Chapter V: General Disintegration of Belief (3)

[256] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 362.

[257] Paul. Jovius, _Histor._ ii. fol. 47.

[258] See the passages in Ranke, _Röm. Päpste_; Sämmtl. Werke, Bd. xxxvii. 35, and xxxix. Anh. Abschn. 1, Nro. 4, and Gregorovius, vii. 497, sqq. Giustiniani does not believe in the Pope’s being poisoned. See his _Dispacci_, vol. ii. pp. 107 sqq.; Villari’s Note, pp. 120 sqq., and App. pp. 458 sqq.

[259] Panvinius, _Epitome Pontificum_, p. 359. For the attempt to poison Alexander’s successor, Julius II., see p. 363. According to Sismondi, xiii. p. 246, it was in this way that Lopez, Cardinal of Capua, for years the partner of all the Pope’s secrets, came by his end; according to Sanuto (in Ranke, _Popes_, i. p. 52, note), the Cardinal of Verona also. When Cardinal Orsini died, the Pope obtained a certificate of natural death from a college of physicians.

[260] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 254; comp. Attilio Alessio, in Baluz. _Miscell._, iv. p. 518 sqq.

[261] And turned to the most profitable account by the Pope. Comp. _Chron. Venetum_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 133, given only as a report: ‘E si giudiceva, che il Pontefice dovesse cavare assai danari di questo Giubileo, che gli tornerà molto a proposito.

[262] Anshelm, _Berner Chronik_, iii. pp. 146-156. Trithem. _Annales Hirsaug._ tom. ii. pp. 579, 584, 586.

[263] Panvin. _Contin. Platinae_, p. 341.

[264] Hence the splendour of the tombs of the prelates erected during their lifetime. A part of the plunder was in this way saved from the hands of the Popes.

[265] Whether Julius really hoped that Ferdinand the Catholic would be induced to restore to the throne of Naples the expelled Aragonese dynasty, remains, in spite of Giovio’s declaration (_Vita Alfonsi Ducis_), very doubtful.

[266] Both poems in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, iv. 257 and 297. Of his death the _Cronaca di Cremona_ says: ‘quale fu grande danno per la Italia, perchè era homo che non voleva tramontani in Italia, ed haveva cazato Francesi, e l’animo era de cazar le altri.’ _Bibl. Hist. Ital._ (1876) i. 217. It is true that when Julius, in August, 1511, lay one day for hours in a fainting fit, and was thought to be dead, the more restless members of the noblest families--Pompeo Colonna and Antimo Savelli--ventured to call ‘the people’ to the Capitol, and to urge them to throw off the Papal yoke--‘a vendicarsi in libertà ... a publica ribellione,’ as Guicciardini tells us in his tenth book. See, too, Paul. Jov. in the _Vita Pompeji Columnae_, and Gregorovius, viii. 71-75.

[267] _Septimo decretal._ l. i. tit. 3, cap. 1-3.

[268] Franc. Vettori, in the _Arch. Stor._ vi. 297.

[269] Besides which it is said (Paul. Lang. _Chronicon Cilicense_) to have produced not less than 500,000 gold florins; the order of the Franciscans alone, whose general was made a cardinal, paid 30,000. For a notice of the various sums paid, see Sanuto, xxiv. fol. 227; for the whole subject see Gregorovius, viii. 214 sqq.

[270] Franc. Vettori, l.c. p. 301. _Arch. Stor._ Append. i. p. 293 sqq. Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, vi. p. 232 sqq. Tommaso Gar, l. c. p. 42.

[271] Ariosto, Sat. vi. v. 106. ‘Tutti morrete, ed è fatal che muoja Leone appresso.’ Sat. 3 and 7 ridicule the hangers on at Leo’s Court.

[272] One of several instances of such combinations is given in the _Lettere dei Principi_, i. 65, in a despatch of the Cardinal Bibbiena from Paris of the year 1518.

[273] Franc. Vettori, l.c. p. 333.

[274] At the time of the Lateran Council, in 1512, Pico wrote an address: _J. E. P. Oratio ad Leonem X. et Concilium Lateranense de Reformandis Ecclesiæ Moribus_ (ed. Hagenau, 1512, frequently printed in editions of his works). The address was dedicated to Pirckheimer and was again sent to him in 1517. Comp. _Vir. Doct. Epist. ad Pirck._, ed. Freytag, Leipz. 1838, p. 8. Pico fears that under Leo evil may definitely triumph over good, ‘et in te bellum a nostræ religionis hostibus ante audias geri quam pariri.’

[275] _Lettere dei Principi_, i. (Rome. 17th March, 1523): ‘This city stands on a needle’s point, and God grant that we are not soon driven to Avignon or to the end of the Ocean. I foresee the early fall of this spiritual monarchy.... Unless God helps us we are lost.’ Whether Adrian were really poisoned or not, cannot be gathered with certainty from Blas Ortiz, _Itinerar. Hadriani_ (Baluz. _Miscell._ ed. Mansi, i. p. 386 sqq.); the worst of it was that everybody believed it.

[276] Negro, l.c. on Oct. 24 (should be Sept.) and Nov. 9, 1526, April 11, 1527. It is true that he found admirers and flatterers. The dialogue of Petrus Alcyonus ‘De Exilio’ was written in his praise, shortly before he became Pope.

[277] Varchi, _Stor. Fiorent._ i. 43, 46 sqq.

[278] Paul. Jov., _Vita Pomp. Columnae_.

[279] Ranke, _Deutsche Geschichte_ (4 Aufl.) ii. 262 sqq.

[280] Varchi, _Stor. Fiorent._ ii. 43 sqq.

[281] _Ibid._ and Ranke, _Deutsche Gesch._ ii. 278, note, and iii. 6 sqq. It was thought that Charles would transfer his seat of government to Rome.

[282] See his letter to the Pope, dated Carpentras, Sept. 1, 1527, in the _Anecdota litt._ iv. p. 335.

[283] _Lettere dei Principi_, i. 72. Castiglione to the Pope, Burgos, Dec. 10, 1527.

[284] Tommaso Gar, _Relaz. della Corte di Roma_, i. 299.

[285] The Farnese succeeded in something of the kind, the Caraffa were ruined.

[286] Petrarca, _Epist. Fam._ i. 3. p. 574, when he thanks God that he was born an Italian. And again in the _Apologia contra cujusdam anonymi Galli Calumnias_ of the year 1367 (_Opp._ ed. Bas. 1581) p. 1068 sqq. See L. Geiger, _Petrarca_, 129-145.

[287] Particularly those in vol. i. of Schardius, _Scriptores rerum Germanicarum_, Basel, 1574. For an earlier period, Felix Faber, _Historia Suevorum_, libri duo (in Goldast, _Script. rer. Suev._ 1605); for a later, Irenicus, _Exegesis Germaniæ_, Hagenau, 1518. On the latter work and the patriotic histories of that time, see various studies of A. Horawitz, _Hist. Zeitschrift_, bd. xxxiii. 118, anm. 1.

