read in Italy, and by some lovers of that literature in other countries, and the Latin poets by a smaller number. If we look on the other side of the Alps, the catalogue is much shorter, or rather does not contain a single book, except Philip de Comines, that enters into the usual studies of a literary man. Froissart hardly belongs to the fifteenth century, his history terminating about 1400. The first undated edition, with a continuation by some one to 1498, was printed between that time and 1509, when the second appeared.

|Summary of its acquisitions.|

139. If we come to inquire, what acquisitions had been made between the years 1400 and 1500, we shall find that, in Italy, the Latin language was now written by some with elegance, and by most with tolerable exactness and fluency; while, out of Italy, there had been, perhaps, a corresponding improvement, relatively to the point from which they started; the flagrant barbarisms of the fourteenth century having yielded before the close of the next to a more respectable, though not an elegant or exact kind of style. Many Italians had now some acquaintance with Greek, which in 1400 had been hardly the case with any one; and the knowledge of it was of late beginning to make a little progress in cisalpine Europe. The French and English languages were become what we call more polished, though the difference in the former seems not to be very considerable. In mathematical science, and in natural history, the ancient writers had been more brought to light, and a certain progress had been made by diligent, if not very inventive philosophers. We cannot say that metaphysical or moral philosophy stood higher than it had done in the time of the schoolmen. The history of Greece and Rome, and the antiquities of the latter, were, of course, more distinctly known after so many years of attentive study bestowed on their principal authors; yet the acquaintance of the learned with those subjects was by no means exact or critical enough to save them from gross errors, or from becoming the dupes of any forgery. A proof of this was furnished by the impostures of Annius of Viterbo, who, having published large fragments of Megasthenes, Berosus, Manetho, and a great many more lost historians, as having been discovered by himself, obtained full credence at the time, which was not generally withheld for too long a period afterwards, though the forgeries were palpable to those who had made themselves masters of genuine history.[497]

[497] Annius of Viterbo did not cease to have believers after this
time. See Blount, Niceron, vol. ii., Corniani, iii. 131, and his
article in Biographie Universelle. Apostolo Zeno and Tiraboschi
have imputed less fraud than credulity to Annius, but most have
been of another opinion; and it is unimportant for the purpose of
the text.

|Their imperfection.|

140. We should, therefore, if we mean to judge accurately, not over-value the fifteenth century, as one in which the human mind advanced with giant strides in the kingdom of knowledge. General historians of literature are apt to speak rather hyperbolically in respect of men who rose above their contemporaries; language frequently just, in relation to the vigorous intellects and ardent industry of such men, but tending to produce an exaggerated estimate of their absolute qualities. But the question is at present not so much of men, as of the average or general proficiency of nations. The catalogues of printed books in the common bibliographical collections afford, not quite a gauge of the learning of any particular period, but a reasonable presumption, which it requires contrary evidence to rebut. If these present us very few and imperfect editions of books necessary to the progress of knowledge, if the works most in request appear to have been trifling and ignorant productions, it seems as reasonable to draw an inference one way from these scanty and discreditable lists, as on the other hand we hail the progressive state of any branch of knowledge from the redoubled labours of the press, and the multiplication of useful editions. It is true that the deficiency of one country might be supplied by importation from another; and some cities, especially Paris, had acquired a typographical reputation somewhat disproportioned to the local demand for books; a considerable increase of readers would but naturally have created a press, or multiplied its operations, in any country of Europe.

