Chapter 95

the natives of the city, was founded afresh after the Black Death in 1848, and endowed with an income of 2,500 gold florins, fell again into decay, and was refounded in 1357. The chair for the explanation of Dante, established in 1373 at the request of many citizens, was afterwards commonly united with the professorship of philology and rhetoric, as when Filelfo held it.

[486] This should be noticed in the lists of professors, as in that of the University of Pavia in 1400 (Corio, _Storia di Milano_, fol. 290), where (among others) no less than twenty jurists appear.

[487] Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 990.

[488] Fabroni, _Laurent. Magn._ Adnot. 52, in the year 1491.

[489] Allegretto, _Diari Sanesi_, in Murat. xiii. col. 824.

[490] Filelfo, when called to the newly founded University of Pisa, demanded at least 500 gold florins. Comp. Fabroni, _Laur. Magn._ ii. 75 sqq. The negotiations were broken off, not only on account of the high salary asked for.

[491] Comp. Vespasian. Fiorent. pp. 271, 572, 582, 625. _Vita. Jan. Manetti_, in Murat. xx. col. 531 sqq.

[492] Vespas. Fiorent. p. 1460. Prendilacqua (a pupil of Vitt.), _Intorno alla Vita di V. da F._, first ed. by Natale dalle Laste, 1774, translated by Giuseppe Brambilla, Como, 1871. C. Rosmini, _Idea dell’ottimo Precettore nella Vita e Disciplina di Vittorino da Feltre e de’ suoi Discepoli_, Bassano, 1801. Later works by Racheli (Milan, 1832), and Venoit (Paris, 1853).

[493] Vespas. Fior. p. 646, of which, however, C. Rosmini, _Vita e Disciplina di Guarino Veronese e de’ suoi Discepoli_, Brescia, 1856 (3 vols.), says that it is (ii. 56), ‘formicolante di errori di fatto.’

[494] For these and for Guarino generally, see Facius, _De Vir. Illustribus_, p. 17 sqq.; and Cortesius, _De Hom. Doctis_, p. 13. Both agree that the scholars of the following generation prided themselves on having been pupils of Guarino; but while Fazio praises his works, Cortese thinks that he would have cared better for his fame if he had written nothing. Guarino and Vittorino were friends and helped one another in their studies. Their contemporaries were fond of comparing them, and in this comparison Guarino commonly held the first place (Sabellico, _Dial. de Lingu. Lat. Reparata_, in Rosmini, ii. 112). Guarino’s attitude with regard to the ‘Ermafrodito’ is remarkable; see Rosmini, ii. 46 sqq. In both these teachers an unusual moderation in food and drink was observed; they never drank undiluted wine: in both the principles of education were alike; they neither used corporal punishment; the hardest penalty which Vittorino inflicted was to make the boy kneel and lie upon the ground in the presence of his fellow-pupils.

[495] To the Archduke Sigismond, _Epist._ 105, p. 600, and to King Ladislaus Postumus, p. 695; the latter as _Tractatus de Liberorum Educatione_ (1450).

[496] P. 625. On Niccoli, see further a speech of Poggio, _Opera_, ed. 1513, fol. 102 sqq.; and a life by Manetti in his book, _De Illustribus Longaevis_.

[497] The following words of Vespasiano are untranslatable: ‘A vederlo in tavola cosi antico come era, era una gentilezza.’

[498] _Ibid._ p. 495.

[499] According to Vespas. p. 271, learned men were in the habit of meeting here for discussion.

[500] Of Niccoli it may be further remarked that, like Vittorino, he wrote nothing, being convinced that he could not treat of anything in as perfect a form as he desired; that his senses were so delicately poised that he ‘neque rudentem asinum, neque secantem serram, neque muscipulam vagientem sentire audireve poterat.’ But the less favourable sides of Niccoli’s character must not be forgotten. He robbed his brother of his sweetheart Benvenuta, roused the indignation of Lionardo Aretino by this act, and was embittered by the girl against many of his friends. He took ill the refusal to lend him books, and had a violent quarrel with Guarino on this account. He was not free from a petty jealousy, under the influence of which he tried to drive Chrysoloras, Poggio, and Filelfo away from Florence.

[501] See his _Vita_, by Naldus Naldi, in Murat. xx. col. 532 sqq. See further Vespasiano Bisticci, _Commentario della Vita di Messer Giannozzo Manetti_, first published by P. Fanfani in _Collezione di Opere inedite o rare_, vol. ii. Torino, 1862. This ‘Commentario’ must be distinguished from the short ‘Vita’ of Manetti by the same author, in which frequent reference is made to the former. Vespasiano was on intimate terms with Giannozzo Manetti, and in the biography tried to draw an ideal picture of a statesman for the degenerate Florence. Vesp. is Naldi’s authority. Comp. also the fragment in Galetti, _Phil. Vill. Liber Flor._ 1847, pp. 129-138. Half a century after his death Manetti was nearly forgotten. Comp. Paolo Cortese, p. 21.

[502] The title of the work, in Latin and Italian, is given in Bisticci, _Commentario_, pp. 109, 112.

[503] What was known of Plato before can only have been fragmentary. A strange discussion on the antagonism of Plato and Aristotle took place at Ferrara in 1438, between Ugo of Siena and the Greeks who came to the Council. Comp. Æneas Sylvius, _De Europa_, cap. 52 (_Opera_, p. 450).

[504] In Niccolò Valori, _Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent_. Comp. Vespas. Fiorent. p. 426. The first supporters of Argyropulos were the Acciajuoli. _Ib._ 192: Cardinal Bessarion and his parallels between Plato and Aristotle. _Ib._ 223: Cusanus as Platonist. _Ib._ 308: The Catalonian Narciso and his disputes with Argyropulos. _Ib._ 571: Single Dialogues of Plato, translated by Lionardo Aretino. _Ib._ 298: The rising influence of Neoplatonism. On Marsilio Ficino, see Reumont, _Lorenzo de’ Medici_, ii. 27 sqq.

[505] Varchi, _Stor. Fior._ p. 321. An admirable sketch of character.

[506] The lives of Guarino and Vittorino by Rosmini mentioned above (p. 213, note 1; and 215, note 1), as well as the life of Poggio by Shepherd, especially in the enlarged Italian translation of Tonelli (2 vols. Florence, 1825); the Correspondence of Poggio, edited by the same writer (2 vols. Flor. 1832); and the letters of Poggio in Mai’s _Spicilegium_, tom. x. Rome, 1844, pp. 221-272, all contain much on this subject.

[507] _Epist. 39_; _Opera_, p. 526, to Mariano Socino.

[508] We must not be misled by the fact that along with all this complaints were frequently heard of the inadequacy of princely patronage and of the indifference of many princes to their fame. See e.g. Bapt. Mantan, Eclog. v. as early as the fifteenth century; and Ambrogio Traversari, _De Infelicitate Principum_. It was impossible to satisfy all.

[509] For the literary and scientific patronage of the popes down to the end of the fifteenth century, see Gregorovius, vols. vii. and viii. For Pius II., see Voigt, _En. Silvio als Papst Pius II._ bd. iii. (Berlin, 1863), pp. 406-440.

[510] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De Poetis Nostri Temporis_, speaking of the _Sphaerulus_ of Camerino. The worthy man did not finish it in time, and his work lay for forty years in his desk. For the scanty payments made by Sixtus IV., comp. Pierio Valer. _De Infelic. Lit._ on Theodoras Gaza. He received for a translation and commentary of a work of Aristotle fifty gold florins, ‘ab eo a quo se totum inauratum iri speraverat.’ On the deliberate exclusion of the humanists from the cardinalate by the popes before Leo, comp. Lor. Grana’s funeral oration on Cardinal Egidio, _Anecdot. Litt._ iv. p. 307.

[511] The best are to be found in the _Deliciae Poetarum Italorum_, and in the Appendices to the various editions of Roscoe, _Leo X._ Several poets and writers, like Alcyonius, _De Exilio_, ed. Menken, p. 10, say frankly that they praise Leo in order themselves to become immortal.

[512] Paul. Jov. _Elogia_ speaking of Guido Posthumus.

[513] Pierio Valeriano in his _Simia_.

[514] See the elegy of Joh. Aurelius Mutius in the _Deliciae Poetarum Italorum_.

[515] The well-known story of the purple velvet purse filled with packets of gold of various sizes, in which Leo used to thrust his hand blindly, is in Giraldi _Hecatommithi_, vi. nov. 8. On the other hand, the Latin ‘improvisatori,’ when their verses were too faulty, were whipped. Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De Poetis Nostri Temp. Opp._ ii. 398 (Basil, 1580).

[516] Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi. iv. 181.

[517] Vespas. Fior. p. 68 sqq. For the translations from Greek made by Alfonso’s orders, see p. 93; _Vita Jan. Manetti_, in Murat. xx. col. 541 sqq., 450 sqq., 495. Panormita, _Dicta et Facta Alfonsi_, with the notes by Æneas Sylvius, ed. by Jacob Spiegel, Basel, 1538.

[518] Even Alfonso was not able to please everybody--Poggio, for example. See Shepherd-Tonelli, _Poggio_ ii. 108 sqq. and Poggio’s letter to Facius in _Fac. de Vir. Ill._ ed. Mehus, p. 88, where he writes of Alfonso: ‘Ad ostentationem quædam facit quibus videatur doctis viris favere;’ and Poggio’s letter in Mai, _Spicil._ tom. x. p. 241.

[519] Ovid. _Amores_, iii. 11, vs. ii.; Jovian. Pontan. _De Principe_.

[520] _Giorn. Napolet._ in Murat. xxi. col. 1127.

[521] Vespas. Fior. pp. 3, 119 sqq. ‘Volle aver piena notizia d’ogni cosa, cosi sacra come gentile.’

[522] The last Visconti divided his interest between Livy, the French chivalrous romances, Dante, and Petrarch. The humanists who presented themselves to him with the promise ‘to make him famous,’ were generally sent away after a few days. Comp. _Decembrio_, in Murat. xx. col. 1114.

[523] Paul. Jov. _Vita Alfonsi Ducis_.

[524] On Collenuccio at the court of Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro (son of Alessandro, p. 28), who finally, in 1508, put him to death, see p. 135, note 4. At the time of the last Ordelaffi at Forli, the place was occupied by Codrus Urceus (1477-80); death-bed complaint of C. U. _Opp._ Ven. 1506, fol. liv.; for his stay in Forli, _Sermo_, vi. Comp. Carlo Malagola, _Della Vita di C. U._ Bologna, 1877, Ap. iv. Among the instructed despots, we may mention Galeotto Manfreddi of Faenza, murdered in 1488 by his wife, and some of the Bentivoglio family at Bologna.

[525] _Anecdota Literar._ ii. pp. 305 sqq., 405. Basinius of Parma ridicules Porcellio and Tommaso Seneca; they are needy parasites, and must play the soldier in their old age, while he himself was enjoying an ‘ager’ and a ‘villa.’

[526] For details respecting these graves, see Keyssler, _Neueste Reisen_, s. 924.

[527] _Pii II. Comment._ l. ii. p. 92. By history he means all that has to do with antiquity. Cortesius also praises him highly, p. 34 sqq.

[528] Fabroni, _Costnus_, Adnot. 118. Vespasian. Fior. _passim_. An important passage respecting the demands made by the Florentines on their secretaries (‘quod honor apud Florentinos magnus habetur,’ says B. Facius, speaking of Poggio’s appointment to the secretaryship, _De Vir. Ill._ p. 17), is to be found in Æneas Sylvius, _De Europâ_, cap. 54 (_Opera_, p. 454).

[529] See Voigt, _En. Silvio als Papst Pius II._ bd. iii. 488 sqq., for the often-discussed and often-misunderstood change which Pius II. made with respect to the Abbreviators.

[530] Comp. the statement of Jacob Spiegel (1521) given in the reports of the Vienna Academy, lxxviii. 333.

[531] _Anecdota Lit._ i. p. 119 sqq. A plea (‘Actio ad Cardinales Deputatos’) of Jacobus Volaterranus in the name of the Secretaries, no doubt of the time of Sixtus IV. (Voigt, l. c. 552, note). The humanistic claims of the ‘advocati consistoriales’ rested on their oratory, as that of the Secretaries on their correspondence.

[532] The Imperial chancery under Frederick III. was best known to Æneas Sylvius. Comp. _Epp._ 23 and 105; _Opera_, pp. 516 and 607.

[533] The letters of Bembo and Sadoleto have been often printed; those of the former, e.g. in the _Opera_, Basel, 1556, vol. ii., where the letters written in the name of Leo X. are distinguished from private letters; those of the latter most fully, 5 vols. Rome, 1760. Some additions to both have been given by Carlo Malagola in the review _Il Baretti_, Turin, 1875. Bembo’s _Asolani_ will be spoken of below; Sadoleto’s significance for Latin style has been judged as follows by a contemporary, Petrus Alcyonius, _De Exilio_, ed. Menken, p. 119: ‘Solus autem nostrorum temporum aut certe cum paucis animadvertit elocutionem emendatam et latinam esse fundamentum oratoris; ad eamque obtinendam necesse esse latinam linguam expurgare quam inquinarunt nonnulli exquisitarum literarum omnino rudes et nullius judicii homines, qui partim a circumpadanis municipiis, partim ex transalpinis provinciis, in hanc urbem confluxerunt. Emendavit igitur ‘eruditissimus hic vir corruptam et vitiosam linguæ latinæ consuetudinem, pura ac integra loquendi ratione.’

[534] Corio, _Storia di Milano_, fol. 449, for the letter of Isabella of Aragon to her father, Alfonso of Naples; fols. 451, 464, two letters of the Moor to Charles VIII. Compare the story in the _Lettere Pittoriche_, iii. 86 (Sebastiano del Piombo to Aretino), how Clement VII., during the sack of Rome, called his learned men round him, and made each of them separately write a letter to Charles V.

[535] For the correspondence of the period in general, see Voigt, _Wiederbelebung_, 414-427.

[536] Bembo thought it necessary to excuse himself for writing in Italian: ‘Ad Sempronium,’ _Bembi Opera_, Bas. 1556, vol. iii. 156 sqq.

[537] On the collection of the letters of Aretino, see above, pp. 164 sqq., and the note. Collections of Latin letters had been printed even in the fifteenth century.

[538] Comp. the speeches in the _Opera_ of Philelphus, Sabellicus, Beroaldus, &c.; and the writings and lives of Giann. Manetti, Æneas Sylvius, and others.

[539] B. F. _De Viris Illustribus_, ed. Mehus, p. 7. Manetti, as Vesp. Bisticci, _Commentario_, p. 51, states, delivered many speeches in Italian, and then afterwards wrote them out in Latin. The scholars of the fifteenth century, e.g. Paolo Cortese, judge the achievements of the past solely from the point of view of ‘Eloquentia.’

[540] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 198, 205.

[541] _Pii II. Comment._ l. i. p. 10.

[542] The success of the fortunate orator was great, and the humiliation of the speaker who broke down before distinguished audiences no less great. Examples of the latter in Petrus Crinitus, _De Honestâ Disciplinâ_, v. cap. 3. Comp. Vespas. Fior. pp. 319, 430.

[543] _Pii II. Comment._ l. iv. p. 205. There were some Romans, too, who awaited him at Viterbo. ‘Singuli per se verba facere, ne alius alio melior videretur, cum essent eloquentiâ ferme pares.’ The fact that the Bishop of Arezzo was not allowed to speak in the name of the general embassy of the Italian states to the newly chosen Alexander VI., is seriously placed by Guicciardini (at the beginning of book i.) among the causes which helped to produce the disaster of 1494.

[544] Told by Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 1160.

[545] _Pii II. Comment._ l. ii. p. 107. Comp. p. 87. Another oratorical princess, Madonna Battista Montefeltro, married to a Malatesta, harangued Sigismund and Martin. Comp. _Arch. Stor._ iv. i. p. 442, note.

[546] _De Expeditione in Turcas_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 68. ‘Nihil enim Pii concionantis majestate sublimius.’ Not to speak of the naïve pleasure with which Pius describes his own triumphs, see Campanus, _Vita Pii II._, in Murat. iii. ii. _passim_. At a later period these speeches were judged less admiringly. Comp. Voigt, _Enea Silvio_, ii. 275 sqq.

[547] Charles V., when unable on one occasion to follow the flourishes of a Latin orator at Genoa, replied in the ear of Giovio: ‘Ah, my tutor Adrian was right, when he told me I should be chastened for my childish idleness in learning Latin.’ Paul. Jov. _Vita Hadriani VI._ Princes replied to these speeches through their official orators; Frederick III. through Enea Silvio, in answer to Giannozzo Manetti. Vesp. Bist. _Comment._ p. 64.

[548] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis Nostri Temp._ speaking of Collenuccio. Filelfo, a married layman, delivered an introductory speech in the Cathedral at Como for the Bishop Scarampi, in 1460. Rosmini, _Filelfo_, ii. 122, iii. 147.

[549] Fabroni, _Cosmus_, Adnot. 52.

[550] Which, nevertheless, gave some offence to Jac. Volaterranus (in Murat. xxiii. col. 171) at the service in memory of Platina.

[551] _Anecdota Lit._ i. p. 299, in Fedra’s funeral oration on Lod. Podacataro, whom Guarino commonly employed on these occasions. Guarino himself delivered over fifty speeches at festivals and funerals, which are enumerated in Rosmini, _Guarino_, ii. 139-146. Burckhardt, 332. Dr. Geiger here remarks that Venice also had its professional orators. Comp. G. Voigt, ii. 425.

[552] Many of these opening lectures have been preserved in the works of Sabellicus, Beroaldus Major, Codrus Urceus, &c. In the works of the latter there are also some poems which he recited ‘in principio studii.’

[553] The fame of Pomponazzo’s delivery is preserved in Paul. Jov. _Elogia Vir. Doct._ p. 134. In general, it seems that the speeches, the form of which was required to be perfect, were learnt by heart. In the case of Giannozzo Manetti we know positively that it was so on one occasion (_Commentario_, 39). See, however, the account p. 64, with the concluding statement that Manetti spoke better _impromptu_ than Aretino with preparation. We are told of Codrus Urceus, whose memory was weak, that he read his orations (_Vita_, at the end of his works. Ven. 1506, fol. lxx.). The following passage will illustrate the exaggerated value set on oratory: ‘Ausim affirmare perfectum oratorem (si quisquam modo sit perfectus orator) ita facile posse nitorem, lætitiam, lumina et umbras rebus dare quas oratione exponendas suscipit, ut pictorem suis coloribus et pigmentis facere videmus.’ (Petr. Alcyonius, _De Exilio_, ed. Menken, p. 136.)

[554] Vespas. Fior. p. 103. Comp. p. 598, where he describes how Giannozzo Manetti came to him in the camp.

[555] _Archiv. Stor._ xv. pp. 113, 121. Canestrini’s Introduction, p. 32 sqq. Reports of two such speeches to soldiers; the first, by Alamanni, is wonderfully fine and worthy of the occasion (1528).

[556] On this point see Faustinus Terdoceus, in his satire _De Triumpho Stultitiae_, lib. ii.

[557] Both of these extraordinary cases occur in Sabellicus, _Opera_, fol. 61-82. _De Origine et Auctu Religionis_, delivered at Verona from the pulpit before the barefoot friars; and _De Sacerdotii Laudibus_, delivered at Venice.

[558] Jac. Volaterrani. _Diar. Roman._ in Murat. xxiii. _passim_. In col. 173 a remarkable sermon before the court, though in the absence of Sixtus IV., is mentioned. Pater Paolo Toscanella thundered against the Pope, his family, and the cardinals. When Sixtus heard of it, he smiled.

[559] Fil. Villani, _Vitae_, ed. Galetti, p. 30.

[560] See above, p. 237, note 3.

[561] Georg. Trapezunt, _Rhetorica_, the first complete system of instruction. Æn. Sylvius, _Artis Rhetoricae Praecepta_, in the _Opera_, p. 992. treats purposely only of the construction of sentences and the position of words. It is characteristic as an instance of the routine which was followed. He names several other theoretical writers who are some of them no longer known. Comp. C. Voigt, ii. 262 sqq.

[562] His life in Murat. xx. is full of the triumphs of his eloquence. Comp. Vespas. Fior. 592 sqq., and _Commentario_, p. 30. On us these speeches make no great impression, e.g. that at the coronation of Frederick III. in Freher-Struve, _Script. Rer. Germ._ iii. 4-19. Of Manetti’s oration at the burial of Lion. Aretino, Shepherd-Tonelli says (_Poggio_, ii. 67 sqq.): ‘L’orazione ch’ei compose, è ben la cosa la più meschina che potesse udirsi, piena di puerilità volgare nello stile, irrelevante negli argomenti e d’una prolissità insopportabile.’

[563] _Annales Placentini_, in Murat. xx. col. 918.

[564] _E.g._ Manetti. Comp. Vesp. _Commentario_, p. 30; so, too, Savonarola Comp. Perrens, _Vie de Savonarole_, i. p. 163. The shorthand writers, however, could not always follow him, or, indeed, any rapid ‘Improvisatori.’ Savonarola preached in Italian. See Pasq. Villari: _Vita di Savonarola_.

[565] It was by no means one of the best (_Opuscula Beroaldi_, Basel, 1509, fol. xviii.-xxi). The most remarkable thing in it is the flourish at the end: ‘Esto tibi ipsi archetypon et exemplar, teipsum imitare,’ etc.

[566] Letters and speeches of this kind were written by Alberto di Ripalta; comp. the _Annales Placentini_, written by his father Antonius and continued by himself, in Murat. xx. col. 914 sqq., where the pedant gives an instructive account of his own literary career.

[567] _Pauli Jovii Dialogus de Viris Litteris Illustribus_, in Tiraboschi, tom. vii. parte iv. Yet he says some ten years later, at the close of the _Elogia Litteraria_: ‘Tenemus adhuc (after the leadership in philology had passed to the Germans) sincerae et constantis eloquentiae munitam arcem,’ etc. The whole passage, given in German in Gregorovius, viii. 217 sqq. is important, as showing the view taken of Germany by an Italian, and is again quoted below in this connection.

[568] A special class is formed by the semi-satirical dialogues, which Collenuccio, and still more Pontano, copied from Lucian. Their example stimulated Erasmus and Hutten. For the treatises properly so-called parts of the ethical writings of Plutarch may have served as models.

[569] See below, part iv. chap. 5.

[570] Comp. the epigram of Sannazaro:

‘Dum patriam laudat, damnat dum Poggius hostem, Nec malus est civis, nec bonus historicus.’

[571] Benedictus: _Caroli VIII. Hist._ in Eccard, Scriptt. vi. col. 1577.

[572] Petrus Crinitus deplores this contempt, _De honesta disciplina_, l. xviii. cap. 9. The humanists here resemble the writers in the decline of antiquity, who also severed themselves from their own age. Comp. Burckhardt, _Die Zeit Constantin’s des Grossen_. See for the other side several declarations of Poggio in Voigt, _Wiederbelebung_, p. 443 sqq.

[573] Lorenzo Valla, in the preface to the _Historia Ferdinandi Regis Arag._; in opposition to him, Giacomo Zeno in the _Vita Caroli Zeni_, Murat. xix. p. 204. See, too, Guarino, in Rosmini, ii. 62 sqq., 177 sqq.

[574] In the letter to Pizinga, _Opere Volgari_, vol. xvi. p. 38. With Raph. Volaterranus, l. xxi. the intellectual world begins in the fourteenth century. He is the same writer whose early books contain so many notices--excellent for his time--of the history of all countries.

[575] Here, too, Petrarch cleared the way. See especially his critical investigation of the Austrian Charter, claiming to descend from Cæsar. _Epp. Sen._ xvi. 1.

[576] Like that of Giannozzo Manetti in the presence of Nicholas V., of the whole Papal court, and of a great concourse of strangers from all parts. Comp. Vespas. Fior. p. 591, and more fully in the _Commentario_, pp. 37-40.

[577] In fact, it was already said that Homer alone contained the whole of the arts and sciences--that he was an encyclopædia. Comp. _Codri Urcei Opera_, Sermo xiii. at the end. It is true that we met with a similar opinion in several ancient writers. The words of C. U. (Sermo xiii., habitus in laudem liberalium artium; _Opera_, ed. Ven. 1506, fol. xxxviii. _b_) are as follows: ‘Eia ergo bono animo esto; ego graecas litteras tibi exponam; et praecipue divinum Homerum, a quo ceu fonte perenni, ut scribit Naso, vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis. Ab Homero grammaticum dicere poteris, ab Homero rhetoricam, ab Homero medicinam, ab Homero astrologiam, ab Homero fabulas, ab Homero historias, ab Homero mores, ab Homero philosophorum dogmata, ab Homero artem militarem, ab Homero coquinariam, ab Homero architecturam, ab Homero regendarum urbium modum percipies; et in summa, quidquid boni quidquid honesti animus hominis discendi cupidus optare potest, in Homero facile poteris invenire.’ To the same effect ‘Sermo’ vii. and viii. _Opera_, fol. xxvi. sqq., which treat of Homer only.

[578] A cardinal under Paul II. had his cooks instructed in the Ethics of Aristotle. Comp. Gaspar. Veron. _Vita Pauli II._ in Muratori, iii. ii. col. 1034.

[579] For the study of Aristotle in general, a speech of Hermolaus Barbarus is specially instructive.

[580] Bursellis, _Ann. Bonon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 898.

[581] Vasari, xi. pp. 189, 257. _Vite di Sodoma e di Garofalo._ It is not surprising that the profligate women at Rome took the most harmonious ancient names--Julia, Lucretia, Cassandra, Portia, Virginia, Penthesilea, under which they appear in Aretino. It was, perhaps, then that the Jews took the names of the great Semitic enemies of the Romans--Hannibal, Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, which even now they commonly bear in Rome. [This last assertion cannot be maintained. Neither Zunz, _Namen der Juden_, Leipzig, 1837, reprinted in Zunz _Gesammelte Schriften_, Berlin, 1876, nor Steinschneider in his collection in _Il Buonarotti_, ser. ii. vol. vi. 1871, pp. 196-199, speaks of any Jew of that period who bore these names, and even now, according to the enquiries of Prince Buoncompagni from Signer Tagliacapo, in charge of the Jewish archives in Rome, there are only a few who are named Asdrubale, and none Amilcare or Annibale. L. G.] Burckhardt, 352. A careful choice of names is recommended by L. B. Alberti, _Della familia_, opp. ii. p. 171. Maffeo Vegio (_De educatione liberorum._ lib. i. c. x.) warns his readers against the use of _nomina indecora barbara aut nova, aut quae gentilium deorum sunt_. Names like ‘Nero’ disgrace the bearer; while others such as Cicero, Brutus, Naso, Maro, can be used _qualiter per se parum venusta propter tamen eximiam illorum virtutem_.

[582]

‘Quasi che ‘l nome i buon giudici inganni, E che quel meglio t’ abbia a far poeta, Che non farà lo studio di molt’ anni!’

So jests Ariosto, to whom fortune had certainly given a harmonious name, in the _Seventh Satire_, vs. 64.

[583] Or after those of Bojardo, which are in part the same as his.

[584] The soldiers of the French army in 1512 were ‘omnibus diris ad inferos devocati!’ The honest canon, Tizio, who, in all seriousness, pronounced a curse from Macrobius against foreign troops, will be spoken of further on.

[585] _De infelicitate principum_, in Poggii _Opera_, fol. 152: ‘Cujus (Dantis) exstat poema praeclarum, neque, si literis Latinis constaret, ullâ ex parte poetis superioribus (the ancients) postponendum.’ According to Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 74, ‘Many wise men’ even then discussed the question why Dante had not written in Latin. Cortesius (_De hominibus doctis_, p. 7) complains: ‘Utinam tam bene cogitationes suas Latinus litteris mandare potuisset, quam bene patrium sermonem illustravit!’ He makes the same complaint in speaking of Petrarch and Boccaccio.

