Francesco Bello. 121. The Mambriano of Francesco Bello, sirnamed il Cieco, another poem of the same romantic class, was published posthumously in 1497. Apostolo Zeno, as quoted by Roscoe, attributes the neglect of the Mambriano to its wanting an Ariosto to continue its subject, or a Berni to reform its style.[474] But this seems a capricious opinion. Bello composed it at intervals to amuse the courtiers of the marquis of Mantua. The poem, therefore, wants unity. “It is a reunion,” says Mr. Panizzi, “of detached tales, without any relation to each other, except in so far as most of the same actors are before us.”[475] We may perceive by this, how little a series of rhapsodies, not directed by a controlling unity of purpose, even though the work of a single man, are likely to fall into a connected poem. But that a long poem, of singular coherence and subordination of parts to an end, should be framed from the random and insulated songs of a great number of persons, is almost as incredible as that the annals of Ennius, to use Cicero’s argument against the fortuitous origin of the world, should be formed by shaking together the letters of the alphabet.
[474] Leo X., ch. ii.
[475] Panizzi’s Introduction to Boiardo, p. 360. He does not highly praise the poem, of which he gives an analysis with extracts. See too Ginguéné, vol. iv.
Italian poetry near the end of the century. 122. Near the close of the fifteenth century we find a great increase of Italian poetry, to which the patronage and example of Lorenzo had given encouragement. It is not easy to place within such narrow limits as a decennial period, the names of writers whose productions were frequently not published, at least collectively, during their lives. Serafino d’Aquila, born in 1466, seems to fall, as a poet, within this decade; and the same may be said of Tibaldeo and Benivieni. Of these the first is perhaps the best known; his verses are not destitute of spirit, but extravagance and bad taste deform the greater part.[476] Tibaldeo unites false thoughts with rudeness and poverty of diction. Benivieni, superior to either of these, is reckoned by Corniani a link between the harshness of the fifteenth and the polish of the ensuing century. The style of this age was far from the grace and sweetness of Petrach; forced in sentiment, low in choice of words, deficient in harmony, it has been condemned by the voice of all Italian critics.[477]
[476] Bouterwek, Gesch. der Ital. Poesie, i. 321. Corniani.
[477] Corniani. Muratori, della perfetta Poesia. Crescimbeni, Storia della volgar poesia.
Progress of learning in France and Germany. 123. A greater activity than before was now perceptible in the literary spirit of France and Germany. It was also regularly progressive. The press of Paris gave twenty-six editions of ancient Latin authors, nine of which were in the year 1500. Twelve were published at Lyons. Deventer and Leipsic, especially the latter, which now took a lead in the German press, bore a part in this honourable labour; a proof of the rapid and extensive influence of Conrad Celtes on that part of Germany. It is to be understood that a very large proportion, or nearly the whole, of the Latin editions printed in Germany were for the use of schools.[478] We should be warranted in drawing an inference as to the progress in literary instruction in these countries from the increase in the number of publications, small as that number still is, and trifling as some of them may appear. It may be accounted for by the gradual working of the schools at Munster and other places, which had now sent out a race of pupils well fitted to impart knowledge in their turn to others; and by the patronage of some powerful men, among whom the first place, on all accounts, is due to the emperor Maximilian. Nothing was so likely to contribute to the intellectual improvement of Germany as the public peace of 1495, which put an end to the barbarous customs of the middle ages, not unaccompanied by generous virtues, but certainly as incompatible with the steady cultivation of literature as with riches and repose. Yet there seems to be no proof that the Greek language had obtained much more attention; no book connected with it is recorded to have been printed, and I do not find mention that it was taught, even superficially, in any university or school, at this time, though it might be conjectured without improbability. Reuchlin had now devoted his whole thoughts to cabbalistic philosophy, and the study of Hebrew; and Eichhorn, though not unwilling to make the most of early German learning, owns that, at the end of the century, no other person had become remarkable for a skill in Greek.[479]
[478] A proof of this may be found in the books printed at Deventer from 1491 to 1500. They consisted of Virgil’s Bucolics three times, Virgil’s Georgics twice, and the eclogues of Calpurnius once, or perhaps twice. At Leipsic the list is much longer, but in great measure of the same kind; single treatises of Seneca or Cicero, or detached parts of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, sometimes very short, as the Culex or the Ibis, form, with not many exceptions, the Cisalpine classical bibliography of the fifteenth century.
[479] Eichhorn, iii. 236. This section in Eichhorn is valuable, but not without some want of precision.
Reuchlin had been very diligent in purchasing Greek manuscripts. But these were very scarce, even in Italy. A correspondent of his, Streler by name, one of the young men who went from Germany to Florence for education, tells him, in 1491, Nullos libros Græcis hic venales reperio; and again, de Græcis libris coemendis hoc scias; fui penes omnes hic librarios, nihil horum prorsus reperio. Epist. ad Reuchl. (1562) fol. 7. In fact, Reuchlin’s own library was so large as to astonish the Italian scholars when they saw the catalogue, who plainly owned they could not procure such books themselves. They had of course been originally purchased in Italy, unless we suppose some to have been brought by way of Hungary.