Renaissance in Italy Volume II Part 3

[Footnote 36: See the _Epistles to Rienzi_, pp. 677, 535.]

[Footnote 37: Epistle to the Roman people, beginning 'Apud te invictissime domitorque terrarum popule meus,' p. 712.]

[Footnote 38: Epistle to Charles IV., _De Pacificanda Italia_, p. 531.

This contradiction struck even his most ardent admirers with painful surprise. See Boccaccio quoted in Baldelli's _Life_, p. 115.]

[Footnote 39: _Rerum memorandarum_, lib. ii. p. 415.]

[Footnote 40: This is particularly noticeable in the miscellaneous collection of essays called _De Remediis utriusque Fortunae_, where opposite views on a wide variety of topics are expressed with great dexterity.]

The foregoing a.n.a.lysis was necessary because Petrarch became, as it were, a model for his followers in the field of scholarship. Italian humanism never lost the powerful impress of his genius, and the value of his influence can only be appreciated when the time arrives for summing up the total achievement of the Revival.[41] It remains to be regretted that the weaknesses of his character, his personal pretension and literary idealism, were more easily imitated than his strength. Petrarch's egotism differed widely from the insolent conceit of Filelfo and the pedantic boasts of Alciato. Nor did his enthusiasm for antiquity degenerate, like theirs, into a mere uncritical and servile worship. His humanism was both loftier and larger. He never forgot that Christianity was an advance upon Paganism, and that the accomplished man of letters must acquire the culture of the ancients without losing the virtues or sacrificing the hopes of a Christian. If only the humanists of the Renaissance could have preserved this point of view intact, they would have avoided the worst evils of the age, and have secured a n.o.bler liberation of the modern reason. Petrarch created for himself a creed compounded of Roman Stoicism and Christian doctrine, adapting the precepts of the Gospels and the teaching of the Fathers, together with the ethics of Cicero and Seneca, to his own needs. Herein he showed the freedom of his genius, and led the way for the most brilliant thinkers of the coming centuries. The fault of his successors was a tendency to recede from this high vantage-ground, to accept the customary creed with cynical facility, while they inclined in secret to a laxity adopted from their study of the cla.s.sics. By separating himself from tradition, without displaying an arrogant spirit of revolt against authority, Petrarch established the principle that men must guide their own souls by the double lights of culture and of conscience. His followers were too ready to make culture all in all, and lost thereby the opportunity of grounding a rational philosophy of life upon a solid basis for the modern world. Petrarch made it his sincere aim to be both morally and intellectually his highest self; and if he often failed in practice--if he succ.u.mbed to carnal frailty while he praised sobriety--if he sought for notoriety while professing indifference to fame--if he mistook dreams for realities and words for facts--still the ideal he proposed to himself and eloquently preached to his contemporaries, was a new and lofty one. After the lapse of five centuries, few as yet have pa.s.sed beyond it. Even Goethe, for example, can claim no superiority of humanism above Petrarch, except by right of his partic.i.p.ation in the scientific spirit.

[Footnote 41: See the last chapter of this volume.]

We are therefore justified in hailing Petrarch as the Columbus of a new spiritual hemisphere, the discoverer of modern culture. That he knew no Greek, that his Latin verse was lifeless and his prose style far from pure, that his contributions to history and ethics have been superseded, and that his epistles are now only read by antiquaries, cannot impair his claim to this t.i.tle. From him the inspiration needed to quicken curiosity and stimulate a zeal for knowledge proceeded. But for his intervention in the fourteenth century, it is possible that the Revival of Learning, and all that it implies, might have been delayed until too late. Petrarch died in 1374. The Greek Empire was destroyed in 1453. Between those dates Italy recovered the Greek cla.s.sics; but whether the Italians would have undertaken this labour if no Petrarch had preached the attractiveness of liberal studies, or if no school of disciples had been formed by him in Florence, remains more than doubtful. We are brought thus to recognise in him one of those heroes concerning whose relation to the spirit of the ages Hegel has discoursed in his 'Philosophy of History.'

Petrarch, by antic.i.p.ating the tendencies of the Revival, created the intellectual milieu required for its evolution.[42] Yet we are not therefore justified in saying that he was not himself the product of already existing spiritual forces in his century. The vast influence he immediately exercised, while Dante, though gifted with a far more powerful individuality, remained comparatively inoperative, proves that the age was specially prepared to receive his inspiration.

[Footnote 42: The lines from the _Africa_ used as a motto for this volume are a prophecy of the Renaissance.]

