Renaissance in Italy, Volume 2 (of 7)

atronage-Variety of his Gifts-Meetings of the Platonic Society-Marsilio Ficino-His Education for Platonic Studies-Translations of Plato and the Neoplatonists-Harmony between Plato and Christianity-Gio

Work-The 'Miscellanea'-Relation to Medici-Roman Scholarship in this Period-Pius II.-Pomponius L?tus-His Academy and Mode of Life-Persecution under Paul II.-Humanism at Naples-Pontanus-His Academy-His Writings-Academies established in all Towns of Italy-Introduction of Printing-Sweynheim and Pannartz-The Early Venetian Press-Florence

great a work could not have been accomplished, his immediate successors mastered the Greek language, and explored every province of antiquity. Much still remained, however, to be achieved by a new generation of students: for as yet criticism was but in its cradle; the graces of style were but little understood; indiscriminate erudition passed for scholarship, and crude verbiage for eloquence. The humanis

thusiasm for antiquity, now receives nearly as much attention as the classics. Since the revival of Italian in the golden age of the Renaissance will form the subject of my final volume, the names of Lorenzo de' Medici and Poliziano at Florence, of Boiardo at Ferrara, and of Sannazzaro at Naples may here suffice to indicate the points of contact between scholarship and the national literature. A century had been employed in the acquisition of humanisti

to the rest of Italy, determining by their tastes and studies the tone of intellectual society. Lorenzo is himself in so deep and

ed by corruption, it was absolutely needful that the spirit of Cosimo should survive in his successors. A single false move, by unmasking the tyranny so carefully veiled, by offending the republican vanities of the Florentines, or by employing force where everything had hitherto been gained by craft, would at this epoch have destroyed the prospects of the Medicean family. So true it is that the history of this age in Italy is not the history of commonwealths so much as the history of individualities, of men. The principles reduced to rule by Machiavelli in his essay on the Prince may b

e the lead in politics.[310] Yet the powers entrusted to his father were confirmed for him. The elections remained in the hands of the Medicean party, and the balia appointed in their favour continued to control the State. The dangerous conspiracy against Piero's life, engaged in by Luca Pitti and Diotisalvi Neroni, proved that his enemies regarded the chief of the Medici as the leader of the republic. It was due

magnates, exactly represented the spirit of the republic.[311] In like manner, the education of both Lorenzo and Giuliano, their intercourse with royal guests, and the prominent places assigned them on occasions of ceremony, indicated an advance toward despotism. It was concordant with the manners of the age t

enzo was far too wise to assume the bearing of a despot. He conversed familiarly with the citizens, encouraged artists and scholars to address him on terms of equality, and was careful to adopt no titles. His personal temperament made the task of being in effect a sovereign, while he acted like a citizen, comparatively easy, his chief difficulties arose from the necessity under which he laboured, like his grandfather Cosimo, of governing through a party composed of men distinguished by birth and ability, and powerful by wealth and connections. To keep this party in good temper, to flatter its members with the show of influence, and to gain their concurrence for the alterations he introduced into the State machinery of Florence, was the problem of his life. By creating a body of clients, bound to himself by div

ber. This was the secret of their power in the next generation, when, banished and reduced to bastards, the Medici returned from two exiles, survived the perils of the siege and Alessandro's murder, and finally assumed the Ducal crown in the person of the last scion of their younger br

iture kept continually increasing. In order to retrieve his fortunes it was necessary for him to gain complete disposal of the public purse. This was the real object of the constitutional revolution of 1480, wher

eral-minded noble of his epoch, born to play the first part in the Florentine republic, and careful to use his wealth and influence for the advancement of his fellow-citizens in culture, learning, arts, amenities of life. Savonarola and the Florentine historians adopt the former of these two opinions. Sismondi, in his passion for liberty, arrays against Lorenzo the political assassinations he permitted, the enervation of Florence, the national debt incurred by the republic, the exhausting wars with Sixtus carried on in his defence. His panegyrists, on the contrary, love to paint him as the pacificator of Italy, the restorer of Florentine poetry, the profound critic, and the generous patron. The truth lies in the combination of these two apparently contradictory judgments. Lorenzo was the representative man of his nation at a moment when political institutions were everywhere inclining to despotism, and when the spiritual life of the Italians found its noblest expression

