  “Stan le cittÀ lombarde con le chiave In man per darle a voi ... etc. Roma vi chiamo: Cesar mio novello Io sono ignuda, e l’anima pur vive: Or mi coprite col vostro mantello,” etc. ‘Con passi lunghi e con la testa bassa Oltre passai e dissi: ecco vergogna Del cristian che’l saracin qui lassa! Poscia al Pastor (the Pope) mi volsi far rampogna E tu ti stai, che sei vicar di Cristo, Co’ frati tuoi a ingrassar la carogna? Similimente dissi a quel sofisto (Charles IV.) Che sta in Buemme (Bohemia) a piantar vigne e fichi E che non cura di si caro acquisto: Che fai? PerchÈ non segui i primi antichi Cesari de’ Romani, e che non segui, Dico, gli Otti, i Corradi, i Federichi? E che pur tieni questo imperio in tregui? E se non hai lo cuor d’esser Augusto, Che non rifiuti? o che non ti dilegui?’ etc. Some eight years earlier, about 1352, Petrarch had written (to Charles IV., Epist. Fam., lib. xii. ep. 1, ed. Fracassetti, vol. ii. p. 160): ‘Simpliciter igitur et aperte ... pro maturando negotio terrÆ sanctÆ ... oro tuo egentem auxilio quam primum invisere velis Ausoniam.’ In Bandello, ii. nov. 8 and 9 refer to Alessandro Medici, 26 to Mary of Aragon, iii. 26, iv. 13 to Galeazzo Sforza, iii. 36, 37 to Henry VIII. of England, ii. 27 to the German Emperor Maximilian. The emperor, ‘whose natural goodness and more than imperial generosity are praised by all writers,’ while chasing a stag is separated from his followers, loses his way, and at last emerging from the wood, enquires the way from a countryman. The latter, busied with lading wood, begs the emperor, whom he does not know, to help him, and receives willing assistance. While still at work, Maximilian is rejoined, and, in spite of his signs to the contrary, respectfully saluted by his followers, and thus recognised by the peasant, who implores forgiveness for the freedom he has unwittingly taken. The emperor raises the kneeling suppliant, gives him presents, appoints him as his attendant, and confers upon him distinguished privileges. The narrator concludes: ‘DimostrÒ Cesare nello smontar da cavallo e con allegra ciera aiutar il bisognoso contadino, una indicibile e degna d’ogni lode humanitÀ, e in sollevarlo con danari e privilegii dalla sua faticosa vita, aperse il suo veramente animo Cesareo’ (ii. 415). A story in the Hecatomithi (viii. nov. 5) also treats of Maximilian. It is the same tale which has acquired a world-wide celebrity through Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (for its diffusion see Kirchhof’s Wendunmuth, ed. Oesterley, bd. v. s. 152 sqq.), and the scene of which is transferred by Giraldi to Innsbruck. Maximilian is the hero, and here too receives the highest eulogies. After being first called ‘Massimiliano il Grande,’ he is designated as one ‘che fu raro esempio di cortesia, di magnanimitÀ, e di singolare giustizia.’ Petr. Crinitus, also (De honest disciplinÂ, Paris, 1510, fol. 134 b), writes a poem De virtute Jo. Andr. Lamponiani tyrannicidÆ, in which Lampugnani’s deed is highly praised, and he himself is represented as a worthy companion of Brutus. Comp. also the Latin poem: Bonini Mombritii poetÆ Mediol. trenodiÆ in funere illustrissimi D. Gal. Marie Sfor (2 Books—Milan, 1504), edited by Ascalon Vallis (sic), who in his dedication to the jurist Jac. Balsamus praises the poet and names other poems equally worthy to be printed. In this work, in which MegÆra and Mars, Calliope and the poet, appear as interlocutors, the assassin—not Lampugnano, but a man from a humble family of artisans—is severely blamed, and he with his fellow conspirators are treated as ordinary criminals; they are charged with high treason on account of a projected alliance with Charles of Burgundy. No less than ten prognostics of the death of Duke Galeazzo are enumerated. The murder of the Prince, and the punishment of the assassin are vividly described; the close consists of pious consolations addressed to the widowed Princess, and of religious meditations. In Venice, for example, the Doge Andrea Vendramin (1476) with 170,000 ducats passed for an exceedingly rich man (Malipiero, l. c. vii. ii. p. 666. The confiscated fortune of Colleoni amounted to 216,000 florins, l. c. p. 244. About 1460 the Patriarch of Aquileia, Ludovico Patavino, with 200,000 ducats, was called ‘perhaps the richest of all Italians.’ (Gasp. Veroneus Vita Pauli II., in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1027.) Elsewhere fabulous statements. Antonio Grimani paid 30,000 ducats for his son’s election as Cardinal. His ready money alone was put at 100,000 ducats. (Chron. Venetum, Murat. xxiv. col. 125.) For notices as to the grain in commerce and on the market at Venice, see in particular Malipiero, l. c. vii. ii. p. 709 sqq. Date 1498. In 1522 it is no longer Venice, but Genoa, next to Rome, which ranks as the richest city in Italy (only credible on the authority of Francesco. Vettori. See his history in the Archiv. Stor. Append. tom. vi. p. 343). Bandello, parte ii. novello 34 and 42, names as the richest Genoese merchant of his time Ansaldo Grimaldi. Between 1400 and 1580 Franc. Sansovino assumes a depreciation of 50 per cent. in the value of money. (Venezia, fol. 151 bis.) In Lombardy it is believed that the relation between the price of corn about the middle of the fifteenth and that at the middle of the present century is as 3 to 8. (Sacco di Piacenza, in Archiv. Stor. Append. tom. v. Note