There was no university in Venice, but the government encouraged those teachers who established themselves in the city and gave instruction in their own homes. In this way they formed little schools which quarrelled with each other over definitions, syllogisms, and etymologies in the most approved fashion. There is a good instance of one of these miniature civil wars in connection with the historian Sabellico. He was
Cicogna, Iscrizioni, i. 341.
ferociously jealous of a certain learned priest called Ignatius, who taught literature, as he did, and had many more scholars. In his lectures Sabellico attacked Ignatius furiously, and did his best to destroy his reputation. The priest on his side held his tongue, and waited for a chance of giving his hot-headed adversary a lesson. At last Sabellico published a very indifferent work, of which the priest wrote such a keen criticism that the book was a dead failure. The State historian’s rage broke out in the most violent invectives, and from that time Ignatius was his nightmare, and the mere mention of his name drove him into uncontrollable fury, until, dying at last, Sabellico realised that his hatred of the priest had been the mortal sin of his life, and on his deathbed he sent for him and asked for a reconciliation. Ignatius freely pardoned him, and even delivered a very flattering funeral oration over his body a few days later.
A distinguished man of this period who deserves mention was Federigo Badoer, who may almost be said
DOORWAY OF THE SACRISTY, S. GIACOMO IN ORIO
to have been educated in the printing press of Aldus, and afterwards became the friend of Paulus Manutius. Like all Venetian nobles, he learned from his boyhood how he was to serve the State, and became acquainted with the working of its administration, and he was soon struck by the condition of the Code. The laws had multiplied too much, and were often obscure, and the whole system was in great need of revision. Badoer conceived the idea of founding an academy for the purpose of editing and printing the whole body of
Mutinelli, Annali.
Venetian Law; the Council of Ten gave him their approval, and he founded the Academy of ‘La Fama’—of Fame—with the singularly inappropriate motto, ‘I fly to heaven and rest in God.’ The printing of the new Code was entrusted to Paulus Manutius.
My perspicuous reader, having recovered from his astonishment at the unexpected liberality of the Council of Ten, has already divined that such a fit could not last long, and that Badoer and his noble academy were doomed to failure. Badoer was not rich enough to bear the expense of such an undertaking alone, and the Ten had no intention of helping him. Moreover, he and the scholars of his academy kept up a continual correspondence with doctors of law in other countries. It would have seemed narrow-minded, however, to suppress the academy by a decree; it was more in accordance with the methods of the Council to accuse Badoer of some imaginary misdeed for which he could be brought to trial. Accordingly, though he had sacrificed his own fortune in the attempt, he was accused of having embezzled the academy’s funds, and in three years from the time of his setting to work the