was no less famous for his jokes and repartees than for his pithy apophthegms and maxims, as good a judge of cattle as of statues, as much at home in the bosom of his family as in the riot of an orgy, as ready to discourse on Plato as to plan a campaign or to plot the death of a dangerous citizen. An apologist may always plead that Lorenzo was the epitome of his nation's most distinguished qualities, that the versatility of the Renaissance found in him its fullest incarnation. It was the duty of Italy in the fifteenth century not to establish religious or constitutional liberty, but to resuscitate culture. Before the disastrous wars of invasion had begun, it might well have seemed even to patriots as though Florence needed a M?cenas more than a Camillus. Therefore the prince who in his own person combined all accomplishments, who knew by sympathy

e austere Hallam, moved to more than usual eloquence by the spirit-stirring beauty of his theme, 'on the steep slope of that lofty hill crowned by the mother city, the ancient Fiesole, in gardens which Tully might have envied, with Ficino, Landino, and Politian at his side, he delighted his hours of leisure with the beautiful visions of Platonic philosophy, for which the summer stillness of an Italian sky appears the most congenial accompaniment.' As we climb the steep slope of Fiesole, or linger beneath the rose-trees that shed their petals from Careggi's garden walls, once more in our imagination 'the world's great age begins anew;' once more the blossoms of that marvellous spring unclose. While the sun goes down beneath the mountains of Carrara, and the Apennines grow purple-golden, and Florence sleeps beside the silver

ore than natural. To philosophise and humanise the religious sentiments that had become the property of monks and pardon-mongers; to establish a concordat between the Paganism that entranced the world, and the Catholic faith whereof the world was not yet weary; to satisfy the new-born sense of a divine and hitherto unapprehended mystery in heaven and earth; to dignify with a semblance of truth the dreams of magic and astrology that passed for science-all this the men of the R

his cure. Antiquity he judged by the standard of the Christian creed. If he asserted that Socrates and Plato witnessed, together with the evangelists, to the truth of revelation, or that the same spirit inspired the laws of Moses and the Greek philosopher-this, as he conceived it, was in effect little else than extending the catena of authority backward from the Christian fathers to the sages of the ancient world. The Church, by admitting the sibyls into the company of the prophets, virtually sanctioned the canonisation of Plato; while the comprehensive survey of history as an uninterrupted whole, which since the days of Petrarch had distinguished the nobler type of humanism, rendered F

se on the 'Platonic Doctrine of Immortality.' The latter work is interesting as a repertory of the theories discussed by the Medicean circle at their festivals in honour of Plato's birthday. It has, however, no intrinsic value for the critic or philosopher, being in effect nothing better than a jumble of citations culled from antique mystics and combined with cruder modern guesses. In 1486 the translation of Plotinus was accomplished, and in 1491 a voluminous commentary had been added; both were published one month after Lorenzo's death in 1492. A version of Dionysius the Areopagite, whose treatise on the 'Hierarchies,' though rejected by Lorenzo Valla, was accepted as genuine by Ficino, closed the long list of his translations from the Greek. The importance of Ficino's contributions to philosophy consists in the impulse he communicated to Platonic studies. That he did not comprehend Plato, or distinguish his philosophy from that of the Alexandrian my

ense of their most precious thoughts? It was by outward signs like these, then full of fair significance, now puerile and void of import, that the pageant-loving men of the Renaissance testified their debt of gratitude to Plato. Of one of these birthday feasts Ficino has given a lively picture in his letter to Jacopo Bracciolini ('Prolegomena ad Platonis Symposium'). After partaking of a banquet, the text of the 'Symposium' was delivered ove

above the reach of praise.' This was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, whose portrait in the Uffizzi Gallery, with its long brown hair and penetrating grey eyes, compels attention even from those who know not whom it is supposed to figure. He was little more than twenty when he came to Florence. His personal attractions, noble manners, splendid style of life, and varied accomplishments made him the idol of Florentine society; and for a time he gave himself, in part at least, to love and the amusements of his age.[315] But Pico was not born for pleasure. By no man was the sublime ideal of humanity, superior to physical enjo

d by any sluggishness of mental power. To what extent he relied upon his powers of debate as well as on his vast stores of erudition, was proved by the publication of the famous nine hundred theses at Rome in 1486. These questions seem to have been constructed in defence of the Platonic mysticism, which already had begun to absorb his attention. The philosophers and theologians who were challenged to contend with him in argument had the whole list offered to their choice. Pico was prepared to maintain each and all of his positions without further preparation. Ecclesiastical prudence, however, prevented the champions of orthodo

