[547] John Lascaris, who is not to be confounded with Constantine Lascaris, by some thought to be his father, and to whom we owe a Greek Grammar, after continuing for several years under the patronage of Lorenzo at Florence, where he was editor of the Anthologia, or collection of epigrams, printed in 1494, on the fall of the Medici family entered the service of Charles VIII., and lived many years at Paris. He was afterwards employed by Louis XII. as minister at Venice. After a residence of some duration at Rome, he was induced by Francis I., in 1518, to organise the literary institutions designed by the king to be established at Paris. But these being postponed, Lascaris spent the remainder of his life partly in Paris, partly in Rome, and died in the latter city in 1535. Hody de Græcis Illustribus.
Roman gymnasium. 20. The personal taste of Leo was almost entirely directed towards poetry and the beauties of style. This, Tiraboschi seems to hint, might cause the more serious learning of antiquity to be rather neglected. But there does not seem to be much ground for this charge. We owe to Leo the publication, by Beroaldo, of the first five books of the Annals of Tacitus, which had lately been found in a German monastery. It appears that in 1514 above one hundred professors received salaries in the Roman university, or gymnasium, restored by the pope to its alienated revenues.[548] Leo seems to have founded a seminary distinct from the former, under the superintendence of Lascaris, for the sole study of Greek, and to have brought over young men as teachers from Greece. In this academy a Greek press was established, where the scholiasts on Homer were printed in 1517.[549]
[548] We are indebted to Roscoe for publishing this list. But as the number of one hundred professors might lead us to expect a most comprehensive scheme, it may be mentioned that they consisted of four for theology, eleven for canon law, twenty for civil law, sixteen for medicine, two for metaphysics, five for philosophy (probably physics), two for ethics, four for logic, one for astrology (probably astronomy), two for mathematics, eighteen for rhetoric, three for Greek, and thirteen for grammar, in all a hundred and one. The salaries are subjoined in every instance; the highest are among the medical professors; the Greek are also high. Roscoe, ii. 333, and Append. No. 89.
Roscoe remarks that medical botany was one of the sciences taught, and that it was the earliest instance. If this be right, Bonafede of Padua cannot have been the first botanical professor in Europe, as we read that he died in 1533. But in the roll of these Roman professors we only find that one was appointed ad declarationem simplicium medicinæ. I do not think this means more than the materia medica; we cannot infer that he lectured upon the plants themselves.
[549] Tiraboschi. Hody, p. 247. Roscoe, ch. 11. Leo was anticipated in his Greek editions by Chigi, a private Roman, who, with the assistance of Cornelio Benigno, and with Calliergus, a Cretan, for his printer, gave to the world two good editions of Pindar and Theocritus in 1515 and 1516.
Latin Poetry. 21. Leo was a great admirer of Latin poetry; and in his time the chief poets of Italy seem to have written several of their works, though not published till afterwards. The poems of Pontanus, which naturally belong to the fifteenth century, were first printed in 1513 and 1518; and those of Mantuan, in a collective form, about the same time.
Italian tragedy. 22. The Rosmunda of Rucellai, a tragedy in the Italian language, on the ancient regular model, was represented before Leo at Florence in 1515. It was the earliest known trial of blank verse; but it is acknowledged by Rucellai himself, that the Sophonisba of his friend Trissino, which is dedicated to Leo in the same year, though not published till 1524, preceded and suggested his own tragedy.[550] |Sophonisba of Trissino.| The Sophonisba is strictly on the Greek model, divided only by the odes of the chorus, but not into five portions or acts. The speeches in this tragedy are sometimes too long, the style unadorned, the descriptions now and then trivial. But in general there is a classical dignity about the sentiments, which are natural, though not novel; and the latter part, which we should call the fifth act, is truly noble, simple, and pathetic. Trissino was thoroughly conversant with the Greek drama, and had imbibed its spirit; seldom has Euripides written with more tenderness, or chosen a subject more fitted to his genius; for that of Sophonisba, in which many have followed Trissino with inferior success, is wholly for the Greek school; it admits, with no great difficulty, of the chorus, and consequently of the unities of time and place. It must, however, always chiefly depend on Sophonisba herself; for it is not easy to make Masinissa respectable, nor has Trissino succeeded in attempting it. The long continuance of alternate speeches in single lines, frequent in this tragedy, will not displease those to whom old associations are recalled by it.
[550] This dedication, with a sort of apology for writing tragedies in Italian, will be found in Roscoe’s Appendix, vol. vi. Roscoe quotes a few words from Rucellai’s dedication of his poem, L’Api, to Trissino, acknowledging the latter as the inventor of blank verse. Voi foste il primo, che questo modo di scrivere, in versi materni, liberi delle rime, poneste in luce. Life of Leo X. ch. 16. See also Ginguéné, vol. vi. and Walker’s Memoir on Italian Tragedy, as well as Tiraboschi. The earliest Italian tragedy, which is also on the subject of Sophonisba, by Galeotto del Carretto, was presented to the Marchioness of Mantua in 1502. But we do not find that it was brought on the stage; nor is it clear that it was printed so early as the present decade. But an edition of the Pamphila, a tragedy on the story of Sigismunda, by Antonio da Pistoja, was printed at Venice in 1508. Walker, p. 11. Ginguéné has been ignorant of this very curious piece, from which Walker had given a few extracts, in rhymed measures of different kinds. Ginguéné indeed had never seen Walker’s book, and his own is the worse for it. Walker was not a man of much vigour of mind, but had some taste, and great knowledge of his subject. This tragedy is mentioned by Quadrio, iv. 58, with the title Il Filostrato e Panfila, due Amanti.
It may be observed, that, notwithstanding the testimony of Rucellai himself above quoted, it is shown by Walker (Appendix, No. 3), that blank verse had been occasionally employed before Trissino.
Rosmunda of Rucellai. 23. The Rosmunda falls in my opinion below the Sophonisba, though it is the work of a better poet; and perhaps, in language and description it is superior. What is told in narration, according to the ancient inartificial form of tragedy, is finely told; but the emotions are less represented than in the Sophonisba; the principal character is less interesting, and the story is unpleasing. Rucellai led the way to those accumulations of horrible and disgusting circumstances which deformed the European stage for a century afterwards. The Rosmunda is divided into five acts, but preserves the chorus. It contains imitations of the Greek tragedies, especially the Antigone, as the Sophonisba does of the Ajax and the Medea. Some lines in the latter, extolled by modern critics, are simply translated from the ancient tragedians.