Renaissance in Italy Volume II Part 9

The most important event of Gemistos's life was the journey which he took to Italy in the train of John Palaeologus in 1438. Secretly disliking Christianity in general, and the Latin form of it in particular, he had endeavoured to dissuade the emperor from attending the Council. Now he found himself elected as one of the six champions of the cause of the Greek Church. For the subtle Greek intellect in that dotage of a doomed civilisation, no greater interest survived than could be found in dialectic; and to dispute about the _filioque_ of the Christian creed was fair sport, when no chance offered itself of forcing rationalistic Paganism down the throat of popes and cardinals. Therefore it is probable that Gemistos did not find his position at the Council peculiarly irksome, even though he had to listen to reasonings about purgatory and the procession of the Holy Ghost, and to suggest arguments in favour of the Eastern dogma, while in his inmost soul he equally despised the combatants on either side.

The effect he produced outside the Council was far more flattering than the part he had to play within the walls of Santa Maria Novella.

Instead of power-loving ecclesiastics and pig-headed theologians, anxious only to extend their privileges and establish their supremacy, he found a mult.i.tude of sympathetic and enthusiastic listeners. The Florentines were just then in the first flush of their pa.s.sion for Greek study. Plato, wors.h.i.+pped as an unknown G.o.d, whose rising would dispel the mists of scholastic theology, was upon the lips of every student. Men were thirsting for the philosophy that had the charm of poetry, that delighted the imagination while it fortified the understanding, and that lent its glamour to the dreams and yearnings of a youthful age. What they wanted, Gemistos possessed in abundance.

From the treasures of a memory stored with Platonic, Pythagorean, and Alexandrian mysticism he poured forth copious streams of indiscriminate erudition. The ears of his audience were open; their intellects were far from critical. They accepted the gold and dross of his discourse alike as purest metal. Hanging upon the lips of the eloquent, grave, beautiful old man, who knew so much that they desired to learn, they called him Socrates and Plato in their ecstasy. It was during this visit to Florence that he adopted the name of Plethon, which, while it played upon Gemistos, had in it the ring of his great master's surname.[180] The devotion of his Greek disciples bore no comparison with the popularity he acquired among Italians; and he had the satisfaction of being sure that the seed of Platonic philosophy sown by him would spring up in the rich soil of those powerful and eager minds. Cosimo de' Medici, convinced of the importance of Platonic studies by his conversations with Gemistos, founded the famous Florentine Academy, and designated the young Marsilio Ficino for the special task of translating and explaining the Platonic writings.[181] When we call to mind the influence which the Platonic Academy of Florence, through Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, exerted over the whole thought of Italy, and, through Reuchlin and his pupil Melanchthon, over that of Germany, we are able to estimate the impulse given by Gemistos to the movement of the fifteenth century. It may be added that Platonic studies in Italy never recovered from the impress of Neoplatonic mysticism which proceeded from his mind.

[Footnote 180: [Greek: Gemistos] and [Greek: gemizo], [Greek: Plethon]

and [Greek: pletho]. Both mean to be full. Plato, however, is said to have been called [Greek: Platon], because of his broad shoulders or his breadth of eloquence.]

[Footnote 181: See the translation of Plotinus by Ficino, quoted by Schultze, p. 76: 'Magnus Cosmus, Senats consulto patriae pater, quo tempore concilium inter Graecos atque Latinos sub Eugenio pontifice Florentiae tractabatur, philosophum Graec.u.m nomine Gemistum, cognomine Plethonem quasi Platonem alterum, de mysteriis Platonicis disputantem frequenter audivit. E cujus ore ferventi sic afflatus est protinus, sic animatus, ut inde Academiam quandam alta mente conceperit, hanc opportuno primum tempore pariturus.']

While resident in Florence he published two treatises on Fate and on the differences between Plato and Aristotle. The former was an anti-Christian work, in so far as it denied the freedom of arbitrary activity to G.o.d as well as men. The latter raised a controversy in Italy and Greece, which long survived its author, exercising the scholars of the Renaissance to some purpose on the texts and doctrines of the chief great thinkers of antiquity. Gemistos attacked Aristotle in general for atheism and irreligious morality, while he proved that the Platonic system, as interpreted by him, was deeply theological.

