Ciriaco's example was thus happily followed by the versatile and accomplished Felix Felicianus, whose collection of inscriptions was appropriately dedicated to the most antiquarian of artists, Mantegna. The influence of Ciriaco may also be traced in the sketchbooks of Giuliano da San Gallo, and in the manuscript collections of Fra Giovanni del Giocondo of Verona. The villas of the ancients were elucidated in his edition of Pliny's Letters (1508), the first modern plan of a Roman house appeared in his Vitruvius (1511), and the earliest of modern drawings of Caesar's bridge across the Rhine in his Caesar (1513)'. P. 523. Only the beginning of the Jubilatio is printed in Corp. Inscr. Lat. v i P. 427 a. 1 On the successors of Ciriaco, cp. E. Ziebarth, in Neue Jahrb. für das kl. Altertum, xi (1903), 480—493; and Harvard Lectures, 48—54. CHAPTER IV. THE EARLY MEDICEAN AGE IN FLORENCE. UNDER the rule of the Ottimati, or the leading members of the greater Guilds (1382-1434), not a few men of mark in Florence gave proof of their interest in classical learning. Roberto de' Rossi, the first of the Florentine pupils of Chrysoloras, took delight in translating Aristotle, and in making beautiful copies of the works of ancient authors, which he bequeathed to his pupils, one of whom was Cosimo de' Medici'. The noble and generous Palla Strozzi, who had invited Chrysoloras to Florence, might have surpassed his rival Cosimo as a patron of learning, had he not been sent into exile in 1434. He spent the twentyeight years of his banishment in studying philosophy and in translating Greek authors at Padua. Meanwhile, Cosimo was for thirty years (1434-64) the great patron of copyists and scholars of every grade, the inspirer of an important translation of Plato, and the founder of the Library of San Marco. The circle of Cosimo included Niccolò de' Niccoli (1363-1437), the copyist whose 800 MSS finally found a home in the Medicean Library. The most important of those copied by himself were his Lucretius and his Plautus, He was much more than a copyist. He collated мss, revised and corrected the text, divided it into paragraphs, added headlines, and laid the foundations of textual criticism. He visited Verona and Venice in quest of MSS, directed the agents of the Medici in acquiring Mss in foreign lands, was the valued correspondent of the most eager scholars in Italy, and the centre of Vespasiano, Cosimo, 246. 2 On MSS acquired by him, cp. Sabbadini, Scoperte, 54, Niccoli an enthusiastic literary circle in Florence. Though he was an excellent Latin scholar, Italian was the language of his letters and his conversation, and even of his only work, a short treatise on Latin orthography. Leonardo Bruni confessed that, as a student, he owed everything to Niccoli. He had attained the age of 73 when he died in the arms of his devoted friend Traversari'. Ambrogio Traversari (1386-1439) entered at an early age Traversari the Camaldolese convent of Santa Maria degli Angioli in Florence. He had taught himself Greek with the aid of Chrysoloras, and found his chief delight in the study of Chrysostom. On his appointment as General of his Order in 1431, he visited the Camaldolese convents in many parts of Italy, but was far less fortunate than Poggio in the discovery of ancient Mss3. At Cosimo's request he executed, amid many misgivings, a Latin translation of Diogenes Laërtius*. When he writes to his scholarly friend, Niccoli, his conscience does not allow him to quote a tempting passage from Naevius 5; and, in the vast series of his letters, his only citation of a pagan poet is from Virgil's Eclogues. He was painfully conscious of the conflicting claims of literature and of religion; but, in later examples of monks who were also humanists, there is less of the anxious scrupulosity of Traversari as to which of the two masters should be served". 1 Vespasiano, Nicolao Niccoli, 473–482; Poggio's Funeral Oration and Letter to Marsuppini in Opera, 270, 342; Tiraboschi, vi 129–137; Voigt, i 296-3063; Symonds, ii 178–182. 2 Francesco da Castiglione's letter to Lorenzo (1469), ed. Müllner, 216, makes Cosimo say :-'quam suavis est Chrysostomus, quam solus Ambrosius in vertendo', where solus is doubtless a mistake for scitus. 3 Epp. viii 45-52, p. 34 supra. 4 Epp. vi 23, 25, 27; vii 2; viii 8; xxiii 10. 5 Epp. viii 9. 6 Epp. iii 59. 