To the same friend, Count Cicognara, Giordani in a previous letter, dated January 30th, 1812, had written of Mezzofanti’s own peculiar faculty of languages, in terms of almost rapturous admiration. “You know Mezzofanti,” he says;—“Mezzofanti—the rarest, most unheard of, most inconceivable of living men. I call him, and he is, the man of all nations and all ages. By Jove! he appears as though he had been born in the beginning of the world, and, like St. Anthony, had lived in every age and in every country!”[355]
In connexion with this very remarkable testimony to the accuracy of Mezzofanti’s knowledge of Greek, I may mention (although it more properly belongs to a later period of his life) an amusing anecdote illustrative of his accomplishments as a Latinist, which is recorded by Dr. Santagata, and the hero of which was M. Bucheron, Professor of Latin Literature in the University of Turin, and one of the most celebrated classical philologists of modern Italy. M. Bucheron came to Bologna, from some cause strongly prepossessed against Mezzofanti, and disposed to regard him in the light of a mere literary charlatan, of showy but superficial acquirements. Of his Latinity—especially in all that bears upon the critical niceties of the language, and the numberless philological questions regarding it which have arisen among modern scholars, M. Bucheron entertained the lowest possible estimate;—considering it, in truth, impossible, that one whose attention had been divided over so many languages as fame ascribed to Mezzofanti, could be solidly grounded in any of them. He resolved, therefore, to put the Abate’s Latinity to a rigorous test; and came to the library prepared with a number of questions, bearing upon the niceties of the Latin language, which he proposed to introduce, as it were casually, in his expected conversation. He was presented to Mezzofanti by his friend, Michele Ferrucci, Librarian of the University of Pisa, from whom, I may add, Dr. Santagata received the account of their interview. The conversation, as Bucheron had pre-determined, began upon some common-place subject: but in a short time he artfully contrived to turn it upon those topics on which he desired to probe his companion. The trial was a most animated one. From a series of obscure and difficult questions of Latin philology, they passed to a variety of oriental, historical, and archæological topics. At the moment when the interest of the conversation was at its very height, Ferrucci was unfortunately called away by business; but the result may be judged from the sequel. On his return, after a somewhat lengthened absence, he met Bucheron coming from the Library.
“Well,” said he, “what do you think of Mezzofanti?”
“Per Bacco!” replied the astounded Piedmontese. “Per Bacco! é il Diavolo!”[356]
His celebrity, indeed, was by this time universally established. With all his unaffected humility; with the full consciousness (which he expressed in all simplicity and truth to his young friend, Carlino Marescalchi) that he was “best fitted for the shade”—he had insensibly grown into one of the notabilities of Bologna. He was constantly visited and consulted, especially by Oriental students, from foreign countries. What is more remarkable, more than one Jewish scholar appears in the record of his visitors. Among the papers of the Abate De Rossi is a letter of this period (March 18th, 1812,) in which Mezzofanti introduces to him a certain “Signor Moise Ber;” and, notwithstanding the variety of orthography, (a variety quite natural in an Italian letter,) there can be no doubt that this Signor Moise Ber was no other than Rabbi Moses Beer of the Israelite University of Rome, whose Orations and Discourses have since been published.[357]
Mezzofanti’s opportunities of conversing with foreigners were much increased by his becoming permanently attached to the Library of the University (with which the Library of the Institute had been incorporated by the French) as Deputy-Librarian. This appointment he received on the 28th of March, in 1812. As the chief librarian at this time was the Abate Pozzetti, who, like Mezzofanti, was an honorary professor of the University, and one of his most valued friends, the appointment was especially agreeable to him: and, independently of its other advantages, it became for him, as I said, from the constant passing and re-passing of strangers from every country, a school in which he was able to exercise himself, almost hourly, in every department of his multilingual studies.
The late Lord Guilford, who was Chancellor of the University of Corfu, made his acquaintance during one of his visits to Bologna; and on every subsequent occasion on which he passed through that city, Mezzofanti was invariably his guest, accompanied by all the Greeks who chanced to be at the time students of the University.
As his reputation extended, the literary societies of the various cities of Italy were naturally desirous to number him among their members. He was already an associate of the Societá Colombina at Florence, and of the “Society of Letters, Sciences, and Arts,” at Leghorn; and he received about this time, the decoration of the Royal Order of the Two Sicilies. The only literary society, however, in whose proceedings he took an active part, was the Scientific Academy of the Institute of his native city. It has been commonly supposed that he rarely, if at all, appeared in the literary arena, and it is true that he has not left behind him anything at all commensurate with his reputation; but he frequently read papers, chiefly on philological subjects, in the Bolognese Academy. The first of these which is noticed by Dr. Santagata was read on the 22nd of July, 1813; and another, “On the Symbolic Paintings of the Mexicans,” was delivered in the following session, on the 23rd of March, 1814. Owing to his early association with several ex-Jesuit American Missionaries who had settled in Bologna, he had long felt an interest in the curious subject of Mexican Antiquities. Among his MSS., which still remain in the possession of the Cavaliere Minarelli at Bologna, is a Mexican Calendar, drawn up by Mezzofanti’s own hand, and illustrated with fac-similes of the original pictures and symbolical representations from the pencil of his niece, Signora Anna Minarelli; but of the paper read in the Academy, no trace has been found.