The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

Paul. Jov. Vita Alfonsi Ducis.

525

On Collenuccio at the court of Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro (son of Alessandro, p. 28), who finally, in 1508, put him to death, see p. 135, note 4. At the time of the last Ordelaffi at Forli, the place was occupied by Codrus Urceus (1477-80); death-bed complaint of C. U. Opp. Ven. 1506, fol. liv.; for his stay in Forli, Sermo, vi. Comp. Carlo Malagola, Della Vita di C. U. Bologna, 1877, Ap. iv. Among the instructed despots, we may mention Galeotto Manfreddi of Faenza, murdered in 1488 by his wife, and some of the Bentivoglio family at Bologna.

526

Anecdota Literar. ii. pp. 305 sqq., 405. Basinius of Parma ridicules Porcellio and Tommaso Seneca; they are needy parasites, and must play the soldier in their old age, while he himself was enjoying an ‘ager’ and a ‘villa.’

527

For details respecting these graves, see Keyssler, Neueste Reisen, s. 924.

528

Pii II. Comment. l. ii. p. 92. By history he means all that has to do with antiquity. Cortesius also praises him highly, p. 34 sqq.

529

Fabroni, Costnus, Adnot. 118. Vespasian. Fior. passim. An important passage respecting the demands made by the Florentines on their secretaries (‘quod honor apud Florentinos magnus habetur,’ says B. Facius, speaking of Poggio’s appointment to the secretaryship, De Vir. Ill. p. 17), is to be found in Æneas Sylvius, De Europâ, cap. 54 (Opera, p. 454).

530

See Voigt, En. Silvio als Papst Pius II. bd. iii. 488 sqq., for the often-discussed and often-misunderstood change which Pius II. made with respect to the Abbreviators.

531

Comp. the statement of Jacob Spiegel (1521) given in the reports of the Vienna Academy, lxxviii. 333.

532

Anecdota Lit. i. p. 119 sqq. A plea (‘Actio ad Cardinales Deputatos’) of Jacobus Volaterranus in the name of the Secretaries, no doubt of the time of Sixtus IV. (Voigt, l. c. 552, note). The humanistic claims of the ‘advocati consistoriales’ rested on their oratory, as that of the Secretaries on their correspondence.

533

The Imperial chancery under Frederick III. was best known to Æneas Sylvius. Comp. Epp. 23 and 105; Opera, pp. 516 and 607.

534

The letters of Bembo and Sadoleto have been often printed; those of the former, e.g. in the Opera, Basel, 1556, vol. ii., where the letters written in the name of Leo X. are distinguished from private letters; those of the latter most fully, 5 vols. Rome, 1760. Some additions to both have been given by Carlo Malagola in the review Il Baretti, Turin, 1875. Bembo’s Asolani will be spoken of below; Sadoleto’s significance for Latin style has been judged as follows by a contemporary, Petrus Alcyonius, De Exilio, ed. Menken, p. 119: ‘Solus autem nostrorum temporum aut certe cum paucis animadvertit elocutionem emendatam et latinam esse fundamentum oratoris; ad eamque obtinendam necesse esse latinam linguam expurgare quam inquinarunt nonnulli exquisitarum literarum omnino rudes et nullius judicii homines, qui partim a circumpadanis municipiis, partim ex transalpinis provinciis, in hanc urbem confluxerunt. Emendavit igitur ‘eruditissimus hic vir corruptam et vitiosam linguæ latinæ consuetudinem, pura ac integra loquendi ratione.’

535

Corio, Storia di Milano, fol. 449, for the letter of Isabella of Aragon to her father, Alfonso of Naples; fols. 451, 464, two letters of the Moor to Charles VIII. Compare the story in the Lettere Pittoriche, iii. 86 (Sebastiano del Piombo to Aretino), how Clement VII., during the sack of Rome, called his learned men round him, and made each of them separately write a letter to Charles V.

536

For the correspondence of the period in general, see Voigt, Wiederbelebung, 414-427.

537

Bembo thought it necessary to excuse himself for writing in Italian: ‘Ad Sempronium,’ Bembi Opera, Bas. 1556, vol. iii. 156 sqq.

538

On the collection of the letters of Aretino, see above, pp. 164 sqq., and the note. Collections of Latin letters had been printed even in the fifteenth century.

539

Comp. the speeches in the Opera of Philelphus, Sabellicus, Beroaldus, &c.; and the writings and lives of Giann. Manetti, Æneas Sylvius, and others.

540

B. F. De Viris Illustribus, ed. Mehus, p. 7. Manetti, as Vesp. Bisticci, Commentario, p. 51, states, delivered many speeches in Italian, and then afterwards wrote them out in Latin. The scholars of the fifteenth century, e.g. Paolo Cortese, judge the achievements of the past solely from the point of view of ‘Eloquentia.’

541

Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 198, 205.

542

Pii II. Comment. l. i. p. 10.

543

The success of the fortunate orator was great, and the humiliation of the speaker who broke down before distinguished audiences no less great. Examples of the latter in Petrus Crinitus, De Honestâ Disciplinâ, v. cap. 3. Comp. Vespas. Fior. pp. 319, 430.

544

Pii II. Comment. l. iv. p. 205. There were some Romans, too, who awaited him at Viterbo. ‘Singuli per se verba facere, ne alius alio melior videretur, cum essent eloquentiâ ferme pares.’ The fact that the Bishop of Arezzo was not allowed to speak in the name of the general embassy of the Italian states to the newly chosen Alexander VI., is seriously placed by Guicciardini (at the beginning of book i.) among the causes which helped to produce the disaster of 1494.

545

Told by Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 1160.

546

Pii II. Comment. l. ii. p. 107. Comp. p. 87. Another oratorical princess, Madonna Battista Montefeltro, married to a Malatesta, harangued Sigismund and Martin. Comp. Arch. Stor. iv. i. p. 442, note.

547

De Expeditione in Turcas, in Murat. xxiii. col. 68. ‘Nihil enim Pii concionantis majestate sublimius.’ Not to speak of the naïve pleasure with which Pius describes his own triumphs, see Campanus, Vita Pii II., in Murat. iii. ii. passim. At a later period these speeches were judged less admiringly. Comp. Voigt, Enea Silvio, ii. 275 sqq.

548

Charles V., when unable on one occasion to follow the flourishes of a Latin orator at Genoa, replied in the ear of Giovio: ‘Ah, my tutor Adrian was right, when he told me I should be chastened for my childish idleness in learning Latin.’ Paul. Jov. Vita Hadriani VI. Princes replied to these speeches through their official orators; Frederick III. through Enea Silvio, in answer to Giannozzo Manetti. Vesp. Bist. Comment. p. 64.

549