|Number of books printed.|

141. The bibliographies, indeed, even the best and latest, are always imperfect; but the omissions, after the immense pains bestowed on the subject, can hardly be such as to affect our general conclusions. We will therefore illustrate the literary history of the fifteenth century by a few numbers taken from the typographical annals of Panzer, which might be corrected in two ways; first, by adding editions since brought to light, or secondly, by striking out some inserted on defective authority; a kind of mistake which tends to compensate the former. The books printed at Florence down to 1500 are 300; at Milan, 629; at Bologna, 298; at Rome, 925; at Venice, 2835; fifty other Italian cities had printing presses in the fifteenth century.[498] At Paris, the number of books is 751; at Cologne, 530; at Nuremberg, 382; at Leipsic, 351; at Basle, 320; at Strasburg, 526; at Augsburg, 256; at Louvain, 116; at Mentz, 134; at Deventer, 169. The whole number printed in England appears to be 141; whereof 130 at London and Westminster; seven at Oxford; four at St. Albans. Cicero’s works were first printed entire by Minutianus, at Milan, in 1498; but no less than 291 editions of different portions appeared in the century. Thirty-seven of these bear date on this side of the Alps; and forty-five have no place named. Of ninety-five editions of Virgil, seventy are complete; twenty-seven are cisalpine, and four bear no date. On the other hand, only eleven out of fifty-seven editions of Horace contain all his works. It has been already shown, that most editions of classics printed in France and Germany are in the last decennium of the century.

[498] I find this in Heeren, p. 127, for I have not counted the number
of cities in Panzer.

142. The editions of the vulgate registered in Panzer are ninety-one, exclusive of some spurious or suspected. Next to theology, no science furnished so much occupation to the press as the civil and canon laws. The editions of the digest and decretals, or other parts of those systems of jurisprudence, must amount to some hundreds.

|Advantages already reaped from printing.|

143. But while we avoid, for the sake of truth, any undue exaggeration of the literary state of Europe at the close of the fifteenth century, we must even more earnestly deprecate the hasty prejudice, that no good had been already done by the culture of classical learning, and by the invention of printing. Both were of inestimable value, even where their immediate fruits were not clustering in ripe abundance. It is certain that much more than ten thousand editions of books or pamphlets (a late writer says fifteen thousand)[499] were printed from 1470 to 1500. More than half the number appeared in Italy. All the Latin authors, hitherto painfully copied by the scholar, or purchased by him at inconvenient cost, or borrowed for a time from friends, became readily accessible, and were printed, for the most part, if not correctly, according to our improved criticism, yet without the gross blunders of the ordinary manuscripts. The saving of time which the art of printing has occasioned, can hardly be too highly appreciated. Nor was the cisalpine press unserviceable in this century, though it did not pour forth so much from the stores of ancient learning. It gave useful food, and such as the reader could better relish and digest. The historical records of his own nation, the precepts of moral wisdom, the regular metre, that pleased the ear and supplied the memory, the fictions that warmed the imagination, and sometimes ennobled or purified the heart, the repertories of natural phenomena, mingled as truth was on these subjects, and on all the rest, with error, the rules of civil and canon law, that guided the determinations of private right, the subtle philosophy of the scholastics, were laid open to his choice; while his religious feelings might find their gratification in many a treatise of learned doctrine, according to the received creed of the church, in many a legend on which a pious credulity delighted to rely, in the devout aspirations of holy ascetic men; but, above all, in the Scriptures themselves, either in the Vulgate Latin, which had by use acquired the authority of an original text, or in most of the living languages of Europe.

[499] Santander, Dict. Bibliogr. du 15me siècle. I do not think so many
would be found in Panzer. I have read somewhere that the library of
Munich claims to possess 20,000 Incunabula, or books of the
fifteenth century: a word lately so applied in Germany. But unless
this comprehends many duplicates, it seems a little questionable.
Books were not in general so voluminous in that age as at present.

