Humphrey Duke of Gloucester Part 39

[1156] _St. Albans Chron._, i. 139.

[1157] Amundesham, _Annales_, i. 308.

[1158] Bibliotheque de Sainte Genevieve, MS. francais, 777.

Inscription on last folio.

[1159] Whethamstede, i. 179.

[1160] See Chapter IX.

[1161] Bodley MS., 3618. f. 2.

[1162] _Cod. Laurentiano_, Plut., lxii. 30, f. 2.

CHAPTER IX

THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND

No period of English history is less romantic than that in which Humphrey of Gloucester's life was cast. Apart from the fleeting glories of Agincourt, there is no outstanding event of transcendent interest, no episode of which Englishmen may be honourably proud. A disastrous and ill-conducted war abroad, bitter political dissensions at home, a feeble regency followed by a still feebler King, personal ambitions rampant, patriotic and unselfish action lost under the enervating influence of a false idea of foreign conquest, a nation that had outgrown its strength, a n.o.bility that knew not the meaning of honour or disinterestedness-- such was the state of England during the first half of the fifteenth century. This chaotic state was only to be wiped out by a long and disastrous civil war, yet working underneath all this seething ma.s.s of lost ideals there were forces which were to influence the formation of modern England as it emerged from this state of transition. It may be said that in one sense every age is one of transition, that the history of the world is the story of a great development, in which the old order is ever changing, giving place to the new; nevertheless we can note the spirit of change more clearly in some periods than in others. Gloucester lived at a time when the mind of man was broadening into a new phase of intellectual development. Already Petrarch had lived and died, declaring that he stood on the confines of two eras, looking back and looking forward; already Italy had realised that the long sleep of the Middle Ages was over; already that movement, which for lack of a better name we call the Renaissance, had begun. The traditional scholarship and the hereditary superst.i.tion which had dominated the Dark Ages was being superseded; a new field of human knowledge had been opened for Western Europe when Greek ceased to be an unknown tongue with the advent of Chrysoloras; the true meaning of that prophecy which had sprung from the lips of Joachim of Flora was dawning on men's minds--'the Gospel of the Father is past, the Gospel of the Son is pa.s.sing, the Gospel of the Spirit is yet to be.' A spirit of uneasiness was abroad, a spirit which proclaimed the emanc.i.p.ation of man from the bonds of ignorance and tradition, a spirit which was to proclaim his individuality, and to break down the trammels which had restrained the a.s.sertion of self.

Morally, as well as legally, man was pa.s.sing from status to contract.

INFLUENCE ON GLOUCESTER

Humphrey felt the full force of this movement; his life was moulded thereby. His activity and many-sided energy found their origin in this new spirit. His fervid imagination, which led him into impossible projects, his love of display, above all, his desire to stamp his individuality on the politics of his country, all sprang from the new realisation which was vouchsafed to him--the realisation of his own individuality. In England, the new spirit was more manifest politically than in isolated individuals; the country was throwing off the feudal system, her merchants and traders were demanding the acknowledgment of their importance, peasants and townsmen alike were preparing for that long, uphill struggle which has culminated in the parliamentary system of the nineteenth century. Humphrey, with all his senses ready to receive the message of the Renaissance movement, did not, however, grasp its true significance in England. The friend of the struggling ma.s.ses, he nevertheless had no real sympathy with the popular movement; he was cast far more in the Italian than in the English mould. Though devoid of the cunning, the lack of scruple, and the conscienceless criminality of Machiavelli's _Principe_, he nevertheless in his ambitions antic.i.p.ated the type. He practised the art of popularity; he tried to make the nation feel that he, and he alone, was essential to the welfare of the kingdom, that the success of his policy was the only safeguard of the state. He failed, and failed egregiously, but the idea was the same as that which inspired the Florentine secretary; he had the idea, but in that he had not the weight of personality necessary for the typical tyrannus, he failed. More than this, the Italian type was not suited to English methods of thought; England had not progressed far enough along the road of new ideas to welcome despotism as the salvation of the nation. What the Tudors accomplished was impossible to Humphrey, both on account of his nature and on account of the temper of the people.