of editor Scarabelli.) At Ferrara there were people at the time of Duke Borso with 50,000 to 60,000 ducats (Diario Ferrarese, Murat. xxiv. col. 207, 214, 218; an extravagant statement, col. 187). In Florence the data are exceptional and do not justify a conclusion as to averages. Of this kind are the loans to foreign princes, in which the names of one or two houses only appear, but which were in fact the work of great companies. So too the enormous fines levied on defeated parties; we read, e.g. that from 1430 to 1453 seventy-seven families paid 4,875,000 gold florins (Varchi, iii. p. 115 sqq.), and that Giannozzo Mannetti alone, of whom we shall have occasion to speak hereafter, was forced to pay a sum of 135,000 gold florins, and was reduced thereby to beggary (Reumont, i. 157). The fortune of Giovanni Medici amounted at his death (1428) to 179,221 gold florins, but the latter alone of his two sons Cosimo and Lorenzo left at his death (1440) as much as 235,137 (Fabroni, Laur. Med. Adnot. 2). Cosimo’s son Piero left (1469) 237,982 scudi (Reumont, Lorenzo de’ Medici, i. 286). It is a proof of the general activity of trade that the forty-four goldsmiths on the Ponte Vecchio paid in the fourteenth century a rent of 800 florins to the Government (Vasari, ii. 114, Vita di Taddeo Gaddi). The diary of Buonaccorso Pitti (in DelÉcluze, Florence et ses Vicissitudes, vol. ii.) is full of figures, which, however, only prove in general the high price of commodities and the low value of money. For Rome, the income of the Curia, which was derived from all Europe, gives us no criterion; nor are statements about papal treasures and the fortunes of cardinals very trustworthy. The well-known banker Agostino Chigi left (1520) a fortune of in all 800,000 ducats (Lettere Pittoriche, i. Append. 48). During the high prices of the year 1505 the value of the staro ferrarrese del grano, which commonly weighed from 68 to 70 pounds (German), rose to 1 ducats. The semola or remolo was sold at venti soldi lo staro; in the following fruitful years the staro fetched six soldi. Bonaventura Pistofilo, p. 494. At Ferrara the rent of a house yearly in 1455 was 25 Lire; comp. Atti e memorie, Parma, vi. 250; see 265 sqq. for a documentary statement of the prices which were paid to artists and amanuenses. From the inventory of the Medici (extracts in Muntz, PrÈcurseurs, 158 sqq.) it appears that the jewels were valued at 12,205 ducats; the rings at 1,792; the pearls (apparently distinguished from other jewels, S.G.C.M.) at 3,512; the medallions, cameos and mosaics at 2,579; the vases at 4,850; the reliquaries and the like at 3,600; the library at 2,700; the silver at 7,000. Giov. Rucellai reckons that in 1473(?) he has paid 60,000 gold florins in taxes, 10,000 for the dowries of his five daughters, 2,000 for the improvement of the church of Santa Maria Novella. In 1474 he lost 20,000 gold florins through the intrigues of an enemy. (Autografo dallo Tibaldone di G.R., Florence, 1872). The marriage of Barnardo Rucellai with Nannina, the sister of Lorenzo de’ Medici, cost 3,686 florins (Muntz, PrÉcurseurs, 244, i). Dr. Geiger in his appendix maintains that Dr. Burchhardt’s view as to Lorenzo’s national Italian policy is not borne out by evidence. Into this discussion the translator cannot enter. It would need strong proof to convince him that the masterly historical perception of Dr. Burchhardt was in error as to a subject which he has studied with minute care. In an age when diplomatic lying and political treachery were matters of course, documentary evidence loses much of its weight, and cannot be taken without qualification as representing the real feelings of the persons concerned, who fenced, turned about, and lied, first on one side and then on another, with an agility surprising to those accustomed to live among truth-telling people (S.G.C.M.) Authorities quoted by Dr. Geiger are: Reumont, Lorenzo, 2nd ed., i. 310; ii. 450. Desjardins: NÉgociations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane (Paris, 1859), i. 173. Kervyn de Lettenhove, Lettres et NÉgociations de Philippe de Comines, i. 180. The great offices in church were treated as matters of much importance by the pomp-loving Paul II. (Platina, l. c. 321) and by Sixtus IV., who, in spite of the gout, conducted mass at Easter in a sitting posture. (Jac. Volaterran. Diarium, Murat. xxiii. col. 131.) It is curious to notice how the people distinguished between the magical efficacy of the blessing and the unworthiness of the man who gave it; when he was unable to give the benediction on Ascension Day, 1481, the populace murmured and cursed him. (Ibid. col. 133.) ‘Piscatorem hominum ne te non, Sixte, putemus Piscaris natum retibus, ecce, tuum.’ Besides the epigram quoted there are others (fol. 36 b, 42 b, 47 b, 51 a, b—in the last passage 5) in Sannazaro on, i.e. against, Alexander. Among them is a famous one, referred to in Gregorovius i. 314, on Lucrezia Borgia: Ergo te semper cupiet Lucretia Sextus? O fatum diri nominis: hic pater est? Others execrate his cruelty and celebrate his death as the beginning of an era of peace. On the Jubilee (see below, p. 108, note 1), there is another epigram, fol. 43 b. There are others no less severe (fol. 34 b, 35 a, b, 42 b, 43 a) against CÆsar Borgia, among which we find in one of the strongest: Aut nihil aut CÆsar vult dici Borgia; quidni? Cum simul et CÆsar possit, et esse nihil. (made use of by Bandello, iv. nov. 11). On the murder of the Duke of Gandia, see especially the admirable collection of the most original sources of evidence in Gregorovius, vii. 399-407, according to which CÆsar’s guilt is clear, but it seems very doubtful whether Alexander knew, or approved, of the intended assassination. ‘Affore Alexandri sobolem, quÆ poneret olim ItaliÆ leges, atque aurea sÆcla referret,’ etc. ‘Sacrumque decus majora parantem deposuisse.’ That Carlo Malatesta caused the statue of Virgil to be pulled down and thrown into the Mincio, and this, as he alleged, from anger at the veneration paid to it by the people of Mantua, is a well-authenticated fact, specially attested by an invective written in 1397 by P. P. Vergerio against C. M., De dirut Statu Virgilii P. P. V. eloquentissimi Oratoris Epistola ex Tugurio Blondi sub Apolline, ed. by Marco Mantova Benavides (publ. certainly before 1560 at Padua). From this work it is clear that till then the statue had not been set up again. Did this happen in consequence of the invective? BartholomÆus Facius (De Vir. Ill. p. 9 sqq. in the Life of P. P. V. 1456) says it did, ‘Carolum Malatestam invectus Virgilii statua, quam ille MantuÆ in foro everterat, quoniam gentilis fuerat, ut ibidem restitueretur, effecit;’ but his evidence stands alone. It is true that, so far as we know, there are no contemporary chronicles for the history of Mantua at that period (Platina, Hist. Mant. in Murat. xx. contains nothing about the matter), but later historians are agreed that the statue was not restored. See for evidence, Prendilacqua, Vita di Vitt. da Feltre, written soon after 1446 (ed. 1871, p. 78), where the destruction but not the restoration of the statue is spoken of, and the work of Ant. Possevini, jun. (Gonzaga, Mantua, 1628), where, p. 486, the pulling down of the statue, the murmurings and violent opposition of the people, and the promise given in consequence by the prince that he would restore it, are all mentioned, with the addition: ‘Nec tamen restitutus est Virgilius.’ Further, on March 17, 1499, Jacopo d’Hatry writes to Isabella of Este, that he has spoken with Pontano about a plan of the princess to raise a statue to Virgil at Mantua, and that Pontano cried out with delight that Vergerio, if he were alive, would be even more pleased ‘che non se attristÒ quando el Conte Carola Malatesta persuase abuttare la statua di Virgilio nel flume.’ The writer then goes on to speak of the manner of setting it up, of the inscription ‘P. Virgilius Mantuanus’ and ‘Isabella Marchionissa MantuÆ restituit,’ and suggests that Andrea Mantegna would be the right man to be charged with the work. Mantegna did in fact make the drawings for it. (The drawing and the letter in question are given in Baschet, Recherches de documents d’art et d’histoire dans les Archives de Mantoue; documents inÉdits concernant la personne et les oeuvres d’Andrea Mantegna, in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, xx. (1866) 478-492, esp. 486 sqq.) It is clear from this letter that Carlo Malatesta did not have the statue restored. In Comparetti’s work on Virgil in the Middle Ages, the story is told after Burckhardt, but without authorities. Dr. Geiger, on the authority of Professor Paul of Berlin, distinguishes between C. Cassius Longinus and Cassius Parmensis, the poet, both among the assassins of CÆsar. Of all celebrities he evidently sets most store by the scholars, and among these by the ‘oratores,’ to whom he devotes nearly a third of his book. He nevertheless has great respect for the jurists, and shows a special fondness for the physicians, among whom he well distinguishes the theoretical from the practical, relating the successful diagnoses and operations of the latter. That he treats of theologians and philosophers in connection with the physicians, is as curious as that he should put the painters immediately after the physicians, although, as he says, they are most allied to the poets. In spite of his reverence for learning, which shows itself in the praise given to the princes who patronised it, he is too much of a courtier not to register the tokens of princely favour received by the scholars he speaks of, and to characterise the princes in the introduction to the chapters devoted to them as those who ‘veluti corpus membra, ita omnia genera quÆ supra memoravimus, regunt ac tuentur.’ The style of the book is simple and unadorned, and the matter of it full of instruction, notwithstanding its brevity. It is a pity that Facius did not enter more fully into the personal relations and circumstances of the men whom he described, and did not add to the list of their writings some notice of the contents and the value of them. The work of Paolo Cortese (b. 1645, d. 1510), De Hominibus Doctis Dialogus (first ed. Florence, 1734), is much more limited in its character. This work, written about 1490, since it mentions Antonius Geraldinus as dead, who died in 1488, and was dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who died in 1492, is distinguished from that of Facius, written a generation earlier, not only by the exclusion of all who are not learned men, but by various inward and outward characteristics. First by the form, which is that of a dialogue between the author and his two companions, Alexander Farnese and Antonius, and by the