sing the trivial questions raised by shallow wits among style-mongering students, he freed himself from the worst fault of humanism, and conceived of learning in a liberal spirit. The best proof of this wide acceptance of all literature conducive to sound thinking, is given in a letter to Ermolao Barbaro.[317] After courteously adverting to the Ciceronian elegance of his correspondent's style he continues, 'And that I meantime should have lost in the studies of Thomas Aquinas, John Scotus, Albertus Magnus, and Averrhoes the best years of my life-those long, laborious vigils wherein I might perchance have made myself of some avail in polite scholarship! The thought occurred to me, by way of consolation, if some of them could come to life again, whether men so powerful in argument might not find sound pleas for their own cause; whether one among them, more eloquent than Paul, might not defend, in terms as free as possible from barbarism, their barbarous style,

t seemed to him that the science of the Greek and the faith of the Christian could only be understood in the light of the Cabbala. He purchased the MS., devoted his whole attention to its study, and projected a mighty work to prove the harmony of philosophies in Christianity, and to explain the Christian doctrine by the esoteric teaching of the Jews.[318] Pico's view of the connection between philosophy, theology, and religion is plainly stated in the following sent

the Despots dare to act without the advice of their soothsayers. These men not unfrequently accompanied the greatest generals on their campaigns. Their services were bought by the republics; citizens employed them for the casting of horoscopes, the building of houses, the position of shops, the fit moment for journeys, the reception of guests into their families, and the date of weddings. To take a serious step in life without the approval of an astrologer had come to be regarded as perilous. Even Ficino believed in horoscopes and planetary influences; so did Cardan at a later d

contemplation, to divine the unity of human achievements, and to comprehend the greatness of the destiny of man, than to accept the learning of the past at a simple historical valuation. What fascinated their imagination passed with them too easily for true and proved. Yet all they needed was time for the digestion and assimilation of the store

e. While Ficino and Pico represented the study of philosophy, he devoted himself exclusively to scholarship, annotating Horace and Virgil, and translating Pliny's 'Natural Histories.' A marked feature in Landino's professorial labours was the attention he paid to the Italian poets. In 1460 he began to lecture on Petrarch, and in 1481 he published an edit

onio Canigiani-all of whom had quitted Florence to enjoy the rest of summer coolness among the firs and chestnuts of the Apennines. The party thus formed was completed by the arrival of Leo Battista Alberti and Marsilio Ficino. The conversation maintained from day to day by these close friends and ardent scholars forms the substance of the dialogue. Seated on the turf beside a fountain, near the spot where Romualdo was bidden in his trance to exchange the black robes of the Benedictine Order for the snow-white livery of angels, they not unnaturally began to compare the active life that they had left at Florence with the contemplative life of philosophers and saints. Alberti led the conversation by a

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Alberti led the conversation to Virgil's poetry, demonstrating its allegorical significance, and connecting its hidden philosophy with that of Plato. It is clear that in this part of his work Landino was presenting the substance of his own Virg

nd wrote three books on painting; practised architecture and compiled ten books on building. Of his books, chiefly portraits, nothing remains; but the Church of S. Andrea at Mantua, the Palazzo Rucellai at Florence, and the remodelled Church of S. Francesco at Rimini attest his greatness as an architect. The fa?ade of the latter building is more thoroughly classical than any other monument of the earlier Renaissance. As a transcript from Roman antiquity it ranks with the Palazzo della Ragione of Palladio at Vincenza. While still a young man, Alberti, overtaxed, in all probability, by the prodigious activity of his mental and bodily forces, suffered from an illness that resulted in a partial loss of memory. The humanistic and legal studies on which he was engaged had to be abandoned; yet, nothing daunted, he now turned his plastic genius to philosophy and mathematics, rightly judging that they make less demand upon the passive than the active vigour of the mind. It is believed that he anticipated some modern discoveries in optics, and he certainly advanced the science of perspective. Like his compeer Lionardo, he devoted attention to mechanics, and devised machinery for raising sunken ships. Like Lionardo, again, he was never tired of interrogating nature, conducting curious experiments, and watching her more secret operations. As a physiognomist and diviner, he acqui