STATE OF ENGLISH SCHOLARSHIP

The comparison of Humphrey to the Italian despot must not be followed on the same lines, as in the case of his great successor, John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester. The tyrannus who pa.s.sed gaily and naturally from cold-blooded murder to the society of the philosophers and poets of his court, found no parallel in his career; violence and determined cruelty were not among his characteristics. Indeed these are later manifestations of the Renaissance movement, b.a.s.t.a.r.d products of a too self-centred individuality. In Humphrey the Renaissance was manifested in its first youth, and even then incompletely; it was not till after his death that the new ideas began to be fully understood in England; he led the van of the army which set out to conquer the realms of knowledge, and perished before possession was a.s.sured. In no other Englishman of the time do we find the same love of the ancient cla.s.sics which characterised Gloucester. His father had given books to the University of Oxford, but only such as dealt with mediaeval lore;[1163]

the Duke of Exeter had studied at an Italian University, but there the traditions of mediaevalism, based on a study of law, lasted long after Petrarch and Boccaccio had pointed to the past as the teacher of the future. Henry V. showed considerable interest in literature, and possessed numerous books.[1164] Not once, however, is there mention of a work of cla.s.sical origin. That prolific versifier Lydgate translated the Psalms of David into 'heroicall English metre' for him, and thus they were sung in the royal chapel;[1165] the same writer dedicated his poem _The Death of Hector_ to him, and it was at his request that this work was undertaken;[1166] the same is true of the _Booke of the Nativitie of our Lady_ from the same unskilled pen.[1167] Hoccleve, too, wrote at the King's bidding, and bore testimony to his master's love of books, and his enjoyment of a 'tale fresh and gay,'[1168] tastes which never extended beyond the ephemeral literature of a decadent age, though Hoccleve's _Regiment of Princes_, which was dedicated to Henry when Prince of Wales, might boast of a distant cla.s.sical ancestry.[1169] To Henry also Walsingham dedicated his _Ipodigma Neustriae_[1170] and at his death we find him in possession of three books, the _Chronicles of Jerusalem_, the _Voyage of G.o.dfrey of Bouillon_, and a copy of the _Works_ of St. Gregory.[1171]

Henry V., however, had no interest in the new learning which heralded the Renaissance; his interests were confined to the productions of inferior court poets, and works on theological questions. Indeed theology, together with law, was the staple diet of the mediaeval scholar. Humphrey's originality lay in the fact that he looked to the works of the Greeks and early Romans for his mental food, and therein showed the distinction which lay between the old and new learning. It was to Greece and her literature that both Petrarch and Boccaccio had stretched out their hands, to the literature of an age which had pa.s.sed out of the ken of the mediaeval scholar. Students during the Dark Ages had known of Aristotle only through incomplete and erroneous Latin translations, Plato was to them but a name, most of the works of Cicero were lost, and only the later writers of decadent Rome were really familiar to them. The new movement taught that the secret of progress was to be found by enlarging the mental horizon, and by looking back to the great writers who had written before the advent of Christianity, and who taught the gospel of the goodliness of humanity--a gospel entirely unknown under the sway of the scholastic theologians. As by degrees a knowledge of Greek philosophy spread over Europe, men began to realise that there was a goodliness in life which they had not hitherto imagined. A love of beauty, a love of nature, a respect for humanity, were all found in the works of the Greek authors, and these were the ideas that revolutionised the mental att.i.tude of the Western world. All this realisation of self, which we have found so strongly developed in Humphrey, was borrowed from ancient Greece; modern individualism is but a reversion to an earlier civilisation. All the grandeur and the joy of life and its surroundings flooded the imaginations of the new scholars; a definite basis from which to leap into the future was secured; the past was invoked to give birth to the future.

