A Sketch Of Leo X. And His Age.
In the annals of literature and art, the name of Florence peers above that of any other Italian city, Rome excepted. Here were the poets who tuned the Italian language and made it the most musical of modern idioms; here was the illustrious astronomer, who was not the discoverer of a planet, but the revealer of the whole celestial machinery; and here, too, were the artist and politician who were not only the first sculptors and statesmen of their time, but the inventors of the very art and craft in which they excelled. Every day the pilgrim scholar arrives at her gates and requests to be shown the monuments of her great men, and every day genius worships at the shrine of genius.
At the time of which we write, the middle ages had seen their palmiest days, when a Charlemagne courteously entertained ambassadors from the Mussulmans of Florence and the Caliphs of Bagdad, and when the flower of chivalry, headed by a valiant Philip, a lion-hearted Richard, and a sainted Louis, rushed to the plains of the east to battle with the Moslem foe; they had presided over the erection of those great Gothic piles whose sublime architecture towered to the clouds, and had beheld the pontiffs of Rome issuing orders for the foundation of universities not only in Italy, but on the very outskirts of the civilized world; [Footnote 169] and finally they had seen the laborious and prolific genius of the schoolmen multiplying inventions and discoveries, fathoming the profound depths of theological science, and disserting on those great metaphysical problems, which, like so many apples of discord, have caused endless dissension and controversy among modern philosophers. [Footnote 170]
[Footnote 169: Gibbon tells us in a foot-note to his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that, "at the end of the fifteenth century, there were about fifty universities in Europe." Though this is indeed a glorious tribute, considering from whom it came, paid to the mediaeval ages, we are, however, more inclined to believe with the New American Cyclopaedia that, "before the year 1500, there were over sixty-four universities in Europe.">[
[Footnote 170: Mackintosh says, "Scarcely any metaphysical controversy agitated among recent philosophers was unknown to the schoolmen." (Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy.)]
But before these great medieval ages had reached their terminus, they again shone forth with brilliant splendor. That, indeed, was a glorious epoch in the world's history, when the most important invention recorded in the annals of mankind came forth from the brain of Guttenberg; when the stormy Atlantic was first ploughed by adventurous keels, and new worlds discovered; when letters, philosophy, and the fine arts were cultivated in such schools as the Medicean palaces, and were patronized by such men as Cosmo and Lorenzo de' Medici.
Under the enlightened patronage of these princely merchants, Florence became the Athens of Italy, and one of the favorite retreats of the muses. Her public halls were crowded with youths eager to listen to an eloquent hellenist, expatiating upon the beauties of Homer; her poets sang in the idiom of the great Mantuan; her philosophers were smitten with love for the divine Plato; and her scholars were so well read in antiquity, that students from every country came thither, to slake their thirst at what was then considered the fountain-head of ancient lore. The gardens of the Medici recalled the groves of the Academies in which the Athenian philosopher descanted upon human and divine things, and the shady porches of the Lyceum, in which the Stagirite perambulated whilst delivering his sublime lessons.
A great bustle might have been observed in these gardens on the 11th of December, 1475; artists and humanists were vieing with one another in congratulating Lorenzo the Magnificent on the birth of his second son, who, in memory of his paternal uncle, was christened Giovanni. Lorenzo was proud of his little Benjamin, and he listened with complacency to those who admired his keen, restless eye, his pure and noble forehead, his flowing hair and snowy neck. In contemplating the sweet expression of his countenance, the poet declared that he would revive classic literature; and the Neoplatonician predicted a bright era for philosophy; whilst a fugitive Hellene read in the Greek profile of the infant happy days for his dispersed countrymen; and an old sage, endowed with Simeon-like prophecy, exclaimed, "My soul, praise the Lord! Giovanni shall be the honor of the sanctuary."
