LORENZO DE' MEDICI
1448-1492
Enlarged from a negative, specially made by Alinari through the courtesy of Professor I. B. Supino, of a medal, in the National Museum at Florence, by Antonio del Pollaiuolo (1429-1498).
Note [105] page 51. Angelo Poliziano, (born 1454; died 1494), was a native of Montepulciano (about twenty-seven miles south-east of Siena), of which his name is a Latinized form. To English students he is better known as Politian, and as the author of the oft-cited line, “Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.” His father Benedetto Ambrogini died poor, leaving a widow and five young children almost destitute. At the age of ten, Angelo studied at Florence, and composed Latin poems and Greek epigrams while yet a boy. At thirteen, he published Latin epistles; at sixteen, he began his Latin translation of the Iliad; at seventeen, he distributed Greek poems among the learned men of Florence; and at eighteen, he edited Catullus. He was received into Lorenzo de' Medici’s household, and before he was thirty years old, he was professor of Latin and Greek at the University of Florence and was entrusted with the care of Lorenzo’s children. His pupils included the chief students of Europe. A born poet, entitled to the middle place of honour between Petrarch and Ariosto, he was the first Italian to combine perfect mastery of Latin and a correct sense of Greek with genius for his own native literature. Towards the close of his life, he entered holy orders and became a canon of the Cathedral at Florence. He was ill formed, and had squinting eyes and an enormous nose. His morals were lax. He was succeeded by Bembo as dictator of Italian letters.
Note [106] page 51. Lorenzo de' Medici, (born 1448; died 1492), was the grandson of Cosimo, Pater Patriæ, and father of Giuliano of The Courtier. On the death of his father Pietro in 1469, he succeeded jointly with his brother Giuliano to the family wealth and political predominance. Giuliano’s assassination in the Piazzi conspiracy of 1478 (which Poliziano witnessed and narrated in Latin) left Lorenzo sole ruler, but like his predecessors, he governed the republic without any title, by free use of money and great adroitness in securing the elevation of his adherents to the chief offices of state. He was a man of marvellous range of mental power,—an epitome of Renaissance versatility. Never relaxing his hold on public affairs, among philosophers he passed for a sage; among men of letters, for an original and graceful poet; among scholars, for a Hellenist sensitive to every nicety of Attic idiom; among artists, for a connoisseur of consummate taste; among libertines, for a merry and untiring roysterer; among the pious, for an accomplished theologian. “He was no less famous for his jokes and repartees than for his pithy apothegms and maxims, as good a judge of cattle as of statues, as much at home in the bosom of his family as in the riot of an orgy, as ready to discourse on Plato as to plan a campaign or to plot the death of a dangerous citizen.” (Symonds.)
Note [107] page 51. Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, (born 1466; died 1522), was a native of Florence, studied at Pisa, and returning to his native city became intimate with Ficino, of whose philosophy he may be said to have been the heir. For many years he lectured at Florence with such success that the Venetians tried to entice him to the University of Padua, in vain. A partisan of the Medici, he enjoyed the favour of Leo X and of Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Clement VII. All his works (written in Latin) are of a philosophical character. His style is said to be sprightly and correct, and despite the ridicule then cast upon the vulgar tongue, he himself translated several of his books into Italian, notably the Tre Libri d'Amore, with which Castiglione shows familiarity in the Fourth Book of The Courtier.
Note [108] page 52. Caius Silius Italicus, (died 100 A.D.), was Consul under Nero and a follower of Cicero in the art of oratory. After a prosperous public career, he retired to a life of literary ease. His most important work was a long epic poem on the Second Punic War, and soon sank into oblivion. Cornelius Tacitus, (died probably after 117 A.D.), was Consul and orator as well as historian.
Note [109] page 54. Marcus Terentius Varro, (born 116; died about 27 B.C.), was somewhat older than Cæsar, Cicero and Sallust, but outlived them all. He was regarded as the most learned of the Romans, and was made director of the public library by Cæsar, although he had been a partisan of Pompey. Of his seventy-four works, which embraced nearly all branches of knowledge, only two survive. They were much esteemed by the Christian Fathers.
Note [110] page 55. Catullus was born about 87 B.C. His 39th ode begins: “Because Egnatius has white teeth, he smiles wherever he goes” (Egnatius, quod candidos habet dentes, renidet usque quaque). Later in the same ode, he says: “Nothing is more pointless than a pointless laugh” (Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est).
Note [111] page 57. Monseigneur d'Angoulême, afterwards Francis I, (born 1494; died 1547), was the son of Count Charles d'Angoulême and Louise of Savoy. His governor, Sieur de Boisy, strove to inspire him with a taste for arms and a love of letters and art, and it was from romances of chivalry that he derived much of his education and many of his ideas of government. He succeeded his cousin Louis XII in January 1515, and one of the earliest functions at his court was the marriage of his aunt Filiberta of Savoy to Giuliano de' Medici, who is here represented by Castiglione (with what truth remains uncertain) as having visited the French court shortly before the date of the Courtier dialogues. Writing in 1515, the Venetian ambassador describes the young king as being really handsome (the evidence of our nearly contemporaneous medal illustration to the contrary), courageous, an excellent musician, and very learned for one of his age and rank. Under his rule, relations between France and Italy became closer and more active, and there began to penetrate beyond the Alps that Italian influence which he later greatly increased by marrying his son to Giuliano de' Medici’s great-niece Caterina. His education had included a study of Italian literature and customs, and besides Federico Fregoso and Ludovico da Canossa he received and honoured many other illustrious Italians, among whom were Leonardo da Vinci and Benvenuto Cellini. He caused search to be made in Italy for rare MSS., and had them copied for his library. His reign, although clouded by defeats and humiliations, began a true literary and artistic Renaissance in France.
Note [112] page 57. The reference here is to the famous Sorbonne (founded by Robert Sorbon in 1253) towards which Francis was for religious reasons hostile during the early years of his reign, and to which he raised up a rival by founding the Collège de France in 1530.