Thus the encouragement of scholars and the patronage of authors was not the distinguishing mark of the Renaissance; it was the nature of the studies thus encouraged which gave a tone to the movement; the Humanists--the students of the _litterae humaniores_--were the heralds of the new era. Humphrey stood almost alone amongst the Englishmen of his time in encouraging the new kind of learning. Cardinal Beaufort, it is true, brought back Poggio Bracciolini, famous as a Humanist, and as a diligent searcher after the lost writings of cla.s.sical days, from the Council of Constance, but he did not show any real appreciation of the movement which was mirrored in his great follower, and though he supplied books for the Cathedral Library at Canterbury, he himself seems to have had but little respect for cla.s.sical studies.[1172] Poggio, though he soon tired of the somewhat chilling atmosphere of England, did not sever all connection with his English patron, and during the last year of the Cardinal's life wrote to him two letters calling himself his 'servitor et antiquus familiaris.'[1173] However, his impression of the intellectual life of England was not very favourable, and in later life he was accustomed to descant more on the wealth and the wonderful eating power of Englishmen, than on the men of learning he met during his sojourn in this country. As to the scholars, such as they were, he declared that they showed their learning in dialectics and disputations such as the old schoolmen had loved, not in a love of the doctrines of the new learning.[1174]

Nor was Bedford any more imbued than his uncle with the spirit of the new learning, though he showed considerable taste for artistically adorned ma.n.u.scripts, and collected a library at Rouen, of which the basis was the fine collection of books which Charles V. had made at Paris. His tastes were almost entirely confined to works studied by the old schoolmen, and to French translations of Latin or late Greek authors. Thus we find a treatise by the Greek medical writer Galen on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, another man of medicine, and a work by the Arabian astronomer Aboo-l-Ha.s.san on the stars--both translated into French--amongst his books, not to mention that most beautiful _Salisbury Breviary_, which will always rank amongst the marvels of fifteenth-century French art.[1175] The only book of genuine cla.s.sical interest which we find in his possession was a French translation of Livy, and this he presented to his brother Humphrey as more suited to his tastes than to his own.[1176]

GLOUCESTER'S EDUCATION

Gloucester therefore struck out a new line of thought when he turned to the study of the Humane as well as the Divine letters, and laid posterity in England under an obligation, which it is slow to acknowledge. The impulse which led him to this course is impossible to discover. His natural endowments were not calculated to produce a scholar. His early active life was spent in camps and sieges, his lightness of character and volatile nature promised to make him a courtier and a politician, not a student; his many-sided political ambitions would presuppose an absorption which would forbid a cult of letters and learning, yet even amidst the distractions of court life, the tumults of war, and the disturbances of an eventful political career, he found time for study, and the encouragement of scholars.[1177] The fact that he was in many ways the typical Renaissance prince does not necessarily presuppose a natural apt.i.tude for this role; his actions in this respect are more the result of the new influences to which he resigned himself, than the causes which led him to become a patron of letters. On the other hand, it is probable that in his early years his education was not neglected. We have shown reason to believe that Bale's statement that he was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, is founded on fact, and that there he imbibed a love of learning, which later blossomed out into the cult of the new forms of study then spreading over Europe. His brother Henry was also a student at this University; indeed, all the four sons of Henry IV. were carefully educated, and showed an apt.i.tude for learning.[1178] There are many circ.u.mstances, too, which point to the likelihood that Humphrey was destined for a less active career than his brothers. Though only three years younger than Thomas, and by one year the junior of John, he took no part in the active life of the kingdom in which they largely shared during the reign of Henry IV. Both these brothers held important administrative posts under their father, and the eldest of all, Henry, played no insignificant part before he succeeded to the throne. Humphrey alone of the four is never mentioned either in official doc.u.ment or by contemporary chronicler; he pa.s.sed his time in seclusion and retirement far from the gathering storm which was even then threatening the safety of the House of Lancaster. HENRY IV. was by no means lacking in interest in scholastic studies, and it is possible that he had destined his youngest son for an ecclesiastical career, in which these studies would rightly play a large part. In no other way can the absence of Humphrey from public life, long after the age for beginning an active career, be explained. Henry may have learnt the lesson of the dangers which had resulted from the long list of royal princes who descended from Edward III., and he may have wished to prevent a similar danger arising from his offspring by devoting one son to a career in which descendants were an impossibility. Certainly Humphrey, during this enforced seclusion, had ample opportunity for study and reflection, his education was more probably that of a scholar than of a politician.

