The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

The first German translation of the Decameron, by H. Steinhovel, was printed in 1472, and soon became popular. The translations of the whole Decameron were almost everywhere preceded by those of the story of Griselda, written in Latin by Petrarch.

475

These Latin writings of Boccaccio have been admirably discussed recently by Schück, Zur Characteristik des ital. Hum. im 14 und 15 Jahrh. Breslau, 1865; and in an article in Fleckeisen and Masius, Jahrbücher fur Phil. und Pädag. bd. xx. (1874).

476

‘Poeta,’ even in Dante (Vita Nuova, p. 47), means only the writer of Latin verses, while for Italian the expressions ‘Rimatore, Dicitore per rima,’ are used. It is true that the names and ideas became mixed in course of time.

477

Petrarch, too, at the height of his fame complained in moments of melancholy that his evil star decreed him to pass his last years among scoundrels (extremi fures). In the imaginary letter to Livy, Epp. Fam. ed. Fracass. lib. xxiv. ep. 8. That Petrarch defended poetry, and how, is well known (comp. Geiger, Petr. 113-117). Besides the enemies who beset him in common with Boccaccio, he had to face the doctors (comp. Invectivæ in Medicum Objurgantem, lib. i. and ii.).

478

Boccaccio, in a later letter to Jacobus Pizinga (Opere Volgari, vol. xvi.), confines himself more strictly to poetry properly so called. And yet he only recognises as poetry that which treated of antiquity, and ignores the Troubadours.

479

Petr. Epp. Senil. lib. i. ep. 5.

480

Boccaccio (Vita di Dante, p. 50): ‘La quale (laurea) non scienza accresce ma è dell’acquistata certissimo testimonio e ornamento.’

481

Paradiso, xxv. 1 sqq. Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 50. ‘Sopra le fonti di San Giovanni si era disporto di coronare.’ Comp. Paradiso, i. 25.

482

See Boccaccio’s letter to him in the Opere Volgari, vol. xvi. p. 36: ‘Si præstet Deus, concedente senatu Romuleo.’ …

483

Matt. Villani, v. 26. There was a solemn procession on horseback round the city, when the followers of the Emperor, his ‘baroni,’ accompanied the poet. Boccaccio, l. c. Petrarch: Invectivæ contra Med. Præf. See also Epp. Fam. Volgarizzate da Fracassetti, iii. 128. For the speech of Zanobi at the coronation, Friedjung, l. c. 308 sqq. Fazio degli Uberti was also crowned, but it is not known where or by whom.

484

Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 185.

485

Vespas. Fiorent. pp. 575, 589. Vita Jan. Manetti, in Murat. xx. col. 543. The celebrity of Lionardo Aretino was in his lifetime so great that people came from all parts merely to see him; a Spaniard fell on his knees before him.—Vesp. p. 568. For the monument of Guarino, the magistrate of Ferrara allowed, in 1461, the then considerable sum of 100 ducats. On the coronation of poets in Italy there is a good summary of notices in Favre, Mélanges d’Hist. Lit. (1856) i. 65 sqq.

486

Comp. Libri, Histoire des Sciences Mathém. ii. p. 92 sqq. Bologna, as is well known, was older. Pisa flourished in the fourteenth century, fell through the wars with Florence, and was afterwards restored by Lorenzo Magnifico, ‘ad solatium veteris amissæ libertatis,’ as Giovio says, Vita Leonis X. l. i. The university of Florence (comp. Gaye, Carteggio, i. p. 461 to 560 passim; Matteo Villani, i. 8; vii. 90), which existed as early as 1321, with compulsory attendance for 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.

487

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.

488

Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 990.

489

Fabroni, Laurent. Magn. Adnot. 52, in the year 1491.

490

Allegretto, Diari Sanesi, in Murat. xiii. col. 824.

491

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.

492

Comp. Vespasian. Fiorent. pp. 271, 572, 582, 625. Vita. Jan. Manetti, in Murat. xx. col. 531 sqq.

493

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).

494

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.’

495

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.

496

To the Archduke Sigismond, Epist. 105, p. 600, and to King Ladislaus Postumus, p. 695; the latter as Tractatus de Liberorum Educatione (1450).

497

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.

498

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

499