[288] One instance out of many: _The Answers of the Doge of Venice to a Florentine Agent respecting Pisa_, 1496, in Malipiero, _Ann. Veneti. Arch. Stor._ vii. i. p. 427.

[289] Observe the expressions ‘uomo singolare’ and ‘uomo unico’ for the higher and highest stages of individual development.

[290] By the year 1390 there was no longer any prevailing fashion of dress for men at Florence, each preferring to clothe himself in his own way. See the _Canzone_ of Franco Sacchetti: ‘Contro alle nuove foggie’ in the _Rime_, publ. dal Poggiali, p. 52.

[291] At the close of the sixteenth century Montaigne draws the following parallel (_Essais_, l. iii. chap. 5, vol. iii. p. 367 of the Paris ed. 1816): ‘Ils (les Italiens) ont plus communement des belles femmes et moins de laides que nous; mais des rares et excellentes beautés j’estime que nous allons à pair. Et j’en juge autant des esprits; de ceux de la commune façon, ils en ont beaucoup plus et evidemment; la brutalité y est sans comparaison plus rare; d’ames singulières et du plus hault estage, nous ne leur en debvons rien.’

[292] And also of their wives, as is seen in the family of Sforza and among other North Italian rulers. Comp. in the work of Jacobus Phil. Bergomensis, _De Plurimis Claris Selectisque Mulieribus_, Ferrara, 1497, the lives of Battista Malatesta, Paola Gonzaga, Bona Lombarda, Riccarda of Este, and the chief women of the House of Sforza, Beatrice and others. Among them are more than one genuine virago, and in several cases natural gifts are supplemented by great humanistic culture. (See below, chap. 3 and part v.)

[293] Franco Sacchetti, in his ‘Capitolo’ (_Rime_, publ. dal Poggiali, p. 56), enumerates about 1390 the names of over a hundred distinguished people in the ruling parties who had died within his memory. However many mediocrities there may have been among them, the list is still remarkable as evidence of the awakening of individuality. On the ‘Vite’ of Filippo Villani, see below.

[294] _Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_ forms a part of the work: _La Cura della Famiglia_ (_Opere Volg. di Leon Batt. Alberti_, publ. da Anicio Bonucci, Flor. 1844, vol. ii.). See there vol. i. pp. xxx.-xl., vol. ii. pp. xxxv. sqq. and vol. v. pp. 1-127. Formerly the work was generally, as in the text, attributed to Agnolo Pandolfini (d. 1446; see on him _Vesp. Fiorent._, pp. 291 and 379); the recent investigations of Fr. Palermo (Florence 1871), have shown Alberti to be the author. The work is quoted from the ed. Torino, Pomba, 1828.

[295] Trattato, p. 65 sqq.

[296] Jov. Pontanus, _De Fortitudine_, l. ii. cap. 4, ‘De tolerando Exilio,’ Seventy years later, Cardanus (_De Vitâ Propriâ_, cap. 32) could ask bitterly: ‘Quid est patria nisi consensus tyrannorum minutorum ad opprimendos imbelles timidos et qui plerumque sunt innoxii?’

[297] _De Vulgari Eloquio_, lib. i. cap. 6. On the ideal Italian language, cap. 17. The spiritual unity of cultivated men, cap. 18. On home-sickness, comp. the famous passages, _Purg._ viii. 1 sqq., and _Parad._ xxv. 1 sqq.

[298] _Dantis Alligherii Epistolae_, ed. Carolus Witte, p. 65.

[299] Ghiberti, _Secondo Commentario_, cap. xv. (Vasari ed Lemonnier, i. p. xxix.).

[300] _Codri Urcei Vita_, at the end of his works, first pub. Bologna 1502. This certainly comes near the old saying: ‘ubi bene, ibi patria.’ C. U. was not called after the place of his birth, but after Forli, where he lived long; see Malagola, _Codro Urceo_, Bologna, 1877, cap. v. and app. xi. The abundance of neutral intellectual pleasure, which is independent of local circumstances, and of which the educated Italians became more and more capable, rendered exile more tolerable to them. Cosmopolitanism is further a sign of an epoch in which new worlds are discovered, and men feel no longer at home in the old. We see it among the Greeks after the Peloponnesian war; Plato, as Niebuhr says, was not a good citizen, and Xenophon was a bad one; Diogenes went so far as to proclaim homelessness a pleasure, and calls himself, Laertius tells us, ἁπολις. Here another remarkable work may be mentioned. Petrus Alcyonius in his book: _Medices Legatus de Exilio lib. duo_, Ven. 1522 (printed in Mencken, _Analecta de Calam. Literatorum_, Leipzig, 1707, pp. 1-250) devotes to the subject of exile a long and prolix discussion. He tries logically and historically to refute the three reasons for which banishment is held to be an evil, viz. 1. Because the exile must live away from his fatherland. 2. Because he loses the honours given him at home. 3. Because he must do without his friends and relatives; and comes finally to the conclusion that banishment is not an evil. His dissertation culminates in the words, ‘Sapientissimus quisque omnem orbem terrarum unam urbem esse ducit. Atque etiam illam veram sibi esse patriam arbitratur quæ se perigrinantem exciperit, quæ pudorem, probitatem, virtutem colit, quæ optima studia, liberales disciplinas amplectitur, quæ etiam facit ut peregrini omnes honesto otio teneant statum et famam dignitatis suæ.’

[301] This awakening of personality is also shown in the great stress laid on the independent growth of character, in the claim to shape the spiritual life for oneself, apart from parents and ancestors. Boccaccio (_De Cas. Vir. Ill._ Paris, s. a. fol. xxix. _b_) points out that Socrates came of uneducated, Euripides and Demosthenes of unknown, parents, and exclaims: ‘Quasi animos a gignentibus habeamus!’

[302] Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 16.

[303] The angels which he drew on tablets at the anniversary of the death of Beatrice (_Vita Nuova_, p. 61) may have been more than the work of a dilettante. Lion. Aretino says he drew ‘egregiamente,’ and was a great lover of music.

[304] For this and what follows, see esp. _Vespasiano Fiorentino_, an authority of the first order for Florentine culture in the fifteenth century Comp. pp. 359, 379, 401, etc. See, also, the charming and instructive _Vita Jannoctii Manetti_ (b. 1396), by Naldus Naldius, in Murat. xx. pp. 529-608.

[305] What follows is taken, e.g., from Perticari’s account of Pandolfo Collenuccio, in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi iii. pp. 197 sqq., and from the _Opere del Conte Perticari_, Mil. 1823, vol. ii.

[306] For what follows compare Burckhardt, _Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien_, Stuttg. 1868, esp. p. 41 sqq., and A. Springer, _Abhandlungen zur neueren Kunstgeschichte_, Bonn, 1867, pp. 69-102. A new biography of Alberti is in course of preparation by Hub. Janitschek.