What remains to be said about the first period of Italian humanism is almost wholly concerned with men who either immediately or indirectly felt the influence of Petrarch's genius.[43] His shadow stretches over the whole age. Incited by his brilliant renown, Boccaccio, while still a young man, began to read the cla.s.sical authors, bemoaning the years he had wasted in commerce and the study of the law to please his father. From what the poet of the 'Decameron' has himself told us about the origin of his literary enthusiasm, it appears that Petrarch's example was decisive in determining his course. There is, however, another tale, reported by his fellow-citizen Villani, so characteristic of the age that to omit it in this place would be to sacrifice one of the most attractive legends in the history of literature.[44] 'After wandering through many lands, now here, now there, for a long s.p.a.ce of time, when he had reached at last his twenty-eighth year, Boccaccio, at his father's bidding, took up his abode at Naples in the Pergola. There it chanced one day that he walked forth alone for pleasure, and came to the place where Virgil's dust lies buried. At the sight of this sepulchre, he fell into long musing admiration of the man whose bones it covered, brooding with meditative soul upon the poet's fame, until his thoughts found vent in lamentations over his own envious fortunes, whereby he was compelled against his will to give himself to things of commerce that he loathed. A sudden love of the Pierian Muses smote his heart, and turning homeward, he abandoned trade, devoting himself with fervent study to poetry; wherein very shortly, aided alike by his n.o.ble genius and his burning desire, he made marvellous progress. This when his father noted, and perceived the heavenly inspiration was more powerful within his son than the paternal will, he at last consented to his studies, and helped him as best he could, although at first he tried to make him turn his talents to the canon law.'

[Footnote 43: It is very significant of Petrarch's influence that his contemporaries ranked him higher, even as a sonnet-writer, than Dante.

See _Coluccio de' Salutati's Letters_, part ii. p. 57.]

[Footnote 44: Filippo Villani, _Vite d'Uomini Ill.u.s.tri Fiorentini_, Firenze, 1826, p. 9.]

The hero-worship of Boccaccio, not only for the august Virgil, but also for Dante, the master of his youth and the idol of his mature age, is the most amiable trait in a character which, by its geniality and sweetness, cannot fail to win affection.[45] When circ.u.mstances brought him into personal relations with Petrarch, he transferred the whole homage of his ardent soul to the only man alive who seemed to him a fit inheritor of ancient fame.[46] Petrarch became the director of his conscience, the master of his studies, the moulder of his thoughts upon the weightiest matters of literary philosophy. The friendship established between the poet of Vaucluse and the lover of Fiammetta lasted through more than twenty years, and was only broken by the death of the former. Throughout this long s.p.a.ce of time Boccaccio retained the att.i.tude of a humble scholar, while in his published works, the 'Genealogia Deorum' and the 'Comento sopra i Primi Sedici Capitoli dell' "Inferno" di Dante,' he uniformly spoke of Petrarch as his father and his teacher, the wonder of the century, a heavenly poet better fitted to be numbered with the giants of the past than with the pygmies of a barren age. The fame enjoyed by Petrarch, the honours showered upon him by kings and princes, his own vanity, and even the discrepancies between his habits and his theories, produced no bitterness in Boccaccio's more modest nature. It was enough for the pupil to use his talents for the propagation of his master's views; and thus the influence of Petrarch was communicated to Florence, where Boccaccio continued to reside.[47]

[Footnote 45: With his own hand Boccaccio transcribed the _Divine Comedy_, and sent the MS. to Petrarch, who in his reply wrote thus:--'Inseris nominatim hanc hujus officii tui escusationem, quod tibi adolescentulo primus studiorum dux, prima fax fuerit.' Baldelli, p. 133. The enthusiasm of Boccaccio for Dante contrasts favourably with Petrarch's grudging egotism.]

[Footnote 46: Boccaccio was present at Naples when Petrarch disputed before King Robert for his t.i.tle to the poet's crown (_Gen. Deor._ xiv. 22); but he first became intimate with him as a friend during Petrarch's visit to Florence in 1350.]

[Footnote 47: Salutato, writing to Francesco da Brossano, describes his conversations with Boccaccio thus:--'Nihil aliud quam de Francisco (_i.e._ Petrarcha) conferebamus. In cujus laudationem adeo libenter sermones usurpabat, ut nihil avidius nihilque copiosius enarraret. Et eo magis quia tali orationis generi me prospiciebat intentum.