Whatever may have been the plans of Henry IV. for his youngest son, they ceased to be effective on his death. Almost immediately after that event we find Humphrey carving out an active life for himself, and embarking on that varied and interesting career which was only to end with the tragedy of Bury. Yet the seeds had been sown. Never throughout his life was the scholar quite swamped by the politician; his scholarly instincts, nurtured in youth, survived to form a source of refreshment and interest in the days of political misfortune. Nevertheless this early training gives no clue to the originality of Humphrey's genius as a scholar. Whence was it that he drew the inspiration which enabled him to begin a new era in the development of the human intellect in England?

He had been trained in the dry-as-dust learning of the Middle Ages--no other system was then known in England--he had been brought up on a mental diet of law and theology seasoned with rhetoric; to our knowledge he never had any opportunity of imbibing the new ideas which slowly and feebly were climbing the Alps preparatory to the conquest of the Western world; at that time he had never been out of England, he was never to visit Italy. Yet stage by stage he outgrew the teaching of the ancient schoolmen, and reached out to pick the fairest flowers of Greek learning. In him we find a new spirit of inquiry, a desire for a wider knowledge of the human mind. He was a son of the Renaissance before ever that movement had sent its missionaries to the last outpost of mediaeval lore. There was no teacher to point the way for Humphrey, and we must fall back on his inherent originality to explain the phenomenon. With no promptings from the scholars of the new methods, he devoted himself to their patronage; he himself became a teacher before ever he was taught.

As an apostle of progress Humphrey stands alone among his fellow-countrymen, and we must hesitate to deny him a place amongst the honoured disciples of Petrarch. What Petrarch did for the world, Humphrey did for England.

GLOUCESTER AND THE ITALIANS

Dead and cold as England was to the new message which the Renaissance had to teach humanity, it was natural that Humphrey should look to Italy for help in his endeavours to study the forces which were being reborn to give a character to the history of the future. Perhaps the most interesting page in his history, therefore, deals with his relations to the Italian humanists of his day; from them he borrowed something of the spirit which was then becoming the most important element in Italian life, something of that polish of refined scholarship which marks out the humanistic scholar from the student of the Middle Ages. The effect on English scholars of his time was visible, and ?neas Sylvius was not slow to notice it. Writing to Adam Moleyns in answer to a letter from that distinguished Englishman, he complimented him in somewhat condescending language on his style; he marvelled how the reformed Latin style had thus early reached England, and then proceeded to give praise where praise was due. 'For this progress'--he wrote--'thanks are due to the ill.u.s.trious Duke of Gloucester, who zealously received polite learning into your country. I hear that he cultivates poets and venerates orators, and hereby many Englishmen have become really eloquent. For as are princes so are servants, who improve by imitating their masters.'[1179] ?neas showed no inclination to dwell on the virtues of Humphrey when narrating his relations with Jacqueline, so this praise from him deserves close attention, doubly so, as it must have been in no way pleasant to the recipient of the letter, who was one of the faction so bitterly opposed to Gloucester.