[307] In Murat. xxv. col. 295 sqq., with the Italian translation in the _Opere Volgari di L. B. Alberti_, vol. i. pp. lxxxix-cix, where the conjecture is made and shown to be probable that this ‘Vita’ is by Alberti himself. See, further, Vasari, iv. 52 sqq. Mariano Socini, if we can believe what we read of him in Æn. Sylvius (_Opera_, p. 622, _Epist._ 112) was a universal dilettante, and at the same time a master in several subjects.

[308] Similar attempts, especially an attempt at a flying-machine, had been made about 880 by the Andalusian Abul Abbas Kasim ibn Firnas. Comp. Gyangos, _The History of the Muhammedan Dynasties in Spain_ (London, 1840), i. 148 sqq. and 425-7; extracts in Hammer, _Literaturgesch. der Araber_, i. Introd. p. li.

[309] Quidquid ingenio esset hominum cum quadam effectum elegantia, id prope divinum ducebat.

[310] This is the book (comp. p. 185, note 2) of which one part, often printed alone, long passed for a work of Pandolfini.

[311] In his work, _De Re Ædificatoria_, l. viii. cap. i., there is a definition of a beautiful road: ‘Si modo mare, modo montes, modo lacum fluentem fontesve, modo aridam rupem aut planitiem, modo nemus vallemque exhibebit.’

[312] One writer among many: Blondus, _Roma Triumphans_, l. v. pp. 117 sqq., where the definitions of glory are collected from the ancients, and the desire of it is expressly allowed to the Christian. Cicero’s work, _De Gloria_, which Petrarch claimed to own, was stolen from him by his teacher Convenevole, and has never since been seen. Alberti, in a youthful composition when he was only twenty years of age, praises the desire of fame. _Opere_, vol. i. pp. cxxvii-clxvi.

[313] _Paradiso_, xxv. at the beginning: ‘Se mai continga,’ &c. See above, p. 133, note 2. Comp. Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 49. ‘Vaghissimo fu e d’onore e di pompa, e per avventura più che alla sua inclita virtù non si sarebbe richiesto.’

[314] _De Vulgari Eloquio_, l. i. cap. i. and esp. _De Monarchia_, l. i. cap. i., where he wishes to set forth the idea of monarchy not only in order to be useful to the world but also ‘ut palmam tanti bravii primus in meam gloriam adipiscar.’

[315] _Convito_, ed. Venezia, 1529, fol. 5 and 6.

[316] _Paradiso_, vi. 112 sqq.

[317] E.g. _Inferno_, vi. 89; xiii. 53; xvi. 85; xxxi. 127.

[318] _Purgatorio_, v. 70, 87, 133; vi. 26; viii. 71; xi. 31; xiii. 147.

[319] _Purgatorio_, xi. 85-117. Besides ‘gloria’ we here find close together ‘grido, fama, rumore, nominanza, onore’ all different names for the same thing. Boccaccio wrote, as he admits in his letter to Joh. Pizinga (_Op. Volg._ xvi. 30 sqq.) ‘perpetuandi nominis desiderio’.

[320] Scardeonius, _De Urb. Patav. Antiqu._ (Græv. _Thesaur._ vi. iii. col. 260). Whether ‘cereis’ or ‘certis muneribus’ should be the reading, cannot be said. The somewhat solemn nature of Mussatus can be recognised in the tone of his history of Henry VII.

[321] Franc. Petrarca, _Posteritati_, or _Ad Posteros_, at the beginning of the editions of his works, or the only letter of Book xviii. of the _Epp. Seniles_; also in Fracassetti, _Petr. Epistolæ Familiares_, 1859, i. 1-11. Some modern critics of Petrarch’s vanity would hardly have shown as much kindness and frankness had they been in his place.

[322] _Opera_, ed. 1581, p. 177: ‘De celebritate nominis importuna.’ Fame among the mass of people was specially offensive to him. _Epp. Fam._ i. 337, 340. In Petrarch, as in many humanists of the older generation, we can observe the conflict between the desire for glory and the claims of Christian humility.

[323] ‘De Remediis Utriusque Fortunæ’ in the editions of the works. Often printed separately, e.g. Bern, 1600. Compare Petrarch’s famous dialogue, ‘De Contemptu Mundi’ or ‘De Conflictu Curarum Suarum,’ in which the interlocutor Augustinus blames the love of fame as a damnable fault.

[324] _Epp. Fam._ lib. xviii. (ed. Fracassetti) 2. A measure of Petrarch’s fame is given a hundred years later by the assertion of Blondus (_Italia Illustrata_, p. 416) that hardly even a learned man would know anything of Robert the Good if Petrarch had not spoken of him so often and so kindly.

[325] It is to be noted that even Charles IV., perhaps influenced by Petrarch, speaks in a letter to the historian Marignola of fame as the object of every striving man. H. Friedjung, _Kaiser Karl IV. und sein Antheil am geistigen Leben seiner Zeit_, Vienna, 1876, p. 221.

[326] _Epist. Seniles_, xiii. 3, to Giovanni Aretino, Sept. 9, 1370.

[327] Filippo Villani, _Vite_, p. 19

[328] Both together in the epitaph on Boccaccio: ‘Nacqui in Firenze al Pozzo Toscanelli; Di fuor sepolto a Certaldo giaccio,’ &c. Comp. _Op. Volg. di Boccaccio_, xvi. 44.

[329] Mich. Savonarola, _De Laudibus Patavii_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 1157. Arquà remained from thenceforth the object of special veneration (comp. Ettore Conte Macola, _I Codici di Arquà_, Padua, 1874), and was the scene of great solemnities at the fifth centenary of Petrarch’s death. His dwelling is said to have been lately given to the city of Padua by the last owner, Cardinal Silvestri.

[330] The decree of 1396 and its grounds in Gaye, _Carteggio_, i. 123.

[331] Reumont, _Lorenzo de’ Medici_, ii. 180.

[332] Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 39.

[333] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 121.

[334] The former in the well-known sarcophagus near San Lorenzo, the latter over a door in the Palazzo della Ragione. For details as to their discovery in 1413, see Misson, _Voyage en Italie_, vol. i., and Michele Savonarola, col. 1157.

[335] _Vita di Dante_, l. c. How came the body of Cassius from Philippi back to Parma?

[336] ‘Nobilitatis fastu’ and ‘sub obtentu religionis,’ says Pius II. (_Comment._ x. p. 473). The new sort of fame must have been inconvenient to those who were accustomed to the old.