ly diminished since the days when Bruni, Marsuppini, and Poggio held it; nor could Scala, as a student, bear comparison with those men. His Latin history of the first crusade was rather a large than a great work, of which no notice would be taken if Tasso had not used it in the composition of his epic. Honours and riches, however, were accumulated on the Chancellor in such profusion that he grew arrogant, and taunted the great Poliziano with inferiority. The feud between these men was not confined to l

ame to study in the University of Florence, where he profited by the teaching of Landino, Argyropoulos, Andronicos Kallistos, and Ficino. The precocity of his genius displayed itself in Latin poems and Greek epigrams composed while he was yet a boy. At thirteen years of age he published Latin letters; at seventeen he distributed Greek poems among the learned men of Florence; at eighteen he edited Catullus, with the boast that he had shown more zeal than any other student in the correction and illustration of the ancients. As early as the year 1

e of thirty, Poliziano professed the Greek and Latin literatures in the University of Florence, and received the care of Lorenzo's children. If Lorenzo represents the statecraft of his age, Poliziano is no less emphatically the representative of its highest achievements in scholarship. He was the first Italian to combine perfect mastery over Latin and a correct sense of Greek with a splendid genius for his native literature. Filelfo boasted that he could write both classic languages with equal ease, and exercised his prosy muse in terza rima. But Filelfo had no fire o

w specimens survive. These, in spite of certain licenses not justified by pure Greek prosody, might claim a place in the 'Anthology,' among the epigrams of Agathias and Paulus Silentiarius.[325] The Doric couplets on two beautiful boys, and the love sonnet to the youth Chrysocomus, read like extracts from the Μο?σα παιδικ?.[326] What is remarkable about the

ht. He realised what the Italians had been striving after-the new birth of antiquity in a living man of the modern world. By way of modifying this high panegyric, it may be conceded that Poliziano had the defects of his qualities. Using Latin with the freedom of a master, he was not careful to purge his style of obsolete words and far-fetched phrases, or to maintain the diction of one period in each composition. His fluency betrayed him into verbiage, and his descriptions are often more d

visations wherewith he illustrated the spirit and intention of his authors, and silently absorbing the vast and well-ordered stores of knowledge he so prodigally scattered. It would not be profitable to narrate here at any length what is known about the topics of these lectures. Poliziano not only covered the whole ground of classic literature during the years of his professorship, but also published the notes of courses upon Ovid, Suetonius, Statius, the younger Pliny, the writers of Augustan histories, and Quintilian. Some of his best Latin poems were written by way of preface to the authors he explained in public. Virgil was celebrated in the 'Manto,' and Homer in the 'Ambra;' the 'Rusticus' served as prelude to the 'Georgics,' while the 'Nutricia' formed an introduction to the study of ancient and modern poetry. Nor did he confine his attention to fine literature. The curious pr?lection in prose called 'Lamia' was intended as a prelude to the prior

ked what new book had appeared, they answered, Politian's "Miscellanies." I mounted their desk, sat down among them, and began to read with equal eagerness. But, as I could not spend much time there, I sent at once to the bookseller's stall for a copy of the work.' By this time Poliziano's fame had eclipsed that of all his contemporaries. He corresponded familiarly with native and foreign princes, and held a kind of court at Florence among men of learning who came from all parts of Italy to converse with him. This popularity grew even burdensome, or at any rate he affected to find it so. 'Does a man want a motto for his sword's hilt or a posy for a ring,' he writes,[330] 'an inscripti

were, no doubt, many points in the great scholar's character that justified her thinking him unfit to be the constant companion of young men. Whatever may be the truth about the cause of his last illness, enough remains of his Greek and Italian verses to prove that his morality was lax, and his concep

vaunt his own achievements[333] and extol his patron to the skies, that he should ask for money and set off his panegyrics against payment, seemed not derogatory to a man of genius in the fifteenth century. Yet these habits of literar

iano, who watched Lorenzo in his last moments, described the scene of his death in a letter marked by touching sorrow which he addressed to Antiquari, and proved by the Latin mono

renzo's holiday reign into the dust-heap. Instead of rispetti and ballate, the refrain of Misereres filled the city, and the Dominican's prophecy of blood and ruin drowned