Without entering into the details of a dispute that continued to rage for many years, and aroused the bitterest feelings on both sides, it is enough to observe that Aristotle had for centuries been regarded as the pillar of orthodoxy in the Latin Church, while Plato supplied eclectic thinkers with a fair cloak for rationalistic speculations and theistic heresies. The opponents of Aristotle were undermining the foundations of the time-honoured scholastic fabric. The opponents of Plato accused his votaries of drowning the Christianity they pretended to maintain, in a vague ocean of heretical mysticism. It is indeed difficult to understand how Ficino, who wors.h.i.+pped Plato no less fervently than Christ, could avoid reducing Christianity to the level of Paganism, while he attempted to demonstrate that the Platonic system contained the essence of the Christian faith. This was, in fact, nothing less than abandoning the exclusive pretensions of revealed religion and the authority of the Church.

Before the year 1441 Gemistos had returned to Mistra, where he continued to exercise his magistracy. His old age was embittered by the fierce attacks directed by Gennadios,[182] afterwards Patriarch of Constantinople, against the esoteric doctrines of the [Greek: Nomoi].

Gennadios accused him roundly of Paganism, continuing his polemic against the book long after the death of its author. That event happened in 1450. Gemistos was buried at Mistra; but five years later Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, moved by ardent love of learning and by veneration for the philosopher, exhumed his bones, and transferred them to the Church of S. Francesco at Rimini, which Leo Alberti had but recently built for him.[183]

[Footnote 182: Schultze, p. 92. His secular name was Georgios Scholarios.]

[Footnote 183: See Vol. I., _Age of the Despots_, pp. 134, 135, and _Sketches in Italy and Greece_, article 'Rimini.']

Of Bessarion I shall have to speak elsewhere; but, in order to complete the review of Greek studies in Florence at this epoch, mention must now be made of two Greeks who filled the chair of the University with distinguished success.

That John Argyropoulos, a native of Byzantium, visited Italy before the fall of the Greek Empire, appears from Vespasiano's account of his residence with Palla Strozzi at Padua during the first years of his exile.[184] In 1456 Cosimo called him to Florence, secured him good appointments from the _studio pubblico_, and installed him as public and private teacher of Greek language and philosophy. Argyropoulos laboured at Florence for a s.p.a.ce of fifteen years, counting the most distinguished citizens among his pupils. From Florence he removed to Rome, where Reuchlin heard him lecture upon Thucydides in the pontificate of Sixtus IV. Reuchlin's scholars.h.i.+p, if we may trust Melanchthon, was rated at so high a value by this master that, on his departure from Rome, he exclaimed, 'Now hath Greece flown beyond the Alps!' A more commanding personage than Argyropoulos was Georgios Trapezuntios, who came to Italy as early as 1420, and professed Greek at Venice, Florence, Rome, and other cities. His temper was proud, choleric, and quarrelsome; but the history of his disputes belongs to the next chapter, which will treat of Rome. I may here mention that, during the residence of the Papal Court at Florence, he gave instruction both public and private,[185] without, however, entering into intimacy with the Medicean circle. After Manuel Chrysoloras, it can be said with certainty that the revival of h.e.l.lenism in the fifteenth century at Florence was due to the three men of whom I have been speaking--Georgios Gemistos, Joannes Argyropoulos, and Georgios Trapezuntios. Of the labours of the last in Rome, as well as of Theodoros Gaza, Demetrius Chalcondylas, Andronicus Callistus and the Lascari, is not yet time to speak in detail. Each deserves a separate commemoration, since to their joint activity in teaching, Europe owes Greek scholars.h.i.+p.[186]

[Footnote 184: _Vita di Palla di Noferi Strozzi_, p. 284.]

[Footnote 185: See Vespasiano, p. 486.]

[Footnote 186: See long lists in Tiraboschi, vol. vi. pp. 812, 822-837, of foreign and Italian Grecians.]

