The last circumstance which I shall mention, as having contributed to restore society from the intellectual degradation into which it had fallen during the dark ages, is the revival of classical learning. The Latin language indeed, in which all legal instruments were drawn up, and of which all ecclesiastics availed themselves in their epistolary intercourse, as well as in their more solemn proceedings, had never ceased to be familiar. Though many solecisms and barbarous words occur in the writings of what were called learned men, they possessed a fluency of expression in Latin which does not often occur at present. During the dark ages, however, properly so called, or the period from the sixth to the eleventh century, we chiefly meet with quotations from the Vulgate or from theological writers. Nevertheless, quotations from the Latin poets are hardly to be called unusual. Virgil, Ovid, Statius, and Horace, are brought forward by those who aspired to some literary reputation, especially during the better periods of that long twilight, the reigns of Charlemagne and his son in France, part of the tenth century in Germany, and the eleventh in both. The prose writers of Rome are not so familiar, but in quotations we are apt to find the poets preferred; and it is certain that a few could be named who were not ignorant of Cicero, Sallust, and Livy. A considerable change took place in the course of the twelfth century. The polite literature, as well as the abstruser science of antiquity, became the subject of cultivation. Several writers of that age, in different parts of Europe, are distinguished more or less for elegance, though not absolute purity of Latin style; and for their acquaintance with those ancients, who are its principal models. Such were John of Salisbury, the acute and learned author of the Polycraticon, William of Malmsbury, Giraldus Cambrensis, Roger Hoveden, in England; and in foreign countries, Otho of Frisingen, Saxo Grammaticus, and the best perhaps of all I have named as to style, Falcandus, the historian of Sicily. In these we meet with frequent quotations from Livy, Cicero, Pliny, and other considerable writers of antiquity. The poets were now admired and even imitated. All metrical Latin before the latter part of the twelfth century, so far as I have seen, is of little value; but at this time, and early in the succeeding age, there appeared several versifiers who aspired to the renown of following the steps of Virgil and Statius in epic poetry. Joseph Iscanus, an Englishman, seems to have been the earliest of these; his poem on the Trojan war containing an address to Henry II. He wrote another, entitled Antiocheis, on the third crusade, most of which has perished. The wars of Frederic Barbarossa were celebrated by Gunther in his Ligurinus; and not long afterwards, Guillelmus Brito wrote the Philippis, in honour of Philip Augustus, and Walter de Chatillon the Alexandreis, taken from the popular romance of Alexander. None of these poems, I believe, have much intrinsic merit; but their existence is a proof of taste that could relish, though not of genius that could emulate antiquity.[]
much more the fourteenth.
Invention of linen paper.
Libraries.
In the thirteenth century there seems to have been some decline of classical literature, in consequence probably of the scholastic philosophy, which was then in its greatest vigour; at least we do not find so many good writers as in the preceding age. But about the middle of the fourteenth, or perhaps a little sooner, an ardent zeal for the restoration of ancient learning began to display itself. The copying of books, for some ages slowly and sparingly performed in monasteries, had already become a branch of trade;[x] and their price was consequently reduced. Tiraboschi denies that the invention of making paper from linen rags is older than the middle of that century; and although doubts may be justly entertained as to the accuracy of this position, yet the confidence with which so eminent a scholar advances it is at least a proof that paper manuscripts of an earlier date are very rare.[y] Princes became far more attentive to literature when it was no longer confined to metaphysical theology and canon law. I have already mentioned the translations from classical authors, made by command of John and Charles V. of France. These French translations diffused some acquaintance with ancient history and learning among our own countrymen.[z] The public libraries assumed a more respectable appearance. Louis IX. had formed one at Paris, in which it does not appear that any work of elegant literature was found.[a] At the beginning of the fourteenth century, only four classical manuscripts existed in this collection; of Cicero, Ovid, Lucan, and Boethius.[] The academical library of Oxford, in 1300, consisted of a few tracts kept in chests under St Mary's church. That of Glastonbury Abbey, in 1240, contained four hundred volumes, among which were Livy, Sallust, Lucan, Virgil, Claudian, and other ancient writers.[c] But no other, probably, of that age was so numerous or so valuable. Richard of Bury, chancellor of England, and Edward III., spared no expense in collecting a library, the first perhaps that any private man had formed. But the scarcity of valuable books was still so great, that he gave the abbot of St. Albans fifty pounds weight of silver for between thirty and forty volumes.[d] Charles V. increased the royal library at Paris to nine hundred volumes, which the duke of Bedford purchased and transported to London.[e] His brother Humphrey duke of Gloucester presented the university of Oxford with six hundred books, which seem to have been of extraordinary value, one hundred and twenty of them having been estimated at one thousand pounds. This indeed was in 1440, at which time such a library would not have been thought remarkably numerous beyond the Alps,[f] but England had made comparatively little progress in learning. Germany, however, was probably still less advanced. Louis, Elector Palatine, bequeathed in 1421 his library to the university of Heidelberg, consisting of one hundred and fifty-two volumes. Eighty-nine of these related to theology, twelve to canon and civil law, forty-five to medicine, and six to philosophy.[g]
Transcription of manuscripts.