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n the literature of humanism by their form alike and feeling, breaks the threnody of the abandoned scholar. 'Ah, woe! Ah, woe is me! O grief! O grief! Lightning hath struck our laurel tree, our laurel dear to all the Muses and the dan

r as his friend Pico della Mirandola, a few weeks before the deluge prophesied by Sav

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ers, composed a not unworthy elegy upon the man whom he just

ompose novels in the style of Longus and Achilles Tatius. These stories, together with his familiar letters, histories, cosmographical treatises, rhetorical disquisitions, apophthegms, and commentaries, written in a fluent and picturesque Latin style, distinguished him for wit and talent from the merely laborious students of his age.[336] A change, however, came over him when he assumed the title of Pius II. with the tiara.[337] Learning in Italy owed but little to his patronage, and though he strengthened the position of the humanists at Rome by founding the College of Abbreviators, he was more eager to defend Christendom against the Turk than to make his See the capital of culture. For this it would be narrow-minded to blame Pius. The experience of European politics had extended his view beyond the narrower circ

philosopher came strangers of importance, eager to behold a Roman living in all points like an antique sage. The high school of Rome owed much to his indefatigable industry. Through a long series of years he lectured upon the chief Latin authors, examining their text with critical accuracy, and preparing new editions of their works. Before daybreak he would light his lantern, take his staff, and wend his way from the Esquiline to the lecture-room, where, however early the hour and however inclement the season, he was sure to find an overflowing audience. Yet it was not as a professor that Pomponius L?tus acquired his great celebrity, and left a lasting impress on the society of Rome. This he did by forming an academy for the avowed purpose of prosecuting the study of Latin antiquities and promoting the adoption of antique customs into modern life. The members assumed classical names, exchanging their Italian patronymics for fancy titles like Callimachus Experiens, Asclepiades, Glaucus, Volscus, and Petrejus. They yearly kept the birthday feast of Rome, celebrating the Palilia with Pagan solemnities, playing comedies of Plautus, and striving to revive the humours of the old Atellan farces. Of this circle Pontanus and Sannazzaro, Platina, Sabellicus and Molza, Janus Parrhasius, and the future Paul III. were proud to call themselves the members. It is only from the language in which such men refer to L?tus that we gain a due not

embers Latinised their names; many of them became better known by their assumed titles than by their Italian cognomens. Sannazzaro, for instance, acquired a wide celebrity as Accius Syncerus. Pontanus was himself a native of Cereto in the Spoletano. Born in 1426, he settled in his early manhood at Naples, where Beccadelli introduced him to his royal patrons. During the reigns of Ferdinand I., Alfonso II., and Ferdinand II. Pontanus held the post of secretary, tutor, and ambassador, accompanying his masters on their military expeditions and nego

Bay of Naples, where they were inspired. As a prose-writer it is particularly by his moral treatises that Pontanus deserves to be remembered. Unlike the mass of contemporary dialogues on ethical subjects, they abound in illustrations drawn from recent history, so that even now they may be advantageously consulted by students anxious to gather characteristic details and to form a just opinion of Renaissance morality. Throughout his writings Pontanus shows himself to have been an orig

resents Nicodemus, is a stern, hard-featured, long-faced man, of powerful bone and fibrous sinews, built for serious labour in the study or the field. Sannazzaro, who stands for Joseph of Arimathea, is bald, fat-faced, with

a club in Rome for the study of Vitruvius. It met twice in the week, and was known as Le Virtù. At Bologna the Viridario devoted its energies to the correction of printed texts; the Sitibondi studied law, the Desti cultivated extinct chivalry. Besides these, the one town of Bologna produced Sonnacchiosi, Oziosi, Desiosi, Storditi, Confusi, Politici, Instabili, Gelati, Umorosi. As the century advanced, academies multiplied in Italy, and their titles became more absurd. Ravenna had its Informi, Faenza its Smarriti, Macerata its Catenati, Fabriano its Disuniti, Perugia its Insensati, Urbino its Assorditi, Naples i

ing with the idlest of all literary problems, where so great a writer as Annibale Caro thought it in good taste to write a dissertation on the nose of a president, and where the industry of sensible men was absorbed in the concoction of sonnets by the myriad and childish puns on their own titles. During the following age of political stagnation and ecclesiastical oppression the academies were the playthings of a nation fast degenerating into intellectual hebetude.