Before pa.s.sing from Florence to Rome, which at this time formed the second centre of Italian humanism, something should be said about the state of learning in the other republics. The causes that decided the pre-eminence of Florence have been already touched upon. It is enough to observe here that, while the Universities of Bologna, Siena, and Perugia engaged professors of eloquence at high salaries, the literary enthusiasm of those cities was in no way comparable to that of Florence. Their culture depended on the ill.u.s.trious visitors who fixed their residence from time to time within their walls. Genoa remained almost dead to learning. At Venice the study of the cla.s.sics engaged the attention of a few n.o.bles, without permeating the upper cla.s.ses or giving a decided tone to society at large. Though the ill.u.s.trious Greek refugees made it their custom to halt for a season at Venice, while nearly all Italian teachers of note lectured there on short engagements, it is none the less true that the Venetians were backward to encourage literature. They opened no public libraries, made no efforts to retain the services of scholars for the State, and regarded the pretensions of the humanists with cold contempt. In letters, as in the fine arts, Venice waited till the rest of Italy had blossomed.

Bembo succeeded to Poliziano, as t.i.tian to Raphael. Much good, however, was done by men like the Giustiniani and Paolo Zane, who furnished young students with the means of visiting Constantinople, and who provided them with professorial chairs on their return. The _gentiluomini_ could also count among their number Frances...o...b..rbaro, no less distinguished by his knowledge of both learned languages than by the correspondence he maintained with all the scholars of his time.

While yet a young man, he had imbibed the Florentine spirit in the house of Cosimo de' Medici. On his return to Venice he studied under the best masters, and soon attained such excellence of style that Poggio compared his treatise on marriage to the 'De Officiis' of Cicero. The Republic of Venice, however, demanded more of patriotic service from her high-born citizens than the commonwealth of Florence; and Barbaro had to spend his life in the discharge of grave State duties, finding little leisure for the cultivation of his literary talents. It remained for him to win the fame of a Maecenas, who, had he chosen, might have disputed laurels with the ablest of the scholars he protected.

CHAPTER V

SECOND PERIOD OF HUMANISM

Transition from Florence to Rome -- Vicissitudes of Learning at the Papal Court -- Diplomatic Humanists -- Protonotaries -- Apostolic Scribes -- Ecclesiastical Sophists -- Immorality and Artificiality of Scholars.h.i.+p in Rome -- Poggio and Bruni, Secretaries -- Eugenius IV. -- His Patronage of Scholars -- Flavio Biondo -- Solid Erudition -- Nicholas V. -- His Private History -- Nature of his Talents -- His unexpected Elevation to the Roman See -- Jubilation of the Humanists -- His Protection of Learned Men in Rome -- A Workshop of Erudition -- A Factory of Translations -- High Sums paid for Literary Labour -- Poggio Fiorentino -- His Early Life -- His Journeys -- His Eminence as a Man of Letters -- His Att.i.tude toward Ecclesiastics -- His Invectives -- Humanistic Gladiators -- Poggio and Filelfo -- Poggio and Guarino -- Poggio and Valla -- Poggio and Perotti -- Poggio and Georgius Trapezuntios -- Literary Scandals -- Poggio's Collections of Antiquities -- Chancellor of Florence -- Cardinal Bessarion -- His Library -- Theological Studies -- Apology for Plato -- The Greeks in Italy -- Humanism at Naples -- Want of Culture in Southern Italy -- Learning an Exotic -- Alfonso the Magnificent -- Scholars in the Camp -- Literary Dialogues at Naples -- Antonio Beccadelli -- 'The Hermaphroditus' -- Lorenzo Valla -- The Epicurean -- The Critic -- The Opponent of the Church -- Bartolommeo Fazio -- Giannantonio Porcello -- Court of Milan -- Filippo Maria Visconti -- Decembrio's Description of his Master -- Francesco Filelfo -- His Early Life -- Visit to Constantinople -- Place at Court -- Marriage -- Return to Italy -- Venice -- Bologna -- His Pretensions as a Professor -- Florence -- Feuds with the Florentines -- Immersion in Politics -- Siena -- Settles at Milan -- His Fame -- Private Life and Public Interests -- Overtures to Rome -- Filelfo under the Sforza Tyranny -- Literary Brigandage -- Death at Florence -- Filelfo as the Representative of a Cla.s.s -- Vittorino da Feltre -- Early Education -- Scheme of Training Youths as Scholars -- Residence at Padua -- Residence at Mantua -- His School of Princes -- Liberality to Poor Students -- Details of his Life and System -- Court of Ferrara -- Guarino da Verona -- House Tutor of Lionello d'Este -- Giovanni Aurispa -- Smaller Courts -- Carpi -- Mirandola -- Rimini and the Malatesta Tyrants -- Cesena -- Pesaro -- Urbino and Duke Frederick -- Vespasiano da Bisticci.

