After the year 1434, Cosimo was very seldom absent from home, but antiquities and objects of art came to him from all quarters. He even seems to have become Poggio’s rival, for Greek sculptures originally destined for the latter came into his possession. Everywhere manuscripts, intaglios, inscriptions, and coins were offered to him, even long before he began to make the large collections for his own and others’ use, as will soon be mentioned. The most travelled and skilful collector of antiquities of this time, the father of the race of wandering antiquaries, a scholar and trader too, though not always trustworthy as either, Ciriaco Pizzicolli of Ancona, has given eloquent expression to the gratitude he owed to Cosimo. This man travelled through Italy and the Levant at a time when the rule of the Venetians in a part of Greece, in the Ionic and Ægean Sea, and the residence of Italian families on the Greek islands, the Lusignans in Cyprus, and the order of St. John in the island of Rhodes, afforded facilities for travelling. He visited Roumania and Anatolia, which were for the most part under Turkish rule, and went into Egypt which already maintained many connections with the West. His eyes were directed towards the far East, when death surprised him soon after the middle of the century. It was Ciriaco who served as cicerone in 1433 to the Emperor Sigismund, whom he had accompanied from Siena to Rome, the inhabitants of which were severely and not unjustly condemned for their Vandalism by the orderly Florentines, accustomed to a city that was growing daily richer in ornament. The Romans made lime from the marble of their monuments, but furnished no native antiquary to guide across their wide fields of ruins the ruler of the empire named after Rome.[359] Ciriaco stood in connection with the whole learned world of Florence, and many may have availed themselves of his services, but not all spoke well of him, for Poggio complains repeatedly of his boastfulness, a fault which was shared by his successors.[360]
In the Medicean household renowned scholars were employed as instructors of the two sons, of whom Pietro, the elder, was eighteen years old when his father returned from exile. We find Antonio Pacini of Todi and Alberto Enoch of Ascoli often named both in the literary history and letters of the time. Enoch of Ascoli taught the Medici and Bardi in Florence, gave public lectures in Perugia, and was variously employed by Pope Nicholas V. in the formation of the Vatican library, and in Germany. In the year 1451 the Pope sent him as far as to the Grand Master of the Teutonic order in Prussia to make researches in monastic and other libraries.[361] ‘Our Enoch,’ writes Traversari (1436) to Cosimo[362]—‘you know whom I mean, since he was your sons’ tutor—begs pressingly to be commended to you. What the question is he will tell you. According to my opinion, he deserves your support both for his unusual learning and his modesty, and the confidence he places in you and your goodness. I do all for him on my part that I can, but your authority will do more for him than another’s.’ Antonio of Todi[363] came from Filelfo’s school. He was very intimate in the Medicean house, and seems especially to have attached himself to the younger sons. ‘I have received a letter from you,’ he writes once to Giovanni de’ Medici, ‘as welcome as it is pleasing, for I see in it how much you aspire after virtue and good report, by accepting the admonitions that are intended for your good. This lies at my heart as much as at yours, on account of our mutual affection as of my love to Cosimo, whom nothing in the world can render more happy than to see that his son is sensible and fears God.’ Antonio of Todi’s merits of style cannot have been great, if Cardinal Ammanati, a reasonable judge, calls unreadable his translations of Plutarch’s Biographies, of which he speaks in the letters to the youthful Medici.
CHAPTER III.
THE COUNCIL OF UNION AND PLATONISM. COSIMO DE’ MEDICI’S LATER YEARS.
Learned studies were at their height in Florence when Pope Eugenius IV. arrived on June 23, 1434, and soon afterwards saw his court assembled around him. It was, as we have said, the time when Rinaldo degli Albizzi felt the ground unsafe beneath his feet, when he hoped to secure power to himself by proceeding against Cosimo de’ Medici, and had been urged to the violent attempt which ended in his own ruin. Except in the removal of Francesco Filelfo, the peaceful but decisive revolution seems to have exercised no influence on literary affairs. The presence of the Papal court was of service to studies of science and those who fostered them: their long residence in the city, which was then the centre of all scientific and literary effort, had, too, a powerful and decided influence on the course pursued by that court under Eugenius’ successor. This successor, Tommaso of Sarzana, was the former tutor of the sons of Rinaldo degli Albizzi and Palla Strozzi and, as secretary to Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, the excellent bishop of Bologna, revisited the city in which he had once resided in comparative poverty. The two men who had been most intimate with him were forced into an exile which only terminated in death. Tommaso, however, who showed himself grateful to their descendants in the days of his greatness, found friendly reception and patronage from Cosimo de’ Medici; and till the death of Nicholas V. this friendship continued to be a great assistance to them and to science generally. Vespasiano da Bisticci, who has left us an attractive picture of the good and learned Pope, describes how Tommaso, after he had accompanied his cardinal to the palace, met in the corner of the square the men who represented learning in Florence at that time, namely, Leonardo, and Carlo of Arezzo, Gianozzo Manetti, Giovanni Aurispa, Gasparo of Bologna, and Poggio Bracciolini. The latter, after much danger from Piccinino’s mercenaries, into whose hands he fell in his flight to Rome, had been liberated for a heavy ransom and had followed Pope Eugenius.[364] Here they conversed on learned subjects morning and evening in the open air, with the simplicity which characterised the manners of the time. Carlo Marsuppini, freed from a troublesome rival by Filelfo’s removal, was the most celebrated teacher. Cardinals and prelates might be seen among his listeners.