previous discovery of MSS. had been indispensable for its revival. What has to be said about the erudite society of Venice may appropriately be introduced i

'Georgics' and '?neid' appeared in the following year. To Cennini, however, belongs the honour of having been the first Italian to cast his own type. Like many other illustrious artificers, he was by trade a goldsmith; in his address to the reader he styles himself aurifex omnium judicio pr?stantissimus, adding, with reference to the typography, expressis ante calide caracteribus ac deinde fusis literis volumen hoc primum impresserunt. The last sentence of the address should also be quoted: Florentinis ingeniis nil ardui est. Other printers opened workshops in Florence within the course of a few years-John of Maintz in 1472, Nicholas of Breslau in 1477, Antonio Miscomini in 1481, and Lorenzo Alopa of Venice, who gave Homer with Greek type to the world in 1488. Still, Florence had bee

rade. Vespasiano, who during twenty-six years survived the first book printed in Florence, could even afford to despise the press.[343] The great nobles, on whose patronage he depended, did not suddenly transfer their custom from the scribe to the compositor; nor was it to be expected that so essentially a democratic art as printing should find immediate favour with the aristocracy. A prince with a library of MSS. worth 40,000 ducats hated the machine that put an equal number of more readable volumes within the reach of moderate competency. Mor

ers began to form a separate class of artisans, while needy scholars found a market for their talents in the houses of the publishers. When we consider the amount of literary work that had to be performed before Greek, Latin, and Hebrew texts c

opted. Giving a first edition to the world involved far more anxiety on these points than the reproduction of a book already often printed. No one man could accomplish such tasks alone. Therefore we find that scores of learned men were associated together for the purpose, living under the same roof, revising the copy for the compositor, overlooking the men at work, reading the text aloud, and correcting the proofs with a vigilance that is but little needed nowadays. All this labour, moreover, was accomplishe

red for Aldo the post of tutor to his nephews Alberto and Lionello Pio. Carpi had owned the family of Pio for its masters since the thirteenth century, when they rose to power, like many of the Lombard nobles, by adroit use of Imperial privileges.[345] This little city, placed midway between Correggio, Mirandola, and Modena, is so insignificant that its name has been omitted from the index to Murray's handbook; nor is there indeed much but the memory of Aldo and Alberto Pio, and a church built by Baldassare Peruzzi, to recommend it to the notice of a traveller. Under the tuition of Aldo the two young princes became excellent scholars. Alberto in particular proved, by his aptitude for philosophical studies, that he had inherited from his mother, the sister of Giovanni Pico, something of the spirit of Mirandola. When Aldus published his great edition of Aristotle, he inscribed it to his former pupil with a Greek dedication, in which he styled h

ns, Alexander and Laonicenus, edited a Greek psalter. In 1493 Isocrates, prepared by Demetrius Chalcondylas, was issued by Henry the German and Sebastian of Pontremolo. Next comes Venice, where, as early as 1484, the 'Erotemata' of Chrysoloras had been produced by a certain Peregrinus Bononiensis. Vicenza followed in 1488 with a reprint of Lascaris's Grammar due to Leonard Achates of Basle, and in 1490 with a reprint of the 'Erotemata.' Florence, as we have already seen, gave Homer to the world in 1488. Demetrius Chalcondylas revised the text; Demetrius the Cretan supplie

d mode of stitching were given in Greek; and many curious Greek phrases appear to have sprung up to meet the exigencies of the new industry. Thus we find ?να ?λληνιστ? συνδεθ?σεται for 'Greek stitching,' and καττιτερ?ν? χειρ? for 'the type;' while Aldo himself is described as ?φευρ?τ? το?των γραμμ?των χαρακτ?ρο? ?? ε?ρηται. The prefaces, almost always composed in Greek, prove that this language was read currently in Italy, since Aldo relied on numerous purchasers of his large and costly issues. The Greek type, for the casting of which he provided machinery in his own house, was formed upon the model supplied by Marcus Musurus, a Cretan, who had taken Latin orders and settled

mong his workmen,[349] to the piracies of rival booksellers,[350] to the difficulty of procuring authentic MSS.,[351] and to the interruptions caused by war. Twice was the work of printing suspended, first in 1506, and then again in 1510. For two whole years at the latter period the industries of Venice were paralysed by the allied forces of the League of Cambray. The dedication of the first edition of Plato, 1513, to Leo X. concludes with a prayer, splendid in the earnestness and simplicity of its eloquence, wherein Aldo compares the miseries of warfare and the woes of Italy with the sublime and peaceful objects of the student. All the terrible experiences of that wasteful campaign, from th