Sufficiebat enim n.o.bis Petrarcha solus, et omni posteritati sufficiet in moralitate sermonis, in eloquentiae soliditate atque dulcedine, in lepore prosarum et in concinnitate metrorum.' _Epist. Fam._ p. 45.]

In obedience to Petrarch's advice, Boccaccio in middle life applied himself to learning Greek. Petrarch had never acquired a real knowledge of the language, though he received a few lessons at Avignon from Barlaam, a Calabrian, who had settled in Byzantium, and who sought to advance his fortunes in Italy and Greece by alternate acts of apostasy, and afterwards at Venice from Leontius Pilatus.[48] The opportunities of Greek study enjoyed by Boccaccio were also very meagre, and his mastery of the idiom was superficial. Yet he advanced considerably beyond the point reached by any of his predecessors, so that he deserves to be named as the first Grecian of the modern world.

Leontius Pilatus, a Southern Italian and a pupil of Barlaam, who, like his teacher, had removed to Byzantium and renounced the Latin faith, arrived at Venice on his way to Avignon in 1360. Boccaccio induced him to visit Florence, received him into his own house, and caused him to be appointed Greek Professor in the University. Then he set himself to work in earnest on the text of Homer. The ignorance of the teacher was, however, scarcely less than that of his pupil. While Leontius possessed a fair knowledge of Byzantine Greek, his command of Latin was very limited, and his natural stupidity was only equalled by his impudent pretensions. Of cla.s.sical usages he seems to have known nothing. The imbecility of his master could scarcely have escaped the notice of Boccaccio. Indeed, both he and Petrarch have described Leontius as a sordid cynic with a filthy beard and tangled hair, morose in his temper and disgusting in his personal habits, who concealed a bovine ignorance beneath a lion's hide of ostentation. It was, however, necessary to make the best of him; for Greek in Northern Italy could nowhere else be gained, and Boccaccio had not thought, it seems, of journeying to Byzantium in search of what he wanted.[49]

Boccaccio, accordingly, drank the muddy stream of pseudo-learning and lies that flowed from this man's lips, with insatiable avidity. The nonsense administered to him by way of satisfying his thirst for knowledge may best be understood from the following etymologies.

[Greek: Achilleus] was derived from [Greek: a] and [Greek: chilos], 'without fodder.'[50] The names of the Muses gave rise to these extraordinary explanations:[51]--Melpomene is derived from _Melempio comene_, which signifies _facente stare la meditazione_; Thalia is the same as _t.i.thonlia_ or _pognente cosa che germini_; Polyhymnia, through _Polium neemen_, is the same as _cosa che faccia molta memoria_; Erato becomes _Euruncomenon_ or _trovatore del simile_, and Terpsich.o.r.e is described as _dilettante ammaestramento_.

[Footnote 48: _Epist. Rer. Sen._, lib. xi. 9, p. 887; lib. vi. 1, p.

806; lib. v. 4, p. 801.]

[Footnote 49: Petrarch's letter to Ugone di San Severino, _Epist. Rer.

Sen._ lib. xi. 9, p. 887, deserves to be read, since it proves that Italian scholars despaired at this time of gaining Greek learning from Constantinople. They were rather inclined to seek it in Calabria.

'Graeciam, ut olim ditissimam, sic nunc omnis longe inopem disciplinae ... quod desperat apud Graecos, non diffidit apud Calabros inveniri posse.']

[Footnote 50: _De Gen. Deor._ xv. 6, 7.]

[Footnote 51: _Comento sopra Dante, Opp. Volg._ vol. x. p. 127. After allowing for the difficulty of writing Greek, p.r.o.nounced by an Italian, in Italian letters, and also for the errors of the copyist and printer, it is clear that a Greek scholar who thought Melpomene was one 'who gives fixity to meditation,' Thalia one 'who plants the capacity of growth,' Polyhymnia she 'who strengthens and expands memory,' Erato 'the discoverer of similarity,' and Terpsich.o.r.e 'delightful instruction,' was on a comically wrong track.]

Such was the bathos reached by erudition in Byzantium. Yet Boccaccio made what use he could of his contemptible materials. At the dictation of Leontius he wrote out the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' in Latin; and this was the first translation made of Homer for modern readers. The ma.n.u.script, despatched to Petrarch, was, as we have seen already, greeted with enthusiasm.[52] This moment in the history of scholarship is so memorable that I may be excused for borrowing Baldelli's extract from an ancient copy of Boccaccio's autograph.[53] Lycaon addresses his last prayer to Achilles:--

Genu deprecor te Achilles: tu autem venerare et me miserere.