[586] His work _De vulgari eloquio_ was for long almost unknown, and, valuable as it is to us, could never have exercised the influence of the _Divina Commedia_.

[587] To know how far this fanaticism went, we have only to refer to Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis nostri temporis_, _passim_. Vespasiano Bisticci is one of the few Latin writers of that time who openly confessed that they knew little of Latin (_Commentario della vita di G. Manetti_, p. 2), but he knew enough to introduce Latin sentences here and there in his writings, and to read Latin letters (_ibid._ 96, 165). In reference to this exclusive regard for Latin, the following passage may be quoted from Petr. Alcyonius, _De exilio_, ed. Menken, p. 213. He says that if Cicero could rise up and behold Rome, ‘Omnium maxime illum credo perturbarent ineptiae quorumdam qui, amisso studio veteris linguae quae eadem hujus urbis et universae Italiae propria erat, dies noctesque incumbunt in linguam Geticam aut Dacicam discendam eandemque omni ratione ampliendam, cum Goti, Visigothi et Vandali (qui erant olim Getae et Daci) eam in Italos invexerant, ut artes et linguam et nomen Romanum delerent.’

[588] There were regular stylistic exercises, as in the _Orationes_ of the elder Beroaldus, where there are two tales of Boccaccio, and even a ‘Canzone’ of Petrarch translated into Latin.

[589] Comp. Petrarch’s letter from the earth to illustrious shades below. _Opera_, p. 704 sqq. See also p. 372 in the work _De rep. optime administranda_: ‘Sic esse doleo, sed sic est.’

[590] A burlesque picture of the fanatical purism prevalent in Rome is given by Jovian. Pontanus in his _Antonius_.

[591] _Hadriani (Cornetani) Card. S. Chrysogoni de sermone latino liber_, especially the introduction. He finds in Cicero and his contemporaries Latinity in its absolute form (_an sich_). The same Codrus Urceus, who found in Homer the sum of all science (see above, p. 249, note 1) says (_Opp._ ed. 1506, fol. lxv.): ‘Quidquid temporibus meis aut vidi aut studui libens omne illud Cicero mihi felici dedit omine,’ and goes so far as to say in another poem (_ibid._): ‘Non habet huic similem doctrinae Graecia mater.’

[592] Paul. Jov. _Elogia doct. vir._ p. 187 sqq., speaking of Bapt. Pius.

[593] Paul Jov. _Elogia_, on Naugerius. Their ideal, he says, was: ‘Aliquid in stylo proprium, quod peculiarem ex certâ notâ mentis effigiem referret, ex naturae genio effinxisse.’ Politian, when in a hurry, objected to write his letters in Latin. Comp. Raph. Volat. _Comment. urban._ l. xxi. Politian to Cortesius (_Epist._ lib. viii. ep. 16): ‘Mihi vero longe honestior tauri facies, aut item leonis, quam simiae videtur;’ to which Cortesius replied: ‘Ego malo esse assecla et simia Ciceronis quam alumnus.’ For Pico’s opinion on the Latin language, see the letter quoted above, p. 202.

[594] Paul. Jov. _Dialogus de viris literis illustribus_, in Tiraboschi, ed. Venez. 1766, tom. vii. p. iv. It is well known that Giovio was long anxious to undertake the great work which Vasari accomplished. In the dialogue mentioned above it is foreseen and deplored that Latin would now altogether lose its supremacy.

[595] In the ‘Breve’ of 1517 to Franc. de’ Rosi, composed by Sadoleto, in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, vi. p. 172.

[596] Gasp. Veronens. _Vita Pauli II._ in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1031. The plays of Seneca and Latin translations of Greek dramas were also performed.

[597] At Ferrara, Plautus was played chiefly in the Italian adaptations of Collenuccio, the younger Guarino, and others, and principally for the sake of the plots. Isabella Gonzaga took the liberty of finding him dull. For Latin comedy in general, see R. Peiper in Fleckeisen and Masius, _Neue Jahrb. für Phil. u. Pädag._, Lpzg. 1874, xx. 131-138, and _Archiv für Literaturgesch_. v. 541 sqq. On Pomp. Laetus, see _Sabellici Opera_, Epist. l. xi. fol. 56 sqq., and below, at the close of Part III.

[598] Comp. Burckhardt. _Gesch. der Renaissance in Italien_, 38-41.

[599] For what follows see _Deliciae poetarum Italorum_; Paul. Jov. _Elogia_; Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis nostri temporis_; and the Appendices to Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi.

[600] There are two new editions of the poem, that of Pingaud (Paris, 1872), and that of Corradini (Padua, 1874). In 1874 two Italian translations also appeared by G. B. Gaudo and A. Palesa. On the _Africa_, compare L. Geiger: _Petrarca_, pp. 122 sqq., and p. 270, note 7.

[601] Filippo Villani, _Vite_, ed. Galetti, p. 16.

[602] _Franc. Aleardi Oratio in laudem Franc. Sfortiae_, in Marat. xxv. col. 384. In comparing Scipio with Caesar, Guarino and Cyriacus Anconitanus held the latter, Poggio (_Opera_, epp. fol. 125, 134 sqq.) the former, to be the greater. For Scipio and Hannibal in the miniatures of Attavante, see Vasari, iv. 41. _Vita di Fiesole_. The names of both used for Picinino and Sforza. See p. 99. There were great disputes as to the relative greatness of the two. Shepherd-Tonelli, i. 262 sqq. and Rosmini: Guarino, ii. 97-111.

[603] The brilliant exceptions, where rural life is treated realistically, will also be mentioned below.

[604] Printed in Mai, _Spicilegium Romanum_, vol. viii. pp. 488-504; about 500 hexameter verses. Pierio Valeriano followed out the myth in his poetry. See his _Carpio_, in the _Deliciae poetarum Italorum_. The frescoes of Brusasorci in the Pal. Murari at Verona represent the subject of the _Sarca_.

[605] Newly edited and translated by Th. A. Fassnacht in _Drei Perlen der neulateinischen Poesie_. Leutkirch and Leipzig, 1875. See further, Goethe’s _Werke_ (Hempel’sche Ausgabe), vol. xxxii. pp. 157 and 411.

[606] _De sacris diebus._

[607] E.g. in his eighth eclogue.

[608] There are two unfinished and unprinted Sforziads, one by the elder, the other by the younger Filelfo. On the latter, see Favre, _Mélanges d’Hist. Lit._ i. 156; on the former, see Rosmini, _Filelfo_, ii. 157-175. It is said to be 12,800 lines long, and contains the passage: ‘The sun falls in love with Bianca.’

[609] Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, viii. 184. A poem in a similar style, xii. 130. The poem of Angilbert on the Court of Charles the Great curiously reminds us of the Renaissance. Comp. Pertz. _Monum._ ii.

[610] Strozzi, _Poetae_, p. 31 sqq. ‘Caesaris Borgiae ducis epicedium.’

[611]

‘Pontificem addiderat, flammis lustralibus omneis Corporis ablutum labes, Dis Juppiter ipsis,’ etc.

[612] This was Ercole II. of Ferrara, b. April 4, 1508, probably either shortly before or shortly after the composition of this poem. ‘Nascere, magne puer, matri expectate patrique,’ is said near the end.

[613] Comp. the collections of the _Scriptores_ by Schardius, Freher, &c., and see above p. 126, note 1.

[614] Uzzano, see _Archiv._ iv. i. 296. Macchiavelli, _i Decennali_. The life of Savonarola, under the title _Cedrus Libani_, by Fra Benedetto. _Assedio di Piombino_, Murat. xxv. We may quote as a parallel the _Teuerdank_ and other northern works in rhyme (new ed. of that by Haltaus, Quedlinb. and Leipzig, 1836). The popular historical songs of the Germans, which were produced in great abundance in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, may be compared with these Italian poems.

[615] We may remark of the _Coltivazione_ of L. Alamanni, written in Italian ‘versi sciolti,’ that all the really poetical and enjoyable passages are directly or indirectly borrowed from the ancients (an old ed., Paris, 1540; new ed. of the works of A., 2 vols., Florence, 1867).

[616] E.g. by C. G. Weise, Leipzig, 1832. The work, divided into twelve books, named after the twelve constellations, is dedicated to Hercules II. of Ferrara. In the dedication occur the remarkable words: ‘Nam quem alium patronum in totâ Italiâ invenire possum, cui musae cordisunt, qui carmen sibi oblatum aut intelligat, aut examine recto expendere sciat?’ Palingenius uses ‘Juppiter’ and ‘Deus’ indiscriminately.

[617] L. B. Alberti’s first comic poem, which purported to be by an author Lepidus, was long considered as a work of antiquity.

[618] In this case (see below, p. 266, note 2) of the introduction to Lucretius, and of Horace, _Od._ iv. 1.

[619] The invocation of a patron saint is an essentially pagan undertaking, as has been noticed at p. 57. On a more serious occasion, comp. Sannazaro’s Elegy: ‘In festo die divi Nazarii martyris.’ Sann. _Elegiae_, 1535, fol. 166 sqq.

[620]

Si satis ventos tolerasse et imbres Ac minas fatorum hominumque fraudes Da Pater tecto salientem avito Cernere fumum!

[621] _Andr. Naugerii, Orationes duae carminaque aliquot_, Venet. 1530, 4^o. The few ‘Carmina’ are to be found partly or wholly in the _Deliciae_. On N. and his death, see Pier. Val. _De inf. lit._ ed. Menken, 326 sqq.

[622] Compare Petrarch’s greeting to Italy, written more than a century earlier (1353) in _Petr. Carmina Minora_, ed. Rossetti, ii. pp. 266 sqq.

[623] To form a notion of what Leo X. could swallow, see the prayer of Guido Postumo Silvestri to Christ, the Virgin, and all the Saints, that they would long spare this ‘numen’ to earth, since heaven had enough of such already. Printed in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, v. 337.

[624] Molza’s _Poesie volgari e Latine_, ed. by Pierantonio Serassi, Bergamo 1747.

[625] Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 36.

[626] Sannazaro ridicules a man who importuned him with such forgeries: ‘Sint vetera haec aliis, mî nova semper erunt.’ (Ad Rufum, _Opera_, 1535, fol. 41 _a_.)

[627] ‘De mirabili urbe Venetiis’ (_Opera_, fol. 38 b):

Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis Stare urbem et toto ponere jura mari: Nunc mihi Tarpejas quantum vis Juppiter arceis Objice et illa tui mœnia Martis ait, Si pelago Tybrim praefers, urbem aspice utramque Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse deos.

[628] _Lettere de’principi_, i. 88, 98.

[629] Malipiero, _Ann. Veneti, Arch. Stor._ vii. i. p. 508. At the end we read, in reference to the bull as the arms of the Borgia:

‘Merge, Tyber, vitulos animosas ultor in undas; Bos cadat inferno victima magna Jovi!’

[630] On the whole affair, see Roscoe, _Leone X._, ed. Bossi, vii. 211, viii. 214 sqq. The printed collection, now rare, of these _Coryciana_ of the year 1524 contains only the Latin poems; Vasari saw another book in the possession of the Augustinians in which were sonnets. So contagious was the habit of affixing poems, that the group had to be protected by a railing, and even hidden altogether. The change of Goritz into ‘Corycius senex’ is suggested by Virgil, _Georg._ iv. 127. For the miserable end of the man at the sack of Rome, see Pierio Valeriano, _De infelic. literat._ ed. Menken, p. 369.

[631] The work appeared first in the _Coryciana_, with introductions by Silvanus and Corycius himself; also reprinted in the Appendices to Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, and in the _Deliciae_. Comp. Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, speaking of Arsillus. Further, for the great number of the epigrammatists, see Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, l. c. One of the most biting pens was Marcantonio Casanova. Among the less known, Jo. Thomas Muscanius (see _Deliciae_) deserves mention. On Casanova, see Pier. Valer. _De infel. lit._ ed. Menken, p. 376 sqq.; and Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, p. 142 sqq., who says of him: ‘Nemo autem eo simplicitate ac innocentiâ vitae melior;’ Arsillus (l. c.) speaks of his ‘placidos sales.’ Some few of his poems in the _Coryciana_, J. 3 _a_ sqq. L. 1 _a_, L. 4 _b_.

[632] Marin Sanudo, in the _Vite de’duchi di Venezia_, Murat. xii. quotes them regularly.

[633] Scardeonius, _De urb. Patav. antiq._ (Graev. thes. vi. 11, col. 270), names as the inventor a certain Odaxius of Padua, living about the middle of the fifteenth century. Mixed verses of Latin and the language of the country are found much earlier in many parts of Europe.

[634] It must not be forgotten that they were very soon printed with both the old Scholia and modern commentaries.

[635] Ariosto, _Satira_, vii. Date 1531.

[636] Of such children we meet with several, yet I cannot give an instance in which they were demonstrably so treated. The youthful prodigy Giulio Campagnola was not one of those who were forced with an ambitious object. Comp. Scardeonius, _De urb. Patav. antiq._ in Graev. thes. vi. 3, col. 276. For the similar case of Cecchino Bracci, d. 1445 in his fifteenth year, comp. Trucchi, _Poesie Ital. inedite_, iii. p. 229. The father of Cardano tried ‘memoriam artificialem instillare,’ and taught him, when still a child, the astrology of the Arabians. See Cardanus, _De propria vita_ cap. 34. Manoello may be added to the list, unless we are to take his expression, ‘At the age of six years I am as good as at eighty,’ as a meaningless phrase. Comp. _Litbl. des Orients_, 1843, p. 21.

[637] Bapt. Mantuan. _De calamitatibus temporum_, l. i.

[638] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _Progymnasma adversus literas et literatos_. _Opp._ ed. Basil. 1580, ii. 422-445. Dedications 1540-1541; the work itself addressed to Giov. Franc. Pico, and therefore finished before 1533.

[639] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _Hercules_. The dedication is a striking evidence of the first threatening movements of the Inquisition.

[640] He passed, as we have seen, for the last protector of the scholars.

[641] _De infelicitate literatorum._ On the editions, see above, p. 86, note 4. Pier. Val., after leaving Rome, lived long in a good position as professor at Padua. At the end of his work he expresses the hope that Charles V. and Clement VII. would bring about a better time for the scholars.

[642] Comp. Dante, _Inferno_, xiii. 58 sqq., especially 93 sqq., where Petrus de Vineis speaks of his own suicide.

[643] Pier. Valer. pp. 397 sqq., 402. He was the uncle of the writer.

[644] Cœlii Calcagnini, _Opera_, ed. Basil. 1544, p. 101, in the Seventh Book of the Epistles, No. 27, letter to Jacob Ziegler. Comp. Pierio Val. _De inf. lit._ ed. Menken, p. 369 sqq.

[645] _M. Ant. Sabellici Opera_, Epist. l. xi. fol. 56. See, too, the biography in the _Elogia_ of Paolo Giovio, p. 76 sqq. The former appeared separately at Strasburg in 1510, under the title Sabellicus: _Vita Pomponii Laeti_.

[646] Jac. Volaterran. _Diar. Rom._ in Muratori. xxiii. col. 161, 171, 185. _Anecdota literaria_, ii. pp. 168 sqq.

[647] Paul. Jov. _De Romanis piscibus_, cap. 17 and 34.

[648] Sadoleti, Epist. 106, of the year 1529.

[649] Anton. Galatei, Epist. 10 and 12, in Mai, _Spicileg. Rom._ vol. viii.

[650] This was the case even before the middle of the century. Comp. Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis nostri temp._ ii.

[651] Luigi Bossi, _Vita di Cristoforo Colombo_, in which there is a sketch of earlier Italian journeys and discoveries, p. 91 sqq.

[652] See on this subject a treatise by Pertz. An inadequate account is to be found in Æneas Sylvius, _Europae status sub Frederico III. Imp._ cap. 44 (in Freher’s _Scriptores_, ed. 1624, vol. ii. p. 87). On Æn. S. see Peschel o.c. 217 sqq.

[653] Comp. O. Peschel, _Geschichte der Erdkunde_, 2nd edit., by Sophus Ruge, Munich, 1877, p. 209 sqq. _et passim_.

[654] _Pii II. Comment._ l. i. p. 14. That he did not always observe correctly, and sometimes filled up the picture from his fancy, is clearly shown, e.g., by his description of Basel. Yet his merit on the whole is nevertheless great. On the description of Basel see G. Voigt; Enea Silvio, i. 228; on E. S. as Geographer, ii. 302-309. Comp. i. 91 sqq.

[655] In the sixteenth century, Italy continued to be the home of geographical literature, at a time when the discoverers themselves belonged almost exclusively to the countries on the shores of the Atlantic. Native geography produced in the middle of the century the great and remarkable work of Leandro Alberti, _Descrizione di tutta l’Italia_, 1582. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the maps in Italy were in advance of those of other countries. See Wieser: _Der Portulan des Infanten Philipp II. von Spanien_ in _Sitzungsberichte der Wien. Acad. Phil. Hist. Kl._ Bd. 82 (1876), pp. 541 sqq. For the different Italian maps and voyages of discovery, see the excellent work of Oscar Peschel: _Abhandl. zur Erd-und Völkerkunde_ (Leipzig, 1878). Comp. also, _inter alia_: Berchet, _Il planisfero di Giovanni Leandro del’anno 1452 fa-simil nella grandezza del’ original Nota illustrativa_, 16 S. 4^o. Venezia, 1879. Comp. Voigt, ii. 516; and G. B. de Rossi, _Piante iconogrofiche di Roma anteriori al secolo XVI._ Rome, 1879. For Petrarch’s attempt to draw out a map of Italy, comp. Flavio Biondo: _Italia illustrata_ (ed. Basil.), p. 352 sqq.; also _Petr. Epist. var. LXI._ ed. Fracass. iii. 476. A remarkable attempt at a map of Europe, Asia and Africa is to be found on the obverse of a medal of Charles IV. of Anjou, executed by Francesco da Laurana in 1462.

[656] Libri, _Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques en Italie_. 4 vols. Paris, 1838.

[657] To pronounce a conclusive judgment on this point, the growth of the habit of collecting observations, in other than the mathematical sciences, would need to be illustrated in detail. But this lies outside the limits of our task.

[658] Libri, op. cit. ii. p. 174 sqq. See also Dante’s treatise, _De aqua et terra_; and W. Schmidt, _Dante’s Stellung in der Geschichte der Cosmographie_, Graz, 1876. The passages bearing on geography and natural science from the _Tesoro_ of Brunetto Latini are published separately: _Il trattato della Sfera di S. Br. L._, by Bart. Sorio (Milan, 1858), who has added B. L.’s system of historical chronology.

[659] Scardeonius, _De urb. Patav. antiq._ in _Graevii Thesaur. ant. Ital._ tom. vi. pars iii. col. 227. A. died in 1312 during the investigation; his statue was burnt. On Giov. Sang. see op. cit. col. 228 sqq. Comp. on him, Fabricius, _Bibl. Lat._ s. v. Petrus de Apono. Sprenger in _Esch. u. Gruber_, i. 33. He translated (a. 1292-1293) astrological works of Abraham ibn Esra, printed 1506.

[660] See below, part vi. chapter 2.

[661] See the exaggerated complaints of Libri, op. cit. ii. p. 258 sqq. Regrettable as it may be that a people so highly gifted did not devote more of its strength to the natural sciences, we nevertheless believe that it pursued, and in part attained, still more important ends.

[662] On the studies of the latter in Italy, comp. the thorough investigation by C. Malagola in his work on Codro Urceo (Bologna, 1878, cap. vii. 360-366).

[663] Italians also laid out botanical gardens in foreign countries, e.g. Angelo, of Florence, a contemporary of Petrarch, in Prag. Friedjung: _Carl IV._ p. 311, note 4.

[664] _Alexandri Braccii descriptio horti Laurentii Med._, printed as Appendix No. 58 to Roscoe’s _Life of Lorenzo_. Also to be found in the Appendices to Fabroni’s _Laurentius_.

[665] _Mondanarii Villa_, printed in the _Poemata aliquot insignia illustr. poetar. recent._

[666] On the zoological garden at Palermo under Henry VI., see Otto de S. Blasio ad a. 1194. That of Henry I. of England in the park of Woodstock (Guliel. Malmes. p. 638) contained lions, leopards, camels, and a porcupine, all gifts of foreign princes.

[667] As such he was called, whether painted or carved in stone, ‘Marzocco.’ At Pisa eagles were kept. See the commentators on Dante, _Inf._ xxxiii. 22. The falcon in Boccaccio, _Decam._ v. 9. See for the whole subject: _Due trattati del governo e delle infermità degli uccelli, testi di lingua inediti_. Rome, 1864. They are works of the fourteenth century, possibly translated from the Persian.

[668] See the extract from Ægid. Viterb. in Papencordt, _Gesch. der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter_, p. 367, note, with an incident of the year 1328. Combats of wild animals among themselves and with dogs served to amuse the people on great occasions. At the reception of Pius II. and of Galeazzo Maria Sforza at Florence, in 1459, in an enclosed space on the Piazza della Signoria, bulls, horses, boars, dogs, lions, and a giraffe were turned out together, but the lions lay down and refused to attack the other animals. Comp. _Ricordi di Firenze, Rer. Ital. script. ex Florent. codd._ tom. ii. col. 741. A different account in _Vita Pii II._ Murat. iii. ii. col. 976. A second giraffe was presented to Lorenzo the Magnificent by the Mameluke Sultan Kaytbey. Comp. Paul. Jov. _Vita Leonis X._ l. i. In Lorenzo’s menagerie one magnificent lion was especially famous, and his destruction by the other lions was reckoned a presage of the death of his owner.

[669] Gio. Villani, x. 185, xi. 66. Matteo Villani, iii. 90, v. 68. It was a bad omen if the lions fought, and worse still if they killed one another. Com. Varchi, _Stor. fiorent._ iii. p. 143. Matt. V. devotes the first of the two chapters quoted to prove (1) that lions were born in Italy, and (2) that they came into the world alive.

[670] _Cron. di Perugia, Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. p. 77, year 1497. A pair of lions once escaped from Perugia; _ibid._ xvi. i. p. 382, year 1434. Florence, for example, sent to King Wladislaw of Poland (May, 1406), a pair of lions _ut utriusque sexus animalia ad procreandos catulos haberetis_. The accompanying statement is amusing in a diplomatic document: ‘Sunt equidem hi leones Florentini, et satis quantum natura promittere potuit mansueti, depositâ feritate, quam insitam habent, hique in Gætulorum regionibus nascuntur et Indorum, in quibus multitudo dictorum animalium evalescit, sicuti prohibent naturales. Et cum leonum complexio sit frigoribus inimica, quod natura sagax ostendit, natura in regionibus aestu ferventibus generantur, necessarium est, quod vostra serenitas, si dictorum animalium vitam et sobolis propagationem, ut remur, desiderat, faciat provideri, quod in locis calidis educentur et maneant. Conveniunt nempe cum regia majestate leones quoniam leo græce latine rex dicitur. Sicut enim rex dignitate potentia, magnanimitate ceteros homines antecellit, sic leonis generositas et vigor imperterritus animalia cuncta praesit. Et sicut rex, sic leo adversus imbecilles et timidos clementissimum se ostendit, et adversus inquietos et tumidos terribilem se offert animadversione justissima.’ (_Cod. epistolaris sæculi. Mon. med. ævi hist. res gestas Poloniæ illustr._ Krakau, 1876, p. 25.)

[671] Gage, _Carteggio_, i. p. 422, year 1291. The Visconti used trained leopards for hunting hares, which were started by little dogs. See v. Kobel, _Wildanger_, p. 247, where later instances of hunting with leopards are mentioned.

[672] _Strozzii poetae_, p. 146: _De leone Borsii Ducis_. The lion spares the hare and the small dog, imitating (so says the poet) his master. Comp. the words fol. 188, ‘et inclusis condita septa feris,’ and fol. 193, an epigram of fourteen lines, ‘in leporarii ingressu quam maximi;’ see _ibid._ for the hunting-park.

[673] _Cron. di Perugia_, l. c. xvi. ii. p. 199. Something of the same kind is to be found in Petrarch, _De remed. utriusque fortunae_, but less clearly expressed. Here Gaudium, in the conversation with Ratio, boasts of owning monkeys and ‘ludicra animalia.’

[674] Jovian. Pontan. _De magnificentia._ In the zoological garden of the Cardinal of Aquileja, at Albano, there were, in 1463, peacocks and Indian fowls and Syrian goats with long ears. _Pii II. Comment._ l. xi. p. 562 sqq.

[675] _Decembrio_, ap. Muratori, xx. col. 1012.

[676] Brunetti Latini, _Tesor._ (ed. Chabaille, Paris, 1863), lib. i. In Petrarch’s time there were no elephants in Italy. ‘Itaque et in Italia avorum memoria unum Frederico Romanorum principi fuisse et nunc Egyptio tyranno nonnisi unicum esse fama est.’ _De rem. utr. fort._ i. 60.

[677] The details which are most amusing, in Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, on Tristanus Acunius. On the porcupines and ostriches in the Pal. Strozzi, see Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, iv. chap. 11. Lorenzo the Magnificent received a giraffe from Egypt through some merchants, Baluz. _Miscell._ iv. 416. The elephant sent to Leo was greatly bewailed by the people when it died, its portrait was painted, and verses on it were written by the younger Beroaldus.

[678] Comp. Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, p. 234, speaking of Francesco Gonzaga. For the luxury at Milan in this respect, see Bandello, Parte II. Nov. 3 and 8. In the narrative poems we also sometimes hear the opinion of a judge of horses. Comp. Pulci, _Morgante_, xv. 105 sqq.

[679] Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, speaking of Hipp. Medices.

[680] At this point a few notices on slavery in Italy at the time of the Renaissance will not be out of place. A short, but important, passage in Jovian. Pontan. _De obedientia_, l. iii. cap. i.: ‘An homo, cum liber natura sit, domino parere debeat?’ In North Italy there were no slaves. Elsewhere, even Christians, as well as Circassians and Bulgarians, were bought from the Turks, and made to serve till they had earned their ransom. The negroes, on the contrary, remained slaves; but it was not permitted, at least in the kingdom of Naples, to emasculate them. The word ‘moro’ signifies any dark-skinned man; the negro was called ‘moro nero.’--Fabroni, _Cosmos_, Adn. 110: Document on the sale of a female Circassian slave (1427); Adn. 141: List of the female slaves of Cosimo.--Nantiporto, Murat. iii. ii. col. 1106: Innocent VIII. received 100 Moors as a present from Ferdinand the Catholic, and gave them to cardinals and other great men (1488).--Marsuccio, _Novelle_, 14: sale of slaves; do. 24 and 25: negro slaves who also (for the benefit of their owner?) work as ‘facchini,’ and gain the love of the women; do. 48 Moors from Tunis caught by Catalans and sold at Pisa.--Gaye, _Carteggio_, i. 360: manumission and reward of a negro slave in a Florentine will (1490).--Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, sub Franc. Sfortia; Porzio, _Congiura_, iii. 195; and Comines, _Charles VIII._ chap. 18: negroes as gaolers and executioners of the House of Aragon in Naples.--Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, sub Galeatio: negroes as followers of the prince on his excursions.--Æneæ Sylvii, _Opera_, p. 456: a negro slave as a musician.--Paul. Jov. _De piscibus_, cap 3: a (free?) negro as diver and swimming-master at Genoa.--Alex. Benedictus, _De Carolo VIII._ in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1608: a negro (Æthiops) as superior officer at Venice, according to which we are justified in thinking of Othello as a negro.--Bandello, Parte III. Nov. 21: when a slave at Genoa deserved punishment he was sold away to Iviza, one of the Balearic isles, to carry salt.

The foregoing remarks, although they make no claim to completeness, may be allowed to stand as they are in the new edition, on account of the excellent selection of instances they contain, and because they have not met with sufficient notice in the works upon the subject. Latterly a good deal has been written on the slave-trade in Italy. The very curious book of Filippo Zamboni: _Gli Ezzelini, Dante e gli Schiavi, ossia Roma e la Schiavitù personale domestica. Con documenti inediti. Seconda edizione aumentata_ (Vienna, 1870), does not contain what the title promises, but gives, p. 241 sqq., valuable information on the slave-trade; p. 270, a remarkable document on the buying and selling of a female slave; p. 282, a list of various slaves (with the place were they were bought and sold, their home, age, and price) in the thirteenth and three following centuries. A treatise by Wattenbach: _Sklavenhandel im Mittelalter_ (_Anzeiger für Kunde der deutschen Vorzeit_, 1874, pp. 37-40) refers only in part to Italy: Clement V. decides in 1309 that the Venetian prisoners should be made slaves of; in 1501, after the capture of Capua, many Capuan women were sold at Rome for a low price. In the _Monum. historica Slavorum meridionalium_, ed. Vinc. Macusceo, tom. i. Warsaw, 1874, we read at p. 199 a decision (Ancona, 1458) that the ‘Greci, Turci, Tartari, Sarraceni, Bossinenses, Burgari vel Albanenses,’ should be and always remain slaves, unless their masters freed them by a legal document. Egnatius, _Exempl. ill. vir._ Ven. fol. 246 _a_, praises Venice on the ground that ‘servorum Venetis ipsis nullum unquam usum extitisse;’ but, on the other hand, comp. Zamboni, p. 223, and especially Vincenzo Lazari: ‘Del traffico e delle condizioni degli schiavi, in Venezia nel tempo di mezzo,’ in _Miscellanea di Stor. Ital._ Torino, 1862, vol. i. 463-501.

[681] It is hardly necessary to refer the reader to the famous chapters on this subject in Humboldt’s _Kosmos_.

[682] See on this subject the observations of Wilhelm Grimm, quoted by Humboldt in the work referred to.

[683] Carmina Burana, p. 162, _De Phyllide et Flora_, str. 66.

[684] It would be hard to say what else he had to do at the top of the Bismantova in the province of Reggio, _Purgat._ iv. 26. The precision with which he brings before us all the parts of his supernatural world shows a remarkable sense of form and space. That there was a belief in the existence of hidden treasures on the tops of mountains, and that such spots were regarded with superstitious terror, may be clearly inferred from the _Chron. Novaliciense_, ii. 5, in Pertz, _Script._ vii., and _Monum. hist. patriae, Script._ iii.

[685] Besides the description of Baiæ in the _Fiammetta_, of the grove in the Ameto, etc., a passage in the _De genealogia deorum_, xiv. 11, is of importance, where he enumerates a number of rural beauties--trees, meadows, brooks, flocks and herds, cottages, etc.--and adds that these things ‘animum mulcent;’ their effect is ‘mentem in se colligere.’

[686] Flavio Biondo, _Italia Illustrata_ (ed. Basil), p. 352 sqq. Comp. _Epist. Var._ ed. Fracass. (lat.) iii. 476. On Petrarch’s plan of writing a great geographical work, see the proofs given by Attilio Hortis, _Accenni alle Scienze Naturali nelle Opere di G. Boccacci_, Trieste, 1877, p. 45 sqq.

[687] Although he is fond of referring to them: e.g. _De vita solitaria_ (_Opera_, ed. Basil, 1581), esp. p. 241, where he quotes the description of a vine-arbour from St. Augustine.

[688] _Epist. famil._ vii. 4. ‘Interea utinam scire posses, quanta, cum voluptate solivagus et liber, inter montes et nemora, inter fontes et flumina, inter libros et maximorum hominum ingenia respiro, quamque me in ea, quae ante sunt, cum Apostolo extendens et praeterita oblivisci nitor et praesentia non videre.’ Comp. vi. 3, o. c. 316 sqq. esp. 334 sqq. Comp. L. Geiger: _Petrarca_, p. 75, note 5, and p. 269.

[689] ‘Jacuit sine carmine sacro.’ Comp. _Itinerar. Syriacum, Opp._ p. 558.

[690] He distinguishes in the _Itinerar. Syr._ p. 357, on the Riviera di Levante: ‘colles asperitate gratissima et mira fertilitate conspicuos.’ On the port of Gaeta, see his _De remediis utriusque fortunae_, i. 54.

[691] _Letter to Posterity_: ‘Subito loco specie percussus.’ Descriptions of great natural events: A Storm at Naples, 1343: _Epp. fam._ i. 263 sqq.; An Earthquake at Basel, 1355, _Epp. seniles_, lib. x. 2, and _De rem. utr. fort._ ii. 91.

[692] _Epist. fam._ ed. Fracassetti, i. 193 sqq.

[693] _Il Dittamondo_, iii. cap. 9.

[694] _Dittamondo_, iii. cap. 21, iv. cap. 4. Papencordt, _Gesch. der Stadt Rom_, says that the Emperor Charles IV. had a strong taste for beautiful scenery, and quotes on this point Pelzel, _Carl IV._ p. 456. (The two other passages, which he quotes, do not say the same.) It is possible that the Emperor took this fancy from intercourse with the humanists (see above, pp. 141-2). For the interest taken by Charles in natural science see H. Friedjung, op. cit. p. 224, note 1.

[695] We may also compare Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 310: ‘Homo fuit (Pius II.) verus, integer, apertus; nil habuit ficti, nil simulati’--an enemy of hypocrisy and superstition, courageous and consistent. See Voigt, ii. 261 sqq. and iii. 724. He does not, however, give an analysis of the character of Pius.

[696] The most important passages are the following: _Pii II. P. M. Commentarii_, l. iv. p. 183; spring in his native country; l. v. p. 251; summer residence at Tivoli; l. vi. p. 306: the meal at the spring of Vicovaro; l. viii. p. 378: the neighbourhood of Viterbo; p. 387: the mountain monastery of St. Martin; p. 388: the Lake of Bolsena; l. ix. p. 396: a splendid description of Monte Amiata; l. x. p. 483: the situation of Monte Oliveto; p. 497: the view from Todi; l. xi. p. 554: Ostia and Porto; p. 562: description of the Alban Hills; l. xii. p. 609: Frascati and Grottaferrata; comp. 568-571.

[697] So we must suppose it to have been written, not Sicily.

[698] He calls himself, with an allusion to his name: ‘Silvarum amator et varia videndi cupidus.’

[699] On Leonbattista Alberti’s feeling for landscapes see above, p. 136 sqq. Alberti, a younger contemporary of Æneas Silvius (_Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_, p. 90; see above, p. 132, note 1), is delighted when in the country with ‘the bushy hills,’ ‘the fair plains and rushing waters.’ Mention may here be made of a little work _Ætna_, by P. Bembus, first published at Venice, 1495, and often printed since, in which, among much that is rambling and prolix, there are remarkable geographical descriptions and notices of landscapes.

[700] A most elaborate picture of this kind in Ariosto; his sixth canto is all foreground.

[701] He deals differently with his architectural framework, and in this modern decorative art can learn something from him even now.

[702] _Lettere Pittoriche_, iii. 36, to Titian, May, 1544.

[703] _Strozzii Poetae_, in the _Erotica_, l. vi. fol. 183; in the poem: ‘Hortatur se ipse, ut ad amicam properet.’

[704] Comp. Thausing: _Dürer_, Leipzig, 1876, p. 166.

[705] These striking expressions are taken from the seventh volume of Michelet’s _Histoire de France_ (Introd.).

[706] Tomm. Gar, _Relaz. della Corte di Roma_, i. pp. 278 and 279. In the Rel. of Soriano, year 1533.

[707] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 295 sqq. The word ‘saturnico’ means ‘unhappy’ as well as ‘bringing misfortune.’ For the influence of the planets on human character in general, see Corn. Agrippa, _De occulta philosophia_, c. 52.

[708] See Trucchi, _Poesie Italiane inedite_, i. p 165 sqq.

[709] Blank verse became at a later time the usual form for dramatic compositions. Trissino, in the dedication of his _Sofonisba_ to Leo X., expressed the hope that the Pope would recognise this style for what it was--as better, nobler, and _less easy_ than it looked. Roscoe, _Leone_ X., ed. Bossi, viii. 174.

[710] Comp. e.g. the striking forms adopted by Dante, _Vita Nuova_, ed. Witte, p. 13 sqq., 16 sqq. Each has twenty irregular lines; in the first, one rhyme occurs eight times.

[711] Trucchi, op. cit. i. 181 sqq.

[712] These were the ‘Canzoni’ and Sonnets which every blacksmith and donkey-driver sang and parodied--which made Dante not a little angry. (Comp. Franco Sachetti, Nov. 114, 115.) So quickly did these poems find their way among the people.

[713] _Vita Nuova_, ed. Witte, pp. 81, 82 sqq. ‘Deh peregrini,’ _ibid._ 116.

[714] For Dante’s psychology, the beginning of _Purg._ iv. is one of the most important passages. See also the parts of the _Convito_ bearing on the subject.

[715] The portraits of the school of Van Eyck would prove the contrary for the North. They remained for a long period far in advance of all descriptions in words.

[716] Printed in the sixteenth volume of his _Opere Volgari_. See M. Landau, _Giov. Boccaccio_ (Stuttg. 1877), pp. 36-40; he lays special stress on B.’s dependence on Dante and Petrarch.

[717] In the song of the shepherd Teogape, after the feast of Venus, _Opp._ ed. Montier, vol. xv. 2. p. 67 sqq. Comp. Landau, 58-64; on the _Fiammetta_, see Landau, 96-105.

[718] The famous Lionardo Aretino, the leader of the humanists at the beginning of the fifteenth century, admits, ‘Che gli antichi Greci d’umanita e di gentilezza di cuore abbino avanzanto di gran lunga i nostri Italiani;’ but he says it at the beginning of a novel which contains the sentimental story of the invalid Prince Antiochus and his step-mother Stratonice--a document of an ambiguous and half-Asiatic character. (Printed as an Appendix to the _Cento Novelle Antiche_.)

[719] No doubt the court and prince received flattery enough from their occasional poets and dramatists.

[720] Comp. the contrary view taken by Gregorovius, _Gesch. Roms_, vii. 619.

[721] Paul. Jovius, _Dialog. de viris lit. illustr._, in Tiraboschi, tom. vii. iv. Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis nostri temp._

[722] Isabella Gonzaga to her husband, Feb. 3, 1502, _Arch. Stor._ Append. ii. p. 306 sqq. Comp. Gregorovius, _Lucrezia Borgia_, i. 256-266, ed. 3. In the French _Mystères_ the actors themselves first marched before the audience in procession, which was called the ‘montre.’

[723] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 404. Other passages referring to the stage in that city, cols. 278, 279, 282 to 285, 361, 380, 381, 393, 397, from which it appears that Plautus was the dramatist most popular on these occasions, that the performances sometimes lasted till three o’clock in the morning, and were even given in the open air. The ballets were without any meaning or reference to the persons present and the occasion solemnized. Isabella Gonzaga, who was certainly at the time longing for her husband and child, and was dissatisfied with the union of her brother with Lucrezia, spoke of the ‘coldness and frostiness’ of the marriage and the festivities which attended it.

[724] _Strozzii Poetæ_, fol. 232, in the fourth book of the _Æolosticha_ of Tito Strozza. The lines run:

‘Ecce superveniens rerum argumenta retexit Mimus, et ad populum verba diserta refert. Tum similes habitu formaque et voce Menæchmi Dulcibus oblectant lumina nostra modis.’

The _Menæchmi_ was also given at Ferrara in 1486, at the cost of more than 1,000 ducats. Murat. xxiv. 278.

[725] Franc. Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 169. The passage in the original is as follows: ‘Si sono anco spesso recitate delle tragedie con grandi apparecchi, comporte da poeti antichi o da moderni. Alle quali per la fama degli apparati concorrevano le genti estere e circonvicine per vederle e udirle. Ma hoggi le feste da particolari si fanno fra i parenti et essendosi la città regolata per se medesima da certi anni in quà, si passano i tempi del Carnovale in comedie e in altri più lieti e honorati diletti.’ The passage is not thoroughly clear.

[726] This must be the meaning of Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 168, when he complains that the ‘recitanti’ ruined the comedies ‘con invenzioni o personaggi troppo ridicoli.’

[727] Sansovino, l. c.

[728] Scardeonius, _De urb. Patav. antiq._, in Graevius, Thes. vi. iii. col. 288 sqq. An important passage for the literature of the dialects generally. One of the passages is as follows: ‘Hinc ad recitandas comœdias socii scenici et gregales et æmuli fuere nobiles juvenes Patavini, Marcus Aurelius Alvarotus quem in comœdiis suis Menatum appellitabat, et Hieronymus Zanetus quem Vezzam, et Castegnola quem Billoram vocitabat, et alii quidam qui sermonem agrestium imitando præ ceteris callebant.’

[729] That the latter existed as early as the fifteenth century may be inferred from the _Diario Ferrerese_, Feb. 2nd, 1501: ‘Il duca Hercole fece una festa di Menechino secondo il suo uso.’ Murat. xxiv. col. 393. There cannot be a confusion with the Menæchmi of Plautus, which is correctly written, l. c. col. 278. See above, p. 318, note 2.

[730] Pulci mischievously invents a solemn old-world legend for his story of the giant Margutte (_Morgante_, canto xix. str. 153 sqq.). The critical introduction of Limerno Pitocco is still droller (_Orlandino_, cap. i. str. 12-22).

[731] The _Morgante_ was written in 1460 and the following years, and first printed at Venice in 1481. Last ed. by P. Sermolli, Florence, 1872. For the tournaments, see part v. chap. i. See, for what follows, Ranke: _Zur Geschichte der italienischen Poesie_, Berlin, 1837.

[732] The _Orlando inamorato_ was first printed in 1496.

[733] _L’Italia liberata da Goti_, Rome, 1547.

[734] See above, p. 319, and Landau’s _Boccaccio_, 64-69. It must, nevertheless, be observed that the work of Boccaccio here mentioned was written before 1344, while that of Petrarch was written after Laura’s death, that is, after 1348.

[735] Vasari, viii. 71, in the Commentary to the _Vita di Rafaelle_.

[736] Much of this kind our present taste could dispense with in the _Iliad_.

[737] First edition, 1516.

[738] The speeches inserted are themselves narratives.

[739] As was the case with Pulci, _Morgante_, canto xix. str. 20 sqq.

[740] The _Orlandino_, first edition, 1526.

[741] Radevicus, _De gestis Friderici imp._, especially ii. 76. The admirable _Vita Henrici IV._ contains very little personal description, as is also the case with the _Vita Chuonradi imp._ by Wipo.

[742] The librarian Anastasius (middle of ninth century) is here meant. The whole collection of the lives of the Popes (_Liber Pontificalis_) was formerly ascribed to him, but erroneously. Comp. Wattenbach, _Deutschland’s Geschichtsquellen_, i. 223 sqq. 3rd ed.

[743] Lived about the same time as Anastasius; author of a history of the bishopric of Ravenna. Wattenbach, l. c. 227.

[744] How early Philostratus was used in the same way, I am unable to say. Suetonius was no doubt taken as a model in times still earlier. Besides the life of Charles the Great, written by Eginhard, examples from the twelfth century are offered by William of Malmesbury in his descriptions of William the Conqueror (p. 446 sqq., 452 sqq.), of William II. (pp. 494, 504), and of Henry I. (p. 640).

[745] See the admirable criticism in Landau, _Boccaccio_, 180-182.

[746] See above, p. 131. The original (Latin) was first published in 1847 at Florence, by Galletti, with the title, _Philippi Villani Liber de civitatis Florentiae famosis civibus_; an old Italian translation has been often printed since 1747, last at Trieste, 1858. The first book, which treats of the earliest history of Florence and Rome, has never been printed. The chapter in Villani, _De semipoetis_, i.e. those who wrote in prose as well as in verse, or those who wrote poems besides following some other profession, is specially interesting.

[747] Here we refer the reader to the biography of L. B. Alberti, from which extracts are given above (p. 136), and to the numerous Florentine biographies in Muratori, in the _Archivio Storico_, and elsewhere. The life of Alberti is probably an autobiography, l. c. note 2.

[748] _Storia Fiorentina_, ed. F. L. Polidori, Florence, 1838.

[749] _De viris illustribus_, in the publications of the _Stuttgarter liter. Vereins_, No. i. Stuttg. 1839. Comp. C. Voigt, ii. 324. Of the sixty-five biographies, twenty-one are lost.

[750] His _Diarium Romanum_ from 1472 to 1484, in Murat. xiii. 81-202.

[751] _Ugolini Verini poetae Florentini_ (a contemporary of Lorenzo, a pupil of Landinus, fol. 13, and teacher of Petrus Crinitus, fol. 14), _De illustratione urbis Florentinae libri tres_, Paris, 1583, deserves mention, esp. lib. 2. Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio are spoken of and characterised without a word of blame. For several women, see fol. 11.

[752] _Petri Candidi Decembrii Vita Philippi Mariae Vicecomitis_, in Murat. xx. Comp above, p. 38.

[753] See above, p. 225.

[754] On Comines, see above, p. 96, note 1. While Comines, as is there indicated, partly owes his power of objective criticism to intercourse with Italians, the German humanists and statesmen, notwithstanding the prolonged residence of some of them in Italy, and their diligent and often most successful study of the classical world, acquired little or nothing of the gift of biographical representation or of the analysis of character. The travels, biographies, and historical sketches of the German humanists in the fifteenth, and often in the early part of the sixteenth centuries, are mostly either dry catalogues or empty, rhetorical declamations.

[755] See above, p. 96.

[756] Here and there we find exceptions. Letters of Hutten, containing autobiographical notices, bits of the chronicle of Barth. Sastrow, and the _Sabbata_ of Joh. Kessler, introduce us to the inward conflicts of the writers, mostly, however, bearing the specifically religious character of the Reformation.

[757] Among northern autobiographies we might, perhaps, select for comparison that of Agrippa d’Aubigné (though belonging to a later period) as a living and speaking picture of human individuality.

[758] Written in his old age, about 1576. On Cardano as an investigator and discoverer, see Libri, _Hist. des Sciences Mathém._ iii. p. 167 sqq.

[759] E.g. the execution of his eldest son, who had taken vengeance for his wife’s infidelity by poisoning her (cap. 27, 50).

[760] _Discorsi della Vita Sobria_, consisting of the ‘trattato,’ of a ‘compendio,’ of an ‘esortazione,’ and of a ‘lettera’ to Daniel Barbaro. The book has been often reprinted.

[761] Was this the villa of Codevico mentioned above, p. 321?

[762] In some cases very early; in the Lombard cities as early as the twelfth century. Comp. Landulfus senior, _Ricobaldus_, and (in Murat. x.) the remarkable anonymous work, _De laudibus Papiae_, of the fourteenth century. Also (in Murat. i.) _Liber de Situ urbis Mediol._ Some notices on Italian local history in O. Lorenzo, _Deutschland’s Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter seit dem 13ten Jahr_. Berlin, 1877; but the author expressly refrains from an original treatment of the subject.

[763] _Li Tresors_, ed. Chabaille, Paris, 1863, pp. 179-180. Comp. _ibid._ p. 577 (lib. iii. p. ii. c. 1).

[764] On Paris, which was a much more important place to the mediæval Italian than to his successor a hundred years later, see _Dittamondo_, iv. cap. 18. The contrast between France and Italy is accentuated by Petrarch in his _Invectivae contra Gallum_.

[765] Savonarola, in Murat. xxiv. col. 1186 (above, p. 145). On Venice, see above, p. 62 sqq. The oldest description of Rome, by Signorili (MS.), was written in the pontificate of Martin V. (1417); see Gregorovius, vii. 569; the oldest by a German is that of H. Muffel (middle of fifteenth century), ed. by Voigt, Tübingen, 1876.

[766] The character of the restless and energetic Bergamasque, full of curiosity and suspicion, is charmingly described in Bandello, parte i. nov. 34.

[767] E.g. Varchi, in the ninth book of the _Storie Fiorentine_ (vol. iii. p. 56 sqq.).

[768] Vasari, xii. p. 158. _V. di Michelangelo_, at the beginning. At other times mother nature is praised loudly enough, as in the sonnet of Alfons de’ Pazzi to the non-Tuscan Annibal Caro (in Trucchi, l. c. iii. p. 187):

‘Misero il Varchi! e più infelici noi, Se a vostri virtudi accidentali Aggiunto fosse ‘l natural, ch’è in noi!’

[769] _Forcianae Quaestiones, in quibus varia Italorum ingenia explicantur multaque alia scitu non indigna._ Autore Philalette Polytopiensi cive. Among them, _Mauritii Scaevae Carmen_.

‘Quos hominum mores varios quas denique mentes Diverso profert Itala terra solo, Quisve vinis animus, mulierum et strenua virtus Pulchre hoc exili codice lector habes.’

Neapoli excudebat Martinus de Ragusia, Anno MDXXXVI. This little work, made use of by Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 385, passes as being from the hand of Ortensio Landi (comp. Tiraboschi, vii. 800 to 812), although in the work itself no hint is given of the author. The title is explained by the circumstance that conversations are reported which were held at Forcium, a bath near Lucca, by a large company of men and women, on the question whence it comes that there are such great differences among mankind. The question receives no answer, but many of the differences among the Italians of that day are noticed--in studies, trade, warlike skill (the point quoted by Ranke), the manufacture of warlike implements, modes of life, distinctions in costume, in language, in intellect, in loving and hating, in the way of winning affection, in the manner of receiving guests, and in eating. At the close, come some reflections on the differences among philosophical systems. A large part of the work is devoted to women--their differences in general, the power of their beauty, and especially the question whether women are equal or inferior to men. The work has been made use of in various passages below. The following extract may serve as an example (fol. 7 _b_ sqq.):--‘Aperiam nunc quæ sint in consilio aut dando aut accipiendo dissimilitudo. Præstant consilio Mediolanenses, sed aliorum gratia potius quam sua. Sunt nullo consilio Genuenses. Rumor est Venetos abundare. Sunt perutili consilio Lucenses, idque aperte indicarunt, cum in tanto totius Italiæ ardore, tot hostibus circumsepti suam libertatem, ad quam nati videntur semper tutati sint, nulla, quidem, aut capitis aut fortunarum ratione habita. Quis porro non vehementer admiretur? Quis callida consilia non stupeat? Equidem quotiescunque cogito, quanta prudentia ingruentes procellas evitarint, quanta solertia impendentia pericula effugerint, adducor in stuporem. Lucanis vero summum est studium, eos deludere qui consilii captandi gratia adeunt, ipsi vero omnia inconsulte ac temere faciunt. Brutii optimo sunt consilio, sed ut incommodent, aut perniciem afferant, in rebus quæ magnæ deliberationis dictu mirum quam stupidi sint, eisdem plane dotibus instructi sunt Volsci quod ad cædes et furta paulo propensiores sint. Pisani bono quidem sunt consilio, sed parum constanti, si quis diversum ab eis senserit, mox acquiescunt, rursus si aliter suadeas, mutabunt consilium, illud in caussa fuit quod tam duram ac diutinam obsidionem ad extremum usque non pertulerint. Placentini utrisque abundant consiliis, scilicet salutaribus ac pernitiosis, non facile tamen ab iis impetres pestilens consilium, apud Regienses neque consilii copiam invenies. Si sequare Mutinensium consilia, raro cedet infeliciter, sunt enim peracutissimo consilio, et voluntate plane bona. Providi sunt Florentini (si unumquemque seorsum accipias) si vero simul conjuncti sint, non admodum mihi consilia eorum probabuntur; feliciter cedunt Senensium consilia, subita sunt Perusinorum; salutaria Ferrariensium, fideli sunt consilio Veronenses, semper ambigui sunt in consiliis aut dandis aut accipiendis Patavini. Sunt pertinaces in eo quod cœperint consilio Bergomates, respuunt omnium consilia Neapolitani, sunt consultissimi Bononienses.’

[770] _Commentario delle più notabili e mostruose cose d’Italia et altri luoghi, di Lingua Aramea in Italiana tradotta. Con un breve Catalogo degli inventori delle cose che si mangiano et beveno, novamente ritrovato._ In Venetia 1553 (first printed 1548, based on a journey taken by Ortensio Landi through Italy in 1543 and 1544). That Landi was really the author of this _Commentario_ is clear from the concluding remarks of Nicolo Morra (fol. 46 _a_): ‘Il presente commentario nato del constantissimo cervello di M. O. L.;’ and from the signature of the whole (fol. 70 _a_): SVISNETROH SVDNAL, ROTUA TSE, ‘Hortensius Landus autor est.’ After a declaration as to Italy from the mouth of a mysterious grey-haired sage, a journey is described from Sicily through Italy to the East. All the cities of Italy are more or less fully discussed: that Lucca should receive special praise is intelligible from the writer’s way of thinking. Venice, where he claims to have been much with Pietro Aretino (p. 166), and Milan are described in detail, and in connexion with the latter the maddest stories are told (fol. 25 sqq.). There is no want of such elsewhere--of roses which flower all the year round, stars which shine at midday, birds which are changed into men, and men with bulls’ heads on their shoulders, mermen, and men who spit fire from their mouths. Among all these there are often authentic bits of information, some of which will be used in the proper place; short mention is made of the Lutherans (fol. 32 _a_, 38 _a_), and frequent complaints are heard of the wretched times and unhappy state of Italy. We there read (fol. 22 _a_): ‘Son questi quelli Italiani li quali in un fatto d’armi uccisero ducento mila Francesi? sono finalmente quelli che di tutto il mondo s’impadronirono? Hai quanto (per quel che io vego) degenerati sono. Hai quanto dissimili mi paiono dalli antichi padri loro, liquali et singolar virtu di cuore e disciplina militare ugualmente monstrarno havere.’ On the catalogue of eatables which is added, see below.

[771] _Descrizione di tutta l’Italia._

[772] Satirical lists of cities are frequently met with later, e.g. Macaroneide, _Phantas._ ii. For France, Rabelais, who knew the Macaroneide, is the chief source of all the jests and malicious allusions of this local sort.

[773] It is true that many decaying literatures are full of painfully minute descriptions. See e.g. in Sidonius Apollinaris the descriptions of a Visigoth king (_Epist._ i. 2), of a personal enemy (_Epist._ iii. 13), and in his poems the types of the different German tribes.

[774] On Filippo Villani, see p. 330.

[775] _Parnasso teatrale_, Lipsia, 1829. Introd. p. vii.

[776] The reading is here evidently corrupt. The passage is as follows (_Ameto_, Venezia, 1856, p. 54): ‘Del mezo de’ quali non camuso naso in linea diretta discende, quanto ad aquilineo non essere dimanda il dovere.’

[777] ‘Due occhi ladri nel loro movimento.’ The whole work is rich in such descriptions.

[778] The charming book of songs by Giusto dei Conti, _La bella Mano_ (best ed. Florence, 1715), does not tell us as many details of this famous hand of his beloved as Boccaccio in a dozen passages of the _Ameto_ of the hands of his nymphs.

[779] ‘Della bellezza delle donne,’ in the first vol. of the _Opere di Firenzuola_, Milano, 1802. For his view of bodily beauty as a sign of beauty of soul, comp. vol. ii. pp. 48 to 52, in the ‘ragionamenti’ prefixed to his novels. Among the many who maintain this doctrine, partly in the style of the ancients, we may quote one, Castiglione, _Il Cortigiana_, l. iv. fol. 176.

[780] This was a universal opinion, not only the professional opinion of painters. See below.

[781] This may be an opportunity for a word on the eyes of Lucrezia Borgia, taken from the distichs of a Ferrarese court-poet, Ercole Strozza (_Strozzii Poetae_, fol. 85-88). The power of her glance is described in a manner only explicable in an artistic age, and which would not now be permitted. Sometimes it turns the beholder to fire, sometimes to stone. He who looks long at the sun, becomes blind; he who beheld Medusa, became a stone; but he who looks at the countenance of Lucrezia

‘Fit primo intuitu cæcus et inde lapis.’

Even the marble Cupid sleeping in her halls is said to have been petrified by her gaze:

‘Lumine Borgiado saxificatur Amor.’

Critics may dispute, if they please, whether the so-called Eros of Praxiteles or that of Michelangelo is meant, since she was the possessor of both.

And the same glance appeared to another poet, Marcello Filosseno, only mild and lofty, ‘mansueto e altero’ (Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, vii. p. 306).

Comparisons with ideal figures of antiquity occur (p. 30). Of a boy ten years old we read in the _Orlandino_ (ii. str. 47), ‘ed ha capo romano.’ Referring to the fact that the appearance of the temples can be altogether changed by the arrangement of the hair, Firenzuola makes a comical attack on the overcrowding of the hair with flowers, which causes the head to ‘look like a pot of pinks or a quarter of goat on the spit.’ He is, as a rule, thoroughly at home in caricature.

[782] For the ideal of the ‘Minnesänger,’ see Falke, _Die deutsche Trachten- und Modenwelt_, i. pp. 85 sqq.

[783] On the accuracy of his sense of form, p. 290.

[784] _Inferno_, xxi. 7; _Purgat._ xiii. 61.

[785] We must not take it too seriously, if we read (in Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 310) that he kept at his court a sort of buffoon, the Florentine Greco, ‘hominem certe cujusvis mores, naturam, linguam cum maximo omnium qui audiebant risu facile exprimentem.’

[786] _Pii. II. Comment._ viii. p. 391.

[787] Two tournaments must be distinguished, Lorenzo’s in 1468 and Guiliano’s in 1475 (a third in 1481?). See Reumont, _L. M._ i. 264 sqq. 361, 267, note 1; ii. 55, 67, and the works there quoted, which settle the old dispute on these points. The first tournament is treated in the poem of Luca Pulci, ed. _Ciriffo Calvaneo di Luca Pulci Gentilhuomo Fiorentino, con la Giostra del Magnifico Lorenzo de’ Medici_. Florence, 1572, pp. 75, 91; the second in an unfinished poem of Ang. Poliziano, best ed. Carducci, _Le Stanze, l’Orfeo e le Rime di M. A. P._ Florence, 1863. The description of Politian breaks off at the setting out of Guiliano for the tournament. Pulci gives a detailed account of the combatants and the manner of fighting. The description of Lorenzo is particularly good (p. 82).

[788] This so-called ‘Caccia’ is printed in the Commentary to Castiglione’s _Eclogue_ from a Roman MS. _Lettere del conte B. Castiglione_, ed. Pierantonio Lerassi (Padua, 1771), ii. p. 269.

[789] See the _Serventese_ of Giannozzo of Florence, in Trucchi, _Poesie italiane inedite_, ii. p. 99. The words are many of them quite unintelligible, borrowed really or apparently from the languages of the foreign mercenaries. Macchiavelli’s description of Florence during the plague of 1527 belongs, to certain extent, to this class of works. It is a series of living, speaking pictures of a frightful calamity.

[790] According to Boccaccio (_Vita di Dante_, p. 77), Dante was the author of two eclogues, probably written in Latin. They are addressed to Joh. de Virgiliis. Comp. Fraticelli, _Opp. min. di Dante_, i. 417. Petrarch’s bucolic poem in _P. Carmina minora_, ed. Bossetti, i. Comp. L. Geiger, _Petr._ 120-122 and 270, note 6, especially A. Hortis, _Scritti inediti di F. P._ Triest, 1874.

[791] Boccaccio gives in his _Ameto_ (above, p. 344) a kind of mythical Decameron, and sometimes fails ludicrously to keep up the character. One of his nymphs is a good Catholic, and prelates shoot glances of unholy love at her in Rome. Another marries. In the _Ninfale fiesolano_ the nymph Mensola, who finds herself pregnant, takes counsel of an ‘old and wise nymph.’

[792] In general the prosperity of the Italian peasants was greater then than that of the peasantry anywhere else in Europe. Comp. Sacchetti, nov. 88 and 222; L. Pulci in the _Beca da Dicamano_ (Villari, _Macchiavelli_, i. 198, note 2).

[793] ‘Nullum est hominum genus aptius urbi,’ says Battista Mantovano (_Ecl._ viii.) of the inhabitants of the Monte Baldo and the Val. Cassina, who could turn their hands to anything. Some country populations, as is well known, have even now privileges with regard to certain occupations in the great cities.

[794] Perhaps one of the strongest passages, _Orlandino_, cap. v. str. 54-58. The tranquil and unlearned Vesp. Bisticci says (_Comm. sulla vita di Giov. Manetti_, p. 96): ‘Sono due ispezie di uomini difficili a supportare per la loro ignoranza; l’una sono i servi, la seconda i contadini.’

[795] In Lombardy, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the nobles did not shrink from dancing, wrestling, leaping, and racing with the peasants. _Il Cortigiano_, l. ii. fol. 54. A. Pandolfini (L. B. Alberti) in the _Trattato del governo della famiglia_, p. 86, is an instance of a land-owner who consoles himself for the greed and fraud of his peasant tenantry with the reflection that he is thereby taught to bear and deal with his fellow-creatures.

[796] Jovian. Pontan. _De fortitudine_, lib. ii.

[797] The famous peasant-woman of the Valtellina--Bona Lombarda, wife of the Condottiere Pietro Brunoro--is known to us from Jacobus Bergomensis and from Porcellius, in Murat. xxv. col. 43.

[798] On the condition of the Italian peasantry in general, and especially of the details of that condition in several provinces, we are unable to particularise more fully. The proportions between freehold and leasehold property, and the burdens laid on each in comparison with those borne at the present time, must be gathered from special works which we have not had the opportunity of consulting. In stormy times the country people were apt to have appalling relapses into savagery (_Arch. Stor._ xvi. i. pp. 451 sqq., ad. a. 1440; Corio, fol. 259; _Annales Foroliv._ in Murat. xxii. col. 227, though nothing in the shape of a general peasants’ war occurred. The rising near Piacenza in 1462 was of some importance and interest. Comp. Corio, _Storia di Milano_, fol. 409; _Annales Placent._ in Murat. xx. col. 907; Sismondi, x. p. 138. See below, part vi. cap. 1.

[799] _F. Bapt. Mantuani Bucolica seu Adolescentia in decem Eclogas divisa_; often printed, e.g. Strasburg, 1504. The date of composition is indicated by the preface, written in 1498, from which it also appears that the ninth and tenth eclogues were added later. In the heading to the tenth are the words, ‘post religionis ingressum;’ in that of the seventh, ‘cum jam autor ad religionem aspiraret.’ The eclogues by no means deal exclusively with peasant life; in fact, only two of them do so--the sixth, ‘disceptatione rusticorum et civium,’ in which the writer sides with the rustics; and the eighth, ‘de rusticorum religione.’ The others speak of love, of the relations between poets and wealthy men, of conversion to religion, and of the manners of the Roman court.

[800] _Poesie di Lorenzo Magnifico_, i. p. 37 sqq. The remarkable poems belonging to the period of the German ‘Minnesänger,’ which bear the name of Neithard von Reuenthal, only depict peasant life in so far as the knight chooses to mix with it for his amusement. The peasants reply to the ridicule of Reuenthal in songs of their own. Comp. Karl Schroder, _Die höfische Dorfpoesie des deutschen Mittelalters_ in Rich. Gosche, _Jahrb. für Literaturgesch._ 1 vol. Berlin, 1875, pp. 45-98, esp. 75 sqq.

[801] _Poesie di Lor. Magn._ ii. 149.

[802] In the _Deliciae poetar. ital._, and in the works of Politian. First separate ed. Florence, 1493. The didactic poem of Rucellai, _Le Api_, first printed 1519, and _La coltivazione_, Paris, 1546, contain something of the same kind.

[803] _Poesie di Lor. Magnifico_, ii. 75.

[804] The imitation of different dialects and of the manners of different districts spring from the same tendency. Comp. p. 155.

[805] _Jo. Pici oratio de hominis dignitate._ The passage is as follows: ‘Statuit tandem optimus opifex ut cui dari nihil proprium poterat commune esset quidquid privatum singulis fuerat. Igitur hominem accepit indiscretae opus imaginis atque in mundi posito meditullio sic est allocutus; Nec certam sedem, nec propriam faciem, nec munus ullum peculiare tibi dedimus, O Adam, ut quam sedem, quam faciem, quae munera tute optaveris, ea pro voto pro tua sententia habeas et possideas. Definita caeteris natura inter praescriptas a nobis leges coercetur, tu nullis augustiis coercitus pro tuo arbitrio, in cujus manus te posui, tibi illam praefinies. Medium te mundi posui ut circumspiceres inde commodius quidquid est in mundo. Nec te caelestem neque terrenum, neque mortalem neque immortalem fecimus, ut tui ipsius quasi arbitrarius honorariusque plastes et fictor in quam malueris tute formam effingas. Poteris in inferiora quae sunt bruta degenerare, poteris in superiora quae sunt divina ex tui animi sententia regenerari. O summam dei patris liberalitatem, summam et admirandam hominis felicitatem. Cui datum id habere quod optat, id esse quod velit. Bruta simulatque nascuntur id secum afferunt, ut ait Lucilius, e bulga matris quod possessura sunt; supremi spiritus aut ab initio aut paulo mox id fuerunt quod sunt futuri in perpetuas aeternitates. Nascenti homini omnifaria semina et omnigenae vitæ germina indidit pater; quæ quisque excoluerit illa adolescent et fructus suos ferent in illo. Si vegetalia, planta fiet, si sensualia, obbrutescet, si rationalia, coeleste evadet animal, si intellectualia, angelus erit et dei filius, et si nulla creaturarum sorte contentus in unitatis centrum suae se receperit, unus cum deo spiritus factus in solitaria patris caligine qui est super omnia constitutus omnibus antestabit.’

The speech first appears in the _commentationes_ of Jo. Picus without any special title; the heading ‘de hominis dignitate’ was added later. It is not altogether suitable, since a great part of the discourse is devoted to the defence of the peculiar philosophy of Pico, and the praise of, the Jewish Cabbalah. On Pico, see above, p. 202 sqq.; and below; part. vi. chap. 4. More than two hundred years before, Brunetto Latini (_Tesoro_, lib. i. cap. 13, ed. Chabaille, p. 20) had said: ‘Toutes choses dou ciel en aval sont faites pour l’ome; mais li hom at faiz pour lui meisme.’ The words seemed to a contemporary to have too much human pride in them, and he added: ‘e por Dieu amer et servir et por avoir la joie pardurable.’

[806] An allusion to the fall of Lucifer and his followers.

[807] The habit among the Piedmontese nobility of living in their castles in the country struck the other Italians as exceptional. Bandello, parte ii. nov. 7 (?).

[808] This was the case long before printing. A large number of manuscripts, and among them the best, belonged to Florentine artisans. If it had not been for Savonarola’s great bonfire, many more of them would be left.

[809] Dante, _De monarchia_, l. ii. cap. 3.

[810] _Paradiso_, xvi. at the beginning.

[811] Dante, _Convito_, nearly the whole _Trattato_, iv., and elsewhere. Brunetto Latini says (_Il tesoro_, lib. i. p. ii. cap. 50, ed. Chabaille, p. 343): ‘De ce (la vertu) nasqui premierement la nobleté de gentil gent, non pas de ses ancêtres;’ and he warns men (lib. ii. p. ii. cap. 196, p. 440) that they may lose true nobility by bad actions. Similarly Petrarch, _de rem. utr. fort._ lib. i. dial. xvii.: ‘Verus nobilis non nascitur, sed fit.’

[812] _Poggi Opera, Dial. de nobilitate._ Aristotle’s view is expressly combatted by B. Platina, _De vera nobilitate_.

[813] This contempt of noble birth is common among the humanists. See the severe passages in Æn. Sylvius, _Opera_, pp. 84 (_Hist. bohem._ cap. 2) and 640. (_Stories of Lucretia and Euryalus._)

[814] This is the case in the capital itself. See Bandello, parte ii. nov. 7; _Joviani Pontani Antonius_, where the decline of energy in the nobility is dated from the coming of the Aragonese dynasty.

[815] Throughout Italy it was universal that the owner of large landed property stood on an equality with the nobles. It is only flattery when J. A. Campanus adds to the statement of Pius II. (_Commentarii_, p. 1), that as a boy he had helped his poor parents in their rustic labours, the further assertion that he only did so for his amusement, and that this was the custom of the young nobles (Voigt, ii. 339).

[816] For an estimate of the nobility in North Italy, Bandello, with his repeated rebukes of _mésalliances_, is of importance (parte i. nov. 4, 26; parte iii. nov. 60). For the participation of the nobles in the games of the peasants, see above.

[817] The severe judgment of Macchiavelli, _Discorsi_, i. 55, refers only to those of the nobility who still retained feudal rights, and who were thoroughly idle and politically mischievous. Agrippa of Nettesheim, who owes his most remarkable ideas chiefly to his life in Italy, has a chapter on the nobility and princes (_De Incert. et Vanit. Scient._ cap, 80), the bitterness of which exceeds anything to be met with elsewhere, and is due to the social ferment then prevailing in the North. A passage at p. 213 is as follows: ‘Si ... nobilitatis primordia requiramus, comperiemus hanc nefaria perfidia et crudelitate partam, si ingressum spectemus, reperiemus hanc mercenaria militia et latrociniis auctam. Nobilitas revera nihil aliud est quam robusta improbitas atque dignitas non nisi scelere quaesita benedictio et hereditas pessimorom quorumcunque filiorum.’ In giving the history of the nobility he makes a passing reference to Italy (p. 227).

[818] Massuccio, nov. 19 (ed. Settembrini, Nap. 1874, p. 220). The first ed. of the novels appeared in 1476.

[819] Jacopo Pitti to Cosimo I., _Archiv. Stor._ iv. ii. p. 99. In North Italy the Spanish rule brought about the same results. Bandello, parte ii. nov. 40, dates from this period.

[820] When, in the fifteenth century, Vespasiano Fiorentino (pp. 518, 632) implies that the rich should not try to increase their inherited fortune, but should spend their whole annual income, this can only, in the mouth of a Florentine, refer to the great landowners.

[821] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 153. Comp. nov. 82 and 150.

[822] ‘Che la cavalleria è morta.’

[823] Poggius, _De Nobilitate_, fol. 27. See above, p. 19. Ænea Silvio (_Hist. Fried. III._ ed. Kollar, p. 294) finds fault with the readiness with which Frederick conferred knighthood in Italy.

[824] Vasari, iii. 49, and note. _Vita di Dello._ The city of Florence claimed the right of conferring knighthood. On the ceremonies of this kind in 1378 and 1389, see Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 444 sqq.

[825] Senarega, _De Reb. Gen._ in Murat. xxiv. col. 525. At a wedding of Joh. Adurnus with Leonora di Sanseverino, ‘certamina equestria in Sarzano edita sunt ... proposita et data victoribus praemia. Ludi multiformes in palatio celebrati a quibus tanquam a re nova pendebat plebs et integros dies illis spectantibus impendebat.’ Politian writes to Joh. Picus of the cavalry exercise of his pupils (_Aug. Pol. Epist._ lib. xii. ep. 6): ‘Tu tamen a me solos fieri poetas aut oratores putas, at ego non minus facio bellatores.’ Ortensio Landi in the _Commentario_, fol. 180, tells of a duel between two soldiers at Correggio with a fatal result, reminding one of the old gladiatorial combats. The writer, whose imagination is generally active, gives us here the impression of truthfulness. The passages quoted show that knighthood was not absolutely necessary for these public contests.

[826] Petrarch, _Epist. Senil._ xi. 13, to Ugo of Este. Another passage in the _Epist. Famil._ lib. v. ep. 6, Dec. 1st, 1343, describes the disgust he felt at seeing a knight fall at a tournament in Naples. For legal prescriptions as to the tournament at Naples, see Fracassetti’s Italian translation of Petrarch’s letters, Florence, 1864, ii. p. 34. L. B. Alberti also points out the danger, uselessness, and expense of tournaments. _Della Famiglia, Op. Volg._ ii. 229.

[827] Nov. 64. With reference to this practice, it is said expressly in the _Orlandino_ (ii. str. 7), of a tournament under Charlemagne: ‘Here they were no cooks and scullions, but kings, dukes, and marquises, who fought.’

[828] This is one of the oldest parodies of the tournament. Sixty years passed before Jacques Cœur, the burgher-minister of finance under Charles VII., gave a tournament of donkeys in the courtyard of his palace at Bourges (about 1450). The most brilliant of all these parodies--the second canto of the _Orlandino_ just quoted--was not published till 1526.

[829] Comp. the poetry, already quoted, of Politian and Luca Pulci (p. 349, note 3). Further, Paul. Jov., _Vita Leonis X._ l. i.; Macchiavelli, _Storie Fiorent._, l. vii.; Paul. Jov. _Elog._, speaking of Pietro de’ Medici, who neglected his public duties for these amusements, and of Franc. Borbonius, who lost his life in them; Vasari, ix. 219, _Vita di Granacci_. In the _Morgante_ of Pulci, written under the eyes of Lorenzo, the knights are comical in their language and actions, but their blows are sturdy and scientific. Bojardo, too, writes for those who understand the tournament and the art of war. Comp. p. 323. In earlier Florentine history we read of a tournament in honour of the king of France, c. 1380, in Leon. Aret., _Hist. Flor._ lib. xi. ed. Argent, p. 222. The tournaments at Ferrara in 1464 are mentioned in the _Diario Ferrar._ in Murat. xxiv. col. 208; at Venice, see Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 153 sqq.; at Bologna in 1470 and after, see Bursellis, _Annal. Bonon._ Muratori xxiii. col. 898, 903, 906, 908, 911, where it is curious to note the odd mixture of sentimentalism attaching to the celebration of Roman triumphs; ‘ut antiquitas Romana renovata videretur,’ we read in one place. Frederick of Urbino (p. 44 sqq.) lost his right eye at a tournament ‘ab ictu lanceae.’ On the tournament as held at that time in northern countries, see Olivier de la Marche, _Mémoires_, _passim_, and especially cap. 8, 9, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, &c.

[830] Bald. Castiglione. _Il Cortigiano_, l. i. fol. 18.

[831] Paul. Jovii, _Elogia_, sub tit. Petrus Gravina, Alex. Achillinus, Balth. Castellio, &c. pp. 138 sqq. 112 sqq. 143 sqq.

[832] Casa, _Il Galateo_, p. 78.

[833] See on this point the Venetian books of fashions, and Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 150 sqq. The bridal dress at the betrothal--white, with the hair falling freely on the shoulders--is that of Titian’s Flora. The ‘Proveditori alle pompe’ at Venice established 1514. Extracts from their decisions in Armand Baschet, _Souvenirs d’une Mission_, Paris, 1857. Prohibition of gold-embroidered garments in Venice, 1481, which had formerly been worn even by the bakers’ wives; they were now to be decorated ‘gemmis unionibus,’ so that ‘frugalissimus ornatus’ cost 4,000 gold florins. M. Ant. Sabellici, _Epist._ lib. iii. (to M. Anto. Barbavarus).

[834] Jovian. Pontan. _De Principe_: ‘Utinam autem non eo impudentiae perventum esset, ut inter mercatorem et patricium nullum sit in vestitu ceteroque ornatu discrimen. Sed haec tanta licentia reprehendi potest, coerceri non potest, quanquam mutari vestes sic quotidie videamus, ut quas quarto ante mense in deliciis habebamus, nunc repudiemus et tanquam veteramenta abjiciamus. Quodque tolerari vix potest, nullum fere vestimenti genus probatur, quod e Galliis non fuerit adductum, in quibus levia pleraque in pretio sunt, tametsi nostri persaepe homines modum illis et quasi formulam quandam praescribant.’

[835] See e.g. the _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 297, 320, 376, sqq., in which the last German fashions are spoken of; the chronicler says, ‘Che pareno buffoni tali portatori.’

[836] This interesting passage from a very rare work may be here quoted. See above, p. 83 note 1. The historical event referred to is the conquest of Milan by Antonio Leiva, the general of Charles V., in 1522. ‘Olim splendidissime vestiebant Mediolanenses. Sed postquam Carolus Cæsar in eam urbem tetram et monstruosam Bestiam immisit, it a consumpti et exhausti sunt, ut vestimentorum splendorem omnium maxime oderint, et quemadmodum ante illa durissima Antoniana tempora nihil aliud fere cogitabant quam de mutandis vestibus, nunc alia cogitant ac in mente versant. Non potuit tamen illa Leviana rabies tantum perdere, neque illa in exhausta depraedandi libidine tantum expilare, quin a re familiari adhuc belle parati fiant atque ita vestiant quemadmodum decere existimant. Et certe nisi illa Antonii Levae studia egregios quosdam imitatores invenisset, meo quidem judicio, nulli cederent. Neapolitani nimium exercent in vestitu sumptus. Genuensium vestitum perelegantem judico neque sagati sunt neque togati. Ferme oblitus eram Venetorum. Ii togati omnes. Decet quidem ille habitus adulta aetate homines, juvenes vero (si quid ego judico) minime utuntur panno quem ipsi vulgo Venetum appellant, ita probe confecto ut perpetuo durare existimes, saepissime vero eas vestes gestant nepotes, quas olim tritavi gestarunt. Noctu autem dum scortantur ac potant, Hispanicis palliolis utuntur. Ferrarienses ac Mantuani nihil tam diligenter curant, quam ut pileos habeant aureis quibusdam frustillis adornatos, atque nutanti capite incedunt seque quovis honore dignos existimant, Lucenses neque superbo, neque abjecto vestitu. Florentinorum habitus mihi quidem ridiculus videtur. Reliquos omitto, ne nimius sim.’ Ugolinus Verinus, ‘de illustratione urbis Florentiae’ says of the simplicity of the good old time:

‘Non externis advecta Britannis Lana erat in pretio, non concha aut coccus in usu.’

[837] Comp. the passages on the same subject in Falke, _Die deutsche Trachten- und Modenwelt_, Leipzig, 1858.

[838] On the Florentine women, see the chief references in Giov. Villani, x. 10 and 150 (Regulations as to dress and their repeal); Matteo Villani, i. 4 (Extravagant living in consequence of the plague). In the celebrated edict on fashions of the year 1330, embroidered figures only were allowed on the dresses of women, to the exclusion of those which were painted (dipinto). What was the nature of these decorations appears doubtful. There is a list of the arts of the toilette practised by women in Boccaccio, _De Cas. Vir. Ill._ lib. i. cap. 18, ‘in mulieres.’

[839] Those of real hair were called ‘capelli morti.’ Wigs were also worn by men, as by Giannozzo Manetti, _Vesp. Bist. Commentario_, p. 103; so at least we explain this somewhat obscure passage. For an instance of false teeth made of ivory, and worn, though only for the sake of clear articulation, by an Italian prelate, see Anshelm, _Berner Chronik_, iv. p. 30 (1508). Ivory teeth in Boccaccio, l. c.: ‘Dentes casu sublatos reformare ebore fuscatos pigmentis gemmisque in albedinem revocare pristinam.’

[840] Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1874: Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 823. For the writers on Savonarola, see below.

[841] Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 152: ‘Capelli biondissimi per forza di sole.’ Comp. p. 89, and the rare works quoted by Yriarte, ‘_Vie d’un Patricien de Venise_’ (1874), p. 56.

[842] As was the case in Germany too. _Poesie satiriche_, p. 119. From the satire of Bern. Giambullari, ‘Per prendere moglie’ (pp. 107-126), we can form a conception of the chemistry of the toilette, which was founded largely on superstition and magic.

[843] The poets spared no pains to show the ugliness, danger, and absurdity of these practices. Comp. Ariosto, _Sat._ iii. 202 sqq.; Aretino, _Il Marescalco_, atto ii. scena 5; and several passages in the _Ragionamenti_; Giambullari, l. c. Phil. Beroald. sen. _Garmina_. Also Filelfo in his Satires (Venice, 1502, iv. 2-5 sqq.).

[844] Cennino Cennini, _Trattato della Pittura_, gives in cap. 161 a recipe for painting the face, evidently for the purpose of mysteries or masquerades, since, in cap. 162, he solemnly warns his readers against the general use of cosmetics and the like, which was peculiarly common, as he tells us (p. 146 sqq.), in Tuscany.

[845] Comp. _La Nencia di Barberino_, str. 20 and 40. The lover promises to bring his beloved cosmetics from the town (see on this poem of Lorenzo dei Medici, above, p. 101).

[846] Agnolo Pandolfini, _Trattato della Governo della Famiglia_, p. 118. He condemns this practice most energetically.

[847] Tristan. Caracciolo, in Murat. xxii. col. 87. Bandello, parte ii. nov. 47.

[848] Cap. i. to Cosimo: “Quei cento scudi nuovi e profumati che l’altro di mi mandaste a donare.” Some objects which date from that period have not yet lost their odour.

[849] Vespasiano Fiorent. p. 453, in the life of Donato Acciajuoli, and p. 625, in the life of Niccoli. See above, vol. i. p. 303 sqq.

[850] Giraldi, _Hecatommithi_, Introduz. nov. 6. A few notices on the Germans in Italy may not here be out of place. On the fear of German invasion, see p. 91, note 2; on Germans as copyists and printers, p. 193 sqq. and the notes; on the ridicule of Hadrian VI. as a German, p. 227 and notes. The Italians were in general ill-disposed to the Germans, and showed their ill-will by ridicule. Boccaccio (_Decam._ viii. 1) says: ‘Un Tedesco in soldo prò della persona è assai leale a coloro ne’ cui servigi si mattea; il che rade volte suole de’ Tedeschi avenire.’ The tale is given as an instance of German cunning. The Italian humanists are full of attacks on the German barbarians, and especially those who, like Poggio, had seen Germany. Comp. Voigt, _Wiederbelebung_, 374 sqq.; Geiger, _Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und Italien Zeit des Humanismus_ in _Zeitschrift für deutsche Culturgeschichte_, 1875, pp. 104-124; see also Janssen, _Gesch. der deutschen Volkes_, i. 262. One of the chief opponents of the Germans was Joh. Ant. Campanus. See his works, ed. Mencken, who delivered a discourse ‘De Campani odio in Germanos.’ The hatred of the Germans was strengthened by the conduct of Hadrian VI., and still more by the conduct of the troops at the sack of Rome (Gregorovius, viii. 548, note). Bandello III. nov. 30, chooses the German as the type of the dirty and foolish man (see iii. 51, for another German). When an Italian wishes to praise a German he says, as Petrus Alcyonius in the dedication to his dialogue _De Exilio_, to Nicolaus Schomberg, p. 9: ‘Itaque etsi in Misnensi clarissima Germaniæ provincia illustribus natalibus ortus es, tamen in Italiae luce cognosceris.’ Unqualified praise is rare, e.g. of German women at the time of Marius, _Cortigiano_, iii. cap. 33.

It must be added that the Italians of the Renaissance, like the Greeks of antiquity, were filled with aversion for all barbarians. Boccaccio, _De claris Mulieribus_, in the article ‘Carmenta,’ speaks of ‘German barbarism, French savagery, English craft, and Spanish coarseness.’

[851] Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, p. 289, who, however, makes no mention of the German education. Maximilian could not be induced, even by celebrated women, to change his underclothing.

[852] Æneas Sylvius (_Vitae Paparum_, ap. Murat. iii. ii. col. 880) says, in speaking of Baccano: ‘Pauca sunt mapalia, eaque hospitia faciunt Theutonici; hoc hominum genus totam fere Italiam hospitalem facit; ubi non repereris hos, neque diversorium quaeras.’

[853] Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 21. Padua, about the year 1450, boasted of a great inn--the ‘Ox’--like a palace, containing stabling for two hundred horses. Michele Savonarola, in Mur. xxiv. col. 1175. At Florence, outside the Porta San Gallo, there was one of the largest and most splendid inns then known, but which served, it seems, only as a place of amusement for the people of the city. Varchi, _Stor. Fior._ iii. p. 86. At the time of Alexander VI. the best inn at Rome was kept by a German. See the remarkable notices taken from the MS. of Burcardus in Gregorovius, vii. 361, note 2. Comp. _ibid._ p. 93, notes 2 and 3.

[854] Comp. e.g. the passages in Sebastian Brant’s _Narrenschiff_, in the Colloquies of Erasmus, in the Latin poem of Grobianus, &c., and poems on behaviour at table, where, besides descriptions of bad habits, rules are given for good behaviour. For one of these, see C. Weller, _Deutsche Gedichte der Jahrhunderts_, Tübingen, 1875.

[855] The diminution of the ‘burla’ is evident from the instances in the _Cortigiano_, l. ii. fol. 96. The Florence practical jokes kept their ground tenaciously. See, for evidence, the tales of Lasca (Ant. Franc. Grazini, b. 1503, d. 1582), which appeared at Florence in 1750.

[856] For Milan, see Bandello, parte i. nov. 9. There were more than sixty carriages with four, and numberless others with two, horses, many of them carved and richly gilt and with silken tops. Comp. _ibid._ nov. 4. Ariosto, _Sat._ iii. 127.

[857] Bandello, parte i. nov. 3, iii. 42, iv. 25.

[858] _De Vulgari Eloquio_, ed. Corbinelli, Parisiis, 1577. According to Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 77, it was written shortly before his death. He mentions in the _Convito_ the rapid and striking changes which took place during his lifetime in the Italian language.

[859] See on this subject the investigations of Lionardo Aretino (_Epist._ ed. Mehus. ii. 62 sqq. lib. vi. 10) and Poggio (_Historiae disceptativae convivales tres_, in the _Opp._ fol. 14 sqq.), whether in earlier times the language of the people and of scholars was the same. Lionardo maintains the negative; Poggio expressly maintains the affirmative against his predecessor. See also the detailed argument of L. B. Alberti in the introduction to _Della Famiglia_, book iii., on the necessity of Italian for social intercourse.

[860] The gradual progress which this dialect made in literature and social intercourse could be tabulated without difficulty by a native scholar. It could be shown to what extent in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the various dialects kept their places, wholly or partly, in correspondence, in official documents, in historical works, and in literature generally. The relations between the dialects and a more or less impure Latin, which served as the official language, would also be discussed. The modes of speech and pronunciation in the different cities of Italy are noticed in Landi, _Forcianae Quaestiones_, fol. 7 _a._ Of the former he says: ‘Hetrusci vero quanquam caeteris excellant, effugere tamen non possunt, quin et ipsi ridiculi sint, aut saltem quin se mutuo lacerent;’ as regards pronunciation, the Sienese, Lucchese, and Florentines are specially praised; but of the Florentines it is said: ‘Plus (jucunditatis) haberet si voces non ingurgitaret aut non ita palato lingua jungeretur.’

[861] It is so felt to be by Dante, _De Vulgari Eloquio_.

[862] Tuscan, it is true, was read and written long before this in Piedmont--but very little reading and writing was done at all.

[863] The place, too, of the dialect in the usage of daily life was clearly understood. Gioviano Pontano ventured especially to warn the prince of Naples against the use of it (Jov. Pontan. _De Principe_). The last Bourbons were notoriously less scrupulous in this respect. For the way in which a Milanese Cardinal, who wished to retain his native dialect in Rome was ridiculed, see Bandello, parte ii. nov. 31.

[864] Bald. Castiglione, _Il Cortigiano_, l. i. fol. 27 sqq. Throughout the dialogue we are able to gather the personal opinion of the writer. The opposition to Petrarch and Boccaccio is very curious (Dante is not once mentioned). We read that Politian, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and others were also Tuscans, and as worthy of imitation as they, ‘e forse di non minor dottrina e guidizio.’

[865] There was a limit, however, to this. The satirists introduce bits of Spanish, and Folengo (under the pseudonym Limerno Pitocco, in his _Orlandino_) of French, but only by way of ridicule. It is an exceptional fact that a street in Milan, which at the time of the French (1500 to 1512, 1515 to 1522) was called Rue Belle, now bears the name Rugabella. The long Spanish rule has left almost no traces on the language, and but rarely the name of some governor in streets and public buildings. It was not till the eighteenth century that, together with French modes of thought, many French words and phrases found their way into Italian. The purism of our century is still busy in removing them.

[866] Firenzuola, _Opera_, i. in the preface to the discourse on female beauty, and ii. in the _Ragionamenti_ which precede the novels.

[867] Bandello, parte i. _Proemio_, and nov. 1 and 2. Another Lombard, the before-mentioned Teofilo Folengo in his _Orlandino_, treats the whole matter with ridicule.

[868] Such a congress appears to have been held at Bologna at the end of 1531 under the presidency of Bembo. See the letter of Claud. Tolomai, in Firenzuola, _Opere_, vol. ii. append. p. 231 sqq. But this was not so much a matter of purism, but rather the old quarrel between Lombards and Tuscans.

[869] Luigi Cornaro complains about 1550 (at the beginning of his _Trattato della Vita Sobria_) that latterly Spanish ceremonies and compliments, Lutheranism and gluttony had been gaining ground in Italy. With moderation in respect to the entertainment offered to guests, the freedom and ease of social intercourse disappeared.

[870] Vasari, xii. p. 9 and 11, _Vita di Rustici_. For the School for Scandal of needy artists, see xi. 216 sqq., _Vita d’Aristotile_. Macchiavelli’s _Capitoli_ for a circle of pleasure-seekers (_Opere minori_, p. 407) are a ludicrous caricature of these social statutes. The well-known description of the evening meeting of artists in Rome in Benvenuto Cellini, i. cap. 30 is incomparable.

[871] Which must have been taken about 10 or 11 o’clock. See Bandello, parte ii. nov. 10.

[872] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 309, calls the ladies ‘alquante ministre di Venere.’

[873] Biographical information and some of her letters in A. v. Reumont’s _Briefe heiliger und gottesfürchtiger Italiener_. Freiburg (1877) p. 22 sqq.

[874] Important passages: parte i. nov. 1, 3, 21, 30, 44; ii. 10, 34, 55; iii. 17, &c.

[875] Comp. _Lorenzo Magn. dei Med., Poesie_, i. 204 (the Symposium); 291 (the Hawking-Party). Roscoe, _Vita di Lorenzo_, iii. p. 140, and append. 17 to 19.

[876] The title ‘Simposio’ is inaccurate; it should be called, ‘The return from the Vintage.’ Lorenzo, in a parody of Dante’s Hell, gives an amusing account of his meeting in the Via Faenza all his good friends coming back from the country more or less tipsy. There is a most comical picture in the eighth chapter of Piovanno Arlotto, who sets out in search of his lost thirst, armed with dry meat, a herring, a piece of cheese, a sausage, and four sardines, ‘e tutte si cocevan nel sudore.’

[877] On Cosimo Ruccellai as centre of this circle at the beginning of the sixteenth century, see Macchiavelli, _Arte della Guerra_, l. i.

[878] _Il Cortigiano_, l. ii. fol. 53. See above pp. 121, 139.

[879] Caelius Calcagninus (_Opere_, p. 514) describes the education of a young Italian of position about the year 1506, in the funeral speech on Antonio Costabili: first, ‘artes liberales et ingenuae disciplinae; tum adolescentia in iis exercitationibus acta, quæ ad rem militarem corpus et animum praemuniunt. Nunc gymnastae (i.e. the teachers of gymnastics) operam dare, luctari, excurrere, natare, equitare, venari, aucupari, ad palum et apud lanistam ictus inferre aut declinare, caesim punctimve hostem ferire, hastam vibrare, sub armis hyemen juxta et aestatem traducere, lanceis occursare, veri ac communis Martis simulacra imitari.’ Cardanus (_De prop. Vita_, c. 7) names among his gymnastic exercises the springing on to a wooden horse. Comp. Rabelais, _Gargantua_, i. 23, 24, for education in general, and 35 for gymnastic art. Even for the philologists, Marsilius Ficinus (_Epist._ iv. 171 Galeotto) requires gymnastics, and Maffeo Vegio (_De Puerorum Educatione_, lib. iii. c. 5) for boys.

[880] Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 172 sqq. They are said to have arisen through the rowing out to the Lido, where the practice with the crossbow took place. The great regatta on the feast of St. Paul was prescribed by law from 1315 onwards. In early times there was much riding in Venice, before the streets were paved and the level wooden bridges turned into arched stone ones. Petrarch (_Epist. Seniles_, iv. 4) describes a brilliant tournament held in 1364 on the square of St. Mark, and the Doge Steno, about the year 1400, had as fine a stable as any prince in Italy. But riding in the neighbourhood of the square was prohibited as a rule after the year 1291. At a later time the Venetians naturally had the name of bad riders. See Ariosto, _Sat._ v. 208.

[881] See on this subject: _Ueber den Einfluss der Renaissance auf die Entwickelung der Musik_, by Bernhard Loos, Basel, 1875, which, however, hardly offers for this period more than is given here. On Dante’s position with regard to music, and on the music to Petrarch’s and Boccaccio’s poems, see Trucchi, _Poesie Ital. inedite_, ii. p. 139. See also _Poesie Musicali dei Secoli XIV., XV. e XVI. tratte da vari codici per cura di Antonio Cappelli_, Bologna, 1868. For the theorists of the fourteenth century, Filippo Villani, _Vite_, p. 46, and Scardeonius, _De urb. Pativ. antiq._ in Graev. Thesaur, vi. iii. col. 297. A full account of the music at the court of Frederick of Urbino, is to be found in _Vespes. Fior._ p. 122. For the children’s chapel (ten children 6 to 8 years old whom F. had educated in his house, and who were taught singing), at the court of Hercules I., see _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 359. Out of Italy it was still hardly allowable for persons of consequence to be musicians; at the Flemish court of the young Charles V. a serious dispute took place on the subject. See Hubert. Leod. _De Vita Frid. II. Palat._ l. iii. Henry VIII. of England is an exception, and also the German Emperor Maximilian, who favoured music as well as all other arts. Joh. Cuspinian, in his life of the Emperor, calls him ‘Musices singularis amator’ and adds, ‘Quod vel hinc maxime patet, quod nostra aetate musicorum principes omnes, in omni genere musices omnibusque instrumentis in ejus curia, veluti in fertilissimo agro succreverant. Scriberem catalogum musicorum quos novi, nisi magnitudinem operis vererer.’ In consequence of this, music was much cultivated at the University of Vienna. The presence of the musical young Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan contributed to this result. See Aschbach, _Gesch. der Wiener Universität_ (1877), vol. ii. 79 sqq.

A remarkable and comprehensive passage on music is to be found, where we should not expect it, in the Maccaroneide, Phant. xx. It is a comic description of a quartette, from which we see that Spanish and French songs were often sung, that music already had its enemies (1520), and that the chapel of Leo X. and the still earlier composer, Josquin des Près, whose principal works are mentioned, were the chief subjects of enthusiasm in the musical world of that time. The same writer (Folengo) displays in his _Orlandino_ (iii. 23 &c.), published under the name Limerno Pitocco, a musical fanaticism of a thoroughly modern sort.

Barth. Facius, _De Vir. Ill._ p. 12, praises Leonardus Justinianus as a composer, who produced love-songs in his youth, and religious pieces in his old age. J. A. Campanus (_Epist._ i. 4, ed. Mencken) extols the musician Zacarus at Teramo and says of him, ‘Inventa pro oraculis habentur.’ Thomas of Forli ‘musicien du pape’ in _Burchardi Diarium_, ed. Leibnitz, pp. 62 sqq.

[882] _Leonis Vita anonyma_, in Roscoe, ed. Bossi, xii. p. 171. May he not be the violinist in the Palazzo Sciarra? A certain Giovan Maria da Corneto is praised in the _Orlandino_ (Milan, 1584, iii. 27).

[883] Lomazzo, _Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura_, &c. p. 347. The text, however, does not bear out the last statement, which perhaps rests on a misunderstanding of the final sentence, ‘Et insieme vi si possono gratiosamente rappresentar convitti et simili abbellimenti, che il pittore leggendo i poeti e gli historici può trovare copiosamente et anco essendo ingenioso et ricco d’invenzione può per se stesso imaginare?’ Speaking of the lyre, he mentions Lionardo da Vinci and Alfonso (Duke?) of Ferrara. The author includes in his work all the celebrities of the age, among them several Jews. The most complete list of the famous musicians of the sixteenth century, divided into an earlier and a later generation, is to be found in Rabelais, in the ‘New Prologue’ to the fourth book. A virtuoso, the blind Francesco of Florence (d. 1390), was crowned at Venice with a wreath of laurel by the King of Cyprus.

[884] Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 138. The same people naturally collected books of music. Sansovino’s words are, ‘è vera cosa che la musica ha la sua propria sede in questa città.’

[885] The ‘Academia de’ Filarmonici’ at Verona is mentioned by Vasari, xi. 133, in the life of Sanmichele. Lorenzo Magnifico was in 1480 already the centre of a School of Harmony consisting of fifteen members, among them the famous organist and organ-builder Squarcialupi. See Delecluze, _Florence et ses Vicissitudes_, vol. ii. p. 256, and Reumont, _L. d. M._ i. 177 sqq., ii. 471-473. Marsilio Ficino took part in these exercises and gives in his letters (_Epist._ i. 73, iii. 52, v. 15) remarkable rules as to music. Lorenzo seems to have transmitted his passion for music to his son Leo X. His eldest son Pietro was also musical.

[886] _Il Cortigiano_, fol. 56, comp. fol. 41.

[887] Quatro viole da arco’--a high and, except in Italy, rare achievement for amateurs.

[888] Bandello, parte i. nov. 26. The song of Antonio Bologna in the House of Ippolita Bentivoglio. Comp. iii. 26. In these delicate days, this would be called a profanation of the holiest feelings. (Comp. the last song of Britannicus, Tacit. _Annal._ xiii. 15.) Recitations accompanied by the lute or ‘viola’ are not easy to distinguish, in the accounts left us, from singing properly so-called.

[889] Scardeonius, l. c.

[890] For biographies of women, see above, p. 147 and note 1. Comp. the excellent work of Attilio Hortis: _Le Donne Famose, descritte da Giovanni Boccacci_. Trieste, 1877.

[891] E.g. in Castiglione, _Il Cortigiano_. In the same strain Francesco Barbaro, _De Re Uxoria_; Poggio, _An Seni sit Uxor ducenda_, in which much evil is said of women; the ridicule of Codro Urceo, especially his remarkable discourse, _An Uxor sit ducenda_ (_Opera_, 1506, fol. xviii.-xxi.), and the sarcasms of many of the epigrammatists. Marcellus Palingenius, (vol. i. 304) recommends celibacy in various passages, lib. iv. 275 sqq., v. 466-585; as a means of subduing disobedient wives he recommends to married people,

‘Tu verbera misce Tergaque nunc duro resonent pulsata bacillo.’

Italian writers on the woman’s side are Benedetto da Cesena, _De Honore Mulierum_, Venice, 1500, Dardano, _La defesa della Donna_, Ven. 1554, _Per Donne Romane_. ed. Manfredi, Bol. 1575. The defence of, or attack on, women, supported by instances of famous or infamous women down to the time of the writer, was also treated by the Jews, partly in Italian and partly in Hebrew; and in connection with an earlier Jewish literature dating from the thirteenth century, we may mention Abr. Sarteano and Eliah Gennazzano, the latter of whom defended the former against the attacks of Abigdor (for their MS. poems about year 1500, comp. Steinschneider, _Hebr. Bibliogr._ vi. 48).

[892] Addressed to Annibale Maleguccio, sometimes numbered as the 5th or the 6th.

[893] When the Hungarian Queen Beatrice, a Neapolitan princess, came to Vienna in 1485, she was addressed in Latin, and ‘arrexit diligentissime aures domina regina saepe, cum placide audierat, subridendo.’ Aschbach, o. c. vol. ii. 10 note.

[894] The share taken by women in the plastic arts was insignificant. The learned Isotta Nogarola deserves a word of mention. On her intercourse with Guarino, see Rosmini, ii. 67 sqq.; with Pius II. see Voigt, iii. 515 sqq.

[895] It is from this point of view that we must judge of the life of Allessandra de’ Bardi in Vespasiano Fiorentino (Mai, _Spicileg._ rom. i. p. 593 sqq.) The author, by the way, is a great ‘laudator temporis acti,’ and it must not be forgotten that nearly a hundred years before what he calls the good old time, Boccaccio wrote the _Decameron_. On the culture and education of the Italian women of that day, comp. the numerous facts quoted in Gregorovius, _Lucrezia Borgia_. There is a catalogue of the books possessed by Lucrezia in 1502 and 3 (Gregorovius, ed. 3, i. 310, ii. 167), which may be considered characteristic of the Italian women of the period. We there find a Breviary; a little book with the seven psalms and some prayers; a parchment book with gold miniature, called _De Coppelle alla Spagnola_; the printed letters of Catherine of Siena; the printed epistles and gospels in Italian; a religious book in Spanish; a MS. collection of Spanish odes, with the proverbs of Domenico Lopez; a printed book, called _Aquila Volante_; the _Mirror of Faith_ printed in Italian; an Italian printed book called _The Supplement of Chronicles_; a printed Dante, with commentary; an Italian book on philosophy; the legends of the saints in Italian; an old book _De Ventura_; a Donatus; a Life of Christ in Spanish; a MS. Petrarch, on duodecimo parchment. A second catalogue of the year 1516 contains no secular books whatever.

[896] Ant. Galateo, _Epist. 3_, to the young Bona Sforza, the future wife of Sigismund of Poland: ‘Incipe aliquid de viro sapere, quoniam ad imperandum viris nata es.... Ita fac, ut sapientibus viris placeas, ut te prudentes et graves viri admirentur, et vulgi et muliercularum studia et judicia despicias,’ &c. A remarkable letter in other respects also (Mai. _Spicileg. Rom._ viii. p. 532).

[897] She is so called in the _Chron. Venetum_, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 121 sqq. (in the account of her heroic defence, _ibid._ col. 121 she is called a virago). Comp. Infessura in Eccard, _Scriptt._ ii. col. 1981, and _Arch. Stor._ append. ii. p. 250, and Gregorovius, vii. 437 note 1.

[898] Contemporary historians speak of her more than womanly intellect and eloquence. Comp. Ranke’s _Filippo Strozzi_, in _Historisch-biographische Studien_, p. 371 note 2.

[899] And rightly so, sometimes. How ladies should behave while such tales are telling, we learn from _Cortigiano_, l. iii. fol. 107. That the ladies who were present at his dialogues must have known how to conduct themselves in case of need, is shown by the strong passage, l. ii. fol. 100. What is said of the ‘Donna di Palazzo’--the counterpart of the Cortigiano--that she should neither avoid frivolous company nor use unbecoming language, is not decisive, since she was far more the servant of the princess than the Cortigiano of the prince. See Bandello, i. nov. 44. Bianca d’Este tells the terrible love-story of her ancestor, Niccolò of Ferrara, and Parisina. The tales put into the mouths of the women in the _Decameron_ may also serve as instances of this indelicacy. For Bandello, see above, p. 145; and Landau, _Beitr. z. Gesch. der Ital. Nov._ Vienna, 1875, p. 102. note 32.

[900] Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 152 sqq. How highly the travelled Italians valued the freer intercourse with girls in England and the Netherlands is shown by Bandello, ii. nov. 44, and iv. nov. 27. For the Venetian women and the Italian women generally, see the work of Yriarte, pp. 50 sqq.

[901] Paul. Jov. _De Rom. Piscibus_, cap. 5; Bandello, parte iii. nov. 42. Aretino, in the _Ragionamento del Zoppino_, p. 327, says of a courtesan: ‘She knows by heart all Petrarch and Boccaccio, and many beautiful verses of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and a thousand other authors.’

[902] Bandello, ii. 51, iv. 16.

[903] Bandello, iv. 8.

[904] For a characteristic instance of this, see Giraldi, _Hecatomithi_, vi nov. 7.

[905] Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1997. The public women only, not the kept women, are meant. The number, compared with the population of Rome, is certainly enormous, perhaps owing to some clerical error. According to Giraldi, vi. 7, Venice was exceptionally rich ‘di quella sorte di donne che cortigiane son dette;’ see also the epigram of Pasquinus (Gregor. viii. 279, note 2); but Rome did not stand behind Venice (Giraldi, _Introduz._ nov. 2). Comp. the notice of the ‘meretrices’ in Rome (1480) who met in a church and were robbed of their jewels and ornaments, Murat. xxii. 342 sqq., and the account in _Burchardi, Diarium_, ed. Leibnitz, pp. 75-77, &c. Landi (_Commentario_, fol. 76) mentions Rome, Naples, and Venice as the chief seats of the ‘cortigiane;’ _ibid._ 286, the fame of the women of Chiavenna is to be understood ironically. The _Quaestiones Forcianae_, fol. 9, of the same author give most interesting information on love and love’s delights, and the style and position of women in the different cities of Italy. On the other hand, Egnatius (_De Exemp. III. Vir._ Ven. fol. 212 _b_ sqq.) praises the chastity of the Venetian women, and says that the prostitutes come every year from Germany. Corn. Agr. _de van. Scientiae_, cap. 63 (_Opp._ ed. Lugd. ii. 158) says: ‘Vidi ego nuper atque legi sub titulo “Cortosanæ” Italica lingua editum et Venetiis typis excusum de arte meretricia dialogum, utriusque Veneris omnium flagitiosissimum et dignissimum, qui ipse cum autore suo ardeat.’ Ambr. Traversari (_Epist._ viii. 2 sqq.) calls the beloved of Niccolò Niccoli ‘foemina fidelissima.’ In the _Lettere dei Principi_, i. 108 (report of Negro, Sept. 1, 1522) the ‘donne Greche’ are described as ‘fonte di ogni cortesia et amorevolezza.’ A great authority, esp. for Siena, is the _Hermaphroditus_ of Panormitanus. The enumeration of the ‘lenae lupaeque’ in Florence (ii. 37) is hardly fictitious; the line there occurs:

‘Annaque _Theutonico_ tibi si dabit obvia cantu.’

[906] Were these wandering knights really married?

[907] _Trattato del Governo della Famiglia._ See above, p. 132, note 1. Pandolfini died in 1446, L. B. Alberti, by whom the work was really written, in 1472.

[908] A thorough history of ‘flogging’ among the Germanic and Latin races treated with some psychological power, would be worth volumes of dispatches and negotiations. (A modest beginning has been made by Lichtenberg, _Vermischte Schriften_, v. 276-283.) When, and through what influence, did flogging become a daily practice in the German household? Not till after Walther sang: ‘Nieman kan mit gerten kindes zuht beherten.’

In Italy beating ceased early; Maffeo Vegio (d. 1458) recommends (_De Educ. Liber._ lib. i. c. 19) moderation in flogging, but adds: ‘Caedendos magis esse filios quam pestilentissmis blanditiis laetandos.’ At a later time a child of seven was no longer beaten. The little Roland (_Orlandino_, cap. vii. str. 42) lays down the principle:

‘Sol gli asini si ponno bastonare, Se una tal bestia fussi, patirei.’

The German humanists of the Renaissance, like Rudolf Agricola and Erasmus, speak decisively against flogging, which the elder schoolmasters regarded as an indispensable means of education. In the biographies of the _Fahrenden Schüler_ at the close of the fifteenth century (_Platter’s Lebensbeschriebung_, ed. Fechter, Basel, 1840; _Butzbach’s Wanderbuch_, ed. Becher, Regensburg, 1869) there are gross examples of the corporal punishment of the time.

[909] But the taste was not universal. J. A. Campanus (_Epist._ iv. 4) writes vigorously against country life. He admits: ‘Ego si rusticus natus non essem, facile tangerer voluptate;’ but since he was born a peasant, ‘quod tibi deliciae, mihi satietas est.’

[910] Giovanni Villani, xi. 93, our principal authority for the building of villas before the middle of the fourteenth century. The villas were more beautiful than the town houses, and great exertions were made by the Florentines to have them so, ‘onde erano tenuti matti.’

[911] _Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_ (Torino, 1829), pp. 84, 88.

[912] See above, part iv. chap. 2. Petrarch was called ‘Silvanus,’ on the ground of his dislike of the town and love of the country. _Epp. Fam._ ed. Fracass. ii. 87 sqq. Guarino’s description of a villa to Gianbattista Candrata, in Rosmini, ii. 13 sqq., 157 sqq. Poggio, in a letter to Facius (_De Vir. Ill._ p. 106): ‘Sum enim deditior senectutis gratia rei rusticæ quam antea.’ See also Poggio, _Opp._ (1513), p 112 sqq.; and Shepherd-Tonelli, i. 255 and 261. Similarly Maffeo Vegio (_De Lib. Educ._ vi. 4), and B. Platina at the beginning of his dialogue, ‘De Vera Nobilitate.’ Politian’s descriptions of the country-houses of the Medici in Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 73, 87. For the Farnesina, see Gregorovius, viii. 114.

[913] Comp. J. Burckhardt, _Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien_ (Stuttg. 1868), pp. 320-332.

[914] Compare pp. 47 sqq., where the magnificence of the festivals is shown to have been a hindrance to the higher development of the drama.

[915] In comparison with the cities of the North.

[916] The procession at the feast of Corpus Christi was not established at Venice until 1407; Cecchetti, _Venezia e la Corte di Roma_, i. 108.

[917] The festivities which took place when Visconti was made Duke of Milan, 1395 (Corio, fol. 274), had, with all their splendour, something of mediæval coarseness about them, and the dramatic element was wholly wanting. Notice, too, the relative insignificance of the processions in Pavia during the fourteenth century (_Anonymus de Laudibus Papiae_, in Murat. xi. col. 34 sqq.).

[918] Gio. Villani, viii. 70.

[919] See e.g. Infessura, in Eccard, _Scrippt._ ii. col. 1896; Corio, fols. 417, 421.

[920] The dialogue in the Mysteries was chiefly in octaves, the monologue in ‘terzine.’ For the Mysteries, see J. L. Klein, _Geschichte der Ital. Dramas_, i. 153 sqq.

[921] We have no need to refer to the realism of the schoolmen for proof of this. About the year 970 Bishop Wibold of Cambray recommended to his clergy, instead of dice, a sort of spiritual bézique, with fifty-six abstract names represented by as many combinations of cards. ‘Gesta Episcopori Cameracens.’ in _Mon. Germ._ SS. vii. p. 433.

[922] E.g. when he found pictures on metaphors. At the gate of Purgatory the central broken step signifies contrition of heart (_Purg._ ix. 97), though the slab through being broken loses its value as a step. And again (_Purg._ xviii. 94), the idle in this world have to show their penitence by running in the other, though running could be a symbol of flight.

[923] _Inferno_, ix. 61; _Purgat._ viii. 19.

[924] _Poesie Satiriche_, ed. Milan, p. 70 sqq. Dating from the end of the fourteenth century.

[925] The latter e.g. in the _Venatio_ of the Cardinal Adriano da Corneto (Strasburg, 1512; often printed). Ascanio Sforza is there supposed to find consolation for the fall of his house in the pleasures of the chase. See above, p. 261.

[926] More properly 1454. See Olivier de la Marche, _Mémoires_, chap. 29.

[927] For other French festivals, see e.g. Juvénal des Ursins (Paris, 1614), ad. a. 1389 (entrance of Queen Isabella); John de Troyes, ad. a. 1461) (often printed) (entrance of Louis XI.). Here, too, we meet with living statues, machines for raising bodies, and so forth; but the whole is confused and disconnected, and the allegories are mostly unintelligible. The festivals at Lisbon in 1452, held at the departure of the Infanta Eleonora, the bride of the Emperor Frederick III., lasted several days and were remarkable for their magnificence. See Freher-Struve, _Rer. German. Script._ ii. fol. 51--the report of Nic. Lauckmann.

[928] A great advantage for those poets and artists who knew how to use it.

[929] Comp. Bartol. Gambia, _Notizie intorno alle Opere di Feo Belcari_, Milano, 1808; and especially the introduction to the work, _Le Rappresentazioni di Feo Belcari ed altre di lui Poesie_, Firenze, 1833. As a parallel, see the introduction of the bibliophile Jacob to his edition of Pathelin (Paris, 1859).

[930] It is true that a Mystery at Siena on the subject of the Massacre of the Innocents closed with a scene in which the disconsolate mothers seized one another by the hair. Della Valle, _Lettere Sanesi_, iii. p. 53. It was one of the chief aims of Feo Belcari (d. 1484), of whom we have spoken, to free the Mysteries from these monstrosities.

[931] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 72.

[932] Vasari, iii. 232 sqq.: _Vita di Brunellesco_; v. 36 sqq.: _Vita del Cecca_. Comp. v. 32, _Vita di Don Bartolommeo_.

[933] _Arch. Stor._ append. ii. p. 310. The Mystery of the Annunciation at Ferrara, on the occasion of the wedding of Alfonso, with fireworks and flying apparatus. For an account of the representation of Susanna, John the Baptist, and of a legend, at the house of the Cardinal Riario, see Corio, fol. 417. For the Mystery of Constantine the Great in the Papal Palace at the Carnival, 1484, see Jac. Volaterran. (Murat. xxiii. col. 194). The chief actor was a Genoese born and educated at Constantinople.

[934] Graziani, _Cronaca di Perugia, Arch. Stor._ xvi. 1. p. 598. At the Crucifixion, a figure was kept ready and put in the place of the actor.

[935] For this, see Graziani, l. c. and _Pii II. Comment._ l. viii. pp. 383, 386. The poetry of the fifteenth century sometimes shows the same coarseness. A ‘canzone’ of Andrea da Basso traces in detail the corruption of the corpse of a hard-hearted fair one. In a monkish drama of the twelfth century King Herod was put on the stage with the worms eating him (_Carmina Burana_, pp. 80 sqq.). Many of the German dramas of the seventeenth century offer parallel instances.

[936] Allegretto, _Diarii Sanesi_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 767.

[937] Matarazzo, _Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. p. 36. The monk had previously undertaken a voyage to Rome to make the necessary studies for the festival.

[938] Extracts from the ‘Vergier d’honneur,’ in Roscoe, _Leone X._, ed. Bossi, i. p. 220, and iii. p. 263.

[939] _Pii II. Comment._ l. viii. pp. 382 sqq. Another gorgeous celebration of the ‘Corpus Domini’ is mentioned by Bursellis, _Annal. Bonon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 911, for the year 1492. The representations were from the Old and New Testaments.

[940] On such occasions we read, ‘Nulla di muro si potea vedere.’

[941] The same is true of many such descriptions.

[942] Five kings with an armed retinue, and a savage who fought with a (tamed?) lion; the latter, perhaps, with an allusion to the name of the Pope--Sylvius.

[943] Instances under Sixtus IV., Jac. Volaterr. in Murat. xxiii. col. 135 (bombardorum et sclopulorum crepitus), 139. At the accession of Alexander VI. there were great salvos of artillery. Fireworks, a beautiful invention due to Italy, belong, like festive decorations generally, rather to the history of art than to our present work. So, too, the brilliant illuminations we read of in connexion with many festivals, and the hunting-trophies and table-ornaments. (See p. 319. The elevation of Julius II. to the Papal throne was celebrated at Venice by three days’ illumination. Brosch, _Julius II._ p. 325, note 17.)

[944] Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 772. See, besides, col. 770, for the reception of Pius II. in 1459. A paradise, or choir of angels, was represented, out of which came an angel and sang to the Pope, ‘in modo che il Papa si commosse a lagrime per gran tenerezza da si dolci parole.’

[945] See the authorities quoted in Favre, _Mélanges d’Hist. Lit._ i. 138; Corio, fol. 417 sqq. The _menu_ fills almost two closely printed pages. ‘Among other dishes a mountain was brought in, out of which stepped a living man, with signs of astonishment to find himself amid this festive splendour; he repeated some verses and then disappeared’ (Gregorovius, vii. 241). Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptt._ ii. col. 1896; _Strozzii Poetae_, fol. 193 sqq. A word or two may here be added on eating and drinking. Leon. Aretino (_Epist._ lib. iii. ep. 18) complains that he had to spend so much for his wedding feast, garments, and so forth, that on the same day he had concluded a ‘matrimonium’ and squandered a ‘patrimonium.’ Ermolao Barbaro describes, in a letter to Pietro Cara, the bill of fare at a wedding-feast at Trivulzio’s (_Angeli Politiani Epist._ lib. iii.). The list of meats and drinks in the Appendix to Landi’s _Commentario_ (above) is of special interest. Landi speaks of the great trouble he had taken over it, collecting it from five hundred writers. The passage is too long to be quoted (we there read: ‘Li antropofagi furono i primi che mangiassero carne humana’). Poggio (_Opera_, 1513, fol. 14 sqq.) discusses the question’: ‘Uter alteri gratias debeat pro convivio impenso, isne qui vocatus est ad convivium an qui vocavit?’ Platina wrote a treatise ‘De Arte Coquinaria,’ said to have been printed several times, and quoted under various titles, but which, according to his own account (_Dissert. Vossiane_, i. 253 sqq.), contains more warnings against excess than instructions on the art in question.

[946] Vasari, ix. p. 37, _Vita di Puntormo_, tells how a child, during such a festival at Florence in the year 1513, died from the effects of the exertion--or shall we say, of the gilding? The poor boy had to represent the ‘golden age’!

[947] Phil. Beroaldi, _Nuptiae Bentivolorum_, in the _Orationes Ph. B._ Paris, 1492, c. 3 sqq. The description of the other festivities at this wedding is very remarkable.

[948] M. Anton. Sabellici, _Epist._ l. iii. fol. 17.

[949] Amoretti, _Memorie, &c. su. Lionardo da Vinci_, pp. 38 sqq.

[950] To what extent astrology influenced even the festivals of this century is shown by the introduction of the planets (not described with sufficient clearness) at the reception of the ducal brides at Ferrara. _Diario Ferrarese_, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 248, ad. a. 1473; col. 282, ad. a. 1491. So, too, at Mantua, _Arch. Stor._ append. ii. p. 233.

[951] _Annal. Estens._ in Murat. xx. col. 468 sqq. The description is unclear and printed from an incorrect transcript.

[952] We read that the ropes of the machine used for this purpose were made to imitate garlands.

[953] Strictly the ship of Isis, which entered the water on the 5th of March, as a symbol that navigation was reopened. For analogies in the German religion, see Jac. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_.

[954] _Purgatorio_, xxix. 43 to the end, and xxx. at the beginning. According to v. 115, the chariot is more splendid than the triumphal chariot of Scipio, of Augustus, and even of the Sun-God.

[955] Ranke, _Gesch. der Roman. und German. Völker_, ed. 2, p. 95. P. Villari, _Savonarola_.

[956] Fazio degli Uberti, _Dittamondo_ (lib. ii. cap. 3), treats specially ‘del modo del triumphare.’

[957] Corio, fol. 401: ‘dicendo tali cose essere superstitioni de’ Re.’ Comp. Cagnola, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 127, who says that the duke declined from modesty.

[958] See above, vol. i. p. 315 sqq.; comp. i. p. 15, note 1. ‘Triumphus Alfonsi,’ as appendix to the _Dicta et Facta_ of Panormita, ed. 1538, pp. 129-139, 256 sqq. A dislike to excessive display on such occasions was shown by the gallant Comneni. Comp. Cinnamus, i. 5, vi. 1.

[959] The position assigned to Fortune is characteristic of the naïveté of the Renaissance. At the entrance of Massimiliano Sforza into Milan (1512), she stood as the chief figure of a triumphal arch _above_ Fama, Speranza, Audacia, and Penitenza, all represented by living persons. Comp. Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 305.

[960] The entrance of Borso of Este into Reggio, described above (p. 417), shows the impression which Alfonso’s triumph had made in all Italy,. On the entrance of Cæsar Borgia into Rome in 1500, see Gregorovius, vii. 439.

[961] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. 260 sqq. The author says expressly, ‘le quali cose da li triumfanti Romani se soliano anticamente usare.’

[962] Her three ‘capitoli’ in terzines, _Anecd. Litt._ iv. 461 sqq.

[963] Old paintings of similar scenes are by no means rare, and no doubt often represent masquerades actually performed. The wealthy classes soon became accustomed to drive in chariots at every public solemnity. We read that Annibale Bentivoglio, eldest son of the ruler of Bologna, returned to the palace after presiding as umpire at the regular military exercises, ‘cum triumpho more romano.’ Bursellis, l. c. col. 909. ad. a. 1490.

[964] The remarkable funeral of Malatesta Baglione, poisoned at Bologna in 1437 (Graziani, _Arch. Stor._ xvi. i. p. 413), reminds us of the splendour of an Etruscan funeral. The knights in mourning, however, and other features of the ceremony, were in accordance with the customs of the nobility throughout Europe. See e.g. the funeral of Bertrand Duguesclin, in Juvénal des Ursins, ad. a. 1389. See also Graziani, l. c. p. 360.

[965] Vasari, ix. p. 218, _Vita di Granacci_. On the triumphs and processions in Florence, see Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 433.

[966] Mich. Cannesius, _Vita Pauli II._ in Murat. iii. ii. col. 118 sqq.

[967] Tommasi, _Vita di Caesare Borgia_, p. 251.

[968] Vasari ix. p. 34 sqq., _Vita di Puntormo_. A most important passage of its kind.

[969] Vasari, viii. p. 264, _Vita di Andrea del Sarto_.

[970] Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 783. It was reckoned a bad omen that one of the wheels broke.

[971] _M. Anton. Sabellici Epist._ l. iii. letter to M. Anton. Barbavarus. He says: ‘Vetus est mos civitatis in illustrium hospitum adventu eam navim auro et purpura insternere.’

[972] Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 151 sqq. The names of these corporations were: Pavoni, Accessi, Eterni, Reali, Sempiterni. The academies probably had their origin in these guilds.

[973] Probably in 1495. Comp. _M. Anton. Sabellici Epist._ l. v. fol. 28; last letter to M. Ant. Barbavarus.

[974] ‘Terræ globum socialibus signis circunquaque figuratum,’ and ‘quinis pegmatibus, quorum singula foederatorum regum, principumque suas habuere effigies et cum his ministros signaque in auro affabre caelata.’

[975] Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptt._ ii. col. 1093, 2000; Mich. Cannesius, _Vita Pauli II._ in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1012; Platina. _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 318; Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xiii. col. 163, 194; Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, sub Juliano Cæsarino. Elsewhere, too, there were races for women, _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 384: comp. Gregorovius, vi. 690 sqq., vii. 219, 616 sqq.

[976] Once under Alexander VI. from October till Lent. See Tommasi, l. c. p. 322.

[977] Baluz. _Miscell._ iv. 517 (comp. Gregorovius, vii. 288 sqq.).

[978] _Pii II. Comment._ l. iv. p. 211.

[979] Nantiporto, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1080. They wished to thank him for a peace which he had concluded, but found the gates of the palace closed and troops posted in all the open places.

[980] ‘Tutti i trionfi, carri, mascherate, o canti carnascialeschi.’ Cosmopoli, 1750. Macchiavelli, _Opere Minori_, p. 505; Vasari, vii. p. 115 sqq. _Vita di Piero di Cosimo_, to whom a chief part in the development of these festivities is ascribed. Comp. B. Loos (above, p. 154, note 1) p. 12 sqq. and Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 443 sqq., where the authorities are collected which show that the Carnival was soon restrained. Comp. ibid ii. p. 24.

[981] _Discorsi_, l. i. c. 12. Also c. 55: Italy is more corrupt than all other countries; then come the French and Spaniards.

[982] Paul. Jov. _Viri Illustres_: Jo. Gal. Vicecomes. Comp. p. 12 sqq. and notes.

[983] On the part filled by the sense of honour in the modern world, see Prévost-Paradol, _La France Nouvelle_, liv. iii. chap. 2.

[984] Compare what Mr. Darwin says of blushing in the ‘Expression of the Emotions,’ and of the relations between shame and conscience.

[985] Franc. Guicciardini, _Ricordi Politici e Civili_, n. 118 (_Opere inedite_, vol. i.).

[986] His closest counterpart is Merlinus Coccajus (Teofilo Folengo), whose _Opus Maccaronicorum_ Rabelais certainly knew, and quotes more than once (_Pantagruel_, l. ii. ch. 1. and ch. 7, at the end). It is possible that Merlinus Coccajus may have given the impulse which resulted in Pantagruel and Gargantua.

[987] _Gargantua_, l. i. cap. 57.

[988] That is, well-born in the higher sense of the word, since Rabelais, son of the innkeeper of Chinon, has here no motive for assigning any special privilege to the nobility. The preaching of the Gospel, which is spoken of in the inscription at the entrance to the monastery, would fit in badly with the rest of the life of the inmates; it must be understood in a negative sense, as implying defiance of the Roman Church.

[989] See extracts from his diary in Delécluze, _Florence et ses Vicissitudes_, vol. 2.

[990] Infessura, ap. Eccard, _Scriptt._ ii. col. 1992. On F. C. see above, p. 108.

[991] This opinion of Stendhal (_La Chartreuse de Parme_, ed. Delahays, p. 335) seems to me to rest on profound psychological observation.

[992] Graziani, _Cronaca di Perugia_, for the year 1437 (_Arch. Stor._ xvi. i. p. 415).

[993] Giraldi, _Hecatommithi_, i. nov. 7.

[994] Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptt._ ii. col. 1892, for the year 1464.

[995] Allegretto, _Diari Sanisi_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 837. Allegretto was himself present when the oath was taken, and had no doubt of its efficacy.

[996] Those who leave vengeance to God are ridiculed by Pulci, _Morgante_, canto xxi. str. 83 sqq., 104 sqq.

[997] Guicciardini, _Ricordi_, l. c. n. 74.

[998] Thus Cardanus (_De Propria Vita_, cap. 13) describes himself as very revengeful, but also as ‘verax, memor beneficiorum, amans justitiæ.’

[999] It is true that when the Spanish rule was fully established the population fell off to a certain extent. Had this fact been due to the demoralisation of the people, it would have appeared much earlier.

[1000] Giraldi, _Hecatommithi_, iii. nov. 2. In the same strain, _Cortigiano_, l. iv. fol. 180.

[1001] A shocking instance of vengeance taken by a brother at Perugia in the year 1455, is to be found in the chronicle of Graziani (_Arch. Stor._ xvi. p. 629). The brother forces the gallant to tear out the sister’s eyes, and then beats him from the place. It is true that the family was a branch of the Oddi, and the lover only a cordwainer.

[1002] Bandello, parte i. nov. 9 and 26. Sometimes the wife’s confessor is bribed by the husband and betrays the adultery.

[1003] See above p. 394, and note 1.

[1004] As instance, Bandello, part i. nov. 4.

[1005] ‘Piaccia al Signore Iddio che non si ritrovi,’ say the women in Giraldi (iii. nov. 10), when they are told that the deed may cost the murderer his head.

[1006] This is the case, for example, with Gioviano Pontano (_De Fortitudine_, l. ii.). His heroic Ascolans, who spend their last night in singing and dancing, the Abruzzian mother, who cheers up her son on his way to the gallows, &c., belong probably to brigand families, but he forgets to say so.

[1007] _Diarium Parmense_, in Murat. xxii. col. 330 to 349 _passim_. The sonnet, col. 340.

[1008] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 312. We are reminded of the gang led by a priest, which for some time before the year 1837 infested western Lombardy.

[1009] Massuccio, nov. 29. As a matter of course, the man has luck in his amours.

[1010] If he appeared as a corsair in the war between the two lines of Anjou for the possession of Naples, he may have done so as a political partisan, and this, according to the notions of the time, implied no dishonour. The Archbishop Paolo Fregoso of Genoa, in the second half of the fifteenth century probably allowed himself quite as much freedom, or more. Contemporaries and later writers, e.g. Aretino and Poggio, record much worse things of John. Gregorovius, vi. p. 600.

[1011] Poggio, _Facetiae_, fol. 164. Anyone familiar with Naples at the present time, may have heard things as comical, though bearing on other sides of human life.

[1012] _Jovian. Pontani Antonius_: ‘Nec est quod Neapoli quam hominis vita minoris vendatur.’ It is true he thinks it was not so under the House of Anjou, ‘sicam ab iis (the Aragonese) accepimus.’ The state of things about the year 1534 is described by Benvenuto Cellini, i. 70.

[1013] Absolute proof of this cannot be given, but few murders are recorded, and the imagination of the Florentine writers at the best period is not filled with the suspicion of them.

[1014] See on this point the report of Fedeli, in Alberi, _Relazioni Serie_, ii. vol. i. pp. 353 sqq.

[1015] M. Brosch (_Hist. Zeitschr._ bd. 27, p. 295 sqq.) has collected from the Venetian archives five proposals, approved by the council, to poison the Sultan (1471-1504), as well as evidence of the plan to murder Charles VIII. (1495) and of the order given to the Proveditor at Faenza to have Cæsar Borgia put to death (1504).

[1016] Dr. Geiger adds several conjectural statements and references on this subject. It may be remarked that the suspicion of poisoning, which I believe to be now generally unfounded, is often expressed in certain parts of Italy with regard to any death not at once to be accounted for.--[The Translator.]

[1017] Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptor._ ii. col. 1956.

[1018] _Chron. Venetum_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 131. In northern countries still more wonderful things were believed as to the art of poisoning in Italy. See _Juvénal des Ursins_, ad. ann. 1382 (ed. Buchon, p. 336), for the lancet of the poisoner, whom Charles of Durazzo took into his service; whoever looked at it steadily, died.

[1019] Petr. Crinitus, _De Honesta Disciplina_, l. xviii. cap. 9.

[1020] _Pii II. Comment._ l. xi. p. 562. Joh. Ant. Campanus, _Vita Pii II._ in Murat. iii. ii. col. 988.

[1021] Vasari, ix. 82, _Vita di Rosso_. In the case of unhappy marriages it is hard to say whether there were more real or imaginary instances of poisoning. Comp. Bandello, ii. nov. 5 and 54: ii. nov. 40 is more serious. In one and the same city of Western Lombardy, the name of which is not given, lived two poisoners. A husband, wishing to convince himself of the genuineness of his wife’s despair, made her drink what she believed to be poison, but which was really coloured water, whereupon they were reconciled. In the family of Cardanus alone four cases of poisoning occurred (_De Propria Vita_, cap. 30, 50). Even at a banquet given at the coronation of a pope each cardinal brought his own cupbearer with him, and his own wine, ‘probably because they knew from experience that otherwise they would run the risk of being poisoned.’ And this usage was general at Rome, and practised ‘sine injuria invitantis!’ Blas Ortiz, _Itinerar. Hadriani VI._ ap. Baluz. Miscell. ed. Mansi, i. 380.

[1022] For the magic arts used against Leonello of Ferrara, see _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 194, ad a. 1445. When the sentence was read in the public square to the author of them, a certain Benato, a man in other respects of bad character, a noise was heard in the air and the earth shook, so that many people fled away or fell to the ground; this happened because Benato ‘havea chiamato e scongiurato il diavolo.’ What Guicciardini (l. i.) says of the wicked arts practised by Ludovico Moro against his nephew Giangaleazzo, rests on his own responsibility. On magic, see below, cap. 4.

[1023] Ezzelino da Romano might be put first, were it not that he rather acted under the influence of ambitious motives and astrological delusions.

[1024] _Giornali Napoletani_, in Murat. xxi. col. 1092 ad a. 1425. According to the narrative this deed seems to have been committed out of mere pleasure in cruelty. Br., it is true, believed neither in God nor in the saints, and despised and neglected all the precepts and ceremonies of the Church.

[1025] _Pii II. Comment._ l. vii. p. 338.

[1026] Jovian. Pontan. _De Immanitate_, cap. 17, where he relates how Malatesta got his own daughter with child--and so forth.

[1027] Varchi, _Storie Fiorentine_, at the end. (When the work is published without expurgations, as in the Milanese edition.)

[1028] On which point feeling differs according to the place and the people. The Renaissance prevailed in times and cities where the tendency was to enjoy life heartily. The general darkening of the spirits of thoughtful men did not begin to show itself till the time of the foreign supremacy in the sixteenth century.

[1029] What is termed the spirit of the Counter-Reformation was developed in Spain some time before the Reformation itself, chiefly through the sharp surveillance and partial reorganisation of the Church under Ferdinand and Isabella. The principal authority on this subject is Gomez, _Life of Cardinal Ximenes_, in Rob. Belus, _Rer. Hispan. Scriptores_, 3 vols. 1581.

[1030] It is to be noticed that the novelists and satirists scarcely ever mention the bishops, although they might, under altered names, have attacked them like the rest. They do so, however, e.g. in Bandello, ii. nov. 45; yet in ii. 40, he describes a virtuous bishop. Gioviano Pontano in the _Charon_ introduces the ghost of a luxurious bishop with a ‘duck’s walk.’

[1031] Foscolo, _Discorso sul testo del Decamerone_, ‘Ma dei preti in dignità niuno poteva far motto senza pericolo; onde ogni frate fu l’irco delle iniquita d’Israele,’ &c. Timotheus Maffeus dedicates a book against the monks to Pope Nicholas V.; Facius, _De Vir. Ill._ p. 24. There are specially strong passages against the monks and clergy in the work of Palingenius already mentioned iv. 289, v. 184 sqq., 586 sqq.

[1032] Bandello prefaces ii. nov. i. with the statement that the vice of avarice was more discreditable to priests than to any other class of men, since they had no families to provide for. On this ground he justifies the disgraceful attack made on a parsonage by two soldiers or brigands at the orders of a young gentleman, on which occasion a sheep was stolen from the stingy and gouty old priest. A single story of this kind illustrates the ideas in which men lived and acted better than all the dissertations in the world.

[1033] Giov. Villani, iii. 29, says this clearly a century later.

[1034] _L’Ordine._ Probably the tablet with the inscription I. H. S. is meant.

[1035] He adds, ‘and in the _seggi_,’ i.e. the clubs into which the Neapolitan nobility was divided. The rivalry of the two orders is often ridiculed, e.g. Bandello, iii. nov. 14.

[1036] Nov. 6, ed. Settembrini, p. 83, where it is remarked that in the Index of 1564 a book is mentioned, _Matrimonio delli Preti e delle Monache_.

[1037] For what follows, see Jovian. Pontan. _De Sermone_, l. ii. cap. 17, and Bandello, parte i. nov. 32. The fury of brother Franciscus, who attempted to work upon the king by a vision of St. Cataldus, was so great at his failure, and the talk on the subject so universal, ‘ut Italia ferme omnis ipse in primis Romanus pontifex de tabulæ hujus fuerit inventione sollicitus atque anxius.’

[1038] Alexander VI. and Julius II., whose cruel measures, however, did not appear to the Venetian ambassadors Giustiniani and Soderini as anything but a means of extorting money. Comp. M. Brosch, _Hist. Zeitscher._ bd. 37.

[1039] Panormita, _De Dictis et Factis Alphonsi_, lib. ii. Æneas Sylvius in his commentary to it (_Opp._ ed. 1651, p. 79) tells of the detection of a pretended faster, who was said to have eaten nothing for four years.

[1040] For which reason they could be openly denounced in the neighbourhood of the court. See Jovian. Pontan. _Antonius_ and _Charon_. One of the stories is the same as in Massuccio, nov. ii.

[1041] See for one example the eighth canto of the _Macaroneide_.

[1042] The story in Vasari, v. p. 120, _Vita di Sandro Botticelli_ shows that the Inquisition was sometimes treated jocularly. It is true that the ‘Vicario’ here mentioned may have been the archbishop’s deputy instead of the inquisitor’s.

[1043] Bursellis, _Ann. Bonon._ ap. Murat. xxiii. col. 886, cf. 896. Malv. died 1468; his ‘beneficium’ passed to his nephew.

[1044] See p. 88 sqq. He was abbot at Vallombrosa. The passage, of which we give a free translation, is to be found _Opere_, vol. ii. p. 209, in the tenth novel. See an inviting description of the comfortable life of the Carthusians in the _Commentario d’Italia_, fol. 32 sqq. quoted at p. 84.

[1045] Pius II. was on principle in favour of the abolition of the celibacy of the clergy. One of his favourite sentences was, ‘Sacerdotibus magna ratione sublatus nuptias majori restituendas videri.’ Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 311.

[1046] Ricordi, n. 28, in the _Opere inedite_, vol. i.

[1047] Ricordi, n. i. 123, 125.

[1048] See the _Orlandino_, cap. vi. str. 40 sqq.; cap. vii. str. 57; cap. viii. str. 3 sqq., especially 75.

[1049] _Diaria Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 362.

[1050] He had with him a German and a Slavonian interpreter. St. Bernard had to use the same means when he preached in the Rhineland.

[1051] Capistrano, for instance, contented himself with making the sign of the cross over the thousands of sick persons brought to him, and with blessing them in the name of the Trinity and of his master San Bernadino, after which some of them not unnaturally got well. The Brescian chronicle puts it in this way, ‘He worked fine miracles, yet not so many as were told of him’ (Murat. xxi.).

[1052] So e.g. Poggio, _De Avaritia_, in the _Opera_, fol. 2. He says they had an easy matter of it, since they said the same thing in every city, and sent the people away more stupid than they came. Poggio elsewhere (_Epist._ ed. Tonelli i. 281) speaks of Albert of Sarteano as ‘doctus’ and ‘perhumanus.’ Filelfo defended Bernadino of Siena and a certain Nicolaus, probably out of opposition to Poggio (_Sat._ ii. 3, vi. 5) rather than from liking for the preachers. Filelfo was a correspondent of A. of Sarteano. He also praises Roberto da Lecce in some respects, but blames him for not using suitable gestures and expressions, for looking miserable when he ought to look cheerful, and for weeping too much and thus offending the ears and tastes of his audience. Fil. _Epist._ Venet. 1502, fol. 96 _b_.

[1053] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 72. Preachers who fail are a constant subject of ridicule in all the novels.

[1054] Compare the well-known story in the _Decamerone_ vi. nov. 10.

[1055] In which case the sermons took a special colour. See Malipiero, _Ann. Venet. Archiv. Stor._ vii. i. p. 18. _Chron. Venet._ in Murat. xxiv. col. 114. _Storia Bresciana_, in Murat. xxi. col. 898. Absolution was freely promised to those who took part in, or contributed money for the crusade.

[1056] _Storia Bresciana_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 865 sqq. On the first day 10,000 persons were present, 2,000 of them strangers.

[1057] Allegretto, _Diari Sanesi_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 819 sqq. (July 13 to 18, 1486); the preacher was Pietro dell’Osservanza di S. Francesco.

[1058] Infessura (in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1874) says: ‘Canti, brevi, sorti.’ The first may refer to song-books, which actually were burnt by Savonarola. But Graziani (_Cron. di Perugia, Arch. Stor._ xvi. i., p. 314) says on a similar occasion, ‘brieve incanti,’ when we must without doubt read ‘brevi e incanti,’ and perhaps the same emendation is desirable in Infessura, whose ‘sorti’ point to some instrument of superstition, perhaps a pack of cards for fortune-telling. Similarly after the introduction of printing, collections were made of all the attainable copies of Martial, which then were burnt. Bandello, iii. 10.

[1059] See his remarkable biography in _Vespasiano Fiorent._ p. 244 sqq., and that by Æneas Sylvius, _De Viris Illustr._ p. 24. In the latter we read: ‘Is quoque in tabella pictum nomen Jesus deferebat, hominibusque adorandum ostendebat multumque suadebat ante ostia domorum hoc nomen depingi.’

[1060] Allegretto, l. c. col. 823. A preacher excited the people against the judges (if instead of ‘giudici’ we are not to read ‘giudei’), upon which they narrowly escaped being burnt in their houses. The opposite party threatened the life of the preacher in return.

[1061] Infessura, l. c. In the date of the witch’s death there seems to be a clerical error. How the same saint caused an ill-famed wood near Arezzo to be cut down, is told in Vasari, iii. 148, _Vita di Parri Spinelli_. Often, no doubt, the penitential zeal of the hearers went no further than such outward sacrifices.

[1062] ‘Pareva che l’aria si fendesse,’ we read somewhere.

[1063] Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 166 sqq. It is not expressly said that he interfered with this feud, but it can hardly be doubted that he did so. Once (1445), when Jacopo della Marca had but just quitted Perugia after an extraordinary success, a frightful _vendetta_ broke out in the family of the Ranieri. Comp. Graziani, l. c. p. 565 sqq. We may here remark that Perugia was visited by these preachers remarkably often, comp. pp. 597, 626, 631, 637, 647.

[1064] Capistrano admitted fifty soldiers after one sermon, _Stor. Bresciana_, l. c. Graziani, l. c. p. 565 sqq. Æn. Sylvius (_De Viris Illustr._ p. 25), when a young man, was once so affected by a sermon of San Bernadino as to be on the point of joining his Order. We read in Graziani of a convert quitting the order; he married, ‘e fu magiore ribaldo, che non era prima.’

[1065] That there was no want of disputes between the famous Observantine preachers and their Dominican rivals is shown by the quarrel about the blood of Christ which was said to have fallen from the cross to the earth (1462). See Voigt. _Enea Silvio_ iii. 591 sqq. Fra Jacopo della Marca, who would not yield to the Dominican Inquisitor, is criticised by Pius II. in his detailed account (_Comment._ l. xi. p. 511), with delicate irony: ‘Pauperiem pati, et famam et sitim et corporis cruciatum et mortem pro Christi nomine nonnulli possunt; jacturam nominis vel minimam ferre recusant tanquam sua deficiente fama Dei quoque gloria pereat.’

[1066] Their reputation oscillated even then between two extremes. They must be distinguished from the hermit-monks. The line was not always clearly drawn in this respect. The Spoletans, who travelled about working miracles, took St. Anthony and St. Paul as their patrons, the latter on account of the snakes which they carried with them. We read of the money they got from the peasantry even in the thirteenth century by a sort of clerical conjuring. Their horses were trained to kneel down at the name of St. Anthony. They pretended to collect for hospitals (Massuccio, nov. 18; Bandello iii., nov. 17). Firenzuola in his _Asino d’Oro_ makes them play the part of the begging priests in Apulejus.

[1067] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 357. Burigozzo, _ibid._ p. 431 sqq.

[1068] Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 856 sqq. The quotation was: ‘Ecce venio cito et velociter. Estote parati.’

[1069] Matteo Villani, viii. cap. 2 sqq. He first preached against tyranny in general, and then, when the ruling house of the Beccaria tried to have him murdered, he began to preach a change of government and constitution, and forced the Beccaria to fly from Pavia (1357). See Petrarch, _Epp. Fam._ xix. 18, and A. _Hortis, Scritti Inediti di F. P._ 174-181.

[1070] Sometimes at critical moments the ruling house itself used the services of monks to exhort the people to loyalty. For an instance of this kind at Ferrara, see Sanudo (Murat. xxii. col. 1218). A preacher from Bologna reminded the people of the benefits they had received from the House of Este, and of the fate that awaited them at the hands of the victorious Venetians.

[1071] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 251. Other fanatical anti-French preachers, who appeared after the expulsion of the French, are mentioned by Burigozzo, _ibid._ pp. 443, 449, 485; ad a. 1523, 1526, 1529.

[1072] Jac. Pitti, _Storia Fior._ l. ii. p. 112.

[1073] Perrens, _Jérôme Savonarole_, two vols. Perhaps the most systematic and sober of all the many works on the subject. P. Villari, _La Storia di Girol. Savonarola_ (two vols. 8vo. Firenze, Lemonnier). The view taken by the latter writer differs considerably from that maintained in the text. Comp. also Ranke in _Historisch-biographische Studien_, Lpzg. 1878, pp. 181-358. On Genaz. see Vill. i. 57 sqq. ii. 343 sqq. Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 522-526, 533 sqq.

[1074] Sermons on Haggai; close of sermon 6.

[1075] Savonarola was perhaps the only man who could have made the subject cities free and yet kept Tuscany together. But he never seems to have thought of doing so. Pisa he hated like a genuine Florentine.

[1076] A remarkable contrast to the Sienese who in 1483 solemnly dedicated their distracted city to the Madonna. Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 815.

[1077] He says of the ‘impii astrologi’: ‘non è dar disputar (con loro) altrimenti che col fuoco.’

[1078] See Villari on this point.

[1079] See the passage in the fourteenth sermon on Ezechiel, in Perrens, o. c. vol. i. 30 note.

[1080] With the title, _De Rusticorum Religione_. See above p. 352.

[1081] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 109, where there is more of the same kind.

[1082] Bapt. Mantuan. _De Sacris Diebus_, l. ii. exclaims:--

Ista superstitio, ducens a Manibus ortum Tartareis, sancta de religione facessat Christigenûm! vivis epulas date, sacra sepultis.

A century earlier, when the army of John XXII. entered the Marches to attack the Ghibellines, the pretext was avowedly ‘eresia’ and ‘idolatria.’ Recanti, which surrendered voluntarily, was nevertheless burnt, ‘because idols had been worshipped there,’ in reality, as a revenge for those whom the citizens had killed. Giov. Villani, ix. 139, 141. Under Pius II. we read of an obstinate sun-worshipper, born at Urbino. Æn. Sylv. _Opera_, p. 289. _Hist. Rer. ubique Gestar._ c. 12. More wonderful still was what happened in the Forum in Rome under Leo X. (more properly in the interregnum between Hadrian and Leo. June 1522, Gregorovius, viii. 388). To stay the plague, a bull was solemnly offered up with pagan rites. Paul. Jov. _Hist._ xxi. 8.

[1083] See Sabellico, _De Situ Venetae Urbis_. He mentions the names of the saints, after the manner of many philologists, without the addition of ‘sanctus’ or ‘divus,’ but speaks frequently of different relics, and in the most respectful tone, and even boasts that he kissed several of them.

[1084] _De Laudibus Patavii_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 1149 to 1151.

[1085] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. pp. 408 sqq. Though he is by no means a freethinker, he still protests against the causal nexus.

[1086] _Pii II. Comment._ l. viii. pp. 352 sqq. ‘Verebatur Pontifex, ne in honore tanti apostoli diminute agere videretur,’ &c.

[1087] Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 187. The Pope excused himself on the ground of Louis’ great services to the Church, and by the example of other Popes, e.g. St. Gregory, who had done the like. Louis was able to pay his devotion to the relic, but died after all. The Catacombs were at that time forgotten, yet even Savonarola (l. c. col. 1150) says of Rome: ‘Velut ager Aceldama Sanctorum habita est.’

[1088] Bursellis, _Annal. Bonon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 905. It was one of the sixteen patricians, Bartol. della Volta, d. 1485 or 1486.

[1089] Vasari, iii. 111 sqq. note. _Vita di Ghiberti._

[1090] Matteo Villani, iii. 15 and 16.

[1091] We must make a further distinction between the Italian cultus of the bodies of historical saints of recent date, and the northern practice of collecting bones and relics of a sacred antiquity. Such remains were preserved in great abundance in the Lateran, which, for that reason, was of special importance for pilgrims. But on the tombs of St. Dominic and St. Anthony of Padua rested, not only the halo of sanctity, but the splendour of historical fame.

[1092] The remarkable judgment in his _De Sacris Diebus_, the work of his later years, refers both to sacred and profane art (l. i.). Among the Jews, he says, there was a good reason for prohibiting all graven images, else they would have relapsed into the idolatry or devil-worship of the nations around them:

Nunc autem, postquam penitus natura Satanum Cognita, et antiqua sine majestate relicta est, Nulla ferunt nobis statuae discrimina, nullos Fert pictura dolos; jam sunt innoxia signa; Sunt modo virtutum testes monimentaque laudum Marmora, et aeternae decora immortalia famae.

[1093] Battista Mantovano complains of certain ‘nebulones’ (_De Sacris Diebus_, l. v.) who would not believe in the genuineness of the Sacred Blood at Mantua. The same criticism which called in question the Donation of Constantine was also, though indirectly, hostile to the belief in relics.

[1094] Especially the famous prayer of St. Bernard, _Paradiso_, xxxiii. 1, ‘Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio.’

[1095] Perhaps we may add Pius II., whose elegy on the Virgin is printed in the _Opera_, p. 964, and who from his youth believed himself to be under her special protection. Jac. Card. Papiens. ‘De Morte Pii,’ _Opp._ p. 656.

[1096] That is, at the time when Sixtus IV. was so zealous for the Immaculate Conception. _Extravag. Commun._ l. iii. tit. xii. He founded, too, the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, and the Feasts of St. Anne and St. Joseph. See Trithem. _Ann. Hirsaug._ ii. p. 518.

[1097] The few frigid sonnets of Vittoria on the Madonna are most instructive in this respect (n. 85 sqq. ed. P. Visconti, Rome, 1840).

[1098] Bapt. Mantuan. _De Sacris Diebus_, l. v., and especially the speech of the younger Pico, which was intended for the Lateran Council, in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, viii. p. 115. Comp. p. 121, note 3.

[1099] _Monach. Paduani Chron._ l. iii. at the beginning. We there read of this revival: ‘Invasit primitus Perusinos, Romanes postmodum, deinde fere Italiæ populos universos.’ Guil. Ventura (_Fragmenta de Gestis Astensium_ in _Mon. Hist. Patr. SS._ tom. iii. col. 701) calls the Flagellant pilgrimage ‘admirabilis Lombardorum commotio;’ hermits came forth from their cells and summoned the cities to repent.

[1100] G. Villani, viii. 122, xi. 23. The former were not received in Florence, the latter were welcomed all the more readily.

[1101] Corio, fol. 281. Leon. Aretinus, _Hist. Flor._ lib. xii. (at the beginning) mentions a sudden revival called forth by the processions of the ‘dealbati’ from the Alps to Lucca, Florence, and still farther.

[1102] Pilgrimages to distant places had already become very rare. Those of the princes of the House of Este to Jerusalem, St. Jago, and Vienne are enumerated in Murat. xxiv. col. 182, 187, 190, 279. For that of Rinaldo Albizzi to the Holy Land, see Macchiavelli, _Stor. Fior._ l. v. Here, too, the desire of fame is sometimes the motive. The chronicler Giov. Cavalcanti (_Ist. Fiorentine_, ed. Polidori, ii. 478) says of Lionardo Fescobaldi, who wanted to go with a companion (about the year 1400) to the Holy Sepulchre: ‘Stimarono di eternarsi nella mente degli uomini futuri.’

[1103] Bursellis, _Annal. Bon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 890.

[1104] Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 855 sqq. The report had got about that it had rained blood outside the gate. All rushed forth, yet ‘gli uomini di guidizio non lo credono.’

[1105] Burigozzo, _Arch. Stor._ iii. 486. For the misery which then prevailed in Lombardy, Galeazzo Capello (_De Rebus nuper in Italia Gestis_) is the best authority. Milan suffered hardly less than Rome did in the sack of 1527.

[1106] It was also called ‘l’arca del testimonio,’ and people told how it was ‘conzado’ (constructed) ‘con gran misterio.’

[1107] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 317, 322, 323, 326, 386, 401.

[1108] ‘Ad uno santo homo o santa donna,’ says the chronicle. Married men were forbidden to keep concubines.

[1109] The sermon was especially addressed to them; after it a Jew was baptised, ‘ma non di quelli’ adds the annalist, ‘che erano stati a udire la predica.’

[1110] ‘Per buono rispetto a lui noto e perchè sempre è buono a star bene con Iddio,’ says the annalist. After describing the arrangements, he adds resignedly: ‘La cagione perchè sia fatto et si habbia a fare non s’intende, basta che ogni bene è bene.’

[1111] He is called ‘Messo del Cancellieri del Duca.’ The whole thing was evidently intended to appear the work of the court only, and not of any ecclesiastical authority.

[1112] See the quotations from Pico’s _Discourse on the Dignity of Man_ above, pp. 354-5.

[1113] Not to speak of the fact that a similar tolerance or indifference was not uncommon among the Arabians themselves.

[1114] So in the _Decameron_. Sultans without name in Massuccio nov. 46, 48, 49; one called ‘Rè di Fes,’ another ‘Rè di Tunisi.’ In _Dittamondo_, ii. 25, we read, ‘il buono Saladin.’ For the Venetian alliance with the Sultan of Egypt in the year 1202, see G. Hanotaux in the _Revue Historique_ iv. (1877) pp. 74-102. There were naturally also many attacks on Mohammedanism. For the Turkish woman baptized first in Venice and again in Rome, see Cechetti i. 487.

[1115] _Philelphi Epistolae_, Venet. 1502 fol. 90 _b._ sqq.

[1116] _Decamerone_ i. nov. 3. Boccaccio is the first to name the Christian religion, which the others do not. For an old French authority of the thirteenth century, see Tobler, _Li di dou Vrai Aniel_, Leipzig, 1871. For the Hebrew story of Abr. Abulafia (b. 1241 in Spain, came to Italy about 1290 in the hope of converting the Pope to Judaism), in which two servants claim each to hold the jewel buried for the son, see Steinschneider, _Polem. und Apol. Lit. der Arab. Sprache_, pp. 319 and 360. From these and other sources we conclude that the story originally was less definite than as we now have it (in Abul. e.g. it is used polemically against the Christians), and that the doctrine of the equality of the three religions is a later addition. Comp. Reuter, _Gesch. der Relig. Aufklärung im M. A._ (Berlin, 1877), iii. 302 sqq. 390.

[1117] _De Tribus Impostoribus_, the name of a work attributed to Frederick II. among many other people, and which by no means answers the expectations raised by the title. Latest ed. by Weller, Heilbronn, 1876. The nationality of the author and the date of composition are both disputed. See Reuter, op. cit. ii. 273-302.

[1118] In the mouth, nevertheless, of the fiend Astarotte, canto xxv. str. 231 sqq. Comp. str. 141 sqq.

[1119] Canto xxviii. str. 38 sqq.

[1120] Canto xviii. str. 112 to the end.

[1121] Pulci touches, though hastily, on a similar conception in his Prince Chiaristante (canto xxi. str. 101 sqq., 121 sqq., 145 sqq., 163 sqq.), who believes nothing and causes himself and his wife to be worshipped. We are reminded of Sigismondo Malatesta (p. 245).

[1122] Giov. Villani, iv. 29, vi. 46. The name occurs as early as 1150 in Northern countries. It is defined by William of Malmesbury (iii. 237, ed. Londin, 1840): ‘Epicureorum ... qui opinantur animam corpore solutam in aerem evanescere, in auras effluere.’

[1123] See the argument in the third book of Lucretius. The name of Epicurean was afterwards used as synonymous with freethinker. Lorenzo Valla (_Opp._ 795 sqq.) speaks as follows of Epicurus: ‘Quis eo parcior, quis contentior, quis modestior, et quidem in nullo philosophorum omnium minus invenio fuisse vitiorum, plurimique honesti viri cum Graecorum, tum Romanorum, Epicurei fuerunt.’ Valla was defending himself to Eugenius IV. against the attacks of Fra Antonio da Bitonto and others.

[1124] _Inferno_, vii. 67-96.

[1125] _Purgatorio_, xvi. 73. Compare the theory of the influence of the planets in the _Convito_. Even the fiend Astarotte in Pulci (_Morgante_, xxv. str. 150) attests the freedom of the human will and the justice of God.

[1126] Comp. Voigt, _Wiederbelebung_, 165-170.

[1127] _Vespasiano Fiorent._ pp. 26, 320, 435, 626, 651. Murat. xx. col. 532.

[1128] In Platina’s introd. to his Life of Christ the religious influence of the Renaissance is curiously exemplified (_Vitæ Paparum_, at the beginning): Christ, he says, fully attained the fourfold Platonic ‘nobilitas’ according to his ‘genus’: ‘quem enim ex gentilibus habemus qui gloria et nomine cum David et Salomone, quique sapientia et doctrina cum Christo ipso conferri merito debeat et possit?’ Judaism, like classical antiquity, was also explained on a Christian hypothesis. Pico and Pietro Galatino endeavoured to show that Christian doctrine was foreshadowed in the Talmud and other Jewish writings.

[1129] On Pomponazzo, see the special works; among others, Bitter, _Geschichte der Philosophie_, bd. ix.

[1130] Paul. Jovii, _Elog. Lit._ p. 90. G. M. was, however, compelled to recant publicly. His letter to Lorenzo (May 17, 1478) begging him to intercede with the Pope, ‘satis enim poenarum dedi,’ is given by Malagola, Codro Urceo, p. 433.

[1131] _Codri Urcei Opera_, with his life by Bart. Bianchini; and in his philological lectures, pp. 65, 151, 278, &c.

[1132] On one occasion he says, ‘In Laudem Christi:’

Phoebum alii vates musasque Jovemque sequuntur, At mihi pro vero nomine Christus erit.

He also (fol. x. _b_) attacks the Bohemians. Huss and Jerome of Prague are defended by Poggio in his famous letter to Lion. Aretino, and placed on a level with Mucius Scaevola and Socrates.

[1133] ‘Audi virgo ea quae tibi mentis compos et ex animo dicam. Si forte cum ad ultimum vitae finem pervenero supplex accedam ad te spem oratum, ne me audias neve inter tuos accipias oro; cum infernis diis in aeternum vitam degere decrevi.’

[1134] ‘Animum meum seu animam’--a distinction by which philology used then to perplex theology.

[1135] Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 311: ‘Christianam fidem si miraculis non esset confirmata, honestate sua recipi debuisse.’ It may be questioned whether all that Platina attributes to the Pope is in fact authentic.

[1136] Preface to the _Historia Ferdinandi I._ (_Hist. Ztschr._ xxxiii. 61) and _Antid. in Pogg._ lib. iv. _Opp._ p. 256 sqq. Pontanus (_De Sermone_, i. 18) says that Valla did not hesitate ‘dicere profiterique palam habere se quoque in Christum spicula.’ Pontano, however, was a friend of Valla’s enemies at Naples.

[1137] Especially when the monks improvised them in the pulpit. But the old and recognised miracles did not remain unassailed. Firenzuola (_Opere_, vol. ii. p. 208, in the tenth novel) ridicules the Franciscans of Novara, who wanted to spend money which they had embezzled, in adding a chapel to their church, ‘dove fusse dipinta quella bella storia, quando S. Francesco predicava agli uccelli nel deserto; e quando ei fece la santa zuppa, e che l’agnolo Gabriello gli portò i zoccoli.’

[1138] Some facts about him are to be found in Bapt. Mantuan. _De Patientia_, l. iii. cap. 13.

[1139] Bursellis, _Ann. Bonon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 915.

[1140] How far these blasphemous utterances sometimes went, has been shown by Gieseler (_Kirchengeschichte_, ii. iv. § 154, anm.) who quotes several striking instances.

[1141] Voigt, _Enea Silvio_, iii. 581. It is not known what happened to the Bishop Petro of Aranda who (1500) denied the Divinity of Christ and the existence of Hell and Purgatory, and denounced indulgences as a device of the popes invented for their private advantage. For him, see _Burchardi Diarium_, ed. Leibnitz, p. 63 sqq.

[1142] Jov. Pontanus, _De Fortuna_, _Opp._ i. 792-921. Comp. _Opp._ ii. 286.

[1143] Æn. Sylvii, _Opera_, p. 611.

[1144] Poggius, _De Miseriis Humanae Conditionis_.

[1145] Caracciolo, _De Varietate Fortunae_, in Murat. xxii., one of the most valuable writings of a period rich in such works. On Fortune in public processions, see p. 421.

[1146] _Leonis X. Vita Anonyma_, in Roscoe, ed. Bossi, xii. p. 153.

[1147] Bursellis, _Ann. Bonon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 909: ‘Monimentum hoc conditum a Joanne Bentivolo secundo patriae rectore, cui virtus et fortuna cuncta quæ optari possunt affatim praestiterunt.’ It is still not quite certain whether this inscription was outside, and visible to everybody, or, like another mentioned just before, hidden on one of the foundation stones. In the latter case, a fresh idea is involved. By this secret inscription, which perhaps only the chronicler knew of, Fortune is to be magically bound to the building.

[According to the words of the chronicle, the inscription cannot have stood on the walls of the newly built tower. The exact spot is uncertain.--L.G.]

[1148] ‘Quod nimium gentilitatis amatores essemus.’ Paganism, at least in externals, certainly went rather far. Inscriptions lately found in the Catacombs show that the members of the Academy described themselves as ‘sacerdotes,’ and called Pomponius Lætus ‘pontifex maximus;’ the latter once addressed Platina as ‘pater sanctissimus.’ Gregorovius, vii. 578.

[1149] While the plastic arts at all events distinguished between angels and ‘putti,’ and used the former for all serious purposes. In the _Annal. Estens._ Murat. xx. col. 468, the ‘amorino’ is naively called ‘instar Cupidinis angelus.’ Comp. the speech made before Leo X. (1521), in which the passage occurs: ‘Quare et te non jam Juppiter, sed Virgo Capitolina Dei parens quæ hujus urbis et collis reliquis præsides, Romamque et Capitolium tutaris.’ Greg. viii. 294.

[1150] Della Valle, _Lettere Sanesi_, iii. 18.

[1151] Macrob. _Saturnal._ iii. 9. Doubtless the canon did not omit the gestures there prescribed. Comp. Gregorovius, viii. 294, for Bembo. For the paganism thus prevalent in Rome, see also Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 73 sqq. Comp. also Gregorovius, viii. 268.

[1152] _Monachus Paduan._ l. ii. ap. Urstisius, _Scriptt._ i. pp. 598, 599, 602, 607. The last Visconti (p. 37) had also a number of these men in his service (Comp. Decembrio, in Murat. xx. col. 1017): he undertook nothing without their advice. Among them was a Jew named Helias. Gasparino da Barzizzi once addressed him: ‘Magna vi astrorum fortuna tuas res reget.’ G. B. _Opera_, ed. Furietto, p. 38.

[1153] E.g. Florence, where Bonatto filled the office for a long period. See too Matteo Villani, xi. 3, where the city astrologer is evidently meant.

[1154] Libri, _Hist. des Sciences Mathém._ ii. 52, 193. At Bologna this professorship is said to have existed in 1125. Comp. the list of professors at Pavia, in Corio, fol. 290. For the professorship at the Sapienza under Leo X., see Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, v. p. 283.

[1155] J. A. Campanus lays stress on the value and importance of astrology, and concludes with the words: ‘Quamquam Augustinus sanctissimus ille vir quidem ac doctissimus, sed fortassis ad fidem religionemque propensior negat quicquam vel boni vel mali astrorum necessitate contingere.’ ‘Oratio initio studii Perugiæ habita,’ compare _Opera_, Rome, 1495.

[1156] About 1260 Pope Alexander IV. compelled a Cardinal (and shamefaced astrologer) Bianco to bring out a number of political prophecies. Giov. Villani, vi. 81.

[1157] _De Dictis, &c. Alfonsi, Opera_, p. 493. He held it to be ‘pulchrius quam utile.’ Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 310. For Sixtus IV. comp. Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 173, 186. He caused the hours for audiences, receptions, and the like, to be fixed by the ‘planetarii.’ In the _Europa_, c. 49, Pius II. mentions that Baptista Blasius, an astronomer from Cremona, had prophesied the misfortunes of Fr. Foscaro ‘tanquam prævidisset.’

[1158] Brosch, _Julius II._ (Gotha, 1878), pp. 97 and 323.

[1159] P. Valeriano, _De Infel. Lit._ (318-324) speaks of Fr. Friuli, who wrote on Leo’s horoscope, and ‘abditissima quæque anteactæ ætatis et uni ipsi cognita principi explicuerat quæque incumberent quæque futura essent ad unguem ut eventus postmodum comprobavit, in singulos fere dies prædixerat.’

[1160] Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 247.

[1161] _Vespas. Fiorent._ p. 660, comp. 341. _Ibid._ p. 121, another Pagolo is mentioned as court mathematician and astrologer of Federigo of Montefeltro. Curiously enough, he was a German.

[1162] Firmicus Maternus, _Matheseos Libri_ viii. at the end of the second book.

[1163] In Bandello, iii. nov. 60, the astrologer of Alessandro Bentivoglio, in Milan, confessed himself a poor devil before the whole company.

[1164] It was in such a moment of resolution that Ludovico Moro had the cross with this inscription made, which is now in the Minster at Chur. Sixtus IV. too once said that he would try if the proverb was true. On this saying of the astrologer Ptolemæus, which B. Fazio took to be Virgilian, see Laur. Valla, _Opera_, p. 461.

[1165] The father of Piero Capponi, himself an astrologer, put his son into trade lest he should get the dangerous wound in the head which threatened him. _Vita di P. Capponi, Arch. Stor._ iv. ii. 15. For an instance in the life of Cardanus, see p. 334. The physician and astrologer Pierleoni of Spoleto believed that he would be drowned, avoided in consequence all watery places, and refused brilliant positions offered him at Venice and Padua. Paul. Jov. _Elog. Liter._ pp. 67 sqq. Finally he threw himself into the water, in despair at the charge brought against him of complicity in Lorenzo’s death, and was actually drowned. Hier. Aliottus had been told to be careful in his sixty-second year, as his life would then be in danger. He lived with great circumspection, kept clear of the doctors, and the year passed safely. H. A. _Opuscula_ (Arezzo, 1769), ii. 72. Marsilio Ficino, who despised astrology (_Opp._ p. 772) was written to by a friend (_Epist._ lib. 17): ‘Praeterea me memini a duobus vestrorum astrologis audivisse, te ex quadam siderum positione antiquas revocaturum philosophorum sententias.’

[1166] For instances in the life of Ludovico Moro, see Senarega, in Murat, xxiv. col. 518, 524. Benedictus, in Eccard, ii. col. 1623. And yet his father, the great Francesco Sforza, had despised astrology, and his grandfather Giacomo had not at any rate followed its warnings. Corio, fol. 321, 413.

[1167] For the facts here quoted, see _Annal. Foroliviens_. in Murat. xxii. col. 233 sqq. (comp. col. 150). Leonbattista Alberti endeavoured to give a spiritual meaning to the ceremony of laying the foundation. _Opere Volgari_, tom. iv. p. 314 (or _De Re Ædific_. 1. i.). For Bonatto see Filippo Villani, _Vite_ and _Delia Vita e delle Opere di Guido Bonati, Astrologo e Astronomo del Secolo Decimoterzo, raccolte da E. Boncompagni_, Rome 1851. B.’s great work, _De Astronomia_, lib. x. has been often printed.

[1168] In the horoscopes of the second foundation of Florence (Giov. Villani, iii. 1. under Charles the Great) and of the first of Venice (see above, p. 62), an old tradition is perhaps mingled with the poetry of the Middle Ages.

[1169] For one of these victories, see the remarkable passage quoted from Bonatto in Steinschneider, in the _Zeitschr. d. D. Morg. Ges._ xxv. p. 416. On B. comp. _ibid._ xviii. 120 sqq.

