[503] What was known of Plato before can only have been fragmentary. A strange discussion on the antagonism of Plato and Aristotle took place at Ferrara in 1438, between Ugo of Siena and the Greeks who came to the Council. Comp. Æneas Sylvius, De Europa, cap. 52 (Opera, p. 450).
[504] In Niccolò Valori, Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Comp. Vespas. Fiorent. p. 426. The first supporters of Argyropulos were the Acciajuoli. Ib. 192: Cardinal Bessarion and his parallels between Plato and Aristotle. Ib. 223: Cusanus as Platonist. Ib. 308: The Catalonian Narciso and his disputes with Argyropulos. Ib. 571: Single Dialogues of Plato, translated by Lionardo Aretino. Ib. 298: The rising influence of Neoplatonism. On Marsilio Ficino, see Reumont, Lorenzo de’ Medici, ii. 27 sqq.
[505] Varchi, Stor. Fior. p. 321. An admirable sketch of character.
[506] The lives of Guarino and Vittorino by Rosmini mentioned above ([p. 213], note 1; and 215, note 1), as well as the life of Poggio by Shepherd, especially in the enlarged Italian translation of Tonelli (2 vols. Florence, 1825); the Correspondence of Poggio, edited by the same writer (2 vols. Flor. 1832); and the letters of Poggio in Mai’s Spicilegium, tom. x. Rome, 1844, pp. 221-272, all contain much on this subject.
[507] Epist. 39; Opera, p. 526, to Mariano Socino.
[508] We must not be misled by the fact that along with all this complaints were frequently heard of the inadequacy of princely patronage and of the indifference of many princes to their fame. See e.g. Bapt. Mantan, Eclog. v. as early as the fifteenth century; and Ambrogio Traversari, De Infelicitate Principum. It was impossible to satisfy all.
[509] For the literary and scientific patronage of the popes down to the end of the fifteenth century, see Gregorovius, vols. vii. and viii. For Pius II., see Voigt, En. Silvio als Papst Pius II. bd. iii. (Berlin, 1863), pp. 406-440.
[510] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, De Poetis Nostri Temporis, speaking of the Sphaerulus of Camerino. The worthy man did not finish it in time, and his work lay for forty years in his desk. For the scanty payments made by Sixtus IV., comp. Pierio Valer. De Infelic. Lit. on Theodoras Gaza. He received for a translation and commentary of a work of Aristotle fifty gold florins, ‘ab eo a quo se totum inauratum iri speraverat.’ On the deliberate exclusion of the humanists from the cardinalate by the popes before Leo, comp. Lor. Grana’s funeral oration on Cardinal Egidio, Anecdