In this effort to revive the old Roman world the Italian scholars received the sympathy of the great men of wealth, and of some of the popes of the time. It was the Medici family at Florence who aided the movement liberally there, rejuvenated the university of Florence along new humanistic lines, accumulated libraries there (R. 130) and at Venice, and aided scholars all over Italy. At Milan the Visconti family paid the expenses of a chair of Latin and Greek, established in the university there in 1440. Popes Nicholas V and Leo X were prodigal in their support of the new learning at Rome (R. 132), and the university there was reconstructed along modern lines. At Venice the rulers gave large financial and other support to the leaders of the new learning. Academies (R. 129), under the patronage of the nobility, were founded in almost all the northern Italian cities, and those in political power did much to make their cities notable centers for classical studies.
NEW SCHOOLS CREATED. The "finds" began with Petrarch's discovery of two orations of Cicero, in 1333, and by the time "the century of finds" (1333- 1433) was drawing to a close the materials for a new type of secondary education had been accumulated. Not only was the old literature discovered and edited, but the finding of a complete copy of Quintilian's "Institutes of Oratory" at Saint Gall (R. 127), in 1416, gave a detailed explanation of the old Roman theory of education at its best. A number of "court schools" now arose in the different cities, to which children from the nobility and the banking and merchant classes were sent to enjoy the advantages they offered over the older types of religious schools.
[Illustration: FIG. 77. TWO EARLY ITALIAN HUMANIST EDUCATORS
GUARINO DA VERONA (1374-1460) (Drawn from a photograph of a contemporary painting. School at Ferrara, 1429-1460)
VITTORINO DA FELTRE (1378-1446)
(Drawn from a medallion in the British Museum. School at Mantua, 1423-46)]
Two of the most famous teachers in these court schools were Vittorino da Feltre, who conducted a famous school at Mantua from 1423 to 1446, and Guarino da Verona, who conducted another almost equally famous school at Ferrara from 1429 to 1460. Taking boys at nine or ten and retaining them until twenty or twenty-one, their schools were much like the best private boarding-schools of England and America to-day. Drawing to them a selected class of students; emphasizing physical activities, manners, and morals; employing good teaching processes; and providing the best instruction the world had up to that time known—the influence of these court schools was indeed large. Many of the most distinguished leaders in Church and State and some of the best scholars of the time were trained in them. By better methods they covered, in shorter time, as much or more than was provided in the Arts course of the universities, and so became rivals of them. The ultimate result was that, with the evolution of a series of secondary schools which prepared for admission to the universities, the gradual "humanizing" of the universities, and the introduction of printed textbooks, the Arts courses in the universities were advanced to a much higher plane. We have here one of the first of a number of subsequent steps by means of which new knowledge, organized into teaching shape, has been passed on down to lower schools to teach, while the universities have stepped forward into new and higher fields of endeavor.
THE HUMANISTIC COURSE OF STUDY. The new instruction was based on the study of Greek and Latin, combined with the courtly ideal and with some of the physical activities of the old chivalric education. Latin was begun with the first year in school, and the regular Roman emphasis was placed on articulation and proper accent. After some facility in the language had been gained, easy readings, selected from the greatest Roman writers, were attempted. As progress was made in reading and writing and speaking Latin as a living language, Cicero and Quintilian among prose writers, and Vergil, Lucan, Horace, Seneca, and Claudian among the poets, were read and studied. History was introduced in these schools for the first time and as a new subject of study, though the history was the history of Greece and Rome and was drawn from the authors studied. Livy and Plutarch were the chief historical writers used. Nothing that happened after the fall of Rome was deemed as of importance. Much emphasis was placed on manners, morality, and reverence, with Livy and Plutarch again as the great guides to conduct. Throughout all this the use of Latin as a living language was insisted upon; declamation became a fine art; and the ability to read, speak, and compose in Latin was the test. Cicero, in particular, because of the exquisite quality of his Latin style, became the great prose model. Quintilian was the supreme authority on the purpose and method of teaching (R. 25). Greek also was begun later, though studied much less extensively and thoroughly. The Greek grammar of Theodorus Gaza (p. 248) was studied, followed by the reading of Xenophon, Isocrates, Plutarch, and some of Homer and Hesiod.
This thorough drill in ancient history and literature was given along with careful attention to manners and moral training, and each pupil's health was watchfully supervised—an absolutely new thought in the Christian world. Such physical sports and games as fencing, wrestling, playing ball, football, running, leaping, and dancing were also given special emphasis. Competitive games between different schools were held, much as in modern times.
The result was an all-round physical, mental, and moral training, vastly superior to anything previously offered by the cathedral and other church schools, and which at once established a new type which was widely copied. A number of these new teachers, called humanists, wrote treatises on the proper order of studies, the methods to be employed, the right education of a prince, liberal education, and similar topics. [2] One of these, Battista Guarino, describing the education provided in the school which his father founded at Ferrara (R. 135), laid down a dictum which was accepted widely until the middle of the nineteenth century, when he wrote:
I have said that ability to write Latin verse is one of the essential marks of an educated person. I wish now to indicate a second, which is of at least equal importance, namely, familiarity with the literature and language of Greece. The time has come when we must speak in no uncertain voice upon this vital requirement of scholarship.