The education of the young child's heart and the embellishment of his mind were, for his enlightened parents, objects of supreme importance. The former duty necessarily devolved upon themselves; and how well they succeeded was best shown by the mild and placable temper, polished manners, and kind and affable disposition of their little favorite; the latter they entrusted to scholars whose names even then were running through the schools of Europe, especially to Politiano, one of the best classical writers of the renaissance, and the preceptor of a pleiad of illustrious men. Naturally docile, well endowed with parts, in constant intercourse with men of rank and talent, Giovanni acquired a dignity of deportment, a facility of conversation, and a fund of knowledge, much beyond his years. At sixteen, he had completed the curriculum of Pisa, was graduated doctor and invested with the insignia of the cardinalate, and thus entitled to take his seat among the princes of the church. These precocious acquirements and early preferments ought to have ripened into days of serenity; but no, they were more like the calm that precedes the storm. Brought up in the school of prosperity, he was to acquire his last finish amidst the rude trials of adversity. Before attaining the highest dignity that can adorn the brow of man, he was destined to experience the instability of human affairs and the fickleness of men. The death of his father, and the demise of his munificent protector, Innocent VIII., inflicted deep wounds on his sensitive heart. In the mean time, a terrific storm was gathering in Florence. The inhabitants of this metropolis, exasperated at the seemingly unpatriotic conduct of Piero de' Medici, his elder brother, expelled from within their walls even the last scion of their noblest family; something like the ungrateful Athenians, who ostracized the very man on whom they had conferred the title of just. To cheer the dreary hours of exile, no less than to enrich his mind with useful knowledge, the expatriated cardinal resolved upon visiting the principal cities of Europe. Even here, difficulties and disquietudes unforeseen lurked in the background of the smiling ideal that he had formed of his itinerary. The suspicious authorities of Ulm and Rouen arrested the little caravan, and ordered him and his companions to confinement; the foaming billows deterred him from proceeding to England, and thus deprived him of the pleasure of visiting the land of Bede and of King Alfred. On his return, he was cast by a storm on the Genoese coast, and, thinking it advisable to relinquish his voyage, proceeded by land to Savona, where he met the celebrated Cardinal Della Rovere—a remarkable coincidence, if we consider that Della Rovere, Giulio de' Medici, and he himself were afterward raised to the dignity of the tiara. Notwithstanding all the afflictions that poured in on him, the future pontiff invariably preserved that equanimity of mind and amenity of manners which were the prominent features in his character. Better and brighter days were now about to dawn. The premature death of Piero, partially disarmed the hostility of the Florentines, and they finally threw open their gates to the illustrious representative of the time-honored family of the Medici. A year had hardly elapsed after his restoration before Rome was plunged into mourning by the death of that wary and energetic pontiff, Julius II. The conclave assembled immediately after the obsequies, and Cardinal de' Medici was called by the unanimous vote to the see of St. Peter. Giovanni de' Medici was now Leo X., and the choice of that name, as Erasmus spiritually remarks, was not without its significance. If Leo I. saved the eternal city from the ravages of the "scourge of God;" if Leo IV. again repelled from her walls the barbaric bands of Saracens, Leo X. was to make her the capital city of the republic of letters, as she was already the starry centre of the Christian world.
Italy had already taken the lead in the restoration of ancient learning, and supplied the fire from which the other nations lighted their torches. [Footnote 171] As may easily be fancied, the elevation to the pontificate of the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent spontaneously awoke the most sanguine expectations of the artists and literati. In their fervor, they imagined that genius, worth, and talent could not remain unnoticed or unremunerated. "Under these impressions," says a Protestant writer, [Footnote 172]
[Footnote 171: Hallam, Literature of Europe, vol. i. ch. i.]
[Footnote 172: Roscoe, Life and Pontificate of Leo, vol. i. p. 306.]
"Rome became, at once, the general resort of those who possessed or had pretensions to superior learning, industry, or ability. They all took it for granted that the supreme pontiff had no other objects of attention than to listen to their productions and to reward their labors." That their hopes were to be realized, was evident to all from the very first act of the new pontiff's administration, the selection as apostolic secretaries of Bembo and Sadoleti, two scholars who resume in themselves the intellectual life of the time—Sadoleti, a profound philosopher and the best exegete of his age; and Bembo, who emulated Virgil and Cicero with equal success, and recalled in his writings the elegance of Petrarch and Boccaccio. [Footnote 173]
[Footnote 173: Bettinelli. It is to Bembo that we are indebted for the restoration of the long-lost art of abbreviated or shorthand writing.]
A new era in literature and art was about to dawn; its first bright rays were for Italy, that "land of taste and sensibility." With a pontiff who could say, "I have always loved accomplished scholars and belles-lettres; this love was born with me, and age has but increased it; for literature is the ornament and glory of the church; and I have always remarked that it knits its cultivators more firmly to the dogmas of our faith;" with such a pontiff, the intellectual movement that then pervaded Italian society was nobly sustained and enlivened, until at last the golden age again reappeared on earth. All sorts of encouragements, such as honorary employments, lucrative offices, pecuniary gratuities, and even ecclesiastical preferments, were lavished upon talent and genius. Every latent energy luxuriantly budded forth and blossomed in the genial sunshine of such munificence.
