Part 90 (2/2)
[3] Adaes_, 2d ed, p 364
[4] Petrarch refused to have the works of the Scholastics in his library
Though a university man, he was out of sympathy with the university methods of his tience in early modern tieniusbut nowhere else except at Athens has the whole population of a city been so perhly intellectual by nature, so keen in perception, so witty and so subtle, as at Florence” (Symonds, J A, _The Renaissance in Italy_)
[6] Sandys, J E, in his _Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning_, pp 35-41, gives a list of the more important later finds, which see
[7] Of the Florentine scholars one of the most famous was Niccol Niccoli (1363-1436), of whom Sandys says: ”Famous for his beautiful penmanshi+p, he was much more than a copyist He collected s, struck out the more obvious corruptions, restored the true text, broke it up into convenient paragraphs, added suitable su the foundation of textual criticism” (Sandys, J E, _Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning_, p 39)
[8] For example, Laurentius Valla (1407-57) of Pavia, exceeded Niccoli in ability in textual criticism He extended thisAlphonso, of Naples, subjected the so-called ”Donation of Constantine,” a document upon which the Papacy based in part its claims to temporal power, to the tests of textual criticism and showed its historical i spirit in the mediaeval world, but it represented the spirit and method of the modern scholar
[9] For example, Ciriaco, of Ancona (1391-1450), has been called ”the Schlie and editing inscriptions After exploring Italy, he visited the Greek isles, Constantinople, Ephesos, Crete, and Damascus One of his contemporaries, Flavio Blondo, of Forli (1388-1463), published a four-volume work on the antiquities and history of Rome and Italy These two y
[10] Classical scholars assert that Greek became extinct in the Italy of the Roht at Canterbury in the days of the learned Theodore, of Tarsus (R 59 a), who died in 690 Irish monks, who carried Greek froht it back in the seventh century to Saint Gall, founded by them in 614 ”John the Scot,” an Irish monk as master of the Palace School under Charles the Bald (c 845-55), is said to have been able to read Greek Roger Bacon, the Oxford monk (1214-94), also knew a little Greek William of Moerbeke, in 1260, was able to translate the _Rhetoric_ and _Politics_ of Aristotle for Thomas Aquinas Greek monks were still found in the extreme south of Italy at the tie in a few villages there up to the present time
[11] Gian Antonio Campano; trans by J A Symonds, _The Renaissance in Italy_, vol II, p 249
[12] For long it was thought that the revival of the study of Greek in the West dated from the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, but this idea has been exploded by classical scholars The events we have enumerated in this chapter show this, and at least five of the iht in Italy came before that date As the Turks closed in on this wonderful eastern city, for so long the ho and culture, many other Greek scholars fled ard The principal Greek authors had, however, been translated into Latin before then
[13] Some of the Italian universities participated but little in the new na and Pavia, in particular, held to their primacy in law and were but little affected by the revival
[14] Bessarion (c 1403-72), at one time Archbishop of Nicaea and afterwards a cardinal at Rome, is said to have been surrounded by a crowd of Greek and Latin scholars whenever he went out, and who escorted hireat patron of learned Greeks who fled to Italy On his death he gave his entire library of Greek manuscripts to Venice, and this collection formed the foundation of the celebrated library of Saint Mark's
[15] Symonds, J A, _The Renaissance in Italy_, vol II, p 139
[16] In 1436, Niccol de Niccoli, a copyist of Florence, died, leaving his collection of eight hundred manuscripts to the Medicean Library for the use of the public,thereby any scholar This is said to have been the first public-library collection in western Europe
[17] Nicholas as a monk had had his enthusiasone deeply into debt for manuscripts He was helped by Cosimo de' Medici When he became Pope (1447-55) he collected scholars about him, built up the university at Roreat Vatican Library, and reat literary center After the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent at Florence, in 1492, the glory that had been Florence passed to Rome, and it in turn became the cultural center of Christendom
[18] Much earlier, another Oxford man had returned from study under Guarino at Ferrara--William Gray (1449)--but he seems to have made no impression A few other scholars went before Linacre and Grocyn and Colet, but these men were the first to attract attention on their return
[19] Agricola's real na ”Roelof the husband with a co the equivalent Roman word
[20] This was bound in two volumes, and in 1911 a copy of it was sold at a sale of old books, in New York City, for 50,000
[21] A second edition of this Psalter was printed two years later, and contains at the end, in Latin, a statement which Robinson translates as follows: ”The present volume of the Psalms, which is adorned with handsome capitals and is clearly divided bywith a pen, but by an ingenious invention of printed characters: and was colory of God and the honor of Saint James by John Fust, a citizen of Mayence, and Peter Schoifher of Gernsheiust”
[22] The usual early edition was three hundred copies
[23] At Florence about three hundred editions are said to have been printed before 1500; at Bologna, 298; at Milan, 625; and at Ro numbers of different editions are said to have been printed at the northern cities before 1500: Paris, 751; Cologne, 530; Strassburg, 526; Nure, 256; Louvain, 116; Mayence, 134; Deventer, 169; London, 130; Oxford, 7; Saint Albans, 4
[25] By 1500 it is said that a book could be purchased for the equivalent of fifty cents which a half century before would have cost fifty dollars
CHAPTER XI