[483] Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 185.
[484] Vespas. Fiorent. pp. 575, 589. Vita Jan. Manetti, in Murat. xx. col. 543. The celebrity of Lionardo Aretino was in his lifetime so great that people came from all parts merely to see him; a Spaniard fell on his knees before him.—Vesp. p. 568. For the monument of Guarino, the magistrate of Ferrara allowed, in 1461, the then considerable sum of 100 ducats. On the coronation of poets in Italy there is a good summary of notices in Favre, Mélanges d’Hist. Lit. (1856) i. 65 sqq.
[485] Comp. Libri, Histoire des Sciences Mathém. ii. p. 92 sqq. Bologna, as is well known, was older. Pisa flourished in the fourteenth century, fell through the wars with Florence, and was afterwards restored by Lorenzo Magnifico, ‘ad solatium veteris amissæ libertatis,’ as Giovio says, Vita Leonis X. l. i. The university of Florence (comp. Gaye, Carteggio, i. p. 461 to 560 passim; Matteo Villani, i. 8; vii. 90), which existed as early as 1321, with compulsory attendance for the natives of the city, was founded afresh after the Black Death in 1848, and endowed with an income of 2,500 gold florins, fell again into decay, and was refounded in 1357. The chair for the explanation of Dante, established in 1373 at the request of many citizens, was afterwards commonly united with the professorship of philology and rhetoric, as when Filelfo held it.
[486] This should be noticed in the lists of professors, as in that of the University of Pavia in 1400 (Corio, Storia di Milano, fol. 290), where (among others) no less than twenty jurists appear.
[487] Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 990.
[488] Fabroni, Laurent. Magn. Adnot. 52, in the year 1491.
[489] Allegretto, Diari Sanesi, in Murat. xiii. col. 824.
[490] Filelfo, when called to the newly founded University of Pisa, demanded at least 500 gold florins. Comp. Fabroni, Laur. Magn. ii. 75 sqq. The negotiations were broken off, not only on account of the high salary asked for.
[491] Comp. Vespasian. Fiorent. pp. 271, 572, 582, 625. Vita. Jan. Manetti, in Murat. xx. col. 531 sqq.
[492] Vespas. Fiorent. p. 1460. Prendilacqua (a pupil of Vitt.), Intorno alla Vita di V. da F., first ed. by Natale dalle Laste, 1774, translated by Giuseppe Brambilla, Como, 1871. C. Rosmini, Idea dell’ottimo Precettore nella Vita e Disciplina di Vittorino da Feltre e de’ suoi Discepoli, Bassano, 1801. Later works by Racheli (Milan, 1832), and Venoit (Paris, 1853).