The work of Paolo Cortese (b. 1645, d. 1510), De Hominibus Doctis Dialogus (first ed. Florence, 1734), is much more limited in its character. This work, written about 1490, since it mentions Antonius Geraldinus as dead, who died in 1488, and was dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who died in 1492, is distinguished from that of Facius, written a generation earlier, not only by the exclusion of all who are not learned men, but by various inward and outward characteristics. First by the form, which is that of a dialogue between the author and his two companions, Alexander Farnese and Antonius, and by the digressions and unequal treatment of the various characters caused thereby; and secondly by the manner of the treatment itself. While Facius only speaks of the men of his own time, Cortese treats only of the dead, and in part of those long dead, by which he enlarges his circle more than he narrows it by exclusion of the living; while Facius merely chronicles works and deeds, as if they were unknown, Cortese criticises the literary activity of his heroes as if the reader were already familiar with it. This criticism is shaped by the humanistic estimate of eloquence, according to which no man could be considered of importance unless he had achieved something remarkable in eloquence, i.e. in the classical, Ciceronian treatment of the Latin language. On this principle Dante and Petrarch are only moderately praised, and are blamed for having diverted so much of their powers from Latin to Italian; Guarino is described as one who had beheld perfect eloquence at least through a cloud; Lionardo Aretino as one who had offered his contemporaries ‘aliquid splendidius;’ and Enea Silvio as he ‘in quo primum apparuit mutati sæculi signum.’ This point of view prevailed over all others; never perhaps was it held so one-sidedly as by Cortese. To get a notion of his way of thinking we have only to hear his remarks on a predecessor, also the compiler of a great biographical collection, Sicco Polentone: ‘Ejus sunt viginti ad filium libri scripti de claris scriptoribus, utiles admodum qui jam fere ab omnibus legi sent desiti. Est enim in judicando parum acer, nec servit aurium voluptati quum tractat res ab aliis ante tractatas; sed hoc ferendum. Illud certe molestum est, dum alienis verbis sententiisque scripta infarcit et explet sua; ex quo nascitur maxime vitiosum scribendi genus, quum modo lenis et candidus, modo durus et asper apparcat, et sic in toto genere tanquam in unum agrum plura inter se inimicissima sparsa semina.’
All are not treated with so much detail; most are disposed of in a few brief sentences; some are merely named without a word being added. Much is nevertheless to be learned from his judgments, though we may not be able always to agree with them. We cannot here discuss him more fully, especially as many of his most characteristic remarks have been already made use of; on the whole, they give us a clear picture of the way in which a later time, outwardly more developed, looked down with critical scorn upon an earlier age, inwardly perhaps richer, but externally less perfect.
Facius, the author of the first-mentioned biographical work, is spoken of, but not his book. Like Facius, Cortese is the humble courtier, looking on Lorenzo de’ Medici as Facius looked on Alfonso of Naples; like him, he is a patriot who only praises foreign excellence unwillingly and because he must; adding the assurance that he does not wish to oppose his own country ([p. 48], speaking of Janus Pannonius).
Information as to Cortese has been collected by Bernardus Paperinius, the editor of his work; we may add that his Latin translation of the novel of L. B. Alberti, Hippolytus and Dejanira, is printed for the first time in the Opere di L. B. A. vol. iii. pp. 439-463.
[346] How great the fame of the humanists was is shown by the fact that impostors attempted to make capital out of the use of their names. There thus appeared at Verona a man strangely clad and using strange gestures, who, when brought before the mayor, recited with great energy passages of Latin verse and prose, taken from the works of Panormita, answered in reply to the questions put to him that he was himself Panormita, and was able to give so many small and commonly unknown details about the life of this scholar, that his statement obtained general credit. He was then treated with great honour by the authorities and the learned men of the city, and played his assumed part successfully for a considerable time, until Guarino and others who knew Panormita personally discovered the fraud. Comp. Rosmini, Vita di Guarino, ii. 44 sqq., 171 sqq. Few of the humanists were free from the habit of boasting. Codrus Urceus (Vita, at the end of the Opera, 1506, fol. lxx.), when asked for his opinion about this or that famous man, used to answer: ‘Sibi scire videntur.’ Barth. Facius, De Vir. Ill. p. 31, tells of the jurist Antonius Butriensis: ‘Id unum in eo viro notandum est, quod neminem unquam, adeo excellere homines in eo studio volebat, ut doctoratu dignum in examine comprobavit.’
[347] A Latin poet of the twelfth century, one of the wandering scholars who barters his song for a coat, uses this as a threat. Carmina Burana, p. 76.
[348] Sonnet cli: Lasso ch’i ardo.
[349] Boccaccio, Opere Volgari, vol. xvi. in Sonnet 13: Pallido, vinto, etc.
[350] Elsewhere, and in Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, iv. 203.
[351] Angeli Politiani Epp. lib. x.