He conducted in person the siege of Rochelle, and baffled the finest military geniuses of Europe; he out-intrigued the ablest diplomatists; he nourished arts and commerce, and for the better promotion of learning he founded the French Academy.
In the union of energy of character and refinement of tastes the three celebrated Cardinal-ministers of England, France, and Spain, strongly assimilated.
The anecdotes which have been related of the energetic carving-out of their own fortunes by Constantine, Wolsey, and Richelieu, find also their parallel in the early career of Ximenes. The son of noble parents, but without wealth or patronage, he had nothing but his talents and the energy of his character to carry him successfully through life. He began as a student at Salamanca; but finding that sphere too limited for his ambition, he undertook a journey to Rome, where he soon distinguished himself as an advocate, but preferring the church, took holy orders.
Sixtus IV had bestowed upon him the reversionary grant of the first benefice which should fall vacant in Spain. This proved to be Uceda; and, on the demise of the incumbent, he produced his letters, and took possession with such promptitude and despatch that he baffled the Archbishop of Toledo, who considered the benefice to be in his gift, and had promised it to one of his dependents.
Like Richelieu he took the field in person, and in spite of the jealousy of the King, the dissensions of the generals, and the mutiny of the soldiers, he succeeded in taking the town of Oran on the coast of Barbary; the first success of any moment which the Spanish army could boast in a campaign of four years’ duration.
He devoted himself, in after-life, to the encouragement of popular education and the advancement of higher learning in no less degree than his brother Cardinals before named. He founded a school for the education of the daughters of the poorer nobility, and subsequently provided them with marriage-portions.
He established the University of Alcala, richly endowed it, and filled its professorial chairs with the most distinguished learned men of Europe. Here he undertook the magnificent work, known as the Complutensian Bible. It was the first Polyglott Bible ever published, and as such affords a striking contrast to the otherwise undeviating opposition which Spain has offered to the spread of true Christianity and the circulation of the Scriptures.
It should, however, be remembered that even this was a sealed book to the laity, since it did not comprise a version in the vernacular. It contained the Old Testament in the Hebrew, the Septuagint, the Vulgate of St. Jerome, and the Chaldee Paraphrase with Latin translations, and the New Testament in the Greek and Vulgate.
It was the work of fifteen years, and when the last volume was brought to Ximenes, shortly before his death, he exclaimed: “Many high and difficult matters have I carried on for the state, yet is there nothing which I have done, that deserves higher congratulations than this edition of the Scriptures—the fountain-head of our holy religion, whence may flow purer streams of theology than those which have been turned off from it.” The whole cost of the work, fifty thousand gold crowns, was defrayed by Ximenes.
In Lorenzo de’ Medici we meet with another of those characters, frequent among men eminent in public affairs, which unite refinement of taste with physical energy. To live in the world’s eye with success, it is necessary to exhibit something ad captandum vulgus. There must either be the intense energy of the Roman, or the more moderate energy with the taste and magnificence of the Romano-Greek. Hence, while the former class of Nose prevails among those who have won fame and honours by arms merely, the latter is frequent among those who are chiefly celebrated for their statesmanship. But both energy and statesmanship were necessary to him who would secure a world’s fame as ruler of a petty Italian state. The head of a state too weak to be feared in war, and too turbulent to be governed in calm tranquillity, required some other qualities beside energy, in order to be respected and honoured by his contemporaries. These qualities were happily united in Lorenzo de’ Medici. Firm in danger, prompt in action, lavish in expenditure, refined in taste, accomplished in learning, expert in art, he was every way formed to win laurels in an age which boasted the greatest statesmen, the best artists, and the most profound scholars. The vigour and promptitude with which he repelled the celebrated conspiracy of the Pazzi family, hanged an Archbishop on the spot in full canonicals, and punished the conspirators, alone attest his energy. The title of Magnificent, which he earned in an age celebrated for its magnificence, demonstrates his lavish liberality; while his love for antiquities, his patronage of the arts of sculpture and painting, his studious devotion to learning and the writings of the ancients, bespeak the refinement of his mind. Among other institutions he founded a school for the study of antiquities, and furnished it with the finest specimens of ancient workmanship. “To this institution, more than to any other circumstance, we may, without any hesitation, ascribe the sudden and astonishing proficiency, which, towards the close of the fifteenth century, was evidently made in the arts, and which, commencing at Florence, extended itself to the rest of Europe.”