That Carlo Malatesta caused the statue of Virgil to be pulled down and thrown into the Mincio, and this, as he alleged, from anger at the veneration paid to it by the people of Mantua, is a well-authenticated fact, specially attested by an invective written in 1397 by P. P. Vergerio against C. M., _De dirutâ Statuâ Virgilii P. P. V. eloquentissimi Oratoris Epistola ex Tugurio Blondi sub Apolline_, ed. by Marco Mantova Benavides (publ. certainly before 1560 at Padua). From this work it is clear that till then the statue had not been set up again. Did this happen in consequence of the invective? Bartholomæus Facius (_De Vir. Ill._ p. 9 sqq. in the Life of P. P. V. 1456) says it did, ‘Carolum Malatestam invectus Virgilii statua, quam ille Mantuæ in foro everterat, quoniam gentilis fuerat, ut ibidem restitueretur, effecit;’ but his evidence stands alone. It is true that, so far as we know, there are no contemporary chronicles for the history of Mantua at that period (Platina, _Hist. Mant._ in Murat. xx. contains nothing about the matter), but later historians are agreed that the statue was not restored. See for evidence, Prendilacqua, _Vita di Vitt. da Feltre_, written soon after 1446 (ed. 1871, p. 78), where the destruction but not the restoration of the statue is spoken of, and the work of Ant. Possevini, jun. (_Gonzaga_, Mantua, 1628), where, p. 486, the pulling down of the statue, the murmurings and violent opposition of the people, and the promise given in consequence by the prince that he _would_ restore it, are all mentioned, with the addition: ‘Nec tamen restitutus est Virgilius.’ Further, on March 17, 1499, Jacopo d’Hatry writes to Isabella of Este, that he has spoken with Pontano about a plan of the princess to raise a statue to Virgil at Mantua, and that Pontano cried out with delight that Vergerio, if he were alive, would be even more pleased ‘che non se attristò quando el Conte Carola Malatesta persuase abuttare la statua di Virgilio nel flume.’ The writer then goes on to speak of the manner of setting it up, of the inscription ‘P. Virgilius Mantuanus’ and ‘Isabella Marchionissa Mantuæ restituit,’ and suggests that Andrea Mantegna would be the right man to be charged with the work. Mantegna did in fact make the drawings for it. (The drawing and the letter in question are given in Baschet, _Recherches de documents d’art et d’histoire dans les Archives de Mantoue; documents inédits concernant la personne et les œuvres d’Andrea Mantegna_, in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, xx. (1866) 478-492, esp. 486 sqq.) It is clear from this letter that Carlo Malatesta did not have the statue restored. In Comparetti’s work on Virgil in the Middle Ages, the story is told after Burckhardt, but without authorities. Dr. Geiger, on the authority of Professor Paul of Berlin, distinguishes between C. Cassius Longinus and Cassius Parmensis, the poet, both among the assassins of Cæsar.

[337] Comp. Keyssler’s _Neueste Reisen_, p. 1016.

[338] The elder was notoriously a native of Verona.

[339] This is the tone of the remarkable work, _De Laudibus Papiæ_, in Murat. xx., dating from the fourteenth century--much municipal pride, but no idea of personal fame.

[340] _De Laudibus Patavii_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 1138 sqq. Only three cities, in his opinion--could be compared with Padua--Florence, Venice and Rome.

[341] ‘Nam et veteres nostri tales aut divos aut æternâ memoriâ dignos non immerito prædicabant, quum virtus summa sanctitatis sit consocia et pari ematur pretio.’ What follows is most characteristic: ‘Hos itaque meo facili judicio æternos facio.’

[342] Similar ideas occur in many contemporary writers. Codrus Urceus, _Sermo_ xiii. (_Opp._ 1506, fol. xxxviii. _b_), speaking of Galeazzo Bentivoglio, who was both a scholar and a warrior, ‘Cognoscens artem militarem esse quidem excellentem, sed literas multo certe excellentiores.’

[343] What follows immediately is not, as the editor remarks (Murat. xxiv col. 1059, note), from the pen of Mich. Savonarola.

[344] Petrarch, in the ‘Triumph’ here quoted, only dwells on characters of antiquity, and in his collection, _De Rebus Memorandis_, has little to say of contemporaries. In the _Casus Virorum Illustrium_ of Boccaccio (among the men a number of women, besides Philippa Catinensis treated of at the end, are included, and even the goddess Juno is described), only the close of the eighth book and the last book--the ninth--deal with non-classical times. Boccaccio’s remarkable work, _De Claris Mulieribus_, treats also almost exclusively of antiquity. It begins with Eve, speaks then of ninety-seven women of antiquity, and seven of the Middle ages, beginning with Pope Joan and ending with Queen Johanna of Naples. And so at a much later time in the _Commentarii Urbani_ of Ralph. Volaterranus. In the work _De Claris Mulieribus_ of the Augustinian Jacobus Bergomensis (printed 1497, but probably published earlier) antiquity and legend hold the chief place, but there are still some valuable biographies of Italian women. There are one or two lives of contemporary women by Vespasiano da Bisticci (_Arch. Stor. Ital._ iv. i. pp. 430 sqq.). In Scardeonius (_De Urb. Patav. Antiqu. Græv. Thesaur._ vi. iii. col. 405 sqq.,) only famous Paduan women are mentioned. First comes a legend or tradition from the time of the fall of the empire, then tragical stories of the party struggles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; then notices of several heroic women; then the foundress of nunneries, the political woman, the female doctor, the mother of many and distinguished sons, the learned woman, the peasant girl who dies defending her chastity; then the cultivated beauty of the sixteenth century, on whom everybody writes sonnets; and lastly, the female novelist and poet at Padua. A century later the woman-professor would have been added to these. For the famous woman of the House of Este, see Ariosto, _Orl._ xiii.

[345] Bartolommeo Facio and Paolo Cortese. B. F. _De Viris Illustribus Liber_, was first published by L. Mehus (Florence, 1745). The book was begun by the author (known by other historical works, and resident at the court of Alfonso of Naples) after he had finished the history of that king (1455), and ended, as references to the struggles of Hungary and the writer’s ignorance of the elevation of Æneas Silvius to the cardinalate show, in 1456. (See, nevertheless, Wahlen, _Laurentii Vallæ Opuscula Tria_, Vienna, 1869, p. 67, note 1.) It is never quoted by contemporaries, and seldom by later writers. The author wishes in this book to describe the famous men, ‘ætatis memoriæque nostræ,’ and consequently only mentions such as were born in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and were still living in, or had died shortly before, the middle of the fifteenth. He chiefly limits himself to Italians, except in the case of artists or princes, among the latter of whom he includes the Emperor Sigismund and Albrecht Achilles of Brandenburg; and in arranging the various biographies he neither follows chronological order nor the distinction which the subject of each attained, but puts them down ‘ut quisque mihi occurrerit,’ intending to treat in a second part of those whom he might have left out in the first. He divides the famous men into nine classes, nearly all of them prefaced by remarks on their distinctive qualities: 1. Poets; 2. Orators; 3. Jurists; 4. Physicians (with a few philosophers and theologians, as an appendix); 5. Painters; 6. Sculptors; 7. Eminent citizens; 8. Generals; 9. Princes and kings. Among the latter he treats with special fulness and care of Pope Nicholas V. and King Alfonso of Naples. In general he gives only short and mostly eulogistic biographies, confined in the case of princes and soldiers to the list of their deeds, and of artists and writers to the enumeration of their works. No attempt is made at a detailed description or criticism of these; only with regard to a few works of art which he had himself seen he writes more fully. Nor is any attempt made at an estimate of individuals; his heroes either receive a few general words of praise, or must be satisfied with the mere mention of their names. Of himself the author says next to nothing. He states only that Guarino was his teacher, that Manetti wrote a book on a subject which he himself had treated, that Bracellius was his countryman, and that the painter Pisano of Verona was known to him (pp. 17, 18, 19, 48; but says nothing in speaking of Laurentius Valla of his own violent quarrels with this scholar. On the other hand, he does not fail to express his piety and his hatred to the Turks (p. 64), to relieve his Italian patriotism by calling the Swiss barbarians (p. 60), and to say of P. P. Vergerius, ‘dignus qui totam in Italia vitam scribens exegisset’ (p. 9).