Humphrey, therefore, was instrumental in bringing the fruits of the Italian scholarship to England, and he did this in two ways. He induced some of those who had drunk of the new spring of intellectual life which flowed from the teaching of Chrysoloras to come to England and enter his service, and he also entered into communication with some of the leading humanists who remained in Italy, and employed them on translations of the Greek cla.s.sics which were sent to England. In England Greek was an unknown language, even as it had been in Italy until the last decade of the fourteenth century, and it was only by means of translations made by men who had a competent knowledge of Greek, that the great philosophical treatises of Aristotle and Plato could be read by Gloucester and his friends. Italy at this time was embarking on that period in the history of Humanism which we may call the age of translation and arrangement, the age when a minute knowledge of the language of ancient Greece and a new critical faculty, born of the emanc.i.p.ation from the hereditary theology of the Middle Ages, produced a band of scholars who devoted their time to interpreting the ideas of the past to the awakening intelligence of the present. These men, with all their ardour for study, were not, and could not afford to be, entirely disinterested in their work; to live, they must be paid for their translations, and in an age when the art of printing had not come to simplify the reproduction of books, they were compelled to appeal to some particular patron to reward them for their toil, and to him in return they dedicated their books. Many such patrons were to be found among the princes of Italy, but outside that country they were not common, and Humphrey stood out prominently amongst those patrons who were not Italians. We cannot tell what first led him to embark on this career, for he had, it would seem, no knowledge of Italy or the Italians, when Poggio came to England, and he had probably at this time evinced no desire to embark on the most interesting phase of his later life. Not once does Poggio make even the most distant allusion to Gloucester, either during his visit to England or after his return to Italy in the autumn of 1423,[1180] and we cannot attribute this entirely to his connection with the Duke's great rival.

ZANO OF BAYEUX

Humphrey's introduction to the Italian Humanists was due to his friendship with Zano Castiglione, Bishop of Bayeux, a Frenchman by birth, but descended from a famous Italian family. This prelate had visited England, and had there become acquainted with the man who was to be instrumental in bringing Italian scholarship to this country. A token of their friendship is still extant at Paris in a ma.n.u.script collection of the letters of Cicero presented by Zano to the Duke of Gloucester.[1181]

In 1434 Zano was sent to the Council of Basel as representative of Henry VI., and he took with him a commission from Humphrey to purchase for him as many books as he could, especially such as had been written by Guarino, the famous schoolmaster of Ferrara, and by Leonardo Bruni, the biographer of Dante and Petrarch, whose reputation had already reached the Duke in London.[1182] At Basel the Bishop came to know Francesco Picolpa.s.so, Archbishop of Milan, a scholarly ecclesiastic, who had relations with all the leading Italian Humanists; and when he followed the adjourned Council to Florence, this acquaintance became particularly useful to him in view of his commission. In Florence Zano spent a year, and we gather from the statements of Italian scholars, later to be detailed, that he there devoted much of his time to singing the praises of the English prince who took such an interest in literary matters. Of his commission to buy books we hear no more, though it is probable that when he returned to England especially to see Humphrey,[1183] he did not go empty-handed. It is possible that Gloucester, though already a collector of books, had not as yet thought of becoming the direct patron of foreign scholars, and that his commission to Zano bore far other and more important fruit than he had contemplated. Thus his original interest in scholarship was moulded by the turn of events, and the chance which took Zano from Basel to Florence laid the foundations of one of the most important phases of the Duke's career. From this time forward Humphrey continued to be in close relationship with several of the best-known Humanists of the Italian Renaissance.

LEONARDO BRUNI

The first of these scholars to correspond with the new English patron was Leonardo Bruni, better known by his t.i.tle of Aretinus, taken from Arezzo, the city of his birth. We have no evidence that Zano's visit was the direct cause of his connection with the Duke, but the fact that the latter had specially mentioned a desire for his works when Zano went to Basel points to a strong probability that this was the case. It is probable that Zano had sent over to England this author's translation of Aristotle's _Ethics_; at any rate, it was after reading it that Humphrey wrote and suggested that Bruni should undertake the _Politics_,[1184]

and in due course they were translated and dedicated to the Duke. In a ma.n.u.script copy of this translation in the Bodleian Library we find the dedication, and following it a letter from the author to Gloucester, which is in no sense a dedicatory epistle, but evidently written after the despatch of the volume to its destination, and later placed at the beginning of a copy of the original work.

