Italian academies. 30. Italy in the sixteenth century was remarkable for the number of her literary academies; institutions, which, though by no means peculiar to her, have in no other country been so general or so conspicuous. We have already taken notice of that established by Aldus Manutius at Venice early in this century, and of those of older dates which had enjoyed the patronage of princes at Florence and Naples, as well as of that which Pomponius Lætus and his associates, with worse auspices, had endeavoured to form at Rome. The Roman academy, after a long season of persecution or neglect, revived in the genial reign of Leo X. “Those were happy days,” says Sadolet in 1529, writing to Angelo Colocci, a Latin poet of some reputation, “when in your suburban gardens, or mine on the Quirinal, or in the Circus, or by the banks of the Tiber, we held those meetings of learned men, all recommended by their own virtues and by public reputation. Then it was that after a repast, which the wit of the guests rendered exquisite, we heard poems or orations recited to our great delight, productions of the ingenious Casanuova, the sublime Vida, the elegant and correct Beroaldo, and many others still living or now no more.”[876] Corycius, a wealthy German, encouraged the good-humoured emulation of these Roman luminaries.[877] But the miserable reverse, that not long after the death of Leo befell Rome, put an end to this academy, which was afterwards replaced by others of less fame.
[876] Sadolet, Epist. p. 225 (edit. 1554). Roscoe has quoted this interesting letter.
[877] Roscoe, iii. 480.
They pay regard to the language. 31. The first academies of Italy had chiefly directed their attention to classical literature; they compared manuscripts, they suggested new readings, or new interpretations, they deciphered inscriptions and coins, they sat in judgment on a Latin ode, or debated the propriety of a phrase. Their own poetry had, perhaps, never been neglected; but it was not till the writings of Bembo founded a new code of criticism in the Italian language, that they began to study it minutely, and judge of compositions with that fastidious scrupulousness they had been used to exercise upon modern Latinity. Several academies were established with a view to this purpose, and became the self-appointed censors of their native literature. The reader will remember what has been already mentioned, that there was a peculiar source of verbal criticism in Italy, from the want of a recognised standard of idiom. The very name of the language was long in dispute. Bembo maintained that Florentine was the proper appellation. Varchi and other natives of the city have adhered to this very restrictive monopoly. Several, with more plausibility, contended for the name Tuscan; and this, in fact, was so long adopted, that it is hardly yet altogether out of use. The majority, however, were not Tuscans, and while it is generally agreed that the highest purity of their language is to be found in Tuscany, the word Italian has naturally prevailed as its denomination.
Their fondness for Petrarch. 32. The academy of Florence was instituted in 1540 to illustrate and perfect the Tuscan language, especially by a close attention to the poetry of Petrarch. Their admiration of Petrarch became an exclusive idolatry; the critics of this age would acknowledge no defect in him, nor excellence in any different style. Dissertations and commentaries on Petrarch, in all the diffuseness characteristic of the age and the nation, crowd the Italian libraries. We are, however, anticipating a little in mentioning them; for few belong to so early a period as the present. But by dint of this superstitious accuracy in style, the language rapidly acquired a purity and beauty which has given the writers of the sixteenth century a value in the eyes of their countrymen, not always so easily admitted by those who, being less able to perceive the delicacy of expression, are at leisure to yawn over their frequent tediousness and inanity.
They become numerous. 33. The Italian academies, which arose in the first half of the century, and we shall meet with others hereafter, are too numerous to be reckoned in these pages. The most famous were the Intronati of Siena, founded in 1525, and devoted, like that of Florence, to the improvement of their language; the Infiammati of Padua, founded by some men of high attainments in 1534; and that of Modena, which, after a short career of brilliancy, fell under such suspicions of heresy, and was subjected to such inquisitorial jealousy about 1542, that it never again made any figure in literary history.[878]
[878] Tiraboschi, viii. ch. 4, is my chief authority about the Italian academies of this period.
Their distinctions. 34. Those academies have usually been distinguished by little peculiarities, which border sometimes on the ridiculous, but serve probably, at least, in the beginning, to keep up the spirit of such societies. They took names humorously quaint; they adopted devices and distinctions, which made them conspicuous, and inspired a vain pleasure in belonging to them. The Italian nobility, living a good deal in cities, and restrained from political business, fell willingly into these literary associations. They have, perhaps, as a body, been better educated, or, at least, better acquainted with their own literature and with classical antiquity, than men of equal rank in other countries. This was more the case in the sixteenth century than at present. Genius and erudition have been always honoured in Italy; and the more probably that they have not to stand the competition of overpowering wealth, or of political influence.
Evils connected with them. 35. Academies of the Italian kind do not greatly favour the vigorous advances in science, and much less the original bursts of genius, for which men of powerful minds are designed by nature. They form an oligarchy, pretending to guide the public taste, as they are guided themselves, by arbitrary maxims and close adherence to precedents. The spirit of criticism they foster is a salutary barrier against bad taste and folly, but is too minute and scrupulous in repressing the individualities which characterise real talents, and ends by producing an unblemished mediocrity, without the powers of delight or excitement, for which alone the literature of the imagination is desired.
They succeed less in Germany. 36. In the beginning of this century several societies were set on foot in Germany, for the promotion of ancient learning, besides that already mentioned of the Rhine, established by Camerarius of Dalberg, and Conrad Celtes, in the preceding age. Wimpfeling presided over one at Strasburg in 1514, and we find another at Augsburg in 1518. It is probable that the religious animosities which followed stood in the way of similar institutions; or they may have existed without obtaining much celebrity.[879]