Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part IV

The most learned Italians of the fifteenth century have confessed
and applauded the restoration of Greek literature, after a long
oblivion of many hundred years. 85 Yet in that country, and
beyond the Alps, some names are quoted; some profound scholars,
who in the darker ages were honorably distinguished by their
knowledge of the Greek tongue; and national vanity has been loud
in the praise of such rare examples of erudition. Without
scrutinizing the merit of individuals, truth must observe, that
their science is without a cause, and without an effect; that it
was easy for them to satisfy themselves and their more ignorant
contemporaries; and that the idiom, which they had so
marvellously acquired was transcribed in few manuscripts, and was
not taught in any university of the West. In a corner of Italy,
it faintly existed as the popular, or at least as the
ecclesiastical dialect. 86 The first impression of the Doric and
Ionic colonies has never been completely erased: the Calabrian
churches were long attached to the throne of Constantinople: and
the monks of St. Basil pursued their studies in Mount Athos and
the schools of the East. Calabria was the native country of
Barlaam, who has already appeared as a sectary and an ambassador;
and Barlaam was the first who revived, beyond the Alps, the
memory, or at least the writings, of Homer. 87 He is described,
by Petrarch and Boccace, 88 as a man of diminutive stature,
though truly great in the measure of learning and genius; of a
piercing discernment, though of a slow and painful elocution. For
many ages (as they affirm) Greece had not produced his equal in
the knowledge of history, grammar, and philosophy; and his merit
was celebrated in the attestations of the princes and doctors of
Constantinople. One of these attestations is still extant; and
the emperor Cantacuzene, the protector of his adversaries, is
forced to allow, that Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato, were familiar
to that profound and subtle logician. 89 In the court of Avignon,
he formed an intimate connection with Petrarch, 90 the first of
the Latin scholars; and the desire of mutual instruction was the
principle of their literary commerce. The Tuscan applied himself
with eager curiosity and assiduous diligence to the study of the
Greek language; and in a laborious struggle with the dryness and
difficulty of the first rudiments, he began to reach the sense,
and to feel the spirit, of poets and philosophers, whose minds
were congenial to his own. But he was soon deprived of the
society and lessons of this useful assistant: Barlaam
relinquished his fruitless embassy; and, on his return to Greece,
he rashly provoked the swarms of fanatic monks, by attempting to
substitute the light of reason to that of their navel. After a
separation of three years, the two friends again met in the court
of Naples: but the generous pupil renounced the fairest occasion
of improvement; and by his recommendation Barlaam was finally
settled in a small bishopric of his native Calabria. 91 The
manifold avocations of Petrarch, love and friendship, his various
correspondence and frequent journeys, the Roman laurel, and his
elaborate compositions in prose and verse, in Latin and Italian,
diverted him from a foreign idiom; and as he advanced in life,
the attainment of the Greek language was the object of his wishes
rather than of his hopes. When he was about fifty years of age, a
Byzantine ambassador, his friend, and a master of both tongues,
presented him with a copy of Homer; and the answer of Petrarch is
at one expressive of his eloquence, gratitude, and regret. After
celebrating the generosity of the donor, and the value of a gift
more precious in his estimation than gold or rubies, he thus
proceeds: “Your present of the genuine and original text of the
divine poet, the fountain of all inventions, is worthy of
yourself and of me: you have fulfilled your promise, and
satisfied my desires. Yet your liberality is still imperfect:
with Homer you should have given me yourself; a guide, who could
lead me into the fields of light, and disclose to my wondering
eyes the spacious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, alas!
Homer is dumb, or I am deaf; nor is it in my power to enjoy the
beauty which I possess. I have seated him by the side of Plato,
the prince of poets near the prince of philosophers; and I glory
in the sight of my illustrious guests. Of their immortal
writings, whatever had been translated into the Latin idiom, I
had already acquired; but, if there be no profit, there is some
pleasure, in beholding these venerable Greeks in their proper and
national habit. I am delighted with the aspect of Homer; and as
often as I embrace the silent volume, I exclaim with a sigh,
Illustrious bard! with what pleasure should I listen to thy song,
if my sense of hearing were not obstructed and lost by the death
of one friend, and in the much-lamented absence of another. Nor
do I yet despair; and the example of Cato suggests some comfort
and hope, since it was in the last period of age that he attained
the knowledge of the Greek letters.” 92

85 (return) [ Of those writers who professedly treat of the
restoration of the Greek learning in Italy, the two principal are
Hodius, Dr. Humphrey Hody, (de Græcis Illustribus, Linguæ Græcæ
Literarumque humaniorum Instauratoribus; Londini, 1742, in large
octavo,) and Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana,
tom. v. p. 364—377, tom. vii. p. 112—143.) The Oxford professor
is a laborious scholar, but the librarian of Modena enjoys the
superiority of a modern and national historian.]