Of all celebrities he evidently sets most store by the scholars, and among these by the ‘oratores,’ to whom he devotes nearly a third of his book. He nevertheless has great respect for the jurists, and shows a special fondness for the physicians, among whom he well distinguishes the theoretical from the practical, relating the successful diagnoses and operations of the latter. That he treats of theologians and philosophers in connection with the physicians, is as curious as that he should put the painters immediately after the physicians, although, as he says, they are most allied to the poets. In spite of his reverence for learning, which shows itself in the praise given to the princes who patronised it, he is too much of a courtier not to register the tokens of princely favour received by the scholars he speaks of, and to characterise the princes in the introduction to the chapters devoted to them as those who ‘veluti corpus membra, ita omnia genera quæ supra memoravimus, regunt ac tuentur.’

The style of the book is simple and unadorned, and the matter of it full of instruction, notwithstanding its brevity. It is a pity that Facius did not enter more fully into the personal relations and circumstances of the men whom he described, and did not add to the list of their writings some notice of the contents and the value of them.

The work of Paolo Cortese (b. 1645, d. 1510), _De Hominibus Doctis Dialogus_ (first ed. Florence, 1734), is much more limited in its character. This work, written about 1490, since it mentions Antonius Geraldinus as dead, who died in 1488, and was dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who died in 1492, is distinguished from that of Facius, written a generation earlier, not only by the exclusion of all who are not learned men, but by various inward and outward characteristics. First by the form, which is that of a dialogue between the author and his two companions, Alexander Farnese and Antonius, and by the digressions and unequal treatment of the various characters caused thereby; and secondly by the manner of the treatment itself. While Facius only speaks of the men of his own time, Cortese treats only of the dead, and in part of those long dead, by which he enlarges his circle more than he narrows it by exclusion of the living; while Facius merely chronicles works and deeds, as if they were unknown, Cortese criticises the literary activity of his heroes as if the reader were already familiar with it. This criticism is shaped by the humanistic estimate of eloquence, according to which no man could be considered of importance unless he had achieved something remarkable in eloquence, _i.e._ in the classical, Ciceronian treatment of the Latin language. On this principle Dante and Petrarch are only moderately praised, and are blamed for having diverted so much of their powers from Latin to Italian; Guarino is described as one who had beheld perfect eloquence at least through a cloud; Lionardo Aretino as one who had offered his contemporaries ‘aliquid splendidius;’ and Enea Silvio as he ‘in quo primum apparuit mutati sæculi signum.’ This point of view prevailed over all others; never perhaps was it held so one-sidedly as by Cortese. To get a notion of his way of thinking we have only to hear his remarks on a predecessor, also the compiler of a great biographical collection, Sicco Polentone: ‘Ejus sunt viginti ad filium libri scripti de claris scriptoribus, utiles admodum qui jam fere ab omnibus legi sent desiti. Est enim in judicando parum acer, nec servit aurium voluptati quum tractat res ab aliis ante tractatas; sed hoc ferendum. Illud certe molestum est, dum alienis verbis sententiisque scripta infarcit et explet sua; ex quo nascitur maxime vitiosum scribendi genus, quum modo lenis et candidus, modo durus et asper apparcat, et sic in toto genere tanquam in unum agrum plura inter se inimicissima sparsa semina.’

All are not treated with so much detail; most are disposed of in a few brief sentences; some are merely named without a word being added. Much is nevertheless to be learned from his judgments, though we may not be able always to agree with them. We cannot here discuss him more fully, especially as many of his most characteristic remarks have been already made use of; on the whole, they give us a clear picture of the way in which a later time, outwardly more developed, looked down with critical scorn upon an earlier age, inwardly perhaps richer, but externally less perfect.

Facius, the author of the first-mentioned biographical work, is spoken of, but not his book. Like Facius, Cortese is the humble courtier, looking on Lorenzo de’ Medici as Facius looked on Alfonso of Naples; like him, he is a patriot who only praises foreign excellence unwillingly and because he must; adding the assurance that he does not wish to oppose his own country (p. 48, speaking of Janus Pannonius).

Information as to Cortese has been collected by Bernardus Paperinius, the editor of his work; we may add that his Latin translation of the novel of L. B. Alberti, _Hippolytus and Dejanira_, is printed for the first time in the _Opere di L. B. A._ vol. iii. pp. 439-463.

[346] How great the fame of the humanists was is shown by the fact that impostors attempted to make capital out of the use of their names. There thus appeared at Verona a man strangely clad and using strange gestures, who, when brought before the mayor, recited with great energy passages of Latin verse and prose, taken from the works of Panormita, answered in reply to the questions put to him that he was himself Panormita, and was able to give so many small and commonly unknown details about the life of this scholar, that his statement obtained general credit. He was then treated with great honour by the authorities and the learned men of the city, and played his assumed part successfully for a considerable time, until Guarino and others who knew Panormita personally discovered the fraud. Comp. Rosmini, _Vita di Guarino_, ii. 44 sqq., 171 sqq. Few of the humanists were free from the habit of boasting. Codrus Urceus (_Vita_, at the end of the _Opera_, 1506, fol. lxx.), when asked for his opinion about this or that famous man, used to answer: ‘Sibi scire videntur.’ Barth. Facius, _De Vir. Ill._ p. 31, tells of the jurist Antonius Butriensis: ‘Id unum in eo viro notandum est, quod neminem unquam, adeo excellere homines in eo studio volebat, ut doctoratu dignum in examine comprobavit.’

[347] A Latin poet of the twelfth century, one of the wandering scholars who barters his song for a coat, uses this as a threat. _Carmina Burana_, p. 76.

[348] Sonnet cli: Lasso ch’i ardo.

[349] Boccaccio, _Opere Volgari_, vol. xvi. in Sonnet 13: Pallido, vinto, etc.