The academies of literary men philosophized on the banks of the Tiber or in the cool recesses of a fragrant villa. The lovers of the arts, the votaries of the muses, and the cultivators of polite literature sat side by side at the sumptuous banquets frequently given in the Vatican. At these grand entertainments all topics were convivially canvassed, and fancy soared aloft to delight the guests by her sublime improvisations. Popular favorites, like the poet of Arezzo and the "celestial" Accolte, read their productions in public halls to admiring multitudes; while the best scholars of the age, yielding to the invitation of Leo, filled the professorships of the great universities. Italy was then, in the beautiful words of Audin, "the promised land of the intellect;" [Footnote 174] and Rome the centre of learning and the nursery of great men. No wonder, then, that the snow-capped Alps presented but a feeble barrier to the transalpine scholar, and that every day some new Hannibal descended their craggy flanks and pushed forward to the seven-hilled city, to pay a courteous visit to the accomplished pontiff, and gratify a long-entertained desire of conversing with the celebrities of the age. The whole world thus recognized that
"The fount at which the panting mind assuages
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,
Flows from th' eternal source of Rome's imperial hill."
[Footnote 175]
[Footnote 174: Vie de Luther, vol. i. p. 179.]
[Footnote 175: Byron, Childe Harold, Canto III.]
Since the days of Petrarch, the Italian muse had all but hushed her lovely strains; her lyre was silent and unstrung. Politiano came, swept its music-breathing chords, and sent its sweet notes on the wings of the zephyrs throughout the Italian peninsula. All listened with rapture to the enchanting strains of the Tuscan siren, and, after a moment of hesitation, prepared their pens to write on every theme and to illustrate every department of science and letters. The classic models of heroic poetry, fresh from the Aldine presses or half consumed by the dust of ages, were taken down from their shelves and studied with passionate ardor. The children of song were delighted with the epic muse, and were now hard at work at their great poems. Mozarello elaborates his Porsenna; Querno, the archpoet, cadences the twenty thousand verses of his Alexias; Vida, like Horace of old, draws up the rules of the metrical art, and sings his Christiad in verses of Augustan purity and elegance; Ariosto, the Homer of Ferrara, condenses into his Orlando Furioso a vein of poetry so remarkable for its grace and energy as to leave it doubtful whether the palm of superiority should be awarded to him, or to the author of the Jerusalem Delivered. [Footnote 176] The terrible eventualities of tragedy and the more pleasing casualties of comedy were brought upon the stage by Trissino, Ruccellai, and Bibbiena; the protean burlesque assumed its most humorous forms under Berni's magic pen, and the shafts of satire were keenly pointed by Aretino, whose virulent epigrams drew upon him such an amount of physical retaliation that a contemporary writer calls him "the loadstone of clubs and daggers." [Footnote 177]
[Footnote 176: Laharpe. Cours de Littérature, vol. i. p. 435.]
[Footnote 177: See Addison, Spectator, No. 23.]
Guicciardini wrote the history of his country with the elegant diction of the great historians of Rome; Giovio's periods were so flowing as to make Leo X. declare that next to Livy he had not met with a more eloquent writer. The Prince of Macchiavelli enjoys a world-wide reputation, and his History of Florence is so remarkable for the beauty of its style, that it is said to have had more influence on Italian prose than any other work, except the Decameron of Boccaccio. Besides these reigning stars, there was a host of other literary celebrities who shed a brilliant lustre on Leo's golden reign. There was Fracastoro, who, at the early age of nineteen, had won the highest academic degree of the Paduan university, and was nominated to the professorship of logic; Navagero, whose aversion to an affected taste was so intense that he annually consigned to the flames a copy of Martial; Aleandro, who was only twenty-four when the celebrated Manuzio dedicated to him his edition of the Iliad, alleging as a reason for conferring this honor on a person so young, that his acquirements were beyond those of any other person with whom he was acquainted, and it is well known that the Venetian typographer was the friend and correspondent of almost all the literary characters of the day; Augurelli, whom a contemporary historian calls the most learned and elegant preceptor of his time; Castiglione, who was called by Charles V. the most accomplished gentleman of the age; Leonardo da Vinci, who, long before the philosopher of Verulam, proclaimed experiment the base of the physical sciences, and, before the astronomer of Thorne, taught the annual motion of the earth; and Calcagnini, who wrote an elaborate work to defend this startling thesis. The correction of the calendar was investigated by Dulciati, and even hieroglyphics found an expounder in the encyclopedic Valeriaro, who wrote no less than fifty-eight books on that abstruse subject. Literature, indeed, was a universal hobby; it was the royal road to distinction in an age when the love of the well-turned period and the mellifluous sonnet was epidemic. The lady cultivators of polite letters were numerous, and not only accomplished proficients but formidable rivals. The sonnets of Veronica Gambara rank among the best; Vittoria Colonna, in lively description and genuine poetry, excelled all her contemporaries with the sole exception of the inimitable Ariosto; and Laura Battifera is represented as the rival of Sappho.