86 (return) [ In Calabria quæ olim magna Græcia dicebatur,
coloniis Græcis repleta, remansit quædam linguæ veteris,
cognitio, (Hodius, p. 2.) If it were eradicated by the Romans, it
was revived and perpetuated by the monks of St. Basil, who
possessed seven convents at Rossano alone, (Giannone, Istoria di
Napoli, tom. i. p. 520.)]

87 (return) [ Ii Barbari (says Petrarch, the French and Germans)
vix, non dicam libros sed nomen Homeri audiverunt. Perhaps, in
that respect, the xiiith century was less happy than the age of
Charlemagne.]

88 (return) [ See the character of Barlaam, in Boccace de
Genealog. Deorum, l. xv. c. 6.]

89 (return) [ Cantacuzen. l. ii. c. 36.]

90 (return) [ For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaam, and the
two interviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the
excellent Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 406—410,
tom. ii. p. 74—77.]

91 (return) [ The bishopric to which Barlaam retired, was the old
Locri, in the middle ages. Scta. Cyriaca, and by corruption
Hieracium, Gerace, (Dissert. Chorographica Italiæ Medii Ævi, p.
312.) The dives opum of the Norman times soon lapsed into
poverty, since even the church was poor: yet the town still
contains 3000 inhabitants, (Swinburne, p. 340.)]

92 (return) [ I will transcribe a passage from this epistle of
Petrarch, (Famil. ix. 2;) Donasti Homerum non in alienum sermonem
violento alveâ?? derivatum, sed ex ipsis Græci eloquii scatebris,
et qualis divino illi profluxit ingenio.... Sine tuâ voce Homerus
tuus apud me mutus, immo vero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo
tamen vel adspectû solo, ac sæpe illum amplexus atque suspirans
dico, O magne vir, &c.]

The prize which eluded the efforts of Petrarch, was obtained by
the fortune and industry of his friend Boccace, 93 the father of
the Tuscan prose. That popular writer, who derives his reputation
from the Decameron, a hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may
aspire to the more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study
of the Greek language. In the year one thousand three hundred and
sixty, a disciple of Barlaam, whose name was Leo, or Leontius
Pilatus, was detained in his way to Avignon by the advice and
hospitality of Boccace, who lodged the stranger in his house,
prevailed on the republic of Florence to allow him an annual
stipend, and devoted his leisure to the first Greek professor,
who taught that language in the Western countries of Europe. The
appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager disciple, he was
clothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or a mendicant; his
countenance was hideous; his face was overshadowed with black
hair; his beard long and uncombed; his deportment rustic; his
temper gloomy and inconstant; nor could he grace his discourse
with the ornaments, or even the perspicuity, of Latin elocution.
But his mind was stored with a treasure of Greek learning:
history and fable, philosophy and grammar, were alike at his
command; and he read the poems of Homer in the schools of
Florence. It was from his explanation that Boccace composed 931
and transcribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey,
which satisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch, and which,
perhaps, in the succeeding century, was clandestinely used by
Laurentius Valla, the Latin interpreter. It was from his
narratives that the same Boccace collected the materials for his
treatise on the genealogy of the heathen gods, a work, in that
age, of stupendous erudition, and which he ostentatiously
sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite the
wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers. 94 The first
steps of learning are slow and laborious; no more than ten
votaries of Homer could be enumerated in all Italy; and neither
Rome, nor Venice, nor Naples, could add a single name to this
studious catalogue. But their numbers would have multiplied,
their progress would have been accelerated, if the inconstant
Leo, at the end of three years, had not relinquished an honorable
and beneficial station. In his passage, Petrarch entertained him
at Padua a short time: he enjoyed the scholar, but was justly
offended with the gloomy and unsocial temper of the man.
Discontented with the world and with himself, Leo depreciated his
present enjoyments, while absent persons and objects were dear to
his imagination. In Italy he was a Thessalian, in Greece a native
of Calabria: in the company of the Latins he disdained their
language, religion, and manners: no sooner was he landed at
Constantinople, than he again sighed for the wealth of Venice and
the elegance of Florence. His Italian friends were deaf to his
importunity: he depended on their curiosity and indulgence, and
embarked on a second voyage; but on his entrance into the
Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and the unfortunate
teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast, was
struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropped
a tear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether
some copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the
hands of the mariners. 95

