The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

427

He tried ‘curis animique doloribus quacunque ratione aditum intercludere;’ music and lively conversation charmed him, and he hoped by their means to live longer. Leonis X. Vita Anonyma, in Roscoe, ed. Bossi, xii. p. 169.

428

This point is referred to in the Satires of Ariosto. See the first (‘Perc’ ho molto,’ &c.), and the fourth ‘Poiche, Annibale’).

429

Ranke, Päpste, i. 408 sqq. ‘Lettere dei Principi, p. 107. Letter of Negri, September 1, 1522 … ‘tutti questi cortigiani esausti da Papa Leone e falliti.’ They avenged themselves after the death of Leo by satirical verses and inscriptions.

430

Pii II. Commentarii, p. 251 in the 5th book. Comp. Sannazaro’s elegy, ‘Ad Ruinas Cumarum urbis vetustissimæ’ (Opera, fol. 236 sqq.).

431

Polifilo (i.e. Franciscus Columna) ‘Hypnerotomachia, ubi humana omnia non nisi somnum esse docet atque obiter plurima scita sane quam digna commemorat,’ Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1499. Comp. on this remarkable book and others, A. Didot, Alde Manuce, Paris, 1875, pp. 132-142; and Gruyer, Raphael et l’Antiquité, i. pp. 191 sqq.; J. Burckhardt, Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien, pp. 43 sqq., and the work of A. Ilg, Vienna, 1872.

432

While all the Fathers of the Church and all the pilgrims speak only of a cave. The poets, too, do without the palace. Comp. Sannazaro, De Partu Virginis, l. ii.

433

Chiefly from Vespasiano Fiorentine, in the first vol. of the Spicileg. Romanum, by Mai, from which edition the quotations in this book are made. New edition by Bartoli, Florence, 1859. The author was a Florentine bookseller and copying agent, about and after the middle of the fifteenth century.

434

Comp. Petr. Epist. Fam. ed. Fracass. l. xviii. 2, xxiv. 12, var. 25, with the notes of Fracassetti in the Italian translation, vol. iv. 92-101, v. 196 sqq., where the fragment of a translation of Homer before the time of Pilato is also given.

435

Forgeries, by which the passion for antiquity was turned to the profit or amusement of rogues, are well known to have been not uncommon. See the articles in the literary histories on Annius of Viterbo.

436

Vespas. Fiorent. p. 31. ‘Tommaso da Serezana usava dire, che dua cosa farebbe, se egli potesse mai spendere, ch’era in libri e murare. E l’una e l’altra fece nel suo pontificato.’ With respect to his translation, see Æen. Sylvius, De Europa, cap. 58, p. 459, and Papencordt, Ges. der Stadt Rom. p. 502. See esp. Voigt, op. cit. book v.

437

Vespas. Fior. pp. 48 and 658, 665. Comp. J. Manetti, Vita Nicolai V., in Murat. iii. ii. col. 925 sqq. On the question whether and how Calixtus III. partly dispersed the library again, see Vespas. Fiorent. p. 284, with Mai’s note.

438

Vespas. Fior. pp. 617 sqq.

439

Vespas. Fior. pp. 457 sqq.

440

Vespas. Fiorent, p. 193. Comp. Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 1185 sqq.

441

How the matter was provisionally treated is related in Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Arch. Stor. vii. ii. pp. 653, 655.

442

Vespas. Fior. pp. 124 sqq., and ‘Inventario della Libreria Urbinata compilata nel Secolo XV. da Federigo Veterano, bibliotecario di Federigo I. da Montefeltro Duca d’Urbino,’ given by C. Guasti in tbe Giornale Storico degli Archivi Toscani, vi. (1862), 127-147 and vii. (1863) 46-55, 130-154. For contemporary opinions on the library, see Favre, Mélanges d’Hist. Lit. i. 127, note 6. The following is the substance of Dr. Geiger’s remarks on the subject of the old authors:—

For the Medicean Library comp. Delle condicioni e delle vicende della libreria medicea privata dal 1494 al 1508 ricerche di Enea Piccolomini, Arch. stor. ital., 265 sqq., 3 serie, vol. xix. pp. 101-129,254-281, xx. 51-94, xxi. 102-112, 282-296. Dr. Geiger does not undertake an estimate of the relative values of the various rare and almost unknown works contained in the library, nor is he able to state where they are now to be found. He remarks that information as to Greece is much fuller than as to Italy, which is a characteristic mark of the time. The catalogue contains editions of the Bible, of single books of it, with text and annotations, also Greek and Roman works in their then most complete forms, together with some Hebrew books—tractatus quidam rabbinorum hebr.—with much modern work, chiefly in Latin, and with not a little in Italian.