[350] Elsewhere, and in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, iv. 203.

[351] _Angeli Politiani Epp._ lib. x.

[352] Quatuor navigationes, etc. Deodatum (_St. Dié_), 1507. Comp. O. Peschel, _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_, 1859, ed. 2, 1876.

[353] Paul. Jov. _De Romanis Piscibus_, Præfatio (1825). The first decade of his histories would soon be published, ‘non sine aliqua spe immortalitatis.’

[354] Comp. _Discorsi_, i. 27. ‘Tristizia’ (crime) can have ‘grandezza’ and be ‘in alcuna parte generosa’; ‘grandezza’ can take away ‘infamia’ from a deed; a man can be ‘onorevolmente tristo’ in contrast to one who is ‘perfettamente buono.’

[355] _Storie Fiorentine_, l. vi.

[356] Paul. Jov. _Elog. Vir. Lit. Ill._ p. 192, speaking of Marius Molsa.

[357] Mere railing is found very early, in Benzo of Alba, in the eleventh century (_Mon. Germ._ ss. xi. 591-681).

[358] The Middle Ages are further rich in so-called satirical poems; but the satire is not individual, but aimed at classes, categories, and whole populations, and easily passes into the didactic tone. The whole spirit of this literature is best represented by _Reineke Fuchs_, in all its forms among the different nations of the West. For this branch of French literature see a new and admirable work by Lenient, _La Satire en France au Moyen-âge_, Paris, 1860, and the equally excellent continuation, _La Satire en France, ou la littérature militante, au XVIe Siècle_, Paris, 1866.

[359] See above, p. 7 note 2. Occasionally we find an insolent joke, nov. 37.

[360] _Inferno_, xxi. xxii. The only possible parallel is with Aristophanes.

[361] A modest beginning _Opera_, p. 421, sqq., in _Rerum Memorandarum Libri IV._ Again, in _Epp. Seniles_, x. 2. Comp. _Epp. Fam._ ed. Fracass. i. 68 sqq., 70, 240, 245. The puns have a flavour of their mediæval home, the monasteries. Petrarch’s invectives ‘contra Gallum,’ ‘contra medicum objurgantem,’ and his work, _De Sui Ipsius et Multorum Ignorantia_; perhaps also his _Epistolæ sine Titulo_,’ may be quoted as early examples of satirical writing.

[362] Nov. 40, 41; Ridolfo da Camerino is the man.

[363] The well-known jest of Brunellesco and the fat wood-carver, Manetto Ammanatini, who is said to have fled into Hungary before the ridicule he encountered, is clever but cruel.

[364] The ‘Araldo’ of the Florentine Signoria. One instance among many, _Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi_, iii. 651, 669. The fool as necessary to enliven the company after dinner; Alcyonius, _De Exilio_, ed. Mencken, p. 129.

[365] Sacchetti, nov. 48. And yet, according to nov. 67, there was an impression that a Romagnole was superior to the worst Florentine.

[366] L. B. Alberti, _Del Governo della Famiglia, Opere_, ed. Bonucci, v. 171. Comp. above, p. 132, note 1.

[367] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 156; comp. 24 for Dolcibene and the Jews. (For Charles IV. and the fools, _Friedjung_, o.c. p. 109.) The _Facetiæ_ of Poggio resemble Sacchetti’s in substance--practical jokes, impertinences, refined indecency misunderstood by simple folk; the philologist is betrayed by the large number of verbal jokes. On L. A. Alberti, see pp. 136, sqq.

[368] And consequently in those novels of the Italians whose subject is taken from them.

[369] According to Bandello, iv. nov. 2, Gonnella could twist his features into the likeness of other people, and mimic all the dialects of Italy.

[370] Paul. Jov. _Vita Leonis X._

[371] ‘Erat enim Bibiena mirus artifex hominibus ætate vel professione gravibus ad insaniam impellendis.’ We are here reminded of the jests of Christine of Sweden with her philologists. Comp. the remarkable passage of Jovian. Pontanus, _De Sermone_, lib. ii. cap. 9: ‘Ferdinandus Alfonsi filius, Neapolitanorum rex magnus et ipse fuit artifex et vultus componendi et orationes in quem ipse usus vellet. Nam ætatis nostri Pontifices maximi fingendis vultibus ac verbis vel histriones ipsos anteveniunt.

[372] The eye-glass I not only infer from Rafael’s portrait, where it can be explained as a magnifier for looking at the miniatures in the prayer-book, but from a statement of Pellicanus, according to which Leo views an advancing procession of monks through a ‘specillum’ (comp. _Züricher Taschenbuch_ for 1858, p. 177), and from the ‘cristallus concava,’ which, according to Giovio, he used when hunting. (Comp. ‘Leonis X. vita auctore anon, conscripta’ in the Appendix to Roscoe.) In Attilius Alessius (Baluz. _Miscell._ iv. 518) we read, ‘Oculari ex gemina (gemma?) utebatur quam manu gestans, signando aliquid videndum esset, oculis admovebat.’ The shortsightedness in the family of the Medici was hereditary. Lorenzo was shortsighted, and replied to the Sienese Bartolommeo Soccini, who said that the air of Florence was bad for the eyes: ‘E quella di Siena al cervello.’ The bad sight of Leo X. was proverbial. After his election, the Roman wits explained the number MCCCCXL. engraved in the Vatican as follows: ‘Multi cæci Cardinales creaverunt cæcum decimum Leonem.’ Comp. Shepherd-Tonelli, _Vita del Poggio_, ii. 23, sqq., and the passages there quoted.

[373] We find it also in plastic art, e.g., in the famous plate parodying the group of the Laöcoon as three monkeys. But here parody seldom went beyond sketches and the like, though much, it is true, may have been destroyed. Caricature, again, is something different. Lionardo, in the grotesque faces in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, represents what is hideous when and because it is comical, and exaggerates the ludicrous element at pleasure.

[374] Jovian. Pontan. _De Sermone_, libri v. He attributes a special gift of wit to the Sienese and Peruginese, as well as to the Florentines, adding the Spanish court as a matter of politeness.

[375] _Il Cortigiano_, lib. ii. cap. 4 sqq., ed. Baude di Vesme, Florence, 1854, pp. 124 sqq. For the explanation of wit as the effect of contrast, though not clearly put, see _ibid._ cap. lxxiii. p. 136.

[376] Pontanus, _De Sermone_, lib. iv. cap. 3, also advises people to abstain from using ‘ridicula’ either against the miserable or the strong.

[377] _Galateo del Casa_, ed. Venez. 1789, p. 26 sqq. 48.

[378] _Lettere Pittoriche_, i. p. 71, in a letter of Vinc. Borghini, 1577. Macchiavelli (_Stor. Fior._ vii. cap. 28) says of the young gentlemen in Florence soon after the middle of the fifteenth century: ‘Gli studî loro erano apparire col vestire splendidi, e col parlare sagaci ed astuti, e quello che più destramente mordeva gli altri, era più savio e da più stimato.’