digressions and unequal treatment of the various characters caused thereby; and secondly by the manner of the treatment itself. While Facius only speaks of the men of his own time, Cortese treats only of the dead, and in part of those long dead, by which he enlarges his circle more than he narrows it by exclusion of the living; while Facius merely chronicles works and deeds, as if they were unknown, Cortese criticises the literary activity of his heroes as if the reader were already familiar with it. This criticism is shaped by the humanistic estimate of eloquence, according to which no man could be considered of importance unless he had achieved something remarkable in eloquence, i.e. in the classical, Ciceronian treatment of the Latin language. On this principle Dante and Petrarch are only moderately praised, and are blamed for having diverted so much of their powers from Latin to Italian; Guarino is described as one who had beheld perfect eloquence at least through a cloud; Lionardo Aretino as one who had offered his contemporaries ‘aliquid splendidius;’ and Enea Silvio as he ‘in quo primum apparuit mutati sÆculi signum.’ This point of view prevailed over all others; never perhaps was it held so one-sidedly as by Cortese. To get a notion of his way of thinking we have only to hear his remarks on a predecessor, also the compiler of a great biographical collection, Sicco Polentone: ‘Ejus sunt viginti ad filium libri scripti de claris scriptoribus, utiles admodum qui jam fere ab omnibus legi sent desiti. Est enim in judicando parum acer, nec servit aurium voluptati quum tractat res ab aliis ante tractatas; sed hoc ferendum. Illud certe molestum est, dum alienis verbis sententiisque scripta infarcit et explet sua; ex quo nascitur maxime vitiosum scribendi genus, quum modo lenis et candidus, modo durus et asper apparcat, et sic in toto genere tanquam in unum agrum plura inter se inimicissima sparsa semina.’ All are not treated with so much detail; most are disposed of in a few brief sentences; some are merely named without a word being added. Much is nevertheless to be learned from his judgments, though we may not be able always to agree with them. We cannot here discuss him more fully, especially as many of his most characteristic remarks have been already made use of; on the whole, they give us a clear picture of the way in which a later time, outwardly more developed, looked down with critical scorn upon an earlier age, inwardly perhaps richer, but externally less perfect. Facius, the author of the first-mentioned biographical work, is spoken of, but not his book. Like Facius, Cortese is the humble courtier, looking on Lorenzo de’ Medici as Facius looked on Alfonso of Naples; like him, he is a patriot who only praises foreign excellence unwillingly and because he must; adding the assurance that he does not wish to oppose his own country (p. 48, speaking of Janus Pannonius). Information as to Cortese has been collected by Bernardus Paperinius, the editor of his work; we may add that his Latin translation of the novel of L. B. Alberti, Hippolytus and Dejanira, is printed for the first time in the Opere di L. B. A. vol. iii. pp. 439-463. L’Aretin, per Deo grazia, È vivo e sano, Ma’l mostaccio ha fregiato nobilmente, E piÙ colpi ha, che dita in una mano.’ (Mauro, ‘Capitolo in lode delle bugie.’) The conjecture of Dr. Burckhardt that the best pieces of the Carmina Burana were written by an Italian, is not tenable. The grounds brought forward in its support have little weight (e.g. the mention of Pavia: ‘Quis PaviÆ demorans castus habeatur?’ which can be explained as a proverbial expression, or referred to a short stay of the writer at Pavia), cannot, further, hold their own against the reasons on the other side, and finally lose all their force in view of the probable identification of the author. The arguments of O. Hubatsch Die lateinischen Vagantenlieder des Mittelalters, GÖrlitz, 1870, p. 87) against the Italian origin of these poems are, among others, the attacks on the Italian and praise of the German clergy, the rebukes of the southerners as a ‘gens proterva,’ and the reference to the poet as ‘transmontanus.’ Who he actually was, however, is not clearly made out. That he bore the name of Walther throws no light upon his origin. He was formerly identified with Gualterus de Mapes, a canon of Salisbury and chaplain to the English kings at the end of the twelfth century; since, by Giesebrecht (Die Vaganten oder Goliarden und ihre Lieder, Allgemeine Monatschrift, 1855), with Walther of Lille or Chatillon, who passed from France into England and Germany, and thence possibly with the Archbishop Reinhold of KÖln (1164 and 75) to Italy (Pavia, &c.). If this hypothesis, against which Hubatsch (l. c.) has brought forward certain objections, must be abandoned, it remains beyond a doubt that the origin of nearly all these songs is to be looked for in France, from whence they were diffused through the regular school which here existed for them over Germany, and there expanded and mixed with German phrases; while Italy, as Giesebrecht has shown, remained almost unaffected by this class of poetry. The Italian translator of Dr. Burckhardt’s work, Prof. D. Valbusa, in a note to this passage (i. 235), also contests the Italian origin of the poem. [L. G.] To form a conception of the extent which studies at the beginning of the