Dr. Geiger doubts the absolute accuracy of Vespasiano Fiorentino’s catalogue of the library at Urbino. See the German edition, i. 313, 314. [S.G.C.M.]

443

Perhaps at the capture of Urbino by the troops of Cæsar Borgia. The existence of the manuscript has been doubted; but I cannot believe that Vespasiano would have spoken of the gnomic extracts from Menander, which do not amount to more than a couple of hundred verses, as ‘tutte le opere,’ nor have mentioned them in the list of comprehensive manuscripts, even though he had before him only our present Pindar and Sophocles. It is not inconceivable that this Menander may some day come to light.

[The catalogue of the library at Urbino (see foregoing note), which dates back to the fifteenth century, is not perfectly in accordance with Vespasiano’s report, and with the remarks of Dr. Burckhardt upon it. As an official document, it deserves greater credit than Vespasiano’s description, which, like most of his descriptions, cannot be acquitted of a certain inaccuracy in detail and tendency to over-colouring. In this catalogue no mention is made of the manuscript of Menander. Mai’s doubt as to its existence is therefore justified. Instead of ‘all the works of Pindar,’ we here find: ‘Pindaris Olimpia et Pithia.’ The catalogue makes no distinction between ancient and modern books, contains the works of Dante (among others, Comœdiæ Thusco Carmine), and Boccaccio, in a very imperfect form; those of Petrarch, however, in all completeness. It may be added that this catalogue mentions many humanistic writings which have hitherto remained unknown and unprinted, that it contains collections of the privileges of the princes of Montefeltro, and carefully enumerates the dedications offered by translators or original writers to Federigo of Urbino.—L. G.]

444

For what follows and in part for what has gone before, see W. Wattenbach, Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, 2nd. ed. Leipzig, 1875, pp. 392 sqq., 405 sqq., 505. Comp. also the poem, De Officio Scribæ, of Phil. Beroaldus, who, however, is rather speaking of the public scrivener.

445

When Piero de’ Medici, at the death of Matthias Corvinus, the book-loving King of Hungary, declared that the ‘scrittori’ must now lower their charges, since they would otherwise find no further employment (Scil. except in Italy), he can only have meant the Greek copyists, as the caligraphists, to whom one might be tempted to refer his words, continued to be numerous throughout all Italy. Fabroni, Laurent. Magn. Adnot. 156 Comp. Adnot. 154.

446

Gaye, Carteggio, i. p. 164. A letter of the year 1455 under Calixtus III. The famous miniature Bible of Urbino is written by a Frenchman, a workman of Vespasiano’s. See D’Agincourt, La Peinture, tab. 78. On German copyists in Italy, see further G. Campori, Artisti Italiani e Stranieri negli Stati Estensi, Modena, 1855, p. 277, and Giornale di Erudizione Artistica, vol. ii. pp. 360 sqq. Wattenbach, Schriftwesen, 411, note 5. For German printers, see below.

447

Vespas. Fior. p. 335.

448

Ambr. Trav. Epist. i. p. 63. The Pope was equally serviceable to the libraries of Urbino and Pesaro (that of Aless. Sforza, p. 38). Comp. Arch. Stor. ital. xxi. 103-106. The Bible and Commentaries on it; the Fathers of the Church; Aristotle, with his commentators, including Averroes and Avicenna; Moses Maimonides; Latin translations of Greek philosophers; the Latin prose writers; of the poets only Virgil, Statius, Ovid, and Lucan are mentioned.

449

Vespas. Fior. p. 129.

450