Vada Servus. Jove genite venerabilis.

Penes enim te primo gustavi Cereris farinam, Die illo, quando me cepisti in bene facto viridario; Et me transtulisti procul ferens patreque amicisque Lemnon ad gloriosam. Hecatombium autem honorem inveni, Nunc autem laesus ter tot ferens. Dies autem mihi est Haec duodecima, quando ad Ilion veni Multa pa.s.sus. Nunc iterum me in tuis manibus posuit Fatum destructibile. Debeo odio esse Jovi patri, Qui me tibi iterum dedit, medio cuique, me mater Genuit Lathoi, filia Altai senis.

[Footnote 52: See above, p. 53, note 4.]

[Footnote 53: _Vita del Boccaccio_, p. 264. The autograph was probably burned with other books of Boccaccio, and some of the unintelligible pa.s.sages in the above quotation may be due to the ignorance of the copyist.]

Only by keeping firmly in mind that such men as Petrarch and Boccaccio, the two chief masters of Italian literature, prized this wretched stuff as an inestimable treasure, can we justly conceive how utterly Greek had been lost, and what an effort it required to restore it to the modern world.

Indefatigable industry was Boccaccio's great merit as a student. He transcribed the whole of Terence with his own hands, and showed a real sense of the advantage to be gained by a critical comparison of texts.

In his mythological, geographical, and historical collections he bequeathed to posterity a curious ma.s.s of miscellaneous knowledge, forming, as it were, the first dictionaries of biography and antiquity for modern scholars.[54] Far from sharing the originality of Petrarch's humanistic ideal, he remained at best a laborious chronicler of facts and anecdotes. The author of the 'Decameron,' so richly gifted with humour, pathos, and poetic fancy, when he wrapped his student's robe around him, became a painstaking pioneer of antiquarian research.

[Footnote 54: _De Genealogia Deorum_; _De Casibus Virorum ac Feminarum Ill.u.s.trium_; _De Claris Muliebribus_; _De Montibus, Silvis, Fontibus_, &c.]

One very important part of Petrarch's programme was eloquently supported by Boccaccio. The fourteenth and fifteenth books of the 'Genealogia Deorum' form what may be termed the first defence of poesy, composed in honour of his own art by a poet of the modern world. In them Boccaccio expounds a theory already sketched in outline by Petrarch. We have seen that the worst obstacle to humanistic culture lay, not so much in ignorance, as in misconceptions based upon prejudice and scruple. The notion of fine literature as an elevating and purifying influence had been lost. To restore it was the object of these earliest humanists. By poetry, contends Boccaccio, we must understand whatever of weighty in argument, deep in doctrine, and vivid in imagination the man of genius may produce with conscious art in prose and verse. Poetry is instruction conveyed through allegory and fiction. Theology itself, he reasons, is a form of poetry; even the Holy Ghost may be called a Poet, inasmuch as He used the vehicle of symbol in the visions of the prophets and the Revelation of S.

John.[55] To such strained arguments was the apostle of culture driven in order to persuade his hearers, and to drag literature from the Avernus of mediaeval neglect. We must not, however, imagine that Boccaccio was himself superior to a point of view so puerile. Allegory appeared to him a necessary condition of art: only a madman could deny the hidden meaning of the 'Georgics' and the 'aeneid;'[56] while the verses of Dante and of Petrarch owed their value to the Christian mysteries they shrouded. The poet, according to this mediaeval philosophy of literature, was a sage and teacher wrapping up his august meanings in delightful fictions.[57] Though the common herd despised him as a liar and a falsehood-fabricator, he was, in truth, a prophet uttering his dark speech in parables. How foolish, therefore, reasons the apologist, are the enemies of poetry--sophistical dialecticians and avaricious jurists, who have never trodden the Phoebean hill, and who scorn the springs of Helicon because they do not flow with gold! Far worse is the condition of those monks and hypocrites who accuse the divine art of immorality and grossness, instead of reading between the lines and seeking the sense conveyed to the understanding under veils of allegory. Truly, proceeds Boccaccio, we do well to shun the errors of Pagans; nor can it be denied that poets of antiquity have written verse abhorrent to the Christian spirit. But, Jesus Christ be praised, the faith has triumphed. Strong in the doctrines of the Gospel and the Church, the student may safely approach the masterpieces of cla.s.sic literature without fearing the seductions of the Siren.

