[382] Corniani is much fuller than Tiraboschi on these treatises. Roscoe seems to have read the ethical writing of Matteo Bosso (Life of Leo X., c. xx.), but hardly adverts to any of the rest I have named. Some of them are very scarce.
Paulus Cortesius. 64. Some of these related to general criticism, or to that of single authors. My knowledge of them is chiefly limited to the dialogue of Paulus Cortesius, De Hominibus Doctis, written, I conceive, about 1490; no unsuccessful imitation of Cicero, De Claris Oratoribus, from which indeed modern Latin writers have always been accustomed to collect the discriminating phrases of criticism. Cortesius, who was young at the time of writing this dialogue, uses an elegant, if not always a correct Latinity; characterising agreeably, and with apparent taste, the authors of the fifteenth century. It may be read in conjunction with the Ciceronianus of Erasmus, who, with no knowledge, perhaps, of Cortesius has gone over the same ground in rather inferior language.
Schools in Germany. 65. It was about the beginning of this decade that a few Germans and Netherlanders, trained in the college of Deventer, or that of Zwoll, or of St. Edward’s near Groningen, were roused to acquire that extensive knowledge of the ancient languages which Italy as yet exclusively possessed. Their names should never be omitted in any remembrance of the revival of letters; for great was their influence upon the subsequent times. Wessel of Groningen, one of those who contributed most steadily towards the purification of religion, and to whom the Greek and Hebrew languages are said, but probably on no solid grounds, to have been known, may be reckoned in this class. But others were more directly engaged in the advancement of literature. Three schools, from which issued the most conspicuous ornaments of the next generation, rose under masters, learned for that time, and zealous in the good cause of instruction. Alexander Hegius became, about 1475, rector of that at Deventer, where Erasmus received his early education.[383] Hegius was not wholly ignorant of Greek, and imparted the rudiments of it to his illustrious pupil. I am inclined to ascribe the publication of a very rare and curious book, the first endeavour to print Greek on this side of the Alps, to no other person than Hegius.[384] Louis Dringeberg founded, not perhaps before 1480, a still more distinguished seminary at Schelstadt in Alsace. Here the luminaries of Germany in a more advanced stage of learning, Conrad Celtes, Bebel, Rhenanus, Wimpheling Pirckheimer, Simler, are said to have imbibed their knowledge.[385] The third school was at Munster; and over this Rodolph Langius presided, a man not any way inferior to the other two, and of more reputation as a Latin writer, especially as a poet. The school of Munster did not come under the care of Langius till 1483, or perhaps rather later; and his strenuous exertions in the cause of useful and polite literature against monkish barbarians extended into the next century. But his life was long: the first, or nearly such, to awaken his countrymen, he was permitted to behold the full establisment of learning, and to exult in the dawn of the Reformation. In company with a young man of rank, and equal zeal, Maurice, count of Spiegelberg, who himself became the provost of a school at Emmerich, Langius visited Italy, and, as Meiners supposes, though, I think, upon uncertain grounds, before 1460. But not long afterwards, a more distinguished person than any we have mentioned, Rodolph Agricola of Groningen, sought in that more genial land the taste and correctness which no cisalpine nation could supply. Agricola passed several years of this decade in Italy. We shall find the effects of his example in the next.[386]
[383] Heeren, p. 149, says that Hegius began to preside over the school of Deventer in 1480; but I think the date in the text is more probable, as Erasmus left it at the age of fourteen, and was certainly born in 1465. Though Hegius is said to have known but little Greek, I find in Panzer the title of a book by him, printed at Deventer in 1501, De Utilitate Lingua Græcæ. The life of Hegius in Melchior Adam is interesting. Primus hic in Belgio literas excitavit, says Revius, in Daventria Illustrata, p. 130. Mihi, says Erasmus, admodum adhuc puero contigit uti præceptore hujus discipulo Alexandro Hegio Westphalo, qui ludum aliquando celebrem oppidi Daventriensis moderabatur, in quo nos olim admodum pueri utriusque linguæ prima didicimus elementa. Adag. Chil. 1, cent. iv. 39. In another place he says of Hegius, ne hic quidem Græcarum literarum omnino ignarus est. Epist. 411, in Appendice. Erasmus left Deventer at the age of fourteen; consequently in 1479 or 1480, as he tells us in an epistle, dated 17th Apr. 1519.