7 Vespasiano, Frate Ambrogio, 240–5; Mehus, Vita, compiled from the Letters and the Hodoeporicon (ed. Mehus, 1680), on pp. 364—436 of the preface to Canneto's ed. of the Letters in two folio vols. (1759); the rest of the so-called Vita is a chaotic mass of materials for the literary history of Florence; Tiraboschi, vi 157, 808 f; Meiners, vol. ii (1796); Cortesius, p. 227, ed. Galletti; and esp. Voigt, i 314—3223; cp. Symonds, ii 1932f. A portrait, copied from the 'bust in the cloister of S. Maria degli Angioli', represents him Among his pupils in Greek and Latin was Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459). A merchant and diplomatist, he Manetti was also a student of theology, and was perfectly familiar with the languages of the Old and New Testaments, besides being a fluent (in fact prolix) Latin orator. The official oration delivered by Marsuppini, as chancellor of Florence, in congratulation of the emperor Frederic III, was considered far inferior to the extemporaneous speech delivered by Manetti in prompt and effective reply to certain points then raised by Aeneas Sylvius on the emperor's behalf. Driven into exile by the jealousy of the Medici in 1453, he withdrew to the court of Nicolas V in Rome, and subsequently to that of Alfonso in Naples. His Latin translations include the Greek Testament', and the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics of Aristotle, together with the Magna Moralia. His failure to attain the permanent reputation that he fully deserved has been ascribed to the tediousness of his Latin style, and to the fact that he was 'deficient in all that elevates mere learning to the rank of art'. Bruni From the name of one who so little merited banishment from the city which he adorned with his learning, we turn to two of her Latin secretaries who served her to the end of their lives. Leonardo Bruni (1369-1444) was born. at Arezzo, the birthplace of Petrarch, and the daily sight of the portrait of his distinguished fellow-countryman inspired him with the ambition of following in his steps. He learnt Greek at Florence under Chrysoloras, and his fame as a Latinist led to his being a papal secretary from 1405-1415, and chancellor of Florence from 1427 to his death. His reputation rests on his translations from the Greek. Beginning with the work of Basil on the profit to be derived from pagan literature (1405), he as a gracious personage with parted lips and upward-lifted eyes, and with a bunch of hair falling over his forehead (Rittratti... Toscani, 1766, iii 16). 1 Naldus, Vita Manetti, in Muratori, xx 529. 2 Symonds, ii 1932. Cp. Vespasiano, Vite, 444-472, and Comentario (ed. 1862); Voigt, i 322-63 etc. He was a small man with a large head; in the portrait in Rittratti... Toscani (1766), ii 16, we see his keen glance and his grave and eager face. A resolute determination is the leading characteristic of the likeness in the gallery between the Uffizi and Pitti (no. 574). 8 Commentarius in Muratori, Scr. xix 917. subsequently translated the Speech of Demosthenes On the Chersonesus (1406), that of Aeschines Against Ctesiphon and Demosthenes De Corona, with the Third Olynthiac; a selection from Plutarch's Lives, with Xenophon's Hieron. These were followed by renderings of the Phaedo, Gorgias, Crito, Apology, Phaedrus (1423) and Letters of Plato, which were less highly appreciated than his translations of the Oeconomics, Ethics1 and Politics of Aristotle. The translation of the Politics was prompted by the admiration for his Ethics expressed by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester; and the autograph copy dedicated to the duke was sent to England, but, owing to some delay in the acknowledgement, its dedication was transferred (with satisfactory results) to Pope Eugenius IV (1437). For this work he used a MS of the Politics obtained from Constantinople by Palla Strozzi3, probably comparing therewith the мs in possession of his friend Filelfo*. It has even been suggested that Palla Strozzi's copy had also been brought from the East by Filelfo in 1429. Bruni's rendering is now regarded as far too free and arbitrary; it is often impossible to infer with any certainty the reading of his Greek text; and many peculiarities of his translation must accordingly be passed over or regarded as merely his own conjectures". But 'not a few` good readings' are due to this source'. Bruni describes the original as an opus magnificum ac plane regium3, and he had good reason to be proud of a free and flowing version that made the Greek masterpiece intelligible to the Latin scholars of Europe. His other works included similar versions of Xenophon's Hellenica, Polybius and Procopius. He even wrote a Latin history of the First Punic War to make up for the loss of the second decade of Livy. He also composed a Greek treatise on the origin and 1 Cp. Klette, Beiträge, ii 17. 2 Vespasiano, 436 f, where duca di Worcestri must be a mistake for Glocestri. Cf. MS at New Coll. Oxford (c. 1450) and in Bodleian, Canon. Lat. 195 (Newman's Politics, 11 58). Printed 1492 etc. 3 Vespasiano, Palla Strozzi, 272. 4 Bruni, Epp. vi 11. 5 Oncken, Staatslehre des Ar. i 78 f; Susemihl, ed. 1872, p. xv. 6 Susemihl-Hicks (1894), p. 1; cp. ed. 1872, xxviii f. 7 Newman's Politics, 111 p. xxi f. |