|Trade of bookselling.|

144. We shall conclude this portion of literary history with a few illustrations of what a German writer calls “the exterior being of books,”[500] for which I do not find an equivalent in English idiom. The trade of bookselling seems to have been established at Paris and at Bologna in the twelfth century; the lawyers and universities called it into life.[501] It is very improbable that it existed in what we properly call the dark ages. Peter of Blois mentions a book which he had bought of a public dealer (a quodam publico mangone librorum). But we do not find, I believe, many distinct accounts of them till the next age. These dealers were denominated Stationarii, perhaps from the open stalls at which they carried on their business, though statio is a general word for a shop, in low Latin.[502] They appear, by the old statutes of the university of Paris, and by those of Bologna, to have sold books upon commission; and are sometimes, though not uniformly, distinguished from the Librarii; a word which, having originally been confined to the copyists of books, was afterwards applied to those who traded in them.[503] They sold parchment and other materials of writing, which, with us, though, as far I know, nowhere else, have retained the name of stationery, and naturally exercised the kindred occupations of binding and decorating. They probably employed transcribers: we find at least that there was a profession of copyists in the universities and in large cities; and by means of these, before the invention of printing, the necessary books of grammar, law, and theology were multiplied to a great extent for the use of students; but with much incorrectness, and far more expense than afterwards. That invention put a sudden stop to their honest occupation. But whatever hatred they might feel towards the new art, it was in vain to oppose its reception: no party could be raised in the public against so manifest and unalloyed a benefit; and the copyists, grown by habit fond of books, frequently employed themselves in the somewhat kindred labour of pressmen.[504]

[500] Aüsseres bucher-wesen. Savigny, iii. 532.

[501] Hist. Litt. de la France, ix. 142.

[502] Du Cange, in voc.

[503] The librarii were properly those who transcribed new books; the
Antiquarii old ones. This distinction is as old as Cassiodorus; but
doubtless it was not strictly observed in later times. Muratori,
Dissert. 43. Du Cange.

[504] Crevier, ii. 66, 130, et alibi. Du Cange, in voc. Stationarii,
Librarii. Savigny, iii. 532-548. Chevillier, 302. Eichhorn, ii.
531. Meiners, Vergleich der Sitten, ii. 539. Greswell’s Parisian
Press, p. 8.

The parliament of Paris, on the petition of the copyists, ordered
some of the first printed books to be seized. Lambinet calls this
superstition; it was more probably false compassion, and regard for
existing interests, combined with dislike of all innovation. Louis
XI., however, who had the merit of esteeming literature, evoked the
process to the counsel of state, who restored the books. Lambinet,
Hist. de l’Imprimerie, p. 172.

|Books sold by printers.|

145. The first printers were always booksellers, and sold their own impressions. These occupations were not divided till the early part of the sixteenth century.[505] But the risks of sale, at a time when learning was by no means general, combined with the great cost of production, paper and other materials being very dear, rendered this a hazardous trade. We have a curious petition of Sweynheim and Pannartz to Sixtus IV., in 1472, wherein they complain of their poverty, brought on by printing so many works, which they had not been able to sell. They state the number of impressions of each edition. Of the classical authors they had generally printed 275; of Virgil and the philosophical works of Cicero, twice that number. In theological publications the usual number of copies had also been 550. The whole number of copies printed was 12,475.[506] It is possible that experience made other printers more discreet in their estimation of the public demand. Notwithstanding the casualties of three centuries, it seems from the great scarcity of these early editions, which has long existed, that the original circulation must have been much below the number of copies printed, as indeed the complaint of Sweynheim and Pannartz shows.[507]

[505] Conversations-Lexicon, art. Buchhandlung.

[506] Maittaire. Lambinet, p. 166. Beckmann, iii. 119, erroneously says
that this was the number of volumes remaining in their warehouses.

[507] Lambinet says, that the number of impressions did not generally
exceed three hundred, p. 197. Even this seems large, compared with
the present scarcity of books unlikely to have been destroyed by
careless use.

|Price of books.|

146. The price of books was diminished by four-fifths after the invention of printing. Chevillier gives some instances of a fall in this proportion. But not content with such a reduction, the university of Paris proceeded to establish a tariff, according to which every edition was to be sold, and seems to have set the prices very low. This was by virtue of the prerogatives they exerted, as we shall soon find, over the book-trade of the capital. The priced catalogues of Colinæus and Robert Stephens are extant, relating, of course, to a later period than the present; but we shall not return to the subject. The Greek Testament of Colinæus was sold for twelve sous, the Latin for six. The folio Latin Bible, printed by Stephens in 1532, might be had for one hundred sous, a copy of the Pandacts for forty sous, a Virgil for two sous and six deniers; a Greek grammar of Clenardus for two sous, Demosthenes and Æschines, I know not what edition, for five sous. It would of course be necessary, before we can make any use of these prices, to compare them with that of corn.[508]