93 (return) [ For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born
in 1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ævi,
tom. i. p. 248, &c.) and Tiraboschi (tom. v. p. 83, 439—451) may
be consulted. The editions, versions, imitations of his novels,
are innumerable. Yet he was ashamed to communicate that trifling,
and perhaps scandalous, work to Petrarch, his respectable friend,
in whose letters and memoirs he conspicuously appears.]

931 (return) [ This translation of Homer was by Pilatus, not by
Boccacio. See Hallam, Hist. of Lit. vol. i. p. 132.—M.]

94 (return) [ Boccace indulges an honest vanity: Ostentationis
causâ Græca carmina adscripsi.... jure utor meo; meum est hoc
decus, mea gloria scilicet inter Etruscos Græcis uti carminibus.
Nonne ego fui qui Leontium Pilatum, &c., (de Genealogia Deorum,
l. xv. c. 7, a work which, though now forgotten, has run through
thirteen or fourteen editions.)]

95 (return) [ Leontius, or Leo Pilatus, is sufficiently made
known by Hody, (p. 2—11,) and the abbé de Sade, (Vie de
Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 625—634, 670—673,) who has very happily
caught the lively and dramatic manner of his original.]

But the faint rudiments of Greek learning, which Petrarch had
encouraged and Boccace had planted, soon withered and expired.
The succeeding generation was content for a while with the
improvement of Latin eloquence; nor was it before the end of the
fourteenth century that a new and perpetual flame was rekindled
in Italy. 96 Previous to his own journey the emperor Manuel
despatched his envoys and orators to implore the compassion of
the Western princes. Of these envoys, the most conspicuous, or
the most learned, was Manuel Chrysoloras, 97 of noble birth, and
whose Roman ancestors are supposed to have migrated with the
great Constantine. After visiting the courts of France and
England, where he obtained some contributions and more promises,
the envoy was invited to assume the office of a professor; and
Florence had again the honor of this second invitation. By his
knowledge, not only of the Greek, but of the Latin tongue,
Chrysoloras deserved the stipend, and surpassed the expectation,
of the republic. His school was frequented by a crowd of
disciples of every rank and age; and one of these, in a general
history, has described his motives and his success. “At that
time,” says Leonard Aretin, 98 “I was a student of the civil law;
but my soul was inflamed with the love of letters; and I bestowed
some application on the sciences of logic and rhetoric. On the
arrival of Manuel, I hesitated whether I should desert my legal
studies, or relinquish this golden opportunity; and thus, in the
ardor of youth, I communed with my own mind—Wilt thou be wanting
to thyself and thy fortune? Wilt thou refuse to be introduced to
a familiar converse with Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes; with
those poets, philosophers, and orators, of whom such wonders are
related, and who are celebrated by every age as the great masters
of human science? Of professors and scholars in civil law, a
sufficient supply will always be found in our universities; but a
teacher, and such a teacher, of the Greek language, if he once be
suffered to escape, may never afterwards be retrieved. Convinced
by these reasons, I gave myself to Chrysoloras; and so strong was
my passion, that the lessons which I had imbibed in the day were
the constant object of my nightly dreams.” 99 At the same time
and place, the Latin classics were explained by John of Ravenna,
the domestic pupil of Petrarch; 100 the Italians, who illustrated
their age and country, were formed in this double school; and
Florence became the fruitful seminary of Greek and Roman
erudition. 101 The presence of the emperor recalled Chrysoloras
from the college to the court; but he afterwards taught at Pavia
and Rome with equal industry and applause. The remainder of his
life, about fifteen years, was divided between Italy and
Constantinople, between embassies and lessons. In the noble
office of enlightening a foreign nation, the grammarian was not
unmindful of a more sacred duty to his prince and country; and
Emanuel Chrysoloras died at Constance on a public mission from
the emperor to the council.