In pa.s.sing from Florence to Rome, we are struck with the fact that neither in letters nor in art had the Papal city any real life of her own. Her intellectual enthusiasms were imported; her activity varied with the personal interests of successive Popes. Stimulated by the munificence of one Holy Father, starved by the n.i.g.g.ardliness of another; petted and caressed by Nicholas V., watched with jealous mistrust by Paul II.; thrust into the background by Alexander, and brought into the light by Leo--learning was subjected to rude vicissitudes at Rome. Very few of the scholars who shed l.u.s.tre on the reigns of liberal Pontiffs were Romans, nor did the n.o.bles of the Papal States affect the fame of patrons. We have, therefore, in dealing with humanism at Rome, to bear in mind that it flourished fitfully, precariously, as an exotic, its growth being alternately checked and encouraged at the pleasure of the priest in office.

In spite of these variable conditions, one cla.s.s of humanists never failed at Rome. During the period of schisms and councils, when Pope and Antipope were waging wordy warfare in the Courts of congregated Christendom, it was impossible to dispense with the services of practised writers and accomplished orators. As composers of diplomatic despatches, letters, bulls, and protocols; as disseminators of squibs and invectives; as redactors of state papers; as pleaders, legates, amba.s.sadors, and private secretaries--scholars swarmed around the person of the Pontiff. Their official t.i.tles varied, some being called Secretaries to the Chancery, others Apostolic Scriptors, others again Protonotaries; while their duties were divided between the regular business of the Curia and the miscellaneous transactions that arose from special emergencies of the Papal See. Their services were well rewarded. In addition to about 700 florins of pay and perquisites, they, for the most part, entered into minor orders and held benefices.

Men of acute intellect and finished style, who had absorbed the culture of their age, and could by rhetoric enforce what arguments they chose to wield, found, therefore, a good market for their talents at the Court of Rome. They soon became a separate and influential cla.s.s, divided from the n.o.bility by their birth and foreign connections, and from the churchmen by their secular status and avowed impiety, yet mingling in society with both and trusting to their talents to support their dignity. At the Council of Basle the protonotaries even claimed to take precedence of the bishops on occasions of high ceremony, arguing, from the nature of their office and the rarity of their acquirements, that they had a better right than priests to approach the person of the Sovereign Pontiff. Poggio and Bruni, Losco, Aurispa, and Biondo raised their voices in this quarrel, which proved how indispensable the mundane needs of the Papacy had rendered these free-lances of literature. Through them the spirit of humanism, antagonistic to the spirit of the Church, possessed itself of the Eternal City; and much of the flagrant immorality which marked Rome during the Renaissance may be ascribed to the influence of paganising scholars, freed from the restrictions of family and local opinion, indifferent to religion, and less absorbed in study for its own sake than in the profits to be gained by the exercise of a practised pen. There was a real discord between the principles which the Church professed, and the new culture that flourished on a heathen soil. While merely secular interests blinded the Popes to the perils which might spring from fostering this discord, humanistic enthusiasm had so thoroughly penetrated Italy that to exclude it from Rome was impossible. Neopagan scholars.h.i.+p added, therefore, l.u.s.tre to the Papal Court, as one among the many splendours of that worldly period which raised the See of Rome to eminence above the States of Italy. The light it shed, however, had no vital heat.

Learning was always an article of artificial luxury at Rome, not, as at Florence, part of the nation's life; and when the gilded pomp of Leo dwindled down to Clement's abject misery and utter ruin, it was found that such encouragement as Popes had given to literature had been a source of weakness and decay. We may still be sincerely thankful that the Pontiffs took the line they did; for had they placed themselves in a position of antagonism to the humanistic movement, instead of utilising and approving of it, the free development of Italian scholars.h.i.+p might have sustained a dangerous check.

It was from Florence that Rome received her intellectual stimulus. The connection began in 1402, when Boniface IX. appointed Poggio to the post of Apostolic Secretary, which he held for fifty years. In 1405 Lionardo Bruni obtained the same office from Innocent VII. The powerful personality of these men, in whom the energies of the humanistic revival were concentrated, impressed the Roman Curia with a stamp it never lost. Good Latinity became a _sine qua non_ in the Papal Chancery; and when Gregory XII. named Antonio Losco of Verona one of his secretaries, it was natural that this distinguished scholar, following the Florentine example of Coluccio Salutato, should compose a book of forms in Ciceronian style for the use of his office.[187] During the insignificant pontificate of Martin V., while the Curia resided in exile at Florence, the chain which was binding Rome to the city of Italian culture continued to gain strength. The result of all the discords which rent the Church in the first half of the fifteenth century was to Italianise the Papal See; nor did anything contribute to this end more powerfully than the Florentine traditions of three successive Popes--Martin V., Eugenius IV., and Nicholas V.

[Footnote 187: See Facius, _De Viris Ill.u.s.tribus_, p. 3, quoted by Voigt, p. 278.]

Eugenius was a Venetian of good family, who inherited considerable wealth from his father. Having realised his fortune, he bestowed 20,000 ducats on charitable inst.i.tutions and took orders in the Church.[188] In 1431 he was raised to the Papacy; but the disturbed state of Rome obliged him to quit the Vatican in mean disguise, and to seek safety by flight from Ostia. He spent the greater portion of his life in Tuscany, occupied less with humanistic interests than with the reformation of monastic orders and the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs in the Councils of Basle and Florence. Though he did not share the pa.s.sion of his age for learning, the patronage which he extended to scholars was substantial and important. Giovanni Aurispa received from him the t.i.tle of Apostolic Secretary, and was appointed interpreter between the Greeks and Italians at the Council of the two Churches. Even the paganising Carlo Marsuppini was enrolled upon the list of Papal secretaries, while Filelfo and Piero Candido Decembrio, who added l.u.s.tre at this epoch to the Court of Milan, were invited by Eugenius with highly flattering promises. The value of these meagre statements consists in this, that even a Pope, whose personal proclivities were monastic rather than humanistic, felt the necessity of borrowing all the strength he could obtain from men of letters in an age when learning itself was power. More closely attached to his Court than those who have been mentioned, were Maffeo Begio, the poet, and Flavio Biondo, one of the soundest and most conscientious students of the time.[189]

[Footnote 188: See Vespasiano, p. 6.]

[Footnote 189: He was born at Forli in 1388, and died in 1463, the father of five sons.]

Though Biondo had but little Greek, and could boast of no beauty of style, his immense erudition raised him to high rank among Italian scholars. The work he undertook was to ill.u.s.trate the antiquities of Italy in a series of historical, topographical, and archaeological studies. His 'Roma Instaurata,' 'Roma Triumphans,' and 'Italia Ill.u.s.trata,' three bulky encyclopaedias of information concerning ancient manners, laws, sites, monuments, and races, may justly be said to have formed the basis of all subsequent dictionaries of Roman antiquities. Another product of his industry was ent.i.tled 'Historiarum ab Inclinatione Romanorum.' Three decades and a portion of the fourth were written, when death put a stop to the completion of this gigantic task. In estimating the value of Biondo's contributions to history, we must remember that he had no previous compilations whereon to base his own researches. The vast stores of knowledge he collected and digested were derived from original sources. He grasped the whole of Latin literature, both cla.s.sical and mediaeval, arranged the results of his comprehensive reading into sections, and furnished the learned world with tabulated materials for the study of Roman inst.i.tutions in the State, the camp, the law courts, private life, and religious ceremonial. Obstinate indeed must have been the industry of the scholar, who, in addition to these cla.s.sical researches, undertook to narrate the dissolution of antique society and to present a faithful picture of Italy in the dark ages. Biondo's 'History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' conceived in an age devoted to stylistic niceties and absorbed by the attractions of renascent h.e.l.lenism, inspires our strongest admiration. Yet its author failed in his lifetime to win the distinction he deserved. Though he held the office of Apostolic Secretary under four Popes, his marriage stopped the way to ecclesiastical preferment, while his incapacity to use the arts of the stylist, the sophist, the flatterer, and the translator, lost him the favour his more solid qualities had at first procured.

Eugenius could appreciate a man of his stamp better than Nicholas V., whose special tastes inclined to elegant humanism rather than to ponderous erudition.