In this letter Bruni rejoices to hear of the arrival of his translation of the books of Aristotle, which he had undertaken at the Duke's request and suggestion, and to know that both Gloucester's desire, expressed in several letters, has been fulfilled, and his own promise redeemed. He is convinced that Gloucester will have already read the book, and he may be sure that he has therein read the very words of Aristotle. To Gloucester's action is due any value to the world in general that this translation may have, for it was undertaken at his request, and finished under pressure from him. In its completed form it stands as a monument to Gloucester's love of learning.[1185] Throughout this letter we can see the shadow of Gloucester's character; eager and impetuous in matters political, he displayed the same characteristic when he turned his mind to scholarship and learning; the same enthusiasm which took him to Hainault led him to hara.s.s Bruni till the coveted book was ready.

Perhaps his eagerness to keep this shifty humanist to his work was well advised, else he might not have got the book at all, for almost immediately afterwards the dedication was changed, and that which Bruni had declared would be a monument to Gloucester's glory, became by a stroke of the pen a monument to the glory of Pope Eugenius IV.[1186] The reason for this sudden change of patron is probably to be found in the almost universal greediness of the Italian Humanists, though the gossiping old bookseller Vespasiano ascribes it to the fact that Bruni thought that his work was not sufficiently appreciated[1187]--perhaps a polite way of putting the same truth.

PIER CANDIDO DECEMBRIO

Leonardo's own explanation of the incident is to be found in one of his letters, and this throws light on the origin of the connection which Humphrey about this time began with another well-known Italian, Pier Candido Decembrio. This scholar, a native of Vigevano, near Pavia, was at this time secretary to Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan, whose life he ultimately wrote. Already famous as a translator of the Greek cla.s.sics, he now saw an opportunity of gaining an important patron, and wrote a letter to Humphrey, in which he dwelt at some length on the fame which the Duke had already attained in Italy as a patron of letters, owing to the untiring praises of him which Zano had sung. Having heard, he continued, that Bruni had dedicated his translation of Aristotle's _Politics_ to the Pope instead of to the Duke as he had promised, he had resolved to offer his services in his place, and to suggest that he might translate Plato's _Republic_ for the distinguished Englishman of whom he had heard so much, though he had never seen his face.[1188]

Being personally unknown to Gloucester, Candido determined to get an introduction to his future patron, and so forwarded this letter to his friend Rolando Talenti, a n.o.ble youth of Milan, who was at that time at Bayeux, probably on some diplomatic errand.[1189] Talenti was willing to do his friend a kindness, and promptly wrote to the Duke, enclosing Candido's letter, and strongly advising him to accept the offer therein contained.

This recommendation must have carried weight, although Talenti did not at once receive an answer to his letter. The anxious humanist could not brook delay, and though he had received a.s.surance from his correspondent that his work would not be done in vain, he wrote once more to Talenti asking him to find out definitely from the Duke what he had decided to do with respect to his offer to work for him. It was obviously of considerable importance to Candido to know if his work was to procure any reward, for though he was to prove more faithful than Bruni, he was none the less greedy of gain.[1190] Talenti accordingly wrote once more to Gloucester, asking him to let him know his decision about the offer lately made to him.[1191] After characteristic delay Humphrey replied to Talenti in enthusiastic terms, saying that he would gladly welcome the translation of Candido, who would never have reason to regret the offer of his services to a foreign patron.[1192] With this communication he enclosed a reply to Candido, dating it February 7, the year, which is omitted, being probably 1439.[1193] Herein he gladly accepted the offer, and with his usual impetuosity urged his newly made friend to hasten the completion of the translation; he gave devout thanks that there was in Italy such a devoted band of scholars, who not only had restored the old style of the Latin tongue, which had been altogether lost, but also had brought to light those long-forgotten philosophers of Greece, and their invaluable maxims for good living. He concluded with a warm a.s.surance of affection, and a hearty promise of acceptance of anything new which Candido or any one else should bring to his notice.[1194]