96 (return) [ Dr. Hody (p. 54) is angry with Leonard Aretin,
Guarinus, Paulus Jovius, &c., for affirming, that the Greek
letters were restored in Italy _post septingentos annos_; as if,
says he, they had flourished till the end of the viith century.
These writers most probably reckoned from the last period of the
exarchate; and the presence of the Greek magistrates and troops
at Ravenna and Rome must have preserved, in some degree, the use
of their native tongue.]

97 (return) [ See the article of Emanuel, or Manuel Chrysoloras,
in Hody (p 12—54) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vii. p. 113—118.) The
precise date of his arrival floats between the years 1390 and
1400, and is only confined by the reign of Boniface IX.]

98 (return) [ The name of _Aretinus_ has been assumed by five or
six natives of _Arezzo_ in Tuscany, of whom the most famous and
the most worthless lived in the xvith century. Leonardus Brunus
Aretinus, the disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator,
and an historian, the secretary of four successive popes, and the
chancellor of the republic of Florence, where he died A.D. 1444,
at the age of seventy-five, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii Ævi, tom. i.
p. 190 &c. Tiraboschi, tom. vii. p. 33—38.)]

99 (return) [ See the passage in Aretin. Commentario Rerum suo
Tempore in Italia gestarum, apud Hodium, p. 28—30.]

100 (return) [ In this domestic discipline, Petrarch, who loved
the youth, often complains of the eager curiosity, restless
temper, and proud feelings, which announce the genius and glory
of a riper age, (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 700—709.)]

101 (return) [ Hinc Græcæ Latinæque scholæ exortæ sunt, Guarino
Philelpho, Leonardo Aretino, Caroloque, ac plerisque aliis
tanquam ex equo Trojano prodeuntibus, quorum emulatione multa
ingenia deinceps ad laudem excitata sunt, (Platina in Bonifacio
IX.) Another Italian writer adds the names of Paulus Petrus
Vergerius, Omnibonus Vincentius, Poggius, Franciscus Barbarus,
&c. But I question whether a rigid chronology would allow
Chrysoloras _all_ these eminent scholars, (Hodius, p. 25—27,
&c.)]

After his example, the restoration of the Greek letters in Italy
was prosecuted by a series of emigrants, who were destitute of
fortune, and endowed with learning, or at least with language.
From the terror or oppression of the Turkish arms, the natives of
Thessalonica and Constantinople escaped to a land of freedom,
curiosity, and wealth. The synod introduced into Florence the
lights of the Greek church, and the oracles of the Platonic
philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to the union, had the
double merit of renouncing their country, not only for the
Christian, but for the catholic cause. A patriot, who sacrifices
his party and conscience to the allurements of favor, may be
possessed, however, of the private and social virtues: he no
longer hears the reproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and
the consideration which he acquires among his new associates will
restore in his own eyes the dignity of his character. The prudent
conformity of Bessarion was rewarded with the Roman purple: he
fixed his residence in Italy; and the Greek cardinal, the titular
patriarch of Constantinople, was respected as the chief and
protector of his nation: 102 his abilities were exercised in the
legations of Bologna, Venice, Germany, and France; and his
election to the chair of St. Peter floated for a moment on the
uncertain breath of a conclave. 103 His ecclesiastical honors
diffused a splendor and preeminence over his literary merit and
service: his palace was a school; as often as the cardinal
visited the Vatican, he was attended by a learned train of both
nations; 104 of men applauded by themselves and the public; and
whose writings, now overspread with dust, were popular and useful
in their own times. I shall not attempt to enumerate the
restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth century; and it
may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the names of Theodore
Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John Argyropulus, and Demetrius
Chalcocondyles, who taught their native language in the schools
of Florence and Rome. Their labors were not inferior to those of
Bessarion, whose purple they revered, and whose fortune was the
secret object of their envy. But the lives of these grammarians
were humble and obscure: they had declined the lucrative paths of
the church; their dress and manners secluded them from the
commerce of the world; and since they were confined to the merit,
they might be content with the rewards, of learning. From this
character, Janus Lascaris 105 will deserve an exception. His
eloquence, politeness, and Imperial descent, recommended him to
the French monarch; and in the same cities he was alternately
employed to teach and to negotiate. Duty and interest prompted
them to cultivate the study of the Latin language; and the most
successful attained the faculty of writing and speaking with
fluency and elegance in a foreign idiom. But they ever retained
the inveterate vanity of their country: their praise, or at least
their esteem, was reserved for the national writers, to whom they
owed their fame and subsistence; and they sometimes betrayed
their contempt in licentious criticism or satire on Virgil’s
poetry, and the oratory of Tully. 106 The superiority of these
masters arose from the familiar use of a living language; and
their first disciples were incapable of discerning how far they
had degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice of
their ancestors. A vicious pronunciation, 107 which they
introduced, was banished from the schools by the reason of the
succeeding age. Of the power of the Greek accents they were
ignorant; and those musical notes, which, from an Attic tongue,
and to an Attic ear, must have been the secret soul of harmony,
were to their eyes, as to our own, no more than minute and
unmeaning marks, in prose superfluous and troublesome in verse.
The art of grammar they truly possessed; the valuable fragments
of Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons;
and their treatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of
philosophic spirit, are still useful to the Greek student. In the
shipwreck of the Byzantine libraries, each fugitive seized a
fragment of treasure, a copy of some author, who without his
industry might have perished: the transcripts were multiplied by
an assiduous, and sometimes an elegant pen; and the text was
corrected and explained by their own comments, or those of the
elder scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek
classics, was interpreted to the Latin world: the beauties of
style evaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza
selected the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and
their natural histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund
of genuine and experimental science.