[379] Comp. Fedra Inghirami’s funeral oration on Ludovico Podocataro (d. Aug. 25, 1504) in the _Anecd. Litt._ i. p. 319. The scandal-monger Massaino is mentioned in Paul. Jov. _Dialogues de Viris Litt. Illustr._ (Tiraboschi, tom. vii. parte iv. p. 1631).

[380] This was the plan followed by Leo X., and his calculations were not disappointed. Fearfully as his reputation was mangled after his death by the satirists, they were unable to modify the general estimate formed of him.

[381] This was probably the case with Cardinal Ardicino della Porta, who in 1491 wished to resign his dignity and take refuge in a monastery. See Infessura, in Eccard. ii. col. 2000.

[382] See his funeral oration in the _Anecd. Litt._ iv. p. 315. He assembled an army of peasants in the March of Aneona, which was only hindered from acting by the treason of the Duke of Urbino. For his graceful and hopeless love-poems, see Trucchi, _Poesie Inedite_, iii. 123.

[383] How he used his tongue at the table of Clement VII. is told in Giraldi, _Hecatomithi_, vii. nov. 5.

[384] The charge of taking into consideration the proposal to drown Pasquino (in Paul. Jov. _Vita Hadriani_), is transferred from Sixtus IV. to Hadrian. Comp. _Lettere dei Principi_, i. 114 sqq., letter of Negro, dated April 7, 1523. On St. Mark’s Day Pasquino had a special celebration, which the Pope forbade.

[385] In the passages collected in Gregorovius, viii. 380 note, 381 sqq. 393 sqq.

[386] Comp. Pier. Valer. _De Infel. Lit._ ed. Mencken, p. 178. ‘Pestilentia quæ cum Adriano VI. invecta Romam invasit.’

[387] E.g. Firenzuola, _Opera_ (Milano 1802), vol. i. p. 116, in the _Discorsi degli Animali_.

[388] Comp. the names in Höfler, _Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Academie_ (1876), vol. 82, p. 435.

[389] The words of Pier. Valerian, _De Infel. Lit._ ed. Mencken, p. 382, are most characteristic of the public feeling at Rome: ‘Ecce adest Musarum et eloquentiæ totiusque nitoris hostis acerrimis, qui literatis omnibus inimicitias minitaretur, quoniam, ut ipse dictitabat, Terentiani essent, quos quum odisse atque etiam persequi cœpisset voluntarium alii exilium, alias atque alias alii latebras quærentes tam diu latuere quoad Deo beneficio altero imperii anno decessit, qui si aliquanto diutius vixisset, Gothica illa tempora adversus bonas literas videbatur suscitaturus.’ The general hatred of Adrian was also due partly to the fact that in the great pecuniary difficulties in which he found himself he adopted the expedient of a direct tax. Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 411. It may here be mentioned that there were, nevertheless, poets to be found who praised Adrian. Comp. various passages in the _Coryciana_ (ed. Rome, 1524), esp. J. J. 2_b_ sqq.

[390] To the Duke of Ferrara, January 1, 1536 (_Lettere_, ed. 1539, fol. 39): ‘You will now journey from Rome to Naples,’ ‘ricreando la vista avvilita nel mirar le miserie pontificali con la contemplazione delle eccellenze imperiali.’

[391] The fear which he caused to men of mark, especially artists, by these means, cannot be here described. The publicistic weapon of the German Reformation was chiefly the pamphlet dealing with events as they occurred; Aretino is a journalist in the sense that he has within himself a perpetual occasion for writing.

[392] E.g. in the _Capitolo_ on Albicante, a bad poet; unfortunately the passages are unfit for quotation.

[393] _Lettere_, ed. Venez. 1539, fol. 12, dated May 31, 1527.

[394] In the first _Capitolo_ to Cosimo.

[395] Gaye, _Carteggio_, ii. 332.

[396] See the insolent letter of 1536 in the _Lettere Pittor._ i. Append. 34. See above, p. 142, for the house where Petrarch was born in Arezzo.

[397]

L’Aretin, per Deo grazia, è vivo e sano,
Ma’l mostaccio ha fregiato nobilmente,
E più colpi ha, che dita in una mano.’
(Mauro, ‘_Capitolo in lode delle bugie._’)

[398] See e.g. the letter to the Cardinal of Lorraine, _Lettere_, ed. Venez. fol. 29, dated Nov. 21, 1534, and the letters to Charles V., in which he says that no man stands nearer to God than Charles.

[399] For what follows, see Gaye, _Carteggio_, ii. 336, 337, 345.

[400] _Lettere_, ed. Venez. 1539, fol. 15, dated June 16, 1529. Comp. another remarkable letter to M. A., dated April 15, 1528, fol. 212.

[401] He may have done so either in the hope of obtaining the red hat or from fear of the new activity of the Inquisition, which he had ventured to attack bitterly in 1535 (l. c. fol. 37), but which, after the reorganisation of the institution in 1542, suddenly took a fresh start, and soon silenced every opposing voice.

[402] [Carmina Burana, in the _Bibliothek des literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart_, vol. xvi. (Stuttg. 1847). The stay in Pavia (p. 68 _bis_), the Italian local references in general, the scene with the ‘pastorella’ under the olive-tree (p. 146), the mention of the ‘pinus’ as a shady field tree (p. 156), the frequent use of the word ‘bravium’ (pp. 137, 144), and particularly the form Madii for Maji (p. 141), all speak in favour of our assumption.]

The conjecture of Dr. Burckhardt that the best pieces of the _Carmina Burana_ were written by an Italian, is not tenable. The grounds brought forward in its support have little weight (e.g. the mention of Pavia: ‘Quis Paviæ demorans castus habeatur?’ which can be explained as a proverbial expression, or referred to a short stay of the writer at Pavia), cannot, further, hold their own against the reasons on the other side, and finally lose all their force in view of the probable identification of the author. The arguments of O. Hubatsch _Die lateinischen Vagantenlieder des Mittelalters_, Görlitz, 1870, p. 87) against the Italian origin of these poems are, among others, the attacks on the Italian and praise of the German clergy, the rebukes of the southerners as a ‘gens proterva,’ and the reference to the poet as ‘transmontanus.’ Who he actually was, however, is not clearly made out. That he bore the name of Walther throws no light upon his origin. He was formerly identified with Gualterus de Mapes, a canon of Salisbury and chaplain to the English kings at the end of the twelfth century; since, by Giesebrecht (_Die Vaganten oder Goliarden und ihre Lieder, Allgemeine Monatschrift_, 1855), with Walther of Lille or Chatillon, who passed from France into England and Germany, and thence possibly with the Archbishop Reinhold of Köln (1164 and 75) to Italy (Pavia, &c.). If this hypothesis, against which Hubatsch (l. c.) has brought forward certain objections, must be abandoned, it remains beyond a doubt that the origin of nearly all these songs is to be looked for in France, from whence they were diffused through the regular school which here existed for them over Germany, and there expanded and mixed with German phrases; while Italy, as Giesebrecht has shown, remained almost unaffected by this class of poetry. The Italian translator of Dr. Burckhardt’s work, Prof. D. Valbusa, in a note to this passage (i. 235), also contests the Italian origin of the poem. [L. G.]