[1170] _Ann. Foroliv._ 235-238. Filippo Villani, _Vite._ Macchiavelli, _Stor. Fior._ l. i. When constellations which augured victory appeared, Bonatto ascended with his book and astrolabe to the tower of San Mercuriale above the Piazza, and when the right moment came gave the signal for the great bell to be rung. Yet it was admitted that he was often wide of the mark, and foresaw neither his own death nor the fate of Montefeltro. Not far from Cesena he was killed by robbers, on his way back to Forli from Paris and from Italian universities where he had been lecturing. As a weather prophet he was once overmatched and made game of by a countryman.

[1171] Matteo Villani, xi. 3; see above, p. 508.

[1172] Jovian. Pontan. _De Fortitudine_, l. i. See p. 511 note 1, for the honourable exception made by the first Sforza.

[1173] Paul. Jov. _Elog._ sub v. Livianus, p. 219.

[1174] Who tells it us himself. Benedictus, in Eccard, ii. col. 1617.

[1175] In this sense we must understand the words of Jac. Nardi, _Vita d’Ant. Giacomini_, p. 65. The same pictures were common on clothes and household utensils. At the reception of Lucrezia Borgia in Ferrara, the mule of the Duchess of Urbino wore trappings of black velvet with astrological figures in gold. _Arch. Stor. Append._ ii. p. 305.

[1176] Æn. Sylvius, in the passage quoted above p. 508; comp. _Opp._ 481.

[1177] Azario, in Corio, fol. 258.

[1178] Considerations of this kind probably influenced the Turkish astrologers who, after the battle of Nicopolis, advised the Sultan Bajazet I. to consent to the ransom of John of Burgundy, since ‘for his sake much Christian blood would be shed.’ It was not difficult to foresee the further course of the French civil war. _Magn. Chron. Belgicum_, p. 358. _Juvénal des Ursins_, ad. a. 1396.

[1179] Benedictus, in Eccard, ii. col. 1579. It was said of King Ferrante in 1493 that he would lose his throne ‘sine cruore sed sola fama’--which actually happened.

[1180] Comp. Steinschneider, _Apokalypsen mit polemischer Tendenz_, D. M. G. Z. xxviii. 627 sqq. xxix. 261.

[1181] Bapt. Mantuan. _De Patientia_, l. iii. cap. 12.

[1182] Giov. Villani, x. 39, 40. Other reasons also existed, e.g. the jealousy of his colleagues. Bonatto had taught the same, and had explained the miracle of Divine Love in St. Francis as the effect of the planet Mars. Comp. Jo. Picus, _Adv. Astrol._ ii. 5.

[1183] They were painted by Miretto at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Acc. to Scardeonius they were destined ‘ad indicandum nascentium naturas per gradus et numeros’--a more popular way of teaching than we can now well imagine. It was astrology ‘à la portèe de tout le monde.’

[1184] He says (_Orationes_, fol. 35, ‘In Nuptias’) of astrology: ‘haec efficit ut homines parum a Diis distare videantur’! Another enthusiast of the same time is Jo. Garzonius, _De Dignitate Urbis Bononiae_, in Murat. xxi. col. 1163.

[1185] Petrarca, _Epp. Seniles_, iii. 1 (p. 765) and elsewhere. The letter in question was written to Boccaccio. On Petrarch’s polemic against the astrologers, see Geiger. _Petr._ 87-91 and 267, note 11.

[1186] Franco Sacchetti (nov. 151) ridicules their claims to wisdom.

[1187] Gio. Villani, iii. x. 39. Elsewhere he appears as a devout believer in astrology, x. 120, xii. 40.

[1188] In the passage xi. 3.

[1189] Gio. Villani, xi. 2, xii. 58.

[1190] The author of the _Annales Placentini_ (in Murat. xx. col. 931), the same Alberto di Ripalta mentioned at p. 241, took part in this controversy. The passage is in other respects remarkable, since it contains the popular opinion with regard to the nine known comets, their colour, origin, and significance. Comp. Gio. Villani, xi. 67. He speaks of a comet as the herald of great and generally disastrous events.

[1191] Paul. Jov. _Vita Leonis_ xx. l. iii. where it appears that Leo himself was a believer at least in premonitions and the like, see above p. 509.

[1192] Jo. Picus Mirand. _Adversus Astrologos_, libri xii.

[1193] Acc. to Paul, Jov. _Elog. Lit._ sub tit. Jo. Picus, the result he achieved was ‘ut subtilium disciplinarum professores a scribendo deterruisse videatur.’

[1194] _De Rebus Caelestibus_, libri xiv. (_Opp._ iii. 1963-2591). In the twelfth book, dedicated to Paolo Cortese, he will not admit the latter’s refutation of astrology. Ægidius, _Opp._ ii. 1455-1514. Pontano had dedicated his little work _De Luna_ (_Opp._ iii. 2592) to the same hermit Egidio (of Viterbo?)

[1195] For the latter passage, see p. 1486. The difference between Pontano and Pico is thus put by Franc. Pudericus, one of the interlocutors in the dialogue (p. 1496): ‘Pontanus non ut Johannes Picus in disciplinam ipsam armis equisque, quod dicitur, irrumpit, cum illam tueatur, ut cognitu maxime dignam ac pene divinam, sed astrologos quosdam, ut parum cautos minimeque prudentes insectetur et rideat.’

[1196] In S. Maria del Popolo at Rome. The angels remind us of Dante’s theory at the beginning of the _Convito_.

[1197] This was the case with Antonio Galateo who, in a letter to Ferdinand the Catholic (Mai, _Spicileg. Rom._ vol. viii. p. 226, ad a. 1510), disclaims astrology with violence, and in another letter to the Count of Potenza (_ibid._ p. 539) infers from the stars that the Turks would attack Rhodes the same year.

[1198] _Ricordi_, l. c. n. 57.

[1199] Many instances of such superstitions in the case of the last Visconti are mentioned by Decembrio (Murat. xx. col. 1016 sqq.). Odaxius says in his speech at the burial of Guidobaldo (_Bembi Opera_, i. 598 sqq.), that the gods had announced his approaching death by thunderbolts, earthquakes, and other signs and wonders.

[1200] Varchi, _Stor. Fior._ l. iv. (p. 174); prophecies and premonitions were then as rife in Florence as at Jerusalem during the siege. Comp. _ibid._ iii. 143, 195; iv. 43, 177.

[1201] Matarazzo, _Archiv. Stor._ xvi. ii. p. 208.

[1202] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. 324, for the year 1514.

[1203] For the Madonna dell’Arbore in the Cathedral at Milan, and what she did in 1515, see Prato, l. c. p. 327. He also records the discovery of a dead dragon as thick as a horse in the excavations for a mortuary chapel near S. Nazaro. The head was taken to the Palace of the Triulzi for whom the chapel was built.

[1204] ‘Et fuit mirabile quod illico pluvia cessavit.’ _Diar. Parmense_ in Murat. xxii. col. 280. The author shares the popular hatred of the usurers. Comp. col. 371.

[1205] _Conjurationis Pactianae Commentarius_, in the appendices to Roscoe’s _Lorenzo_. Politian was in general an opponent of astrology. The saints were naturally able to cause the rain to cease. Comp. Æneas Sylvius, in his life of Bernadino da Siena (_De Vir. Ill._ p. 25): ‘jussit in virtute Jesu nubem abire, quo facto solutis absque pluvia nubibus, prior serenitas rediit’.

[1206] _Poggi Facetiae_, fol. 174. Æn. Sylvius (_De Europa_, c. 53, 54, _Opera_, pp. 451, 455) mentions prodigies which may have really happened, such as combats between animals and strange appearances in the sky, and mentions them chiefly as curiosities, even when adding the results attributed to them. Similarly Antonio Ferrari (il Galateo), _De Situ Iapygiae_, p. 121, with the explanation: ‘Et hae, ut puto, species erant earum rerum quæ longe aberant atque ab eo loco in quo species visae sunt minime poterant.’

[1207] _Poggi Facetiae_, fol. 160. Comp. Pausanias, ix. 20.

[1208] Varchi, iii 195. Two suspected persons decided on flight in 1529, because they opened the Æneid at book iii. 44. Comp. Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, iii. 10.

[1209] The imaginations of the scholars, such as the ‘splendor’ and the ‘spiritus’ of Cardanus, and the ‘dæmon familiaris’ of his father, may be taken for what they are worth. Comp. Cardanus, _De Propria Vita_, cap. 4, 38, 47. He was himself an opponent of magic; cap. 39. For the prodigies and ghosts he met with, see cap. 37, 41. For the terror of ghosts felt by the last Visconti, see Decembrio, in Murat. xx. col. 1016.

[1210] ‘Molte fiate i morti guastano le creature.’ Bandello, ii. nov. 1. We read (Galateo, p. 177) that the ‘animæ’ of wicked men rise from the grave, appear to their friends and acquaintances, ‘animalibus vexi, pueros sugere ac necare, deinde in sepulcra reverti.’

[1211] Galateo, l. c. We also read (p. 119) of the ‘Fata Morgana’ and other similar appearances.

[1212] Bandello, iii. nov. 20. It is true that the ghost was only a lover wishing to frighten the occupier of the palace, who was also the husband of the beloved lady. The lover and his accomplices dressed themselves up as devils; one of them, who could imitate the cry of different animals, had been sent for from a distance.

[1213] Graziani, _Arch. Stor._ xvi. i. p. 640, ad a. 1467. The guardian died of fright.

[1214] _Balth. Castilionii Carmina_; Prosopopeja Lud. Pici.

[1215] Alexandri ab Alexandro, _Dierum Genialium_, libri vi. (Colon. 1539), is an authority of the first rank for these subjects, the more so as the author, a friend of Pontanus and a member of his academy, asserts that what he records either happened to himself, or was communicated to him by thoroughly trustworthy witnesses. Lib. vi. cap. 19: two evil men and a monk are attacked by devils, whom they recognise by the shape of their feet, and put to flight, partly by force and partly by the sign of the cross. Lib. vi. cap. 21: A servant, cast into prison by a cruel prince on account of a small offence, calls upon the devil, is miraculously brought out of the prison and back again, visits meanwhile the nether world, shows the prince his hand scorched by the flames of Hell, tells him on behalf of a departed spirit certain secrets which had been communicated to the latter, exhorts him to lay aside his cruelty, and dies soon after from the effects of the fright. Lib. ii. c. 19, iii. 15, v. 23: Ghosts of departed friends, of St. Cataldus, and of unknown beings in Rome, Arezzo and Naples. Lib. ii. 22, iii. 8: Appearances of mermen and mermaids at Naples, in Spain, and in the Peloponnesus; in the latter case guaranteed by Theodore Gaza and George of Trebizond.

[1216] Gio. Villani, xi. 2. He had it from the Abbot of Vallombrosa, to whom the hermit had communicated it.

[1217] Another view of the Dæmons was given by Gemisthos Pletho, whose great philosophical work οἱ νὁμοι, of which only fragments are now left (ed. Alexander, Paris, 1858), was probably known more fully to the Italians of the fifteenth century, either by means of copies or of tradition, and exercised undoubtedly a great influence on the philosophical, political, and religious culture of the time. According to him the dæmons, who belong to the third order of the gods, are preserved from all error, and are capable of following in the steps of the gods who stand above them; they are spirits who bring to men the good things ‘which come down from Zeus through the other gods in order; they purify and watch over man, they raise and strengthen his heart.’ Comp. Fritz Schultze, _Gesch. der Philosophie der Renaissance_, Jena, 1874.

[1218] Yet but little remained of the wonders attributed to her. For probably the last metamorphosis of a man into an ass, in the eleventh century under Leo IX., see Giul. Malmesbur. ii. 171.

[1219] This was probably the case with the possessed woman, who in 1513 at Ferrara and elsewhere was consulted by distinguished Lombards as to future events. Her name was Rodogine. See Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, iv. 58.

[1220] Jovian. Pontan. Antonius.

[1221] How widespread the belief in witches then was, is shown by the fact that in 1483 Politian gave a ‘praelectio’ ‘in priora Aristotelis Analytica cui titulus Lamia’ (Italian trans. by Isidore del Lungo, Flor. 1864) Comp. Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 75-77. Fiesole, according to this, was, in a certain sense, a witches’ nest.

[1222] Graziani, _Arch. Stor._ xvi. i. p. 565, ad a. 1445, speaking of a witch at Nocera, who only offered half the sum, and was accordingly burnt. The law was aimed at such persons as ‘facciono le fature overo venefitie overo encantatione d’ommunde spirite a nuocere,’ l. c. note 1, 2.

[1223] Lib. i. ep. 46, _Opera_, p. 531 sqq. For ‘umbra’ p. 552 read ‘Umbria,’ and for ‘lacum’ read ‘locum.’

[1224] He calls him later on: ‘Medicus Ducis Saxoniæ, homo tum dives tum potens.’

[1225] In the fourteenth century there existed a kind of hell-gate near Ansedonia in Tuscany. It was a cave, with footprints of men and animals in the sand, which whenever they were effaced, reappeared the next day. Uberti. _Il Dittamondo_, l. iii. cap. 9.

[1226] _Pii II. Comment._ l. i. p. 10.

[1227] Benv. Cellini, l. i. cap. 65.

[1228] _L’Italia Liberata da’ Goti_, canto xiv. It may be questioned whether Trissino himself believed in the possibility of his description, or whether he was not rather romancing. The same doubt is permissible in the case of his probable model, Lucan (book vi.), who represents the Thessalian witch conjuring up a corpse before Sextus Pompejus.

[1229] _Septimo Decretal_, lib. v. tit. xii. It begins: ‘Summis desiderantes affectibus’ &c. I may here remark that a full consideration of the subject has convinced me that there are in this case no grounds for believing in a survival of pagan beliefs. To satisfy ourselves that the imagination of the mendicant friars is solely responsible for this delusion, we have only to study, in the Memoirs of Jacques du Clerc, the so-called trial of the Waldenses of Arras in the year 1459. A century’s prosecutions and persecutions brought the popular imagination into such a state that witchcraft was accepted as a matter of course and reproduced itself naturally.

[1230] Of Alexander VI., Leo X., Hadrian VI.

[1231] Proverbial as the country of witches, e.g. _Orlandino_, i. 12.

[1232] E.g. Bandello, iii. nov. 29, 52. Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. 409. Bursellis, _Ann. Bon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 897, mentions the condemnation of a prior in 1468, who kept a ghostly brothel: ‘cives Bononienses coire faciebat cum dæmonibus in specie puellarum.’ He offered sacrifices to the dæmons. See for a parallel case, Procop. _Hist. Arcana_, c. 12, where a real brothel is frequented by a dæmon, who turns the other visitors out of doors. The Galateo (p. 116) confirms the existence of the belief in witches: ‘volare per longinquas regiones, choreas per paludes dicere et dæmonibus cnogredi, ingredi et egredi per clausa ostia et foramina.’

[1233] For the loathsome apparatus of the witches’ kitchens, see _Maccaroneide_, Phant. xvi. xxi., where the whole procedure is described.

[1234] In the _Ragionamento del Zoppino_. He is of opinion that the courtesans learn their arts from certain Jewish women, who are in possession of ‘malie.’ The following passage is very remarkable. Bembo says in the life of Guidobaldo (_Opera_, i. 614): ‘Guid. constat sive corporis et naturae vitio, seu quod vulgo creditum est, actibus magicis ab Octaviano patruo propter regni cupiditatem impeditum, quarum omnino ille artium expeditissimus habebatur, nulla cum femina coire unquam in tota vita potuisse, nec unquam fuisse ad rem uxoriam idoneum.’

[1235] Varchi, _Stor. Fior._ ii. p. 153.

[1236] Curious information is given by Landi, in the _Commentario_, fol. 36 a and 37 _a_, about two magicians, a Sicilian and a Jew; we read of magical mirrors, of a death’s-head speaking, and of birds stopped short in their flight.

[1237] Stress is laid on this reservation. Corn. Agrippa, _De Occulta Philosophia_, cap. 39.

[1238] _Septimo Decretal_, l. c.

[1239] _Zodiacus Vitae_, xv. 363-549, comp. x. 393 sqq.

[1240] _Ibid._ ix. 291 sqq.

[1241] _Ibid._ x. 770 sqq.

[1242] The mythical type of the magician among the poets of the time was Malagigi. Speaking of him, Pulci (_Morgante_, canto xxiv. 106 sqq.) gives his theoretical view of the limits of dæmonic and magic influence. It is hard to say how far he was in earnest. Comp. canto xxi.

[1243] Polydorus Virgilius was an Italian by birth, but his work _De Prodigiis_ treats chiefly of superstition in England, where his life was passed. Speaking of the prescience of the dæmons, he makes a curious reference to the sack of Rome in 1527.

[1244] Yet murder is hardly ever the end, and never, perhaps, the means. A monster like Gilles de Retz (about 1440) who sacrificed more than 100 children to the dæmons has scarcely a distant counterpart in Italy.

[1245] See the treatise of Roth ‘Ueber den Zauberer Virgilius’ in Pfeiffer’s _Germania_, iv., and Comparetti’s _Virgil in the Middle Ages_. That Virgil began to take the place of the older Telestæ may be explained partly by the fact that the frequent visits made to his grave even in the time of the Empire struck the popular imagination.

[1246] Uberti, _Dittamondo_, 1. iii. cap. 4.

[1247] For what follows, see Gio. Villani, i. 42, 60, ii. 1, iii. v. 38, xi. He himself does not believe such godless superstitions. Comp. Dante, _Inferno_ xiii. 146.

[1248] According to a fragment given in Baluz. Miscell ix. 119, the Perugians had a quarrel in ancient times with the Ravennates, ‘et militem marmoreum qui juxta Ravennam se continue volvebat ad solem usurpaverunt et ad eorum civitatem virtuosissime transtulerunt.’

[1249] The local belief on the matter is given in _Annal. Forolivens_. Murat. xxii. col. 207, 238; more fully in Fil. Villani, _Vite_, p 33.

[1250] Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 320: ‘Veteres potius hac in re quam Petrum, Anacletum, et Linum imitatus.’

[1251] Which it is easy to recognise e.g. in Sugerius, _De Consecratione Ecclesiae_ (Duchesne, _Scriptores_, iv. 355) and in _Chron. Petershusanum_, i. 13 and 16.

[1252] Comp. the _Calandra_ of Bibiena.

[1253] Bandello, iii. nov. 52. Fr. Filelfo (_Epist. Venet._ lib. 34, fol. 240 sqq.) attacks nercromancy fiercely. He is tolerably free from superstition (_Sat._ iv. 4) but believes in the ‘mali effectus,’ of a comet (_Epist._ fol. 246 _b_).

[1254] Bandello, iii. 29. The magician exacts a promise of secrecy strengthened by solemn oaths, in this case by an oath at the high altar of S. Petronio at Bologna, at a time when no one else was in the church. There is a good deal of magic in the _Maccaroneide_, Phant. xviii.

[1255] Benv. Cellini, i. cap. 64.

[1256] Vasari, viii. 143, _Vita di Andrea da Fiesole_. It was Silvio Cosini, who also ‘went after magical formulæ and other follies.’

[1257] Uberti, _Dittamondo_, iii. cap. 1. In the March of Ancona he visits Scariotto, the supposed birthplace of Judas, and observes: ‘I must not here pass over Mount Pilatus, with its lake, where throughout the summer the guards are changed regularly. For he who understands magic comes up hither to have his books consecrated, whereupon, as the people of the place say, a great storm arises.’ (The consecration of books, as has been remarked, p. 527, is a special ceremony, distinct from the rest.) In the sixteenth century the ascent of Pilatus near Luzern was forbidden ‘by lib und guot,’ as Diebold Schilling records. It was believed that a ghost lay in the lake on the mountain, which was the spirit of Pilate. When people ascended the mountain or threw anything into the lake, fearful storms sprang up.

[1258] _De Obsedione Tiphernatium_, 1474 (Rer. Ital. Scrippt. ex Florent. codicibus, tom. ii.).

[1259] This superstition, which was widely spread among the soldiery (about 1520), is ridiculed by Limerno Pitocco, in the _Orlandino_, v. 60.

[1260] Paul. Jov. _Elog. Lit._ p. 106, sub voce ‘Cocles.’

[1261] It is the enthusiastic collector of portraits who is here speaking.

[1262] From the stars, since Gauricus did not know physiognomy. For his own fate he had to refer to the prophecies of Cocle, since his father had omitted to draw his horoscope.

[1263] Paul. Jov. l. c. p. 100 sqq. s. v. Tibertus.

[1264] The most essential facts as to these side-branches of divination, are given by Corn. Agrippa, _De Occulta Philosophia_, cap. 57.

[1265] Libri, _Hist. des Sciences Mathém._ ii. 122.

[1266] ‘Novi nihil narro, mos est publicus’ (_Remed. Utr. Fort._ p. 93), one of the lively passages of this book, written ‘ab irato.’

[1267] Chief passage in Trithem. _Ann. Hirsaug._ ii. 286 sqq.

[1268] ‘Neque enim desunt,’ Paul. Jov. _Elog. Lit._ p. 150, s. v. ‘Pomp, Gauricus;’ comp. ibid. p. 130, s. v. Aurel. Augurellus, _Maccaroneide_. Phant. xii.

[1269] In writing a history of Italian unbelief it would be necessary to refer to the so-called Averrhoism, which was prevalent in Italy and especially in Venice, about the middle of the fourteenth century. It was opposed by Boccaccio and Petrarch in various letters, and by the latter in his work: _De Sui Ipsius et Aliorum Ignorantia_. Although Petrarch’s opposition may have been increased by misunderstanding and exaggeration, he was nevertheless fully convinced that the Averrhoists ridiculed and rejected the Christian religion.

[1270] Ariosto, _Sonetto_, 34: ‘Non credere sopra il tetto.’ The poet uses the words of an official who had decided against him in a matter of property.

[1271] We may here again refer to Gemisthos Plethon, whose disregard of Christianity had an important influence on the Italians, and particularly on the Florentines of that period.

[1272] _Narrazione del Caso del Boscoli, Arch. Stor._ i. 273 sqq. The standing phrase was ‘non aver fede;’ comp. Vasari, vii. 122, _Vita di Piero di Cosimo_.

[1273] Jovian. Pontan. _Charon_, _Opp._ ii. 1128-1195.

[1274] _Faustini Terdocei Triumphus Stultitiae_, l. ii.

[1275] E.g. Borbone Morosini about 1460; comp. Sansovino, _Venezia_ l. xiii. p. 243. He wrote ‘de immortalite animæ ad mentem Aristotelis.’ Pomponius Lætus, as a means of effecting his release from prison, pointed to the fact that he had written an epistle on the immortality of the soul. See the remarkable defence in Gregorovius, vii. 580 sqq. See on the other hand Pulci’s ridicule of this belief in a sonnet, quoted by Galeotti, _Arch. Stor. Ital._ n. s. ix. 49 sqq.

[1276] _Vespas. Fiorent._ p. 260.

[1277] _Orationes Philelphi_, fol. 8.

[1278] _Septimo Decretal._ lib. v. tit. iii. cap. 8.

[1279] Ariosto, _Orlando_, vii. 61. Ridiculed in _Orlandino_, iv. 67, 68. Cariteo, a member of the Neapolitan Academy of Pontanus, uses the idea of the pre-existence of the soul in order to glorify the House of Aragon. Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, ii. 288.

[1280] Orelli, ad Cic. _De Republ._ l. vi. Comp. Lucan, _Pharsalia_, at the beginning.

[1281] Petrarca, _Epp. Fam._ iv. 3, iv. 6.

[1282] Fil. Villani, _Vite_, p. 15. This remarkable passage is as follows: ‘Che agli uomini fortissimi poichè hanno vinto le mostruose fatiche della terra, debitamente sieno date le stelle.’

[1283] _Inferno_, iv. 24 sqq. Comp. _Purgatorio_, vii. 28, xxii. 100.

[1284] This pagan heaven is referred to in the epitaph on the artist Niccolò dell’Arca:

‘Nunc te Praxiteles, Phidias, Polycletus adora Miranturque tuas, o Nicolae, manus.’

In Bursellis, _Ann. Bonon._ Murat. xxiii. col. 912.

[1285] In his late work _Actius_.

[1286] Cardanus, _De Propria Vita_, cap. 13: ‘Non pœnitere ullius rei quam voluntarie effecerim, etiam quæ male cessisset;’ else I should be of all men the most miserable.

[1287] _Discorsi_, ii. cap. 2.

[1288] _Del Governo della Famiglia_, p. 114.

[1289] Comp. the short ode of M. Antonio Flaminio in the _Coryciana_ (see p. 269):

Dii quibus tam Corycius venusta Signa, tam dives posuit sacellum, Ulla si vestros animos piorum Gratia tangit,

Vos jocos risusque senis faceti Sospites servate diu; senectam Vos date et semper viridem et Falerno Usque madentem.

At simul longo satiatus ævo Liquerit terras, dapibus Deorum Lætus intersit, potiore mutans Nectare Bacchum.

[1290] Firenzuola, _Opere_, iv. p. 147 sqq.

[1291] Nic. Valori, _Vita di Lorenzo_, _passim_. For the advice to his son Cardinal Giovanni, see Fabroni, _Laurentius_, adnot. 178, and the appendices to Roscoe’s _Leo X._

[1292] _Jo. Pici Vita_, auct. Jo. Franc. Pico. For his ‘Deprecatio ad Deum,’ see _Deliciae Poetarum Italorum_.

[1293] _Orazione_, Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi viii. 120 (Magno Dio per la cui costante legge); hymn (oda il sacro inno tutta la natura) in Fabroni,’ _Laur._ adnot. 9; _L’Altercazione_, in the _Poesie di Lor. Magn._ i. 265. The other poems here named are quoted in the same collection.

[1294] If Pulci in his _Morgante_ is anywhere in earnest with religion, he is so in canto xvi. str. 6. This deistic utterance of the fair pagan Antea is perhaps the plainest expression of the mode of thought prevalent in Lorenzo’s circle, to which tone the words of the dæmon Astarotte (quoted above p. 494) form in a certain sense the complement.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

belonged orginally to Florentine=> belonged originally to Florentine {pg 204}

the Citadal of Milan=> the Citadel of Milan {pg 38}

nature of Lndovico Moro=> nature of Ludovico Moro {pg 43}

Die Kriegskunt als Kunst=> Die Kriegskunst als Kunst {pg 98 fn 210}

to to take any interest=> to take any interest {pg 101}

of its vasals, the legitimate=> of its vassals, the legitimate {pg 125}

do so by imfamous deeds=> do so by infamous deeds {pg 152}

forged chroncle of Ricardo Malespini=> forged chronicle of Ricardo Malespini {pg 182 fn 420}

fight its way amongt he heathen=> fight its way among the heathen {pg 206}

to the annoyance of to Petrarch=> to the annoyance of Petrarch {pg 208}

was familar with the writings=> was familiar with the writings {pg 227}

now altogether lose it supremacy=> now altogether lose its supremacy {pg 255 fn 594}

The plays of Platus and Terence=> The plays of Plautus and Terence {pg 242}

and minged with the general mourning=> and mingled with the general mourning {pg 296}

compelled them for awhile to see=> compelled them for a while to see {pg 298}

I go for awhile=> I go for a while {pg 336}

Jo. Pici oratio de hominis dignatate=> Jo. Pici oratio de hominis dignitate {pg 354 fn 805}

he gives us a humorout description=> he gives us a humorous description {pg 387}

Cronaco di Perugia, Arch. Stor.=> Cronaca di Perugia, Arch. Stor. {pg 413 fn 934}

eyes of Delio and Atellano=> eyes of Delio and Attelano {pg 444}

Guilia Gonzaga, 385;=> Giulia Gonzaga, 385; {pg 552}

futherers of, 217-229.=> furtherers of, 217-229. {pg 554}

Illigitimacy, indifference to, 21, 22.=> Illegitimacy, indifference to, 21, 22. {pg 554}