102 (return) [ See in Hody the article of Bessarion, (p.
136—177.) Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and the rest of the
Greeks whom I have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper
chapters of his learned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the 1st
and 2d parts of the vith tome.]

103 (return) [ The cardinals knocked at his door, but his
conclavist refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion:
“Nicholas,” said he, “thy respect has cost thee a hat, and me the
tiara.” * Note: Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de Medici, vol. i. p. 75)
considers that Hody has refuted this “idle tale.”—M.]

104 (return) [ Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza,
Argyropulus, Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius,
Blondus, Nicholas Perrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, &c. Viri
(says Hody, with the pious zeal of a scholar) (nullo ævo
perituri, p. 156.)]

105 (return) [ He was born before the taking of Constantinople,
but his honorable life was stretched far into the xvith century,
(A.D. 1535.) Leo X. and Francis I. were his noblest patrons,
under whose auspices he founded the Greek colleges of Rome and
Paris, (Hody, p. 247—275.) He left posterity in France; but the
counts de Vintimille, and their numerous branches, derive the
name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriage in the xiiith century
with the daughter of a Greek emperor (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
224—230.)]

106 (return) [ Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three
against Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus,
who can find no better names than Græculus ineptus et impudens,
(Hody, p. 274.) In our own times, an English critic has accused
the Æneid of containing multa languida, nugatoria, spiritû et
majestate carminis heroici defecta; many such verses as he, the
said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed of owning,
(præfat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22.)]

107 (return) [ Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are
accused of ignorance, envy, or avarice, (Sylloge, &c., tom. ii.
p. 235.) The modern Greeks pronounce the b as a V consonant, and
confound three vowels, (h i u,) and several diphthongs. Such was
the vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner maintained by
penal statutes in the university of Cambridge: but the
monosyllable bh represented to an Attic ear the bleating of
sheep, and a bellwether is better evidence than a bishop or a
chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly
Erasmus, who asserted a more classical pronunciation, are
collected in the Sylloge of Havercamp, (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd.
Bat. 1736, 1740:) but it is difficult to paint sounds by words:
and in their reference to modern use, they can be understood only
by their respective countrymen. We may observe, that our peculiar
pronunciation of the O, th, is approved by Erasmus, (tom. ii. p.
130.)]

Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with more
curiosity and ardor. After a long oblivion, Plato was revived in
Italy by a venerable Greek, 108 who taught in the house of Cosmo
of Medicis. While the synod of Florence was involved in
theological debate, some beneficial consequences might flow from
the study of his elegant philosophy: his style is the purest
standard of the Attic dialect, and his sublime thoughts are
sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and sometimes adorned
with the richest colors of poetry and eloquence. The dialogues of
Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of a sage;
and, as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral system
inculcates the love of truth, of our country, and of mankind. The
precept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and
liberal inquiry; and if the Platonists, with blind devotion,
adored the visions and errors of their divine master, their
enthusiasm might correct the dry, dogmatic method of the
Peripatetic school. So equal, yet so opposite, are the merits of
Plato and Aristotle, that they may be balanced in endless
controversy; but some spark of freedom may be produced by the
collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks were divided
between the two sects: with more fury than skill they fought
under the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was
removed in their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this
philosophical debate soon degenerated into an angry and personal
quarrel of grammarians; and Bessarion, though an advocate for
Plato, protected the national honor, by interposing the advice
and authority of a mediator. In the gardens of the Medici, the
academical doctrine was enjoyed by the polite and learned: but
their philosophic society was quickly dissolved; and if the
writings of the Attic sage were perused in the closet, the more
powerful Stagyrite continued to reign, the oracle of the church
and school. 109

108 (return) [ George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous
writer, the master of Bessarion, and all the Platonists of the
times. He visited Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end
his days in Peloponnesus. See the curious Diatribe of Leo
Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius. (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p.
739—756.)]

