[1427] Mariana, in a long passage wherein he describes the Escurial palace, gives this account of the library; Vestibulo bibliotheca imposita, majori longitudine omnino pedum centum octoginta quinque, lata pedes triginta duos, libros servat præsertim Græcos manuscriptos, præcipuæ plerosque vetustatis; qui ex omnibus Europæ partibus ad famam novi operis magno numero confluxerunt: auro pretiosiores thesauri, digni quorum evolvendorum major eruditis hominibus facultas contingeret. Quod enim ex captivis et majestate revinctis literis emolumentum? De rege et regis institutione, l. iii. c. 10. The noble freedom of Mariana breaks out, we see, in the midst of his praise of royal magnificence. Few, if any, libraries, except those of the universities, were accessible to men of studious habits; a reproach that has been very slowly effaced. I have often been astonished, in considering this, that so much learning was really acquired.
[1428] Jugler’s Hist. Literaria, c. iii. s. 5. This very laborious work of the middle of the last century, contains the most ample account of public libraries throughout Europe that I have been able to find. The German libraries, with the two exceptions of Vienna and Heidelberg, do not seem to have become of much importance in the sixteenth century.
[1429] Wood’s Hist. and Ant. p. 922.
[1430] Scalig. Secunda, p. 236. De mon temps, he says in the same place, il y avoit à Londres douze bibliothèques complètes, et à Paris quatre-vingt. I do not profess to understand this epithet.
Collections of Antiquities in Italy. 62. The last forty years of the sixteenth century, were a period of uninterrupted peace in Italy. Notwithstanding the pressure of governments always jealous, and sometimes tyrannical, it is manifest that at least the states of Venice and Tuscany had grown in wealth, and in the arts that attend it. Those who had been accustomed to endure the license of armies, found a security in the rule of law which compensated for many abuses. Hence that sort of property, which is most exposed to pillage, became again a favourite acquisition; and, among the costly works of art, which adorned the houses of the wealthy, every relic of antiquity found its place. Gems and medals, which the books of Vico and Erizzo had taught the owners to arrange and to appreciate, were sought so eagerly, that, according to Hubert Goltzius, as quoted by Pinkerton, there were in Italy 380 of such collections. The marbles and bronzes, the inscriptions of antiquity, were not less in request, and the well known word, virtuosi, applied to these lovers of what was rare and beautiful in art or nature, bespoke the honour in which their pursuits were held. The luxury of literature displayed itself in scarce books, elegant impressions, and sumptuous bindings.
Pinelli. 63. Among the refined gentlemen, who devoted to these graceful occupations their leisure and their riches, none was more celebrated than Gian Vincenzio Pinelli. He was born of a good family at Naples in 1538. A strong thirst for knowledge, and the consciousness that his birth exposed him to difficulties and temptations at home which might obstruct his progress, induced him to seek, at the age of twenty-four, the university of Padua, at that time the renowned scene of learning and of philosophy.[1431] In this city he spent forty-three years, the remainder of his life. His father was desirous that he should practise the law; but after a short study of this Pinelli resumed his favourite pursuits. His fortune indeed was sufficiently large to render any sacrifice of them unreasonable; and it may have been out of dislike of his compulsory reading, that in forming his vast library he excluded works of jurisprudence. This library was collected by the labour of many years. The catalogues of the Frankfort fairs, and those of the principal booksellers in Italy, were diligently perused by Pinelli; nor did any work of value appear from the press on either side of the Alps which he did not instantly add to his shelves. This great library was regularly arranged, and though he did not willingly display its stores to the curious and ignorant, they were always accessible to scholars. He had also a considerable museum of globes, maps, mathematical instruments, and fossils; but he only collected the scarcer coins. In his manners, Pinelli was a finely polished gentleman, but of weak health, and for this cause devoted to books, and seldom mingling with gay society, nor even belonging to the literary academies of the city, but carrying on an extensive correspondence, and continually employed in writing extracts or annotations. Yet he has left nothing that has been published. His own house was as it were a perpetual academy, frequented by the learned of all nations. If Pinelli was not a man of great genius, nor born to be of much service to any science, we may still respect him for a love of learning, and a nobleness of spirit, which has preserved his memory.[1432]
[1431] Animadverterat autem hic noster, domi, inter amplexus parentum et familiarium obsequia, in urbe deliciarum plena, militaribus et equestribus, quam musarum studiis aptiore, non perventurum sese ad eam gloriæ metam quam sibi destinaverat, ideo gymnasii Patavini fama permotus, &c. Gualdi, Vita Pinelli. This life by a contemporary, or nearly such, is republished in the Vitæ Illustrium Virorum by Bates.
[1432] Gualdi. Tiraboschi,vi. 214. The library of Pinelli was dispersed, and in great part destroyed by pirates not long afterwards. That long since formed by one of his family is well known to book collectors.
Italian academies. 64. The literary academies of Italy continued to flourish even more than before; many new societies of the same kind were founded. Several existed at Florence, but all others have been eclipsed by the Della Crusca, established in 1582. Those of another Tuscan city, which had taken the lead in such literary associations, did not long survive its political independence; the jealous spirit of Cosmo extinguished the Rozzi of Siena in 1568. In governments as suspicious as those of Italy, the sort of secrecy belonging to these meetings, and the encouragement they gave to a sentiment of mutual union, were at least sufficient reasons for watchfulness. We have seen how the academy of Modena was broken up on the score of religion. That of Venice, perhaps for the same reason, was dissolved by the senate in 1561, and did not revive till 1593. These, however, were exceptions to the rule; and it was the general policy of governments to cherish in the nobility a love of harmless amusements. All Lombardy and Romagna were full of academies; they were frequent in the kingdom of Naples, and in the ecclesiastical states.[1433] They are a remarkable feature in the social condition of Italy, and could not have existed perhaps in any other country. They were the encouragers of a numismatic and lapidary erudition, elegant in itself, and throwing for ever its little sparks of light on the still ocean of the past, but not very favourable to comprehensive observation, and tending to bestow on an unprofitable pedantry the honours of real learning. This, indeed, is the inherent vice of all literary societies, accessible too frequently to those who, for amusement or fashion’s sake, love as much knowledge as can be reached with facility, and from the nature of their transactions, seldom capable of affording scope for any extensive research.
[1433] Tiraboschi, viii. 125-179, is so full on this subject, that I have not had recourse to other writers who have, sometimes with great prolixity, investigated a subject more interesting in its details to the Italians than to us. Ginguéné adds very little to what he found in his predecessor.