l of his work. When we consider the beauty of the Aldine volumes, and the critical excellence of their texts, we may fairly be astonished at their prices. The Mus?us was sold for something under one shilling of our money, the Theocritus for something under two shillings. The five volumes which contained the whole of Aristotle, might be purchased for a sum not certainly exceeding 8l. Each volume of the pocket series, headed in 1501 by the 8vo. Virgil, and comprising Greek, Latin, and Italian authors, fetched about two shillings. For this library the celebrated Italic type, known as Aldine, was adapted from the handwriting of Petrarch, and cut by France

the deaths of Pico, Poliziano, and Ermolao Barbaro. The remaining four volumes followed in 1497 and 1498. In the latter of these years Aldo, aided by his friend Musurus, produced nine comedies of Aristophanes; the MSS. of the 'Lysistrata' and 'Thesmophoriazus?' were afterwards discovered at Urbino, and published by Giunta in 1515. In 1502, Thucydides, Sophocles, and Herodotus appeared, followed in

it should be mentioned that Aldo's successors continued his work by giving Pausanias, Strabo, ?schylus, Galen, Hippocrates, and Longinus to the world; so that

the collected writings of Poliziano, the 'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,' the 'Divine Comedy,' the 'Cose Volgari' of Petrarch, the 'Poet? Christiani Veteres,' including Prudentius, the poems of Pontanus, the letters of the youn

bein, improvising new paragraphs, and making additions to his previous collections in the brilliant Latin style that no one else could write. Aldo took the MS. from his hand, and passed it on to the compositors, revising the proofs as they came fresh from the press, or conferring with his reader Seraphinus.[359] Erasmus had already gained the reputation of a dangerous freethinker and opponent to the Church. As years advanced, and the Reformation spread in Northern Europe, he became more and more odious to ecclesiastical authority. The s

practical importance.[362] We have seen that his handwriting formed the model of Aldo's Greek type. To his scholarship the editions of Aristophanes, Plato, Pindar, Hesychius, Athen?us, and Pausanias owed their critical accuracy; while, in concert with Nicolaos Blastos and Zacharias Calliergi, two Cretan printers settled in Venice, he published the first Latin and Greek lexicon.[363] It will be observed that the Cretans play a prominent part in this Venetian revival of Greek learning. Aristoboulos Apostolios, Joannes Gregoropoulos, Joannes Rhosos, and Demetrius Doucas, all of them natives of Crete, were members of the Neacademy. The first as a compositor, the second as a reader, the third as a scribe, the fourth as editor of the Greek Orators, rendered Aldo effective assistance. Among Italians, Pietro Bembo, Aleander, and Alberto Pio occupied positions of honorary distinction rather than of active industry. Those who worked in earnest for the Aldine press were chiefly Venetians. Girolamo Avanzi, professor of philosophy at Padua, revised the texts of Ca

Asola; Antonio, a bookseller at Bologna;[364] and Paolo Manuzio. The last of these sons, born at Venice in 1512, was educated by his grandfather Andrea till the year of the old man's death (1529). He carried on the press at Venice and at Rome, separating in the year 1540 from his uncles the Asolani, and bequeathing his business to his son named Aldo. This grandson of Aldo Manuzio, called by Scaliger a 'wretched and slow wit, the mimic of his father,' began his career by printing, at the age of eleven, a treatise on the 'Eleganze della Lingua Toscana e Latina.' He married Francesca Lucrezia Giunta, of the famous house of pr

igal of praise. Seeking even less than his due share of credit, he desired that the great work of his life should pass for the common achievement of himself and his learned associates. Therefore he called his Greek library the fruits of the Neacademia, though no man could have known better than he did that his own genius was the life and spirit of the undertaking. His stores of MSS. were as open to the instruction of scholars as his printed books were given liberally to the public.[368] 'Aldo,' writes Erasmus, 'had nothing in his treasury but what he readily communicated.' Those who read the estimate of his services to learning made by eminent contemporaries, will find the language of Nicholas Leonicenus, Erasmus, and Anton Francesco Doni not exaggerated.[369] But, in order to comp