Notwithstanding this general enthusiasm for the amenities of literature, great attention was bestowed upon the more arid study of languages. Already the Latin muse had come to dwell again beneath the beautiful sky of Ausonia; and the humanists, fleeing from the savage fury of the triumphant Ottomans, sang, in the gardens of Florence and on the banks of the Tiber, the fall of Troy and the adventures of Ulysses. Leo X. was not only a Latin scholar, he was also a refined hellenist. Moreover, he knew what vast treasures of patristic lore are contained in the Greek fathers, and hence, as a lover of sacred and profane literature, he lavished his treasures on the revival of that beautiful tongue. A little colony, fresh from the Morea, was installed in a magnificent mansion on the Esquilian hill, and a Greek seminary was opened to impart to the Italians the true pronunciation and the very genius of the Homeric idiom. The famous Lascaris, at the invitation of Leo X., relinquished his position at the French court, in order to direct the studies of his young countrymen and superintend the editions of the Greek classics that were issued from the Roman press. The Hebrew was taught at Rome by Guidacerio, who published a grammar of that language and dedicated it to Leo X.; the Syriac and Chaldaic were taught at Bologna by Ambrozio, a regular canon of the Lateran, who at fifteen could converse in Greek and Latin with as much ease and fluency as any of his contemporaries, and who subsequently mastered eighteen languages. A useful and authentic lexicon was first given to the learned world by Varino. A new Latin version of the Bible from the Hebrew having been announced by Pagnini, Leo X. requested an interview with the author, and was so well pleased with his competency as well as with the elegance and accuracy of the work, that he defrayed all the expenses of transcription and publication. Erasmus, who corresponded with Leo, and, more than any one else, knew his great desire to promote biblical studies, inscribed to him his New Testament in Greek and Latin with corrections and annotations. Giustiniani commenced, in 1516, a new edition of the Bible in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldaic. If to this we add that the famous Cardinal Ximenes dedicated to Leo X. his herculean work, the Complutensian Polyglot, we shall have some idea of the efforts made in the beginning of the sixteenth century toward the promotion of scriptural and philological studies. [Footnote 178]
[Footnote 178: It may here be remarked, in passing, that, before the Reformation, the Bible was translated into not only the classic and oriental languages, but also the vernacular of every nation of Europe. For particulars, see Cantu, Histoire Universelle, vol. xv. p. 12.]
It has been said that a genuine love of literature invariably evinces its existence by an insatiable thirst for books, "those souls of ages past." This love Leo X. possessed to an eminent degree; he was a second Nicholas V. At his request and under his patronage, sterling bibliophiles set out from Rome to overrun the world in quest of manuscripts. The monasteries of Britain and Germany and the ruins of the Byzantine libraries were diligently searched; ample pecuniary remuneration was everywhere offered for unpublished works; and as kings and princes encouraged this hunt after books, it may easily be fancied that volumes teemed in from every quarter. The Vatican was made the recipient of these literary treasures; and, thanks to the zeal of the popes, it now possesses the most valuable collection of manuscripts in the world.