[403] _Carm. Bur._ p. 155, only a fragment: the whole in Wright, _Walter Mapes_ (1841), p. 258. Comp. Hubatsch, p. 27 sqq., who points to the fact that a story often treated of in France is at the foundation. Æst. Inter. _Carm. Bur._ p. 67; Dum Dianæ, _Carm. Bur._ p. 124. Additional instances: ‘Cor patet Jovi;’ classical names for the loved one; once, when he calls her Blanciflor, he adds, as if to make up for it, the name of Helena.

[404] In what way antiquity could serve as guide and teacher in all the higher regions of life, is briefly sketched by Æneas Sylvius (_Opera_, p. 603, in the _Epist._ 105, to the Archduke Sigismund).

[405] For particulars we must refer the reader to Roscoe, _Lorenzo Mag._ and _Leo X._, as well as to Voigt, _Enea Silvio_ (Berlin, 1856-63); to the works of Reumont and to Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter_.

To form a conception of the extent which studies at the beginning of the sixteenth century had reached, we cannot do better than turn to the _Commentarii Urbani_ of Raphael Volatterranus (ed. Basil, 1544, fol. 16, &c.). Here we see how antiquity formed the introduction and the chief matter of study in every branch of knowledge, from geography and local history, the lives of great and famous men, popular philosophy, morals and the special sciences, down to the analysis of the whole of Aristotle with which the work closes. To understand its significance as an authority for the history of culture, we must compare it with all the earlier encyclopædias. A complete and circumstantial account of the matter is given in Voigt’s admirable work, _Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums_ oder _Das erste Jahrhundert der Humanismus_, Berlin, 1859.

[406] In William of Malmesbury, _Gesta Regum Anglor_. l. ii. § 169, 170, 205, 206 (ed. Lond. 1840, vol. i. p. 277 sqq. and p. 354 sqq.), we meet with the dreams of treasure-hunters, Venus as ghostly love, and the discovery of the gigantic body of Pallas, son of Evander, about the middle of the eleventh century. Comp. Jac. ab Aquis _Imago Mundi_ (_Hist. Patr. Monum. Script._ t. iii. col. 1603), on the origin of the House of Colonna, with reference to the discovery of hidden treasure. Besides the tales of the treasure-seekers, William of Malmesbury mentions the elegy of Hildebert of Mans, Bishop of Tours, one of the most singular examples of humanistic enthusiasm in the first half of the twelfth century.

[407] Dante, _Convito_, tratt. iv. cap. v.

[408] _Epp. Familiares_, vi. 2; references to Rome before he had seen it, and expressions of his longing for the city, _Epp. Fam._ ed. Fracass. vol. i. pp. 125, 213; vol. ii. pp. 336 sqq. See also the collected references in L. Geiger, _Petrarca_, p. 272, note 3. In Petrarch we already find complaints of the many ruined and neglected buildings, which he enumerates one by one (_De Rem. Utriusque Fort._ lib. i. dial. 118), adding the remark that many statues were left from antiquity, but no paintings (l. c. 41).

[409] _Dittamondo_, ii. cap. 3. The procession reminds one at times of the three kings and their suite in the old pictures. The description of the city (ii. cap. 31) is not without archæological value (Gregorovius, vi. 697, note 1). According to Polistoro (Murat. xxiv. col. 845), Niccolò and Ugo of Este journeyed in 1366 to Rome, ‘per vedere quelle magnificenze antiche, che al presente sipossono vedere in Roma.’

[410] Gregorovius, v. 316 sqq. Parenthetically we may quote foreign evidence that Rome in the Middle Ages was looked upon as a quarry. The famous Abbot Sugerius, who about 1140 was in search of lofty pillars for the rebuilding of St. Denis, thought at first of nothing less then getting hold of the granite monoliths of the Baths of Diocletian, but afterwards changed his mind. See ‘Sugerii Libellus Alter,’ in Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptores_, iv. p. 352.

[411] _Poggii Opera_, fol. 50 sqq. ‘Ruinarum Urbis Romæ Descriptio,’ written about 1430, shortly before the death of Martin V. The Baths of Caracalla and Diocletian had then their pillars and coating of marble. See Gregorovius, vi. 700-705.

[412] Poggio appears as one of the earliest collectors of inscriptions, in his letter in the _Vita Poggii_, Muratori, xx. col. 177, and as collector of busts, (col. 183, and letter in Shepherd-Tonelli, i. 258). See also _Ambros. Traversarii Epistolæ_, xxv. 42. A little book which Poggio wrote on inscriptions seems to have been lost. Shepherd, _Life of Poggio_, trad. Tonelli, i. 154 sqq.

[413] Fabroni, _Cosmus_, Adnot. 86. From a letter of Alberto degli Alberti to Giovanni Medici. See also Gregorovius, vii. 557. For the condition of Rome under Martin V., see Platina, p. 227; and during the absence of Eugenius IV., see Vespasiano Fiorent., p. 21.

[414] _Roma Instaurata_, written in 1447, and dedicated to the Pope; first printed, Rome, 1474.

[415] See, nevertheless, his distichs in Voigt, _Wiederbelebung des Alterthums_, p. 275, note 2. He was the first Pope who published a Bull for the protection of old monuments (4 Kal. Maj. 1462), with penalties in case of disobedience. But these measures were ineffective. Comp. Gregorovius, vii. pp. 558 sqq.

[416] What follows is from Jo. Ant. Campanus, _Vita Pii II._, in Muratori, iii. ii. col. 980 sqq. _Pii II. Commentarii_, pp. 48, 72 sqq., 206, 248 sqq., 501, and elsewhere.

[417] First dated edition, Brixen, 1482.

[418] Boccaccio, _Fiammetta_, cap. 5. _Opere_, ed. Montier, vi. 91.

[419] His work, _Cyriaci Anconitani Itinerarium_, ed. Mehus, Florence, 1742. Comp. Leandro Alberti, _Descriz. di tutta l’Italia_, fol. 285.

[420] Two instances out of many: the fabulous origin of Milan in Manipulus (Murat. xl. col. 552), and that of Florence in Gio. Villani (who here, as elsewhere, enlarges on the forged chronicle of Ricardo Malespini), according to which Florence, being loyally Roman in its sentiments, is always in the right against the anti-Roman rebellious Fiesole (i. 9, 38, 41; ii. 2). Dante, _Inf._ xv. 76.

[421] _Commentarii_, p. 206, in the fourth book.