We now approach an occurrence, the result of which was rather a great stir than any practical effect in the history of the Church. The Council of Florence exercised great influence on the progress of learning at a time when the impetus had been already given in a certain direction. But a small number of the Greek fathers who came to Italy were able to participate in scientific research, and the majority of them were surpassed by the Florentines; yet the presence of so many Greeks did exercise a decided influence on the connection between Eastern and Western Europe, especially as the final destruction of the eastern empire happened scarcely more than a decade later. Many Greeks who sought a new home after the conquest of Constantinople had the way shown to them by the council, although the Rome of Nicholas V. had already begun to rival Florence. Among the Greek fathers, Cardinal Bessarion, who promoted the interests of learning to the end of his life, was perhaps the only man of scientific importance for the West. Among the assistants and interpreters, many may be named who made themselves famous in the history of the revival of classical literature in Italy. In the foremost of these rank Georgios Gemistos, surnamed Plethon, Nicolas Secundinus of Eubœa, and Theodore Gaza of Thessalonica.
Georgios Gemistos,[365] a native of the Morea, had been tutor to Chrysoloras, whom he survived many years, attaining to a great age. He had also instructed Bessarion. Plato’s writings and doctrines formed his chief study. His zealous research into and dissemination of them, and his labours for the construction of a new philosophical system with their aid, was so great that he gave lectures everywhere on his favourite author. He did so in Florence, where Cosimo de’ Medici mingled among his hearers, and soon gained an interest in doctrines the intellectual meaning of which made a deep impression on one who, like him, inclined to peaceful meditation, seems to have found as little to satisfy him in the lectures of the theologians of the time as in the disputations of the philosophers, which commonly degenerated into dialectic subtleties. As Cosimo did not understand Greek, Gemistos must have employed the Latin language. It was his lectures which awoke in Cosimo the idea of reviving the study of Platonic philosophy in his native country. This is shown by the words of the man whom he chose to carry his intention into execution. ‘The great Cosimo,’ says Marsilio Ficino, in the translation of the works of Plotinus, dedicated to the grandson of his first patron not long before his death, ‘at the time when the council of Greeks and Latins summoned by Pope Eugenius IV. was sitting at Florence, frequently heard the lectures of the Greek philosopher called Plethon, who disputed on Platonic mysteries like another Plato. The lively style of this man inspired him with such enthusiasm, that there arose immediately in his lofty mind the thought of forming an academy as soon as a favourable moment should be found.’ The history of the origin of the Platonic Academy presents two peculiar phenomena: first, that a man who had already passed middle life should be so strongly attracted by an author whose acquaintance he had made through the medium of a foreign language; secondly, that he selected as his chief companion and special instrument in carrying out his intentions a boy who, at the time when the project was thought of, scarcely numbered seven years.
Marsilio Ficino[366] was born in October, 1433, the turning-point in the fortunes of the Medici, at Figline, a not insignificant place in the upper valley of the Arno. His father was a skilful surgeon, who removed to Florence, where the Medici among others employed him. The son, educated at the university, seems to have entered the Medicean house at the age of eighteen or nineteen years. He says himself that he had two fathers, Ficino and Cosimo de’ Medici. He owed his birth to the one, and his second birth to the other; the first had dedicated him to Galen, the second to the divine Plato. Both were physicians, one for the body and the other for the soul. The youth did not deceive Cosimo’s expectations. Of a delicate constitution, he united a keen feeling for poetry and music with a profound and delicate faculty for investigating natural phenomena and the doctrines of ancient wisdom. He began the study of Platonic doctrines before he understood Greek, but even without the counsel of Cosimo and his friend Landino, his senior by nine years, he would hardly have satisfied himself with knowledge derived from later Roman authors, as not only the prevalent tendency of the time, but his own intellectual bent must have urged him to seek the fountain head. When Marsilio began his Greek studies, namely in 1456, John Argyropulos, who about the middle of the century did as much for a knowledge of language and literature as Chrysoloras at the beginning, must have already begun his lectures at the university, and these were probably of assistance to Marsilio. During his exile at Padua, Palla Strozzi had attracted him, and Cosimo de’ Medici afterwards gained him for Florence, where for fifteen years he taught, besides Greek literature, Aristotelian philosophy, and in 1464 was presented with the rights of citizenship. The favour shown by Cosimo to the Peripatetic Argyropulos was continued to his sons and grandsons, and we shall find this useful man busy in later years, while at the time now under consideration many who made themselves an honourable name were among his disciples; as, for instance, Donato Acciaiuoli, Pandolfo Pandolfini, and finally Poliziano, and Lorenzo de’ Medici.