109 (return) [ The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is
illustrated by Boivin, (Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.
ii. p. 715—729,) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 259—288.)]

I have fairly represented the literary merits of the Greeks; yet
it must be confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed by
the ardor of the Latins. Italy was divided into many independent
states; and at that time it was the ambition of princes and
republics to vie with each other in the encouragement and reward
of literature. The fame of Nicholas the Fifth 110 has not been
adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin he raised himself
by his virtue and learning: the character of the man prevailed
over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened those weapons
which were soon pointed against the Roman church. 111 He had been
the friend of the most eminent scholars of the age: he became
their patron; and such was the humility of his manners, that the
change was scarcely discernible either to them or to himself. If
he pressed the acceptance of a liberal gift, it was not as the
measure of desert, but as the proof of benevolence; and when
modest merit declined his bounty, “Accept it,” would he say, with
a consciousness of his own worth: “ye will not always have a
Nicholas among you.” The influence of the holy see pervaded
Christendom; and he exerted that influence in the search, not of
benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine
libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain,
he collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of antiquity;
and wherever the original could not be removed, a faithful copy
was transcribed and transmitted for his use. The Vatican, the old
repository for bulls and legends, for superstition and forgery,
was daily replenished with more precious furniture; and such was
the industry of Nicholas, that in a reign of eight years he
formed a library of five thousand volumes. To his munificence the
Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon, Diodorus,
Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo’s
Geography, of the Iliad, of the most valuable works of Plato and
Aristotle, of Ptolemy and Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the
Greek church. The example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or
imitated by a Florentine merchant, who governed the republic
without arms and without a title. Cosmo of Medicis 112 was the
father of a line of princes, whose name and age are almost
synonymous with the restoration of learning: his credit was
ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated to the service of
mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London: and a
cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often imported in the
same vessel. The genius and education of his grandson Lorenzo
rendered him not only a patron, but a judge and candidate, in the
literary race. In his palace, distress was entitled to relief,
and merit to reward: his leisure hours were delightfully spent in
the Platonic academy; he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius
Chalcocondyles and Angelo Politian; and his active missionary
Janus Lascaris returned from the East with a treasure of two
hundred manuscripts, fourscore of which were as yet unknown in
the libraries of Europe. 113 The rest of Italy was animated by a
similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid the
liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive
property of their own literature; and these disciples of Greece
were soon capable of transmitting and improving the lessons which
they had imbibed. After a short succession of foreign teachers,
the tide of emigration subsided; but the language of
Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and the natives of
France, Germany, and England, 114 imparted to their country the
sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Florence and
Rome. 115 In the productions of the mind, as in those of the
soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the
Greek authors, forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been
illustrated on those of the Elbe and the Thames: and Bessarion or
Gaza might have envied the superior science of the Barbarians;
the accuracy of Budæus, the taste of Erasmus, the copiousness of
Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, the discernment of Reiske,
or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, the discovery of
printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art has been
applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate
and multiply the works of antiquity. 116 A single manuscript
imported from Greece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each
copy is fairer than the original. In this form, Homer and Plato
would peruse with more satisfaction their own writings; and their
scholiasts must resign the prize to the labors of our Western
editors.

110 (return) [ See the Life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary
authors, Janottus Manettus, (tom. iii. P. ii. p. 905—962,) and
Vespasian of Florence, (tom. xxv. p. 267—290,) in the collection
of Muratori; and consult Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 46—52,
109,) and Hody in the articles of Theodore Gaza, George of
Trebizond, &c.]

111 (return) [ Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit,
that the popes in this instance, were worse politicians than the
muftis, and that the charm which had bound mankind for so many
ages was broken by the magicians themselves, (Letters on the
Study of History, l. vi. p. 165, 166, octavo edition, 1779.)]