[384] This very rare book, unnoticed by most bibliographers, is of some importance in the history of literature. It is a small quarto tract, entitled, Conjugations verborum Græcæ, Daventriæ noviter extremo labore et impressæ. No date or printer’s name appears. A copy is in the British Museum, and another in Lord Spencer’s library. It contains nothing but the word τυπτω in all its voices and tenses, with Latin explanations in Gothic letters. The Greek types are very rude, and the characters sometimes misplaced. It must, I should presume, seem probable to every one who considers this book, that it is of the fifteenth century, and consequently older than any known Greek on this side of the Alps; which of itself should render it interesting in the eyes of bibliographers and of every one else. But fully disclaiming all such acquaintance with the technical science of typographical antiquity, as to venture any judgment founded on the appearance of a particular book, or on a comparison of it with others, I would, on other grounds, suggest the probability that this little attempt at Greek Grammar issued from the Deventer press about 1480. It appears clear that whoever “collected with extreme labour” these forms of the verb τυπτω, had never been possessed of a Greek and Latin grammar. For would it not be absurd to use such expressions about a simple transcription? Besides which, the word is not only given in an arrangement different from any I have ever seen, but with a nonexistent form of participle, τετυψαμενος for τυψαμενος, which could not surely have been found in any prior grammar. Now the grammar of Lascaris was published with a Latin translation by Craston in 1480. It is indeed highly probable that this book would not reach Deventer immediately after its impression; but it does seem as if there could not long have been any extreme difficulty in obtaining a correct synopsis of the verb τυπτω.
We have seen that Erasmus, about 1477, acquired a very slight tincture of Greek under Alexander Hegius at Deventer. And here, as he tells us, he saw Agricola, returning probably from Italy to Groningen. Quem mihi puero, ferme duodecim annos nato, Daventriæ videre contigit, nec aliud contigit. (Jortin, ii. 416.) No one could be so likely as Hegius to attempt a Greek grammar; nor do we find that his successors in that college were men as distinguished for learning as himself. But in fact at a later time it could not have been so extraordinarily imperfect. We might perhaps conjecture that he took down these Greek tenses from the mouth of Agricola, since we must presume oral communication rather than the use of books. Agricola, repeating from memory, and not thoroughly conversant with the language, might have given the false tense τετυψαμενος. The tract was probably printed by Pafroet, some of whose editions bear as early a date as 1477. It has long been extremely scarce; for Revius does not include it in the list of Pafroet’s publications he has given in Deventria Illustrata, nor will it be found in Panzer. Beloe was the first to mention it in his Anecdotes of scarce books; and it is referred by him to the fifteenth century; but apparently without his being aware there was anything remarkable in that antiquity. Dr. Dibdin, in Bibliotheca Spenceriana, has given a fuller account; and from him Brunet has inserted it in the Manuel du Libraire. Neither Beloe nor Dibdin seems to have known that there is a copy in the Museum; they speak only of that belonging to Lord Spencer.
If it were true that Reuchlin, during his residence at Orleans, had published, as well as compiled, a Greek grammar, we should not need to have recourse to the hypothesis of this note, in order to give the antiquity of the present decade to Greek typography. Such a grammar is asserted by Meiners, in his Life of Reuchlin, to have been printed at Poitiers: and Eichhorn positively says, without reference to the place of publication, that Reuchlin was the first German who published a Greek grammar. (Gesch. der Litt. iii. 275.) Meiners, however, in a subsequent volume (iii. 10), retracts this assertion, and says it has been proved that the Greek grammar of Reuchlin was never printed. Yet I find in the Bibliotheca Universalis of Gesner: Joh. Capnio [Reuchlin] scripsit de diversitate quatuor idiomatum Græcæ linguæ, lib. i. No such book appears in the list of Reuchlin’s works in Niceron, vol. xxv., nor in any of the bibliographies. If it ever existed, we may place it with more probability at the very close of this century, or at the beginning of the next.
[385] Eichhorn, iii. 231. Meiners, ii. 369. Eichhorn carelessly follows a bad authority in counting Reuchlin among these pupils of the Schelstadt school.
[386] See Meiners, vol. ii., Eichhorn, and Heeren, for the revival of learning in Germany; or something may be found in Brucker.
Study of Greek at Paris. 66. Meantime a slight impulse seems to have been given to the university of Paris by the lessons of George Tifernas; for from some disciples of his Reuchlin, a young German of great talents and celebrity, acquired, probably about the year 1470, the first elements of the Greek language. This knowledge he improved by the lessons of a native Greek, Andronicus Cartoblacas, at Basle. In that city he had the good fortune, rare on this side of the Alps, to find a collection of Greek manuscripts, left there at the time of the council by a cardinal Nicolas of Ragusa. By the advice of Cartoblacas, he taught Greek himself at Basle. After the lapse of some years, Reuchlin went again to Paris, and found a new teacher, George Hermonymus of Sparta, who had settled there about 1472. From Paris he removed to Orleans and Poitiers; he is said to have taught, perhaps not the Greek language, in the former city, and to have written a Greek grammar in the second. It seems, however, now to be ascertained, that this grammar was never printed.[387]