[520] Id. 106.
[521] Gerdes, in his Hist. Evangel. Reformati, who has gone very laboriously into this subject, justly dwells on the influence of the art of printing.
CHAPTER IV.
ON THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE FROM 1500 TO 1520.
Sect. I. 1501-1510.
Classical Learning of Italy in this Period—Of France, Germany, and England—Works of Polite Literature in Languages of Italy, Spain, and England.
Decline of learning in Italy. 1. The new century did not begin very auspiciously for the literary credit of Italy. We may, indeed, consider the whole period between the death of Lorenzo in 1492, and the pontificate of his son in 1513, as less brilliant than the two ages which we connect with their names. But when measured by the labours of the press, the last ten years of the fifteenth century were considerably more productive than any which had gone before. In the present decade a striking decline was perceptible. Thus, in comparing the numbers of books printed in the chief towns of Italy, we find—
| 1491-1500 | 1501-1510 | |
| Florence | 179 | 47 |
| Rome | 460 | 41 |
| Milan | 228 | 99 |
| Venice | 1491 | 536[522] |
Such were the fruits of the ambition of Ferdinand and of Louis XII., and the first interference of strangers with the liberties of Italy. Wars so protracted within the bosom of a country, if they do not prevent the growth of original genius, must yet be unfavourable to that secondary, but more diffused excellence, which is nourished by the wealth of patrons and the tranquillity of universities. Thus the gymnasium of Rome, founded by Eugenius IV., but lately endowed and regulated by Alexander VI., who had established it in a handsome edifice on the Quirinal hill, was despoiled of its revenues by Julius II., who, with some liberality towards painters, had no regard for learning; and this will greatly account for the remarkable decline in the typography of Rome. Thus, too, the Platonic school at Florence soon went to decay after the fall of the Medici, who had fostered it; and even the rival philosophy which rose upon its ruins, and was taught at the beginning of this century with much success at Padua by Pomponatius, according to the original principles of Aristotle, and by two other professors of great eminence in their time, Nifo and Achillini, according to the system of Averroes, could not resist the calamities of war: the students of that university were dispersed in 1509, after the unfortunate defeat of Ghiaradadda.