[508] Chevillier, Origines de l’Imprimerie de Paris, p. 370 et seq.
In the preceding pages he mentions what I should perhaps have
introduced before, that a catalogue of the books in the Sorbonne,
in 1292, contains above 1000 volumes, which were collectively
valued at 3,812 livres, 10 sous, 8 deniers. In a modern English
book on literary antiquities, this is set down 3,812_l._ 10_s._
8_d._; which is a happy way of helping the reader.

Lambinet mentions a few prices of early books, which are not
trifling. The Mentz Bible of 1462 was purchased in 1470 by a bishop
of Angers for forty gold crowns. An English gentleman paid eighteen
gold florins, in 1481, for a missal: upon which Lambinet makes a
remark:--Mais on a toujours fait payer plus cher aux Anglais qu’aux
autres nations, p. 198. The florin was worth about four francs of
present money, equivalent perhaps to twenty-four in command of
commodities. The crown was worth rather more.

Instances of an almost incredible price of manuscripts are to be
met with in Robertson and other common authors. It is to be
remembered that a particular book might easily bear a monopoly
price; and that this is no test of the cost of those which might be
multiplied by copying.

|Form of books.|

147. The more usual form of books printed in the fifteenth century is in folio. But the Psalter of 1457, and the Donatus of the same year, are in quarto; and this size is not uncommon in the early Italian editions of classics. The disputed Oxford book of 1468, Sancti Jeronymi Expositio, is in octavo, and would, if genuine, be the earliest specimen of that size, which may perhaps furnish an additional presumption against the date. It is at least, however, of 1478, when the octavo form, as we shall immediately see, was of the rarest occurrence. Maittaire, in whom alone I have had the curiosity to make this search, which would be more troublesome in Panzer’s arrangement, mentions a book printed in octavo at Milan in 1470; but the existence of this, and of one or two more that follow, seems equivocal; and the first on which we can rely is the Sallust, printed at Valencia in 1475. Another book of that form, at Treviso, occurs in the same year, and an edition of Pliny’s epistles at Florence in 1478. They become from this time gradually more common; but even at the end of the century form rather a small proportion of editions. I have not observed that the duodecimo division of the sheet was adopted in any instance. But it is highly probable that the volumes of Panzer furnish means of correcting these little notices, which I offer as suggestions to persons more erudite in such matters. The price and convenience of books are evidently not unconnected with their size.

|Exclusive privileges.|

148. Nothing could be less unreasonable than that the printer should have a better chance of indemnifying himself and the author, if in those days the author, as probably he did, hoped for some lucrative return after his exhausting drudgery, by means of an exclusive privilege. The senate of Venice granted an exclusive privilege for five years to John of Spire in 1469, for the first book printed in the city, his edition of Cicero’s epistles.[509] But I am not aware that this extended to any other work. And this seems to have escaped the learned Beckmann, who says that the earliest instance of protected copyright on record appears to be in favour of a book insignificant enough, a missal for the church of Bamberg, printed in 1490. It is probable that other privileges of an older date have not been found. In 1491, one occurs at the end of a book printed at Venice, and five more at the same place within the century; the Aristotle of Aldus being one of the books: one also is found at Milan. These privileges are always recited at the end of the volume. They are, however, very rare in comparison with the number of books published, and seem not accorded by preference to the most important editions.[510]

[509] Tiraboschi, vi. 139. I have a recollection of some more decisive
authority than this passage, but cannot find it.

[510] Beckmann’s Hist. of Inventions, iii. 109.

|Power of universities over bookselling.|