Talenti accordingly forwarded the Duke's acceptance to Candido, and in two successive letters to him urged that scholar to be industrious and to hasten the work to its completion, so that his patron might be able to appreciate to the full the depth of his scholarship.[1195]

Accordingly, Candido set to work with a will, and soon after wrote to Zano, telling him of his undertaking and announcing the completion of the fifth book. The Bishop of Bayeux was also to be used as an intermediary between the Italian scholar and the English prince, for in the same letter he was informed of the author's intention to forward the translation, when completed, to him for transmission to Gloucester.[1196] Zano was delighted at the news, and praised his correspondent's intention, a.s.suring him of a speedy reward for his work, and ample recognition from his new patron.[1197] Both Talenti and Zano therefore showed no slight respect both for Gloucester's literary taste and for his generosity to those who worked for him, and this in spite of the fact that they both knew the story of Bruni's relations with the Duke. They would hardly have encouraged their friend to undertake this work had they not been amply a.s.sured of his receiving an adequate reward, and neither for a moment doubted the sincerity and ability of this English patron. The readiness with which Gloucester's literary interests were ministered to in Italy proves that his reputation must have been very great, else the Italian humanists would not have been so eager to work for a prince who dwelt in a land which was regarded as the home of ignorance, and which visitors like Poggio Bracciolini had painted in such unfavourable terms.

Zano and Talenti were not the only Italians to correspond with Humphrey about Candido's translation. The completed fifth book was intrusted to Francesco Piccolpa.s.so, Archbishop of Milan, to be forwarded to England as a sample of the whole work. In his covering letter this new correspondent gave still further evidence of Gloucester's high repute in Italy, telling him that ever since his brother Gerardo Landriani, then Bishop of Lodi, had returned from a visit to England, he had been fired with a desire to know that country, or at least to correspond with its most famous son. So we see that Zano was not the only one to introduce the Italian scholars to a knowledge of Gloucester's literary tastes.

Francesco then recapitulated the story of how Candido first thought of translating the _Republic_, when he heard that Bruni had been breaking his word, and added some words of commendation of the former, who, he said, was equally well versed in Greek and Latin. It was merely with the idea of pleasing Humphrey that Candido had undertaken the task of translating the _Republic_, of which the fifth book, the first to be translated, was now sent as a foretaste of the feast that was to come.

Francesco was delighted to be commissioned to send to the Duke a work of such value, and he trusted that it would be approved, so that the translator might be inspired to continue his work. He urged him further to allow Candido to occupy the place lately held by Bruni, and, when this work should be completed, to give him other commissions, which he was sure would be right well performed. The letter closed with a pet.i.tion to Gloucester to use his influence to restore peace to the Church.[1198]

LEONARDO BRUNI ENVIOUS

This letter, though, written in the first place to please a friend, deepens our impression of the respect Humphrey had already obtained in Italy, and also bears witness to the desire of Candido to take the place of Bruni with regard to the Duke. It was therefore probably about this time that this last-named humanist wrote an expostulatory letter to the Archbishop of Milan, in which he betrayed his chagrin at having lost his English patron, and gave his version of the change of dedications, of which Candido had made such good use. He complained that he had received copies of letters written by Francesco to Gloucester, informing the Duke that he (Bruni) was dead, and to Candido slandering his good name; besides this, the Duke had been told that his former translator was a promise-breaker. In every case there were misstatements, prompted probably by Candido. In justification of this a.s.sertion he gave a summary of his relations with Gloucester, how the Duke had urged him to translate the _Politics_, because he was so sensible of the use that his earlier translation of the _Ethics_ would be to students. This Bruni promised to do, and fulfilled his promise by sending the first copy of his work to his lordship, who had asked him to undertake the translation for the good of the community, and not that it might be dedicated to him; indeed it was unlikely that the dedication thereof could have given any pleasure to so great a prince. In conclusion, Bruni emphatically stated that he never had received a penny from Gloucester for the work he had done. 'I never sold my studies, nor made merchandise of books.'[1199]