112 (return) [ See the literary history of Cosmo and Lorenzo of
Medicis, in Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. l. i. c. 2,) who bestows
a due measure of praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples,
the dukes of Milan, Ferrara Urbino, &c. The republic of Venice
has deserved the least from the gratitude of scholars.]

113 (return) [ Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 104,) from the
preface of Janus Lascaris to the Greek Anthology, printed at
Florence, 1494. Latebant (says Aldus in his preface to the Greek
orators, apud Hodium, p. 249) in Atho Thraciæ monte. Eas
Lascaris.... in Italiam reportavit. Miserat enim ipsum Laurentius
ille Medices in Græciam ad inquirendos simul, et quantovis
emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable enough, that the
research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II.]

114 (return) [ The Greek language was introduced into the
university of Oxford in the last years of the xvth century, by
Grocyn, Linacer, and Latimer, who had all studied at Florence
under Demetrius Chalcocondyles. See Dr. Knight’s curious Life of
Erasmus. Although a stout academical patriot, he is forced to
acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek at Oxford, and taught it
at Cambridge.]

115 (return) [ The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a
monopoly of Greek learning. When Aldus was about to publish the
Greek scholiasts on Sophocles and Euripides, Cave, (said they,)
cave hoc facias, ne _Barbari_ istis adjuti domi maneant, et
pauciores in Italiam ventitent, (Dr. Knight, in his Life of
Erasmus, p. 365, from Beatus Rhemanus.)]

116 (return) [ The press of Aldus Manutius, a Roman, was
established at Venice about the year 1494: he printed above sixty
considerable works of Greek literature, almost all for the first
time; several containing different treatises and authors, and of
several authors, two, three, or four editions, (Fabric. Bibliot.
Græc. tom. xiii. p. 605, &c.) Yet his glory must not tempt us to
forget, that the first Greek book, the Grammar of Constantine
Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476; and that the Florence
Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographical art.
See the Annales Typographical of Mattaire, and the Bibliographie
Instructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris.]

Before the revival of classic literature, the Barbarians in
Europe were immersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were
marked with the rudeness and poverty of their manners. The
students of the more perfect idioms of Rome and Greece were
introduced to a new world of light and science; to the society of
the free and polished nations of antiquity; and to a familiar
converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublime language
of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend to refine
the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet,
from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of the
ancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind.
However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast;
and the first disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of
strangers in the midst of their age and country. The minute and
laborious diligence which explored the antiquities of remote
times might have improved or adorned the present state of
society, the critic and metaphysician were the slaves of
Aristotle; the poets, historians, and orators, were proud to
repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age: the works of
nature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and
some Pagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of
Homer and Plato. 117 The Italians were oppressed by the strength
and number of their ancient auxiliaries: the century after the
deaths of Petrarch and Boccace was filled with a crowd of Latin
imitators, who decently repose on our shelves; but in that æra of
learning it will not be easy to discern a real discovery of
science, a work of invention or eloquence, in the popular
language of the country. 118 But as soon as it had been deeply
saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickened into
vegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics
of Athens and Rome inspired a pure taste and a generous
emulation; and in Italy, as afterwards in France and England, the
pleasing reign of poetry and fiction was succeeded by the light
of speculative and experimental philosophy. Genius may anticipate
the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in
that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the
powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist
hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the
works of his predecessors.

117 (return) [ I will select three singular examples of this
classic enthusiasm. I. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus Pletho
said, in familiar conversation to George of Trebizond, that in a
short time mankind would unanimously renounce the Gospel and the
Koran, for a religion similar to that of the Gentiles, (Leo
Allatius, apud Fabricium, tom. x. p. 751.) 2. Paul II. persecuted
the Roman academy, which had been founded by Pomponius Lætus; and
the principal members were accused of heresy, impiety, and
_paganism_, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p. 81, 82.) 3. In the
next century, some scholars and poets in France celebrated the
success of Jodelle’s tragedy of Cleopatra, by a festival of
Bacchus, and, as it is said, by the sacrifice of a goat, (Bayle,
Dictionnaire, Jodelle. Fontenelle, tom. iii. p. 56—61.) Yet the
spirit of bigotry might often discern a serious impiety in the
sportive play of fancy and learning.]

118 (return) [ The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375; and we
cannot place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore
of Pulci and the Orlando Innamorato of Boyardo, (Tiraboschi, tom.
vi. P. ii. p. 174—177.)]