The lives of all the humanists ill.u.s.trate the honours and the wealth secured by learning for her votaries in the Renaissance. No example, however, is so striking as that furnished by the biography of Nicholas V. Tommaso Parentucelli was born at Pisa in 1398. While he was still an infant his parents, in spite of their poverty and humble station, which might have been expected to s.h.i.+eld them from political tyranny, were exiled to Sarzana;[190] and at the age of nine he lost his father at that place. Sarzana has consequently gained the credit of giving birth to the first great Pope of the Renaissance period. The young Tommaso found means, though extremely poor, to visit the University of Bologna, where he studied theology and made himself a master in the seven liberal arts. After six years' residence at Bologna, his total dest.i.tution, combined, perhaps, with a desire for more instruction in elegant scholars.h.i.+p than the university afforded, led him to seek work in Florence. He must have already acquired some reputation, since Rinaldo degli Albizzi received him as house-tutor to his children for one year, at the expiration of which time he entered the service of Palla degli Strozzi in a similar capacity. The money thus obtained enabled him to return to Bologna, and to take his degree as Doctor of Theology at the age of twenty-two. He was now fully launched in life.

The education he had received at Bologna qualified him for office in the church, while his two years' residence at Florence had rendered him familiar with men of polite learning and of gentle breeding.

Niccolo degli Albergati, Archbishop of Bologna, became his patron, and appointed him controller of his household. Albergati was one of the cardinals of Eugenius IV., a man of considerable capacity, and alive to the intellectual interests of his age. When he followed the Papal Court to Florence, Tommaso attended him, and here began the period which was destined to influence his subsequent career. Inspired with a pa.s.sionate devotion to books for their own sake, and gifted with ardent curiosity and all-embracing receptivity of intellect, the young scholar found himself plunged into a society of which literature formed the most absorbing occupation. He soon became familiar with Cosimo de' Medici, and no meetings of the learned were complete without him. A glimpse may be obtained of the literary circle he frequented at this time from a picturesque pa.s.sage in Vespasiano.[191]

'It was the wont of Messer Lionardo d'Arezzo, Messer Giannozzo Manetti, Messer Poggio, Messer Carlo d'Arezzo, Messer Giovanni Aurispa, Maestro Gasparo da Bologna, and many other men of learning to congregate every morning and evening at the side of the Palazzo, where they entered into discussions and disputes on various subjects. As soon, then, as Maestro Tommaso had attended the Cardinal to the Palazzo, he joined them, mounted on a mule, with two servants on foot; and generally he was attired in blue, and his servants in long dresses of a darker colour. At that time the pomp of the Court of Rome was not by any means what it is nowadays. In the place I have named he was always to be found, conversing and disputing, since he was a most impa.s.sioned debater.'

[Footnote 190: So Vespasiano relates the cause of their removal from Pisa. P. 20.]

[Footnote 191: P. 23.]

Tommaso was not a man of genius; his talents were better suited for collecting and digesting what he read, than for original research and composition. He had a vast memory, and was an indefatigable student, not only perusing but annotating all the books he purchased. Pius II.

used to say of him that what he did not know, must lie outside the sphere of human knowledge. In speech he was fluent, and in disputation eager; but he never ranked among the ornate orators and stylists of the age. His wide acquaintance with all branches of literature, and his faculty for cla.s.sification, rendered him useful to Cosimo de'

Medici, who employed him on the catalogue of the Marcian Library.

From Cosimo in return, Tommaso caught the spirit which sustained him in his coming days of greatness. Already, at this early period, while living almost on the bounty of the Medici, he never lost an opportunity of acc.u.mulating books, and would even borrow money to secure a precious MS.[192] He used to say that, if ever he acquired wealth, he would expend it in book-buying and building--a resolution to which he adhered when he rose to the Pontificate.

[Footnote 192: Vespasiano, p. 27.]

Soon after the death of Albergati in 1443, Eugenius promoted Tommaso to the see of Bologna; a cardinal's hat followed within a few months; and in 1447 he was elected Pope of Rome. So sudden an elevation from obscurity and poverty to the highest place in Christendom has rarely happened; nor is it even now easy to understand what combinations of unsuccessful intrigues among the princes of the Church enabled this little, ugly, bright-eyed, restless-minded scholar to creep into S.