This last statement we may well doubt, else why should Bruni be so angered at Gloucester being wrongly informed of his death? The case was probably the reverse of what he stated, and he had calculated on obtaining double payment for his work by securing for it two patrons, who were so distant from one another that the deception would not be discovered. The story told by Candido and the Archbishop of Milan, and borne out by the statement of Vespasiano, is probably nearer the truth, though Candido himself seems to have behaved in a somewhat underhand way in trying to secure a monopoly of the Duke's favours. At all events, henceforth Candido was Gloucester's chief literary representative in Italy, and we can trace their relationship by means of their correspondence, of which a part has been preserved.

Considering the facts which had enabled Candido to replace Bruni in the service of Duke Humphrey, it is rather extraordinary that he had the temerity to forward the first sample of his work without an inscription to his new patron. This omission was promptly noted by Gloucester, and in his reply to the letter of the Archbishop of Milan he complained about it, and with memories of the action of Bruni fresh in his mind, he asked his correspondent to urge Candido not only to hasten the completion of the translation, but also not to forget to dedicate it as he had promised.[1200] He wrote much in the same strain to Candido, expressing some surprise that the book was not dedicated to him, but supposing that this was so because it was only a portion of the whole translation. Again he urged Candido to renewed efforts, and promised that his friendship would not be unprofitable.[1201] Candido replied to this in most effusive terms. Giving devout thanks for the existence of a prince endowed with such an excess of virtue, he replied that though the whole work was to be dedicated to Gloucester, yet three separate books were to be dedicated to three other friends; the fifth to Giovanni Amadeo, a lawyer of Milan; the sixth to Alfonso, Bishop of Burgos; and the last to the Archbishop of Milan.[1202] The fervour of the praises lavished on the Duke in this letter suggest a fear on the part of the writer that offence might be taken at these subsidiary dedications, and still further to propitiate the Duke another letter followed almost immediately, announcing the despatch of the first five books of the translated _Republic_, which were already read to the honour and glory of Humphrey not only throughout Italy, but also in Spain. Happy would he be were he able to place his gracious patron's name in all his books.[1203]

TRANSLATION OF THE 'REPUBLIC'

The translation of the first five books had been sent according to promise to Talenti, who was to have them carefully copied and sent to the Duke. At the same time Candido had promised that, when the whole work was completed, he would have all the books copied into a single volume and sent to his patron, and showing some distrust of Gloucester's appreciation of his work, had asked his friend to convey his a.s.surances of devotion.[1204] In due course this portion of the translation reached its destination, bearing a long dedicatory epistle, in which Candido once more laid stress on the way Zano had made Gloucester's name a household word amongst the Italian Humanists. The dedication concludes with an account of the origin of the translation, telling how it was originally the work of Chrysoloras, but by reason of his defective Latin style was pa.s.sed on to the writer's father, who died before its completion, leaving it to be finished by his son.[1205] This genesis of the translation probably explains why Candido was able so quickly to prepare the first five books, for they must have been completed some time before they were sent, if their contents were already known throughout Italy and also in Spain; most likely the fifth book, which he had first sent to Gloucester, was the only one of the first five which was entirely his own translation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S AUTOGRAPH IN HIS COPY OF DECEMBRIO'S TRANSLATION OF "THE REPUBLIC" OF PLATO.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LABEL ON THE FLY-LEAF OF A BOOK GIVEN BY THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER TO THE OXFORD LIBRARY.]

GLOUCESTER AND DECEMBRIO