sixteenth century had reached, we cannot do better than turn to the Commentarii Urbani of Raphael Volatterranus (ed. Basil, 1544, fol. 16, &c.). Here we see how antiquity formed the introduction and the chief matter of study in every branch of knowledge, from geography and local history, the lives of great and famous men, popular philosophy, morals and the special sciences, down to the analysis of the whole of Aristotle with which the work closes. To understand its significance as an authority for the history of culture, we must compare it with all the earlier encyclopÆdias. A complete and circumstantial account of the matter is given in Voigt’s admirable work, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums oder Das erste Jahrhundert der Humanismus, Berlin, 1859. For the Medicean Library comp. Delle condicioni e delle vicende della libreria medicea privata dal 1494 al 1508 ricerche di Enea Piccolomini, Arch. stor. ital., 265 sqq., 3 serie, vol. xix. pp. 101-129,254-281, xx. 51-94, xxi. 102-112, 282-296. Dr. Geiger does not undertake an estimate of the relative values of the various rare and almost unknown works contained in the library, nor is he able to state where they are now to be found. He remarks that information as to Greece is much fuller than as to Italy, which is a characteristic mark of the time. The catalogue contains editions of the Bible, of single books of it, with text and annotations, also Greek and Roman works in their then most complete forms, together with some Hebrew books—tractatus quidam rabbinorum hebr.—with much modern work, chiefly in Latin, and with not a little in Italian. Dr. Geiger doubts the absolute accuracy of Vespasiano Fiorentino’s catalogue of the library at Urbino. See the German edition, i. 313, 314. [S.G.C.M.] [The catalogue of the library at Urbino (see foregoing note), which dates back to the fifteenth century, is not perfectly in accordance with Vespasiano’s report, and with the remarks of Dr. Burckhardt upon it. As an official document, it deserves greater credit than Vespasiano’s description, which, like most of his descriptions, cannot be acquitted of a certain inaccuracy in detail and tendency to over-colouring. In this catalogue no mention is made of the manuscript of Menander. Mai’s doubt as to its existence is therefore justified. Instead of ‘all the works of Pindar,’ we here find: ‘Pindaris Olimpia et Pithia.’ The catalogue makes no distinction between ancient and modern books, contains the works of Dante (among others, ComoediÆ Thusco Carmine), and Boccaccio, in a very imperfect form; those of Petrarch, however, in all completeness. It may be added that this catalogue mentions many humanistic writings which have hitherto remained unknown and unprinted, that it contains collections of the privileges of the princes of Montefeltro, and carefully enumerates the dedications offered by translators or original writers to Federigo of Urbino.—L. G.] There were many Jews living in Rome at the time of the Second Temple. They had so thoroughly adopted the language and civilisation prevailing in Italy, that even on their tombs they used not Hebrew, but Latin and Greek inscriptions (communicated by Garucci, see Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibliogr. vi. p. 102, 1863). In Lower Italy, especially, Greek learning survived during the Middle Ages among the inhabitants generally, and particularly among the Jews, of whom some are said to have taught at the University of Salerno, and to have rivalled the Christians in literary productiveness (comp. Steinschneider, ‘Donnolo,’ in Virchow’s Archiv, bd. 39, 40). This supremacy of Greek culture lasted till the Saracens conquered Lower Italy. But before this conquest the Jews of Middle Italy had been striving to equal or surpass their bretheren of the South. Jewish learning centred in Rome, and from there spread, as early as the sixteenth century, to Cordova, Kairowan, and South Germany. By means of these emigrants, Italian Judaism became the teacher of the whole race. Through its works, especially through the work Aruch of Nathan ben Jechiel (1101), a great dictionary to the Talmud, the Midraschim, and the Thargum, ‘which, though not informed by a genuine scientific spirit, offers so rich a store of matter and rests on such early authorities, that its treasures have even now not been wholly exhausted,’ it exercised indirectly a great influence (Abraham Geiger, Das Judenthum und seine Geschichte, Breslau, bd. ii. 1865, p. 170; and the same author’s Nachgelassene Schriften, bd. ii. Berlin, 1875, pp. 129 and 154). A little later, in the thirteenth century, the Jewish literature in Italy brought Jews and Christians into contact, and received through Frederick II., and still more perhaps through his son Manfred, a kind of official sanction. Of this contact we have evidence in the fact that an Italian, NiccolÒ di Giovinazzo, studied with a Jew, Moses ben Salomo, the Latin translation of the famous work of Maimonides, More Nebuchim; of this sanction, in the fact that the Emperor, who was distinguished for his freethinking as much as for his fondness for Oriental studies, probably was the cause of this Latin translation being made, and summoned the famous Anatoli from Provence into Italy, to translate works of Averroes into Hebrew (comp. Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibliogr. xv. 86, and Renan, L’Averroes et l’Averroisme, third edition, Paris, 1866, p. 290). These measures prove the acquaintance of early Jews with Latin, which rendered intercourse possible between them and Christians—an intercourse which bore sometimes a friendly and sometimes a polemical character. Still more than Anatoli, Hillel b. Samuel, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, devoted himself to Latin literature; he studied in Spain, returned to Italy, and here made many translations from Latin into Hebrew; among them of writings of Hippocrates in a Latin version. (This was printed 1647 by Gaiotius, and passed for his own.) In this translation he introduced a few Italian words by way of explanation, and thus perhaps, or by his whole literary procedure, laid himself open to the reproach of despising Jewish doctrines. But the Jews went further than this. At the end of the thirteenth and in the fourteenth centuries, they drew so near to Christian science and to the representatives of the culture of the Renaissance, that one of them, Giuda Romano, in a series of hitherto unprinted writings, laboured zealously at the scholastic philosophy, and in one treatise used Italian words to explain Hebrew expressions. He is one of the first to do so (Steinschneider, Giuda Romano, Rome, 1870). Another, Giuda’s cousin Manoello, a friend of Dante, wrote in imitation of him a sort of Divine Comedy in Hebrew, in which he extols Dante, whose death he also bewailed in an Italian sonnet (Abraham Geiger, JÜd. Zeitsch. v. 286-331, Breslau, 1867). A third, Mose Riete, born towards the end of the century, wrote works in Italian (a specimen in the Catalogue of Hebrew MSS., Leyden, 1858). In the fifteenth century we can clearly recognise the influence of the Renaissance in Messer Leon, a Jewish writer, who, in his Rhetoric, uses Quintilian and Cicero, as well as Jewish authorities. One of the most famous Jewish writers in Italy in the fifteenth century was Eliah del Medigo, a philosopher who taught publicly as a Jew in Padua and Florence, and was once chosen by the Venetian Senate as arbitrator in a philosophical dispute (Abr. Geiger, Nachgelassene Schriften, Berlin, 1876, bd. iii. 3). Eliah del Medigo was the teacher of Pico della Mirandola; besides him, Jochanan Alemanno (comp. Steinschneider, Polem. u. Apolog. Lit. Lpzg. 1877, anh. 7, § 25). The list of learned Jews in Italy may be closed by Kalonymos ben David and Abraham de Balmes (d. 1523), to whom the greater part of the translations of Averroes from Hebrew into Latin is due, which were still publicly read at Padua in the seventeenth century. To this scholar may be added the Jewish Aldus, Gerson Soncino, who not only made his press the centre of Jewish printing, but, by publishing Greek works, trespassed on the ground of the great Aldus himself (Steinschneider, Gerson Soncino und Aldus Manutius, Berlin, 1858). ‘Dum patriam laudat, damnat dum Poggius hostem, Nec malus est civis, nec bonus historicus.’ ‘Quasi che ‘l nome i buon giudici inganni, E che quel meglio t’ abbia a far poeta, Che non farÀ lo studio di molt’ anni!’ So jests Ariosto, to whom fortune had certainly given a harmonious name, in the Seventh Satire, vs. 64. ‘Pontificem addiderat, flammis lustralibus omneis Corporis ablutum labes, Dis Juppiter ipsis,’ etc. Si satis ventos tolerasse et imbres Ac minas fatorum hominumque fraudes Da Pater tecto salientem avito Cernere fumum! Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis Stare urbem et toto ponere jura mari: Nunc mihi Tarpejas quantum vis Juppiter arceis Objice et illa tui moenia Martis ait, Si pelago Tybrim praefers, urbem aspice utramque Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse deos. ‘Merge, Tyber, vitulos animosas ultor in undas; Bos cadat inferno victima magna Jovi!’ The foregoing remarks, although they make no claim to completeness, may be allowed to stand as they are in the new edition, on account of the excellent selection of instances they contain, and because they have not met with sufficient notice in the works upon the subject. Latterly a good deal has been written on the slave-trade in Italy. The very curious book of Filippo Zamboni: Gli Ezzelini, Dante e gli Schiavi, ossia Roma e la SchiavitÙ personale domestica. Con documenti inediti. Seconda edizione aumentata (Vienna, 1870), does not contain what the title promises, but gives, p. 241 sqq., valuable information on the slave-trade; p. 270, a remarkable document on the buying and selling of a female slave; p. 282, a list of various slaves (with the place were they were bought and sold, their home, age, and price) in the thirteenth and three following centuries. A treatise by Wattenbach: Sklavenhandel im Mittelalter (Anzeiger fÜr Kunde der deutschen Vorzeit, 1874, pp. 37-40) refers only in part to Italy: Clement V. decides in 1309 that the Venetian prisoners should be made slaves of; in 1501, after the capture of Capua, many Capuan women were sold at Rome for a low price. In the Monum. historica Slavorum meridionalium, ed. Vinc. Macusceo, tom. i. Warsaw, 1874, we read at p. 199 a decision (Ancona, 1458) that the ‘Greci, Turci, Tartari, Sarraceni, Bossinenses, Burgari vel Albanenses,’ should be and always remain slaves, unless their masters freed them by a legal document. Egnatius, Exempl. ill. vir. Ven. fol. 246 a, praises Venice on the ground that ‘servorum Venetis ipsis nullum unquam usum extitisse;’ but, on the other hand, comp. Zamboni, p. 223, and especially Vincenzo Lazari: ‘Del traffico e delle condizioni degli schiavi, in Venezia nel tempo di mezzo,’ in Miscellanea di Stor. Ital. Torino, 1862, vol. i. 463-501. ‘Ecce superveniens rerum argumenta retexit Mimus, et ad populum verba diserta refert. Tum similes habitu formaque et voce MenÆchmi Dulcibus oblectant lumina nostra modis.’ The MenÆchmi was also given at Ferrara in 1486, at the cost of more than 1,000 ducats. Murat. xxiv. 278. ‘Misero il Varchi! e piÙ infelici noi, Se a vostri virtudi accidentali Aggiunto fosse ‘l natural, ch’È in noi!’ ‘Quos hominum mores varios quas denique mentes Diverso profert Itala terra solo, Quisve vinis animus, mulierum et strenua virtus Pulchre hoc exili codice lector habes.’ Neapoli excudebat Martinus de Ragusia, Anno MDXXXVI. This little work, made use of by Ranke, PÄpste, i. 385, passes as being from the hand of Ortensio Landi (comp. Tiraboschi, vii. 800 to 812), although in the work itself no hint is given of the author. The title is explained by the circumstance that conversations are reported which were held at Forcium, a bath near Lucca, by a large company of men and women, on the question whence it comes that there are such great differences among mankind. The question receives no answer, but many of the differences among the Italians of that day are noticed—in studies, trade, warlike skill (the point quoted by Ranke), the manufacture of warlike implements, modes of life, distinctions in costume, in language, in intellect, in loving and hating, in the way of winning affection, in the manner of receiving guests, and in eating. At the close, come some reflections on the differences among philosophical systems. A large part of the work is devoted to women—their differences in general, the power of their beauty, and especially the question whether women are equal or inferior to men. The work has been made use of in various passages below. The following extract may serve as an example (fol. 7 b sqq.):—‘Aperiam nunc quÆ sint in consilio aut dando aut accipiendo dissimilitudo. PrÆstant consilio Mediolanenses, sed aliorum gratia potius quam sua. Sunt nullo consilio Genuenses. Rumor est Venetos abundare. Sunt perutili consilio Lucenses, idque aperte indicarunt, cum in tanto totius ItaliÆ ardore, tot hostibus circumsepti suam libertatem, ad quam nati videntur semper tutati sint, nulla, quidem, aut capitis aut fortunarum ratione habita. Quis porro non vehementer admiretur? Quis callida consilia non stupeat? Equidem quotiescunque cogito, quanta prudentia ingruentes procellas evitarint, quanta solertia impendentia pericula effugerint, adducor in stuporem. Lucanis vero summum est studium, eos deludere qui consilii captandi gratia adeunt, ipsi vero omnia inconsulte ac temere faciunt. Brutii optimo sunt consilio, sed ut incommodent, aut perniciem afferant, in rebus quÆ magnÆ deliberationis dictu mirum quam stupidi sint, eisdem plane dotibus instructi sunt Volsci quod ad cÆdes et furta paulo propensiores sint. Pisani bono quidem sunt consilio, sed parum constanti, si quis diversum ab eis senserit, mox acquiescunt, rursus si aliter suadeas, mutabunt consilium, illud in caussa fuit quod tam duram ac diutinam obsidionem ad extremum usque non pertulerint. Placentini utrisque abundant consiliis, scilicet salutaribus ac pernitiosis, non facile tamen ab iis impetres pestilens consilium, apud Regienses neque consilii copiam invenies. Si sequare Mutinensium consilia, raro cedet infeliciter, sunt enim peracutissimo consilio, et voluntate plane bona. Providi sunt Florentini (si unumquemque seorsum accipias) si vero simul conjuncti sint, non admodum mihi consilia eorum probabuntur; feliciter cedunt Senensium consilia, subita sunt Perusinorum; salutaria Ferrariensium, fideli sunt consilio Veronenses, semper ambigui sunt in consiliis aut dandis aut accipiendis Patavini. Sunt pertinaces in eo quod coeperint consilio Bergomates, respuunt omnium consilia Neapolitani, sunt consultissimi Bononienses.’ ‘Fit primo intuitu cÆcus et inde lapis.’ Even the marble Cupid sleeping in her halls is said to have been petrified by her gaze: ‘Lumine Borgiado saxificatur Amor.’ Critics may dispute, if they please, whether the so-called Eros of Praxiteles or that of Michelangelo is meant, since she was the possessor of both. And the same glance appeared to another poet, Marcello Filosseno, only mild and lofty, ‘mansueto e altero’ (Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, vii. p. 306). Comparisons with ideal figures of antiquity occur (p. 30). Of a boy ten years old we read in the Orlandino (ii. str. 47), ‘ed ha capo romano.’ Referring to the fact that the appearance of the temples can be altogether changed by the arrangement of the hair, Firenzuola makes a comical attack on the overcrowding of the hair with flowers, which causes the head to ‘look like a pot of pinks or a quarter of goat on the spit.’ He is, as a rule, thoroughly at home in caricature. The speech first appears in the commentationes of Jo. Picus without any special title; the heading ‘de hominis dignitate’ was added later. It is not altogether suitable, since a great part of the discourse is devoted to the defence of the peculiar philosophy of Pico, and the praise of, the Jewish Cabbalah. On Pico, see above, p. 202 sqq.; and below; part. vi. chap. 4. More than two hundred years before, Brunetto Latini (Tesoro, lib. i. cap. 13, ed. Chabaille, p. 20) had said: ‘Toutes choses dou ciel en aval sont faites pour l’ome; mais li hom at faiz pour lui meisme.’ The words seemed to a contemporary to have too much human pride in them, and he added: ‘e por Dieu amer et servir et por avoir la joie pardurable.’ ‘Non externis advecta Britannis Lana erat in pretio, non concha aut coccus in usu.’ It must be added that the Italians of the Renaissance, like the Greeks of antiquity, were filled with aversion for all barbarians. Boccaccio, De claris Mulieribus, in the article ‘Carmenta,’ speaks of ‘German barbarism, French savagery, English craft, and Spanish coarseness.’ A remarkable and comprehensive passage on music is to be found, where we should not expect it, in the Maccaroneide, Phant. xx. It is a comic description of a quartette, from which we see that Spanish and French songs were often sung, that music already had its enemies (1520), and that the chapel of Leo X. and the still earlier composer, Josquin des PrÈs, whose principal works are mentioned, were the chief subjects of enthusiasm in the musical world of that time. The same writer (Folengo) displays in his Orlandino (iii. 23 &c.), published under the name Limerno Pitocco, a musical fanaticism of a thoroughly modern sort. Barth. Facius, De Vir. Ill. p. 12, praises Leonardus Justinianus as a composer, who produced love-songs in his youth, and religious pieces in his old age. J. A. Campanus (Epist. i. 4, ed. Mencken) extols the musician Zacarus at Teramo and says of him, ‘Inventa pro oraculis habentur.’ Thomas of Forli ‘musicien du pape’ in Burchardi Diarium, ed. Leibnitz, pp. 62 sqq. ‘Tu verbera misce Tergaque nunc duro resonent pulsata bacillo.’ Italian writers on the woman’s side are Benedetto da Cesena, De Honore Mulierum, Venice, 1500, Dardano, La defesa della Donna, Ven. 1554, Per Donne Romane. ed. Manfredi, Bol. 1575. The defence of, or attack on, women, supported by instances of famous or infamous women down to the time of the writer, was also treated by the Jews, partly in Italian and partly in Hebrew; and in connection with an earlier Jewish literature dating from the thirteenth century, we may mention Abr. Sarteano and Eliah Gennazzano, the latter of whom defended the former against the attacks of Abigdor (for their MS. poems about year 1500, comp. Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibliogr. vi. 48). ‘Annaque Theutonico tibi si dabit obvia cantu.’ In Italy beating ceased early; Maffeo Vegio (d. 1458) recommends (De Educ. Liber. lib. i. c. 19) moderation in flogging, but adds: ‘Caedendos magis esse filios quam pestilentissmis blanditiis laetandos.’ At a later time a child of seven was no longer beaten. The little Roland (Orlandino, cap. vii. str. 42) lays down the principle: ‘Sol gli asini si ponno bastonare, Se una tal bestia fussi, patirei.’ The German humanists of the Renaissance, like Rudolf Agricola and Erasmus, speak decisively against flogging, which the elder schoolmasters regarded as an indispensable means of education. In the biographies of the Fahrenden SchÜler at the close of the fifteenth century (Platter’s Lebensbeschriebung, ed. Fechter, Basel, 1840; Butzbach’s Wanderbuch, ed. Becher, Regensburg, 1869) there are gross examples of the corporal punishment of the time. Ista superstitio, ducens a Manibus ortum Tartareis, sancta de religione facessat ChristigenÛm! vivis epulas date, sacra sepultis. A century earlier, when the army of John XXII. entered the Marches to attack the Ghibellines, the pretext was avowedly ‘eresia’ and ‘idolatria.’ Recanti, which surrendered voluntarily, was nevertheless burnt, ‘because idols had been worshipped there,’ in reality, as a revenge for those whom the citizens had killed. Giov. Villani, ix. 139, 141. Under Pius II. we read of an obstinate sun-worshipper, born at Urbino. Æn. Sylv. Opera, p. 289. Hist. Rer. ubique Gestar. c. 12. More wonderful still was what happened in the Forum in Rome under Leo X. (more properly in the interregnum between Hadrian and Leo. June 1522, Gregorovius, viii. 388). To stay the plague, a bull was solemnly offered up with pagan rites. Paul. Jov. Hist. xxi. 8. Nunc autem, postquam penitus natura Satanum Cognita, et antiqua sine majestate relicta est, Nulla ferunt nobis statuae discrimina, nullos Fert pictura dolos; jam sunt innoxia signa; Sunt modo virtutum testes monimentaque laudum Marmora, et aeternae decora immortalia famae. Phoebum alii vates musasque Jovemque sequuntur, At mihi pro vero nomine Christus erit. He also (fol. x. b) attacks the Bohemians. Huss and Jerome of Prague are defended by Poggio in his famous letter to Lion. Aretino, and placed on a level with Mucius Scaevola and Socrates. [According to the words of the chronicle, the inscription cannot have stood on the walls of the newly built tower. The exact spot is uncertain.—L.G.] ‘Nunc te Praxiteles, Phidias, Polycletus adora Miranturque tuas, o Nicolae, manus.’ In Bursellis, Ann. Bonon. Murat. xxiii. col. 912. Dii quibus tam Corycius venusta Signa, tam dives posuit sacellum, Ulla si vestros animos piorum Gratia tangit, Vos jocos risusque senis faceti Sospites servate diu; senectam Vos date et semper viridem et Falerno Usque madentem. At simul longo satiatus Ævo Liquerit terras, dapibus Deorum LÆtus intersit, potiore mutans Nectare Bacchum.
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