Peter's seat. Perhaps the simplest explanation is the best. The times were somewhat adverse to the Papacy, nor was the tiara quite as much an object of secular ambition as it afterwards became. Humanism meanwhile exercised strong fascination over every cla.s.s in Italy, and it would seem that Tommaso Parentucelli had nothing but his reputation for learning to thank for his advancement. 'Who in Florence would have thought that a poor bell-ringer of a priest would be made Pope, to the confusion of the proud?' This was his own complacent exclamation to Vespasiano, who had gone to kiss his old friend's feet, and found him seated on a throne with twenty torches blazing round him.[193]

[Footnote 193: _Ibid._ p. 33.]

The rejoicings with which the humanists hailed the elevation of one of their own number to the Papal throne may be readily imagined; nor were their golden expectations, founded on a previous knowledge of his liberality in all things that pertained to learning, destined to be disappointed. Nicholas V., to quote the words of Vespasiano, who knew him well, 'was a foe to ceremonies and vain flatteries, open and candid, without knowing how to feign; avarice he never harboured, for he was always spending beyond his means.'[194] His revenues were devoted to maintaining a splendid Court, rebuilding the fortifications and palaces of Rome, and showering wealth on men of letters. In the protection extended by this Pope to literature we may notice that he did not attempt to restore the _studio pubblico_ of Rome, and that he showed a decided preference for works of solid learning and translations. His tastes led him to delight in critical and grammatical treatises, and his curiosity impelled him to get Latin versions made of the Greek authors. It is possible that he did nothing for the Roman university because he considered Florence sufficient for the humanistic needs of Italy, and his own Alma Mater for the graver studies of the three professions. Still this neglect is noticeable in the case of a Pontiff whose one public aim was to restore Rome to the rank of a metropolis, and whose chief private interest was study.

[Footnote 194: Vespasiano, pp. 25, 27.]

The most permanent benefit conferred by him on Roman studies was the foundation of the Vatican Library, on which he spent about 40,000 scudi forming a collection of some 5,000 volumes.[195] He employed the best scribes, and obtained the rarest books; nor was there anyone in Italy better qualified than himself to superintend the choice and arrangement of such a library. It had been his intention to place it in S. Peter's and to throw it open to the public; but he died before this plan was matured. It remained for Sixtus IV. to carry out his project.

[Footnote 195: _Ibid._ p. 38.]

During the pontificate of Nicholas Rome became a vast workshop of erudition, a factory of translations from Greek into Latin. These were done for the most part by Greeks who had an imperfect knowledge of Latin, and by Italians who had not complete mastery of Greek. The work achieved was unequal and of no great permanent value; yet for the time being it served a purpose of utility, nor could the requirements of the age have been so fully satisfied by any other method. Nearly all the eminent scholars at that time in Italy were engaged in this labour. How liberally they were rewarded may be gathered from the following details. Lorenzo Valla obtained 500 scudi for his version of Thucydides; Guarino received the larger sum of 1,500 scudi for Strabo; Perotti 500 ducats for Polybius; while Manetti was pensioned at the rate of 600 scudi per annum to enable him to carry on his sacred studies. Nicholas delighted in Greek history. Accordingly, Appian was translated by Piero Candido Decembrio, Diodorus Siculus and the 'Cyropaedia' of Xenophon by Poggio,[196] Herodotus by Valla. Valla and Decembrio were both engaged upon the 'Iliad' in Latin prose; but the dearest wish of Nicholas in his last years was to see the poems of Homer in the verse of Filelfo. Nor were the Greeks then resident in Italy neglected. To Georgios Trapezuntios the Pope entrusted the 'Physics,' 'Problems,' and 'Metaphysics' of Aristotle. The same scholar tried his hand at the 'Laws' of Plato, and, in concert with Decembrio, produced a version of the 'Republic.' Gregorios Tifernas undertook the 'Ethics' of Aristotle, and Theodorus Gaza the 'History of Animals.' To this list should be added the Greek Fathers, Theophrastus, Ptolemy, and minor works which it would be tedious to enumerate.[197]

[Footnote 196: The latter was intended for Alfonso of Naples.]

[Footnote 197: Tiraboschi is the authority for these details.]