[Footnote 55: 'La teologia e la poesia quasi una cosa si possono dire ... la teologia niuna altra cosa e che una poesia d'Iddio.' _Vita di Dante_, p. 59. Cf. _Comento sopra Dante_, loc. cit. p. 45. The explanation of the Muses referred to above is governed by the same determination to find philosophy in poetry.]

[Footnote 56: See Petrarch's letter 'De quibusdam fictionibus Virgilii.' _Ep. Rer. Sen._ lib. iv. 4, p. 785.]

[Footnote 57: See the privilege granted to Petrarch by the Roman senator in 1343, _Petr. Opp._ tom. iii. p. 6.]

This argument, forming the gist of the 'Apology for Poetry' in the 'Genealogia Deorum,' is repeated in the 'Comment upon Dante.' It is doubly interesting, both as showing the popular opinion of poetry and the prejudices Boccaccio thought it needful to attack, and also as containing a full exposition of the allegorising theories with which humanism started. For some time after Boccaccio's death the paragraphs condensed above supplied the champions of culture with weapons to be used against their ecclesiastical and scholastic antagonists; nor was it until humanism had triumphed, that the allegorical interpretation of the ancients was finally abandoned.

Independently of his contributions to learning, Boccaccio occupies a prominent place in the history of the Revival through the new spirit he introduced into the vulgar literature. He was the first who frankly sought to justify the pleasures of the carnal life, whose temperament, unburdened by asceticism, found a congenial element in amorous legends of antiquity. The romances of Boccaccio, with their beautiful gardens and sunny skies, fair women and luxurious lovers, formed a transition from the chivalry of the early Italian poets to the sensuality of Beccadelli and Pontano. He prepared the nation for literary and artistic Paganism by unconsciously divesting thought and feeling of their spiritual elevation. Dante had made the whole world one in Christ. Petrarch put humanity to school in the lecture-room of Roman sages and in the councils of the Church. A terrestrial paradise of sensual delight, where all things were desirable and delicate, contented the poet of the 'Fiammetta' and 'Filostrato.' To the beatific vision of the 'Divine Comedy,' to the 'Trionfo della Morte,'

succeeded the 'Visione Amorosa'--a review of human life, in which Boccaccio begins by invoking Dame Venus and ends with earthly love, _Il Sior di tutta pace_.

The name given to Boccaccio by contemporaries, _Giovanni della Tranquillita_, sufficiently indicates his peaceful temperament. He was, in fact, the scholar, working in his study, and contributing to the erudition of his age by writings. Another of Petrarch's disciples, Giovanni Malpaghino, called from his birthplace Giovanni da Ravenna, exercised a more active personal influence over the destinies of scholarship. While still a youth he had been employed by Petrarch as secretary and amanuensis. His general ability, clear handwriting, and enthusiasm for learning first recommended him to the poet, who made use of him for copying ma.n.u.scripts and arranging his familiar letters.

In the course of this work John of Ravenna became himself a learned man, acquiring a finer sense of Latinity than was possessed by any other scholar of his time. Something, too, of the sacred fire he caught from Petrarch, so that in his manhood the very faults of his nature became instrumental in diffusing throughout Italy the pa.s.sion for antiquity. He could not long content himself with being even Petrarch's scribe. Irresistible restlessness impelled him to seek adventures in the outer world, to mix with men and gain the glory he was always reading of. Petrarch, incapable of comprehending that any honour was greater than that of being his satellite, treated this ambitious pupil like a wilful child. A quarrel ensued. Giovanni left his benefactor's house and went forth to try his fortunes. Without repeating the vicissitudes of his career in detail, it is enough to mention that want and misery soon drove him back to Petrarch; that once more the vagrant impulse came upon him, and that for a season he filled the post of chancellor in the little princ.i.p.ality of Carrara.[58] The one thing, however, which he could not endure, was the routine of fixed employment. Therefore we find that he abandoned the Court of the Malaspini, and betook himself to the more congenial work of a wandering professor. His prodigious memory, by enabling him to retain, word for word, the text of authors he had read, proved of invaluable service to him in this career. His pa.s.sionate poetic temper made him apt to raise enthusiasm in young souls for literary studies.

Giovanni da Ravenna was in fact the first of those vagabond humanists with whom we shall be occupied in the next chapters, and of whom Filelfo was the most ill.u.s.trious example. Florence, Padua, Venice, and many other cities of Italy received the Latinist, whose reputation now increased with every year. In each of these towns in succession he lectured upon Cicero and the Roman poets, pouring forth the knowledge he had acquired in Petrarch's study, and transmitting to his audience the inspiration he had received from his master. The school thus formed was compared a century later to the Trojan horse, whence issued a band of heroes destined to possess the capital of cla.s.sic learning.

As a writer, he produced little that is worth more than a pa.s.sing notice. His real merit consisted, as Lionardo Bruni witnessed, in his faculty of arousing a pa.s.sion for pure literature, and especially for the study of Cicero. Among his most ill.u.s.trious pupils may be mentioned Frances...o...b..rbaro, Palla degli Strozzi, Roberto de' Rossi, Francesco Filelfo, Carlo Marsuppini, Poggio Bracciolini, Lionardo Bruni, Guarino da Verona, Vittorino da Feltre, Ambrogio Traversari, Ognibene da Vicenza, and Pier Paolo Vergerio. This list, as will appear from the sequel of my work, includes nearly all those scholars who devoted their energies to erudition at Venice, Florence, Rome, Mantua, Ferrara, and Perugia in the fifteenth century. Giovanni da Ravenna deserves, therefore, to be honoured as the link between the age of Petrarch and the age of Poggio, as the vessel chosen for communicating the sacred fire of humanism to the Courts and Republics of Italy. None but a wanderer, _vagus quidam_, as Petrarch, half in scorn and half in sorrow, called his protege, could so effectually have carried on the work of propagation.[59]

[Footnote 58: De Sade, in his _Memoirs of Petrarch_, gives an interesting account of this romantic episode in his life. See too Petrarch, _Epist. Rer. Sen._ lib. v. 6 and 7, pp. 802-806.]

[Footnote 59: _Epist. Rer. Sen._ lib. xiv. 14, p. 942.]

The name of the next student claiming our attention as a disciple of Petrarch, brings us once more back to Florence. Luigi Marsigli was a monk of the Augustine Order of S. Spirito. Petrarch, noticing his distinguished abilities, had exhorted him to make a special study of theology, and to enter the lists as a champion of Christianity against the Averrhoists.[60] Under the name of Averrhoists in the fourteenth century were ranged all freethinkers who questioned the fundamental doctrines of the Church, doubted the immortality of the soul, and employed their ingenuity in a dialectic at least as trivial as that of the schoolmen, but directed to a very different end.[61] Petrarch disliked their want of liberal culture as much as he abhorred their affectation of impiety. The stupid materialism they professed, their gross flippancy, and the idle pretence of natural science upon which they piqued themselves, were regarded by him as so many obstacles to his own ideal of humanism. He only saw in them another set of scholastic wranglers, worse than the theologians, inasmuch as they had cast off Christ. Against Averrhoes, 'the raging hound who barked at all things sacred and Divine,' Petrarch therefore sought to stimulate the young Marsigli. Marsigli, however, while he shared Petrarch's respect for humane culture, seems to have sympathised with the audacity and freedom of his proposed antagonists. The Convent of S.

Spirito became under his influence the centre of a learned society, who met there regularly for disputations. The theme chosen for discussion was posted up upon the wall of the debating-room, metaphysical and ethical subjects forming the most frequent matter of inquiry.[62] Among the members of the circle who sharpened their wits in this species of dialectic, we find Coluccio de' Salutati, Roberto de' Rossi, Niccolo de' Niccoli, and Giannozzo Manetti. The influence of Marsigli in forming their character was undoubtedly powerful.

Poggio, in his funeral oration upon Niccolo de' Niccoli, tells us that 'the house of Marsigli was frequented by distinguished youths, who set themselves to imitate his life and habits; it was, moreover, the resort of the best and n.o.blest burghers of this city, who flowed together from all quarters to him as to some oracle of more than human wisdom.'[63] His intellectual acuteness, solid erudition, and winning eloquence were displayed in moral disquisitions upon Virgil, Cicero, and Seneca. In this way he had the merit of combining the dialectic method and the bold spirit of the Averrhoists with the sound learning and polite culture of the newly-discovered humanities. The Convent of S. Spirito has to be mentioned as the first of those many private academies to which the free thought and the scholarship of Italy were afterwards destined to owe so much.

[Footnote 60: _Epist. sine t.i.tulo_, xviii. p. 732.]

[Footnote 61: See the exhaustive work of Renan, _Averroes et l'Averrosme_.]