Early European History

by Hutton Webster

210. REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN ITALY

THE CLASSICS IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The literature of Greece and Rome did not entirely disappear in western Europe after the Germanic invasions. The monastery and cathedral schools of the Middle Ages had nourished devoted students of ancient books. The Benedictine monks labored zealously in copying the works of pagan as well as Christian authors. The rise of universities made it possible for the student to pursue a fairly extended course in Latin literature at more than one institution of learning. Greek literature, however, was little known in the West. The poems of Homer were read only in a brief Latin summary, and even Aristotle's writings were studied in Latin translations.

DANTE ALIGHIERI 1265-1321 A.D.

Reverence for the classics finds constant expression in the writings of the Italian poet Dante. He was a native of Florence, but passed much of his life in exile. Dante's most famous work, the Divine Comedy, describes an imaginary visit to the other world. Vergil guides him through the realms of Hell and Purgatory until he meets his lady Beatrice, the personification of love and purity, who conducts him through Paradise. The Divine Comedy gives in artistic verse an epitome of all that medieval men knew and hoped and felt: it is a mirror of the Middle Ages. At the same time it drew much of its inspiration from Graeco-Roman sources. Athens, for Dante, is the "hearth from which all knowledge glows"; Homer is the "loftiest of poets", and Aristotle is the "master of those who know." This feeling for classical antiquity entitles Dante to rank as a prophet of the Renaissance.

[Illustration: DANTE ALIGHIERI
From a fresco, somewhat restored, ascribed to the contemporary artist,
Giotto. In the National Museum, Florence.]

DANTE AND THE ITALIAN LEAGUE

Dante exerted a noteworthy influence on the Italian language. He wrote the Divine Comedy, not in Latin, but in the vernacular Italian as spoken in Florence. The popularity of this work helped to give currency to the Florentine dialect, and in time it became the literary language of Italy. Italian was the first of the Romance tongues to assume a national character.

PETRARCH, 1304-1374 A.D.

Petrarch, a younger contemporary of Dante, and like him a native of Florence, has been called the first modern scholar and man of letters. He devoted himself with tireless energy to classical studies. Writing to a friend, Petrarch declares that he has read Vergil, Horace, Livy, and Cicero, "not once, but a thousand times, not cursorily but studiously and intently, bringing to them the best powers of my mind. I tasted in the morning and digested at night. I quaffed as a boy, to ruminate as an old man. These works have become so familiar to me that they cling not to my memory merely, but to the very marrow of my bones."

[Illustration: PETRARCH
From a miniature in the Laurentian Library, Florence]

PETRARCH AS A LATIN REVIVALIST

Petrarch himself composed many Latin works and did much to spread a knowledge of Latin authors. He traveled widely in Italy, France, and other countries, searching everywhere for ancient manuscripts. When he found in one place two lost orations of Cicero and in another place a collection of Cicero's letters, he was transported with delight. He kept copyists in his house, at times as many as four, busily making transcripts of the manuscripts that he had discovered or borrowed. Petrarch knew almost no Greek. His copy of Homer, it is said, he often kissed, though he could not read it.

BOCCACCIO, 1313-1375 A.D.

Petrarch's friend and disciple, Boccaccio, was the first to bring to Italy manuscripts of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Having learned some Greek, he wrote out a translation of those epic poems. But Boccaccio's fame to- day rests on the Decameron. It is a collection of one hundred stories written in Italian. They are supposed to be told by a merry company of men and women, who, during a plague at Florence, have retired to a villa in the country. The Decameron is the first important work in Italian prose. Many English writers, notably Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales [4] have gone to it for ideas and plots. The modern short story may be said to date from Boccaccio.

STUDY OF GREEK IN ITALY

The renewed interest in Latin literature, due to Petrarch, Boccaccio, and others, was followed in the fifteenth century by the revival of Greek literature. In 1396 A.D. Chrysoloras, a scholar from Constantinople, began to lecture on Greek in the university of Florence. He afterwards taught in other Italian cities and further aided the growth of Hellenic studies by preparing a Greek grammar—the first book of its kind. From this time, and especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 A.D., many learned Greeks came to Italy, thus transplanting in the West the culture of the East. "Greece had not perished, but had emigrated to Italy."

HUMANISM

To the scholars of the fifteenth century the classics opened up a new world of thought and fancy. They were delighted by the fresh, original, and human ideas which they discovered in the pages of Homer, Plato, Cicero, Horace, and Tacitus. Their new enthusiasm for the classics came to be known as humanism, [5] or culture. The Greek and Latin languages and literatures were henceforth the "humanities," as distinguished from the old scholastic philosophy and theology.

SPREAD OF HUMANISM IN ITALY

From Florence, as from a second Athens, humanism spread throughout Italy. At Milan and Venice, at Rome and Naples, men fell to poring over the classics. A special feature of the age was the recovery of ancient manuscripts from monasteries and cathedrals, where they had often lain neglected and blackened with the dust of ages. Nearly all the Latin works now extant were brought to light by the middle of the fifteenth century. But it was not enough to recover the manuscripts: they had to be safely stored and made accessible to students. So libraries were established, professorships of the ancient languages were endowed, and scholars were given opportunities to pursue their researches. Even the popes shared in this zeal for humanism. One of them founded the Vatican Library at Rome, which has the most valuable collection of manuscripts in the world. At Florence the wealthy family of the Medici vied with the popes in the patronage of the new learning.