Those who first undertook to lay open the stores of ancient learning found incredible difficulties from the scarcity of manuscripts. So gross and supine was the ignorance of the monks, within whose walls these treasures were concealed, that it was impossible to ascertain, except by indefatigable researches, the extent of what had been saved out of the great shipwreck of antiquity. To this inquiry Petrarch devoted continual attention. He spared no means to preserve the remains of authors, who were perishing from neglect and time. This danger was by no means passed in the fourteenth century. A treatise of Cicero upon Glory, which had been in his possession, was afterwards irretrievably lost.[h] He declares that he had seen in his youth the works of Varro; but all his endeavours to recover these and the second Decad of Livy were fruitless. He found, however, Quintilian, in 1350, of which there was no copy in Italy.[] Boccaccio, and a man of less general fame, Colluccio Salutato, were distinguished in the same honourable task. The diligence of these scholars was not confined to searching for manuscripts. Transcribed by slovenly monks, or by ignorant persons who made copies for sale, they required the continual emendation of accurate critics.[k] Though much certainly was left for the more enlightened sagacity of later times, we owe the first intelligible text of the Latin classics to Petrarch, Poggio, and their contemporary labourers in this vineyard for a hundred years before the invention of printing.
Industry of the fifteenth century.
Poggio.
What Petrarch began in the fourteenth century was carried on by a new generation with unabating industry. The whole lives of Italian scholars in the fifteenth century were devoted to the recovery of manuscripts and the revival of philology. For this they sacrificed their native language, which had made such surprising shoots in the preceding age, and were content to trace, in humble reverence, the footsteps of antiquity. For this too they lost the hope of permanent glory, which can never remain with imitators, or such as trim the lamp of ancient sepulchres. No writer perhaps of the fifteenth century, except Politian, can aspire at present even to the second class, in a just marshalling of literary reputation. But we owe them our respect and gratitude for their taste and diligence. The discovery of an unknown manuscript, says Tiraboschi, was regarded almost as the conquest of a kingdom. The classical writers, he adds, were chiefly either found in Italy, or at least by Italians; they were first amended and first printed in Italy, and in Italy they were first collected in public libraries.[m] This is subject to some exception, when fairly considered; several ancient authors were never lost, and therefore cannot be said to have been discovered; and we know that Italy did not always anticipate other countries in classical printing. But her superior merit is incontestable. Poggio Bracciolini, who stands perhaps at the head of the restorers of learning, in the earlier part of the fifteenth century, discovered in the monastery of St. Gall, among dirt and rubbish in a dungeon scarcely fit for condemned criminals, as he describes it, an entire copy of Quintilian, and part of Valerius Flaccus. This was in 1414; and soon afterwards, he rescued the poem of Silius Italicus, and twelve comedies of Plautus, in addition to eight that were previously known: besides Lucretius, Columella, Tertullian, Ammianus Marcellinus, and other writers of inferior note.[n] A bishop of Lodi brought to light the rhetorical treatises of Cicero. Not that we must suppose these books to have been universally unknown before; Quintilian, at least, is quoted by English writers much earlier. But so little intercourse prevailed among different countries, and the monks had so little acquaintance with the riches of their conventual libraries, that an author might pass for lost in Italy, who was familiar to a few learned men in other parts of Europe. To the name of Poggio we may add a number of others, distinguished in this memorable resurrection of ancient literature, and united, not always indeed by friendship, for their bitter animosities disgrace their profession, but by a sort of common sympathy in the cause of learning; Filelfo, Laurentius Valla, Niccolo Niccoli, Ambrogio Traversari, more commonly called Il Camaldolense, and Leonardo Aretino.