Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

While there could be no popular distribution, in the modern sense of the term, for necessarily costly books in manuscript, in a community of which only a small proportion had any knowledge of reading and writing, it is evident from the chronicles of the time that there was an active and prompt exchange of literary novelties between the court circles and the literary groups of the different cities, and also between the Faculties of the universities. A controversy between two scholars or men of letters (and there were, as said, many such controversies, some of them exceedingly bitter) appears to have excited a larger measure of interest and attention in cultivated circles throughout the country than could probably be secured to-day for any purely literary or scholastic issues. There must, therefore, have been in existence and in circulation a very considerable mass of literature in manuscript form, and we know from various sources that Florence particularly was the centre of an important trade in manuscripts. I have not thus far, however, been able to find any instances of the writers of this period receiving any compensation from the publishers, booksellers, or copyists, or any share in such profits as might be derived from the sale of the manuscript copies of their writings. It seems probable that the authors gave to the copyists the privilege (which it was in any case really impracticable to withhold) of manifolding and distributing such copies of the books as might be called for by the general public, while the cost of the complimentary copies (often a considerable number) given to the large circle of friends, seems as a rule to have been borne by the author.

As the author had to take his compensation in the shape of fame (except in the cases of receipts from patrons), the wider the circulation secured for copies of his productions (provided only they were not plagiarised), the larger his fund of—satisfaction. For substantial compensation he could look only to the patron. Fortunately for the impecunious writers of the day, it became fashionable for not a few of the princes and nobles of Italy to play the rôle of Mæcenas, and by many of these the support and encouragement given to literature was magnificent, if not always judicious.

During the reigns of the last Visconti and of the first Sforza, or from about 1440 to 1474, literature became fashionable at the Court of Milan. Filippo Maria Visconti is described as a superstitious and repulsive tyrant, and he could hardly by his own personality have attracted to Lombardy men of intellectual tastes. Visconti appears, however, to have considered that his Court would be incomplete without scholars, and to have been willing to pay liberally for their attendance. Piero Candido Decembrio was one of the most industrious of the writers who were supported by Visconti. According to his epitaph, he was responsible for no less than 127 books. Symonds speaks of his memoir of Visconti as a vivid and vigorous study of a tyrant. Gasparino da Barzizza was the Court letter-writer and rhetorician, and, as the official orator, filled an important place in what was considered the intellectual life of the city.

By far the most noteworthy, however, of the scholars who were attracted to Milan by the Ducal bounty was Francesco Filelfo. He could hardly be said to belong to Lombardy, as he was born in Ancona and educated at Padua, and had passed a number of years in Venice, Constantinople, Florence, Siena, and Bologna. The longest sojourn of his life, however, was made in Milan, where he arrived in 1440, and where he enjoyed for some years liberal emoluments from the Court.

Filelfo was evidently a man with great powers of acquisition and with exceptional versatility. He brought back with him from Constantinople (where he had remained for some years) a Greek bride from a noble family, an extensive collection of Greek manuscripts, and a working knowledge of the Greek language; and at a time when Greek ideas and Greek literature were attracting the enthusiastic attention not merely of the scholars but of the courtiers and men of fashion, these possessions of Filelfo were exceptionally serviceable, and enabled him to push his fortunes effectively. He seems to have possessed a self-confidence at least equal to his learning. He speaks of himself as having surpassed Virgil because he was an orator, and Cicero because he was a poet. Symonds says, however, that, notwithstanding his arrogance, he is entitled to the rank of the most universal scholar of his age, and his self-assertion doubtless aided not a little in securing prompt recognition for his learning. Venice paid him, in 1427, a stipend of 500 sequins for a series of lectures on Eloquence. A year later he accepted the post of lecturer in Bologna on Moral Philosophy and Eloquence, with a stipend of 450 sequins. Shortly afterwards, flattering offers tempted him to Florence, where he lectured on the Greek and Latin classics and on Dante, with a stipend first of 250 sequins, and later of 450 sequins. He found time while there for the preparation of translations of the Rhetoric of Aristotle, and of a number of other Greek works.

Filelfo’s arrogance and bad temper, and his fondness for invective and satire, soon brought him into trouble with the literary circle of Florence, and finally with the Medici, and he was compelled to withdraw to Siena, where he remained four years with a stipend of 350 florins. From there, after a brief visit to Bologna, he removed to Milan, where his emoluments were much larger than any heretofore received, and where, in the absence of any other scholars of equal attainments or assumptions, he had the satisfaction of being the accepted literary leader of the capital. In addition to his professional salary, he received large sums and presents for addresses, orations, and commemorative poems, which he was always ready to prepare. Such a combination of rhetoric and literature was peculiarly characteristic of the Italy of the time, and may be said to constitute a distinct phase in the history of compensation for intellectual productions. Filelfo published, in two ponderous volumes, his Satires, Odes, and other fugitive pieces, under the title of Convivia Mediolanensia.

Notwithstanding the considerable sums which Filelfo earned through his lectures and through his various rhetorical productions, he seems always to have been in need of money. His tastes were expensive, while his three wives had borne him no less than twenty-four children. In his later years he gained the reputation of being very greedy of gold and of making impudent demands which bore very much the character of blackmail. Gregorio Lollio, writing (in 1452) to the Cardinal of Pavia, describes Filelfo in the following words: “He is calumnious, envious, vain, and so greedy of gold that he metes out praise or blame according to the gifts he gets, both despicable as proceeding from a tainted source.”[419]

From Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, he received a liberal stipend. Pope Nicholas V., after reading some of his Satires (which Symonds characterises as “infamous”) presented him with 500 ducats. Travelling from Rome to Naples, Filelfo received more presents from Alfonso, who dubbed him a knight. Continuing his journey, he secured honours and rewards in Ferrara from Duke Borso, in Mantua from Marchese Gonzaga, and in Rimini from Gismondo Malatesta. After the death of Sforza, he accepted, in 1475, from Pope Sixtus IV., a professional Chair in Rome, with a salary of 600 florins. He soon, however, quarrelled with the Pope, and withdrew to Florence, where Lorenzo de’ Medici provided a post for him as Professor of Greek Literature.

Filelfo died in Florence in his eighty-third year. He had probably received larger emoluments for his work as an instructor, as a rhetorician, and as a man of letters, than any man of his generation, but he died without any means, and was buried by the charity of the Florentines. His career, in its activities, vicissitudes, controversies, successes, and bitternesses, was very typical of the lives of the Italian scholars of the period.

At the time of Filelfo’s death, while in many other cities the influence of the Renaissance was bringing together collections of books and circles of scholars, and literary productiveness was increasing throughout Italy, Florence still remained the capital of learning and of refined culture. Lorenzo de’ Medici had, in 1469, succeeded to Pietro, and of all the Medici it was Lorenzo whose influence was the most important in furthering the intellectual and artistic movements of the time. Symonds speaks of him as “a man of marvellous variety and range of mental power, in whom ... the versatility of the Renaissance found its fullest incarnation.”