Leo X. was not only a man of letters, he was also well versed in antiquities. Prior to his elevation to the pontificate, his greatest delight was to shut himself up in his library or museum, and there pore over his hoarded treasures. This antiquarian taste he inherited from his illustrious ancestors, whose collections were famous throughout all Italy. One day, while he was yet a cardinal, a statue of Lucretia was exhumed; his joy was supreme, and in the heat of his enthusiasm, he strung his lyre and commemorated the happy event in beautiful iambics. On another occasion, a piece of sculpture, representing the ship of AEsculapius, was, owing to his exertions, discovered in the Tiber. This was considered by his omen-liking friends as an augury of his future dignity. The discovery of the famous group known as the Laocoön was an epoch in Rome. That evening, the bells were rung to announce the event; the poets, among whom was Sadoleti, lucubrated all night, preparing their hymns, sonnets, and canzoni, to welcome the reappearance of the masterpiece. Next morning, all Rome was on foot, and the public works were suspended while the antique statue, festooned with flowers and verdure, was carried processionally to the capitol, amidst the sound of vocal and instrumental harmony. Such was the joy of the Roman artists on the discovery of a relic of ancient art.
The twin arts painting and sculpture shared largely in the munificence of the pontiff. Bramarte, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci, the princes of modern art, were the worthy emulators of Phidias and Apelles. In immortalizing their names and that of their patron, they immortalized their age and their country. At their call, genius again returned to earth, and exhibited, in the chiselled marble and on the glowing canvas, such animated representations as filled the eye with wonder and stirred the deep foundations of the heart. Bramarte planned and commenced St. Peter's, which, in the estimation of the sceptic Gibbon, is the most glorious structure that has ever been applied to religion; for
"Majesty,
Power, glory, strength, and beauty, all are aisled
In the eternal ark of worship undefiled."
Michael Angelo, whose very fragments have educated eminent artists, continuing the noble structure, placed the pride of Roman architecture in the clouds, and drew the design of the Last Judgment, which connoisseurs pronounce a miracle of genius. Raphael covered the Vatican with his inimitable frescoes and sketched his Transfiguration, which was hailed by the Roman people as the type of the beautiful, a paragon of art, and the masterpiece of painting. The profound Da Vinci painted the Last Supper and thus afforded Christian families a neat ornament for their refectories and a piece of artistic finish for their drawing-rooms. Sansovino's productions, according to the historian of the arts, were among the finest specimens of the plastic art, and Romano's were worthy of his "divine" master.
Such was the flourishing state of the arts and the great impulse given to all branches of learning just before the memorable epoch when the fetters of the human intellect were, forsooth, burst asunder by the great Saxon hero, the unfrocked monk of Wittemberg, against whom Leo X. hurled the bolt of excommunication. If this grand impetus was not followed up, if the pen was forgotten for the sword, and the altars of Apollo were deserted for those of the homicide Mars; if the era of the reformation "was truly a barbarous era," [Footnote 179] it most certainly was not owing to incapacity on the part of the Roman pontiffs, since sectarians themselves proclaim them "in general superior to the age in which they lived," [Footnote 180] while historians of the depth of Neander are struck with admiration to find the popes "ever attentive to the moral and religious wants of their people;" [Footnote 181] but it must be attributed to the immediate effects of the so-called Reformation, that spirit of blind fanaticism which was equalled only by the wholesale brigandage and all-destroying vandalism of the sainted evangelicals.
[Footnote 179: Schlegel, Philosophy of History.]
[Footnote 180: Roscoe, Life and Pontificate of Leo X.]
[Footnote 181: Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church.]
A kind dispensation of Providence it was, that saved Leo X. the sight of the harrowing scenes that Europe then presented. He had already occupied the throne of St. Peter eight years, eight months, and nineteen days, during all which time he had faithfully guarded the interests of the church against royal encroachments, and the liberty of his dominions against foreign aggression; he had presided over the last seven sessions of the oecumenical council of Lateran, and conferred on an English monarch the title of Defensor fidei; and now, in the forty-seventh year of his age, cruel death takes him from the affection of his subjects, the love of his cardinals, and the veneration of men of letters. Sad was the day when it was told that Leo X. was no more. Artists and humanists dropped a tear for their friend and benefactor; the sculptor and the painter commemorated their deceased Maecenas in the virgin marble and on the glowing canvas, while the historian wrote the annals of his reign and the poet embalmed his memory in immortal verse. Rome erected his monument, and posterity, admiring the virtues of the Christian, reverencing the eminent qualities of the pontiff, and idolizing the protector of letters and art, has called the age in which he lived the golden age of Leo the Tenth.