C. A.D. 1402] this double school; and Florence became the fruitful seminary of Greek and Roman erudition.103 The presence of the emperor recalled Chrysoloras from the college to the court, but he afterwards taught at Pavia and Rome with equal industry and ap- [At Pavin plause. The remainder of his life, about fifteen years, was divided between Italy and Constantinople, between embassies (In Conand lessons. In the noble office of enlightening a foreign na- nople, A.D. tion, the grammarian was not unmindful of a more sacred duty to his prince and country; and Emanuel Chrysoloras died at [A.D. 1415] Constance, on a public mission from the emperor to the council. stanti 1403] in Italy. 1500 After his example, the restoration of the Greek letters in The Greeks Italy was prosecuted by a series of emigrants, who were desti- A.D. 1400tute of fortune, and endowed with learning, or at least with language. From the terror or oppression of the Turkish arms the natives of Thessalonica and Constantinople escaped to a land of freedom, curiosity, and wealth. The synod introduced into Florence the lights of the Greek church and the oracles of the Platonic philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to the union had the double merit of renouncing their country not only for the Christian but for the Catholic cause. A patriot who sacrifices his party and conscience to the allurements of favour may be possessed, however, of the private and social virtues; he no longer hears the reproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and the consideration which he acquires among his new associates will restore in his own eyes the dignity of his character. The prudent conformity of Bessarion was re- Cardinal warded with the Roman purple; he fixed his residence in Italy; &c. and the Greek cardinal, the titular patriarch of Constantinople, was respected as the chief and protector of his nation.104 His abilities were exercised in the legations of Bologna, Venice, 103 Hinc Græcae Latinæque schola exorta sunt, Guarino Philelpho, Leonardo Aretino, Caroloque, ac plerisque aliis tanquam ex equo Trojano prodeuntibus, quorum emulatione multa ingenia deinceps ad laudem excitata sunt (Platina in Bonifacio IX.). Another Italian writer adds the names of Paulus Petrus Vergerius, Omnibonus [Ognibene da Lonigo], Vincentius, Poggius, Franciscus Barbarus, &c. But I question whether a rigid chronology would allow Chrysoloras all these eminent scholars (Hodius, p. 25-27, &c.). [Vergerius (who was one of his pupils) wrote the epitaph on Chrysoloras which is to be seen in the kitchen of the Hôtel Insel at Constance.] 104 See in Hody the article of Bessarion (p. 136-177). Theodora Gaza [of Thessalonica], George of Trebizond, and the rest of the Greeks whom I have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper chapters of his learned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the 1st and 2d parts of the vith tome. [See Legrand's work quoted above, note 87.] VOL. VII.-9 Bessarion, Their faults and merits Germany, and France; and his election to the chair of St. Peter floated for a moment on the uncertain breath of a conclave.105 His ecclesiastical honours diffused a splendour and pre-eminence over his literary merit and service: his palace was a school; as often as the cardinal visited the Vatican, he was attended by a learned train of both nations; 106 of men applauded by themselves and the public; and whose writings, now overspread with dust, were popular and useful in their own times. I shall not attempt to enumerate the restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth century; and it may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the names of Theodore Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John Argyropulus, and Demetrius Chalcondyles, who taught their native language in the schools of Florence and Rome. Their labours were not inferior to those of Bessarion, whose purple they revered, and whose fortune was the secret object of their envy. But the lives of these grammarians were humble and obscure; they had declined the lucrative paths of the church; their dress and manners secluded them from the commerce of the world; and, since they were confined to the merit, they might be content with the rewards, of learning. From this character Janus Lascaris 107 will deserve an exception. His eloquence, politeness, and Imperial descent recommended him to the French monarchs; and in the same cities he was alternately employed to teach and to negotiate. Duty and interest prompted them to cultivate the study of the Latin language; and the most successful attained the faculty of writing and speaking with fluency and elegance in a foreign idiom. But they ever retained the inveterate vanity of their country their praise, or at least their esteem, was reserved for the national writers, to whom they owed their fame and subsist 105 The cardinals knocked at his door, but his conclavist refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion: Nicholas," said he, "thy respect hath cost thee an hat, and me the tiara". 106 Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza, Argyropulus, Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius, Blondus, Nicholas Perrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, &c. Viri (says Hody, with the pious zeal of a scholar) nullo ævo perituri (p. 156). 107 He was born before the taking of Constantinople, but his honourable life was stretched far into the xvith century (A.D. 1535). Leo X. and Francis I. were his noblest patrons, under whose auspices he founded the Greek colleges of Rome and Paris (Hody, p. 247-275). He left posterity in France; but the counts de Vintimille, and their numerous branches, derive the name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriage, in the xiiith century, with the daughter of a Greek emperor (Ducange, Fam, Byzant. p. 224-230), ence; and they sometimes betrayed their contempt in licentious criticism or satire on Virgil's poetry and the oratory of Tully.108 The superiority of these masters arose from the familiar use of a living language; and their first disciples were incapable of discerning how far they had degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice, of their ancestors. A vicious pronunciation,109 which they introduced, was banished from the schools by the reason of the succeeding age. Of the power of the Greek accents they were ignorant; and those musical notes, which, from an Attic tongue and to an Attic ear, must have been the secret soul of harmony, were to their eyes, as to our own, no more than mute or unmeaning marks, in prose superfluous and troublesome in verse.109a The art of grammar they truly possessed; the valuable fragments of Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons; and their treatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of philosophic spirit, are still useful to the Greek student. In the shipwreck of the Byzantine libraries, each fugitive seized a fragment of treasure, a copy of some author, who without his industry, might have perished; the transcripts were multiplied by an assiduous, and sometimes an elegant, pen; and the text was corrected and explained by their own comments or those of the elder scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek classics was interpreted to 108 Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three against Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus, who can find no better names than Græculus ineptus et impudens (Hody, p. 274). In our own times, an English critic has accused the Eneid of containing multa languida, nugatoria, spiritu et majestate carminis heroici defecta: many such verses as he, the said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed of owning (præfat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22). 109 Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are accused of ignorance, envy, or avarice (Sylloge, &c. tom. ii. p. 235). The modern Greek [Greeks ?] pronounce the B as a V consonant, and confound three vowels (nv) and several diphthongs [EL, OL, VI]. Such was the vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner maintained by penal statutes in the University of Cambridge; but the monosyllable By represented to an Attic ear the bleating of sheep; and a bell-wether is better evidence than a bishop or a chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus, who asserted a more classical pronunciation, are collected in the Sylloge of Havercamp (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd. Bat. 1736, 1740); but it is difficult to paint sounds by words; and in their reference to modern use they can be understood only by their respective countrymen. We may observe that our peculiar pronunciation of the e, th, is approved by Erasmus (tom. ii. p. 130) [0 is so pronounced in modern Greek]. 109 [It is to be observed however that the system of accent-notation was first introduced by the Alexandrines. Gibbon assumes that the meaning of the accents was in ancient times entirely different from their meaning in modern Greek. This is improbable. But it is still a problem how the Greeks conciliated their accentuation with the rhythms of their verses.] The Platonic philosophy [Cosimo de' Medici] the Latin world; the beauties of style evaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza selected the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and their natural histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund of genuine and experimental science.110 Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with more curiosity and ardour. After a long oblivion, Plato was revived in Italy by a venerable Greek, who taught in the house of Cosmo of Medicis. While the synod of Florence was involved in theological debate, some beneficial consequences might flow from the study of his elegant philosophy; his style is the purest standard of the Attic dialect; and his sublime thoughts are sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and sometimes adorned with the richest colours of poetry and eloquence. The dialogues of Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of a sage; and, as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral system inculcates the love of truth, of our country, and of mankind. The precept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and liberal inquiry; and, if the Platonists, with blind devotion, adored the visions and errors of their divine master, their enthusiasm might correct the dry dogmatic method of the Peripatetic school. So equal, yet so opposite, are the merits of Plato and Aristotle that they may be balanced in endless controversy; but some spark of freedom may be produced by the collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks were divided between the two sects, with more fury than skill they fought under the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was removed in their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this philosophic debate 110 [On Theodore Gaza see the biographical essay of L. Stein in the Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, ii. p. 426 sqq., 1889.] 111 George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous writer, the master of Bessarion and all the Platonists of the times. He visited Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end his days in Peloponnesus. See the curious Diatribe of Leo Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 739-756). [The study of Plato was revived in the 11th century by Michael Psellus. For Plethon see H. F. Tozer, A Byzantine Reformer, in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, vii. p. 353 sqq., 1886; and F. Schultze, Geschichte der Philosophie der Renaissance, vol. i., 1874. The Memoir on the state of the Peloponnesus, which he addressed to the emperor Manuel, is edited by Ellissen in his Analekten der mittel- und neugriechischen Litteratur, vol. iv., part ii., with a German translation. Plethon's works are collected in Migne's P. G. vol. clx. On the theological side of his works see W. Gass, Gennadius und Pletho, Aristotelismus und Platonismus in der griechischen Kirche, 1844.] soon degenerated into an angry and personal quarrel of grammarians; and Bessarion, though an advocate for Plato, protected the national honour, by interposing the advice and authority of a mediator. In the gardens of the Medici, the academical doctrine was enjoyed by the polite and learned ; but their philosophic society was quickly dissolved; and, if the writings of the Attic sage were perused in the closet, the more powerful Stagirite continued to reign the oracle of the church and school.112 and pro Latins A.D. 1447 I have fairly represented the literary merits of the Greeks; Emulation yet it must be confessed that they were seconded and surpassed gress of the by the ardour of the Latins. Italy was divided into many independent states; and at that time it was the ambition of princes and republics to vie with each other in the encouragement and reward of literature. The fame of Nicholas the Fifth 113 has Nicholas V. not been adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin he 1455 raised himself by his virtue and learning: the character of the man prevailed over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened those weapons which were soon pointed against the Roman church.114 He had been the friend of the most eminent scholars of the age; he became their patron; and such was the humility of his manners that the change was scarcely discernible either to them or to himself. If he pressed the acceptance of a liberal gift, it was not as the measure of desert, but as the proof of benevolence; and, when modest merit declined his bounty, Accept it," would he say with a consciousness of his own worth; "you will not always have a Nicholas among ye". The influence of the holy see pervaded Christendom; and he exerted that influence in the search, not of benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain, he collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of antiquity; and, wherever the 112 The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is illustrated by Boivin (Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 715-729) and Tiraboschi (tom. vi. p. i. p. 259-288). 113 See the life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary authors, Janottus Manettus (tom. iii. p. ii. p. 905-962), and Vespasian of Florence (tom. xxv. p. 267-290), in the collection of Muratori; and consult Tiraboschi (tom. vi. p. i. p. 46-52, 109), and Hody in the articles of Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, &c. 114 Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit, that the popes, in this instance, were worse politicians than the muftis, and that the charm which had bound mankind for so many ages was broken by the magicians themselves (Letters on the Study of History, 1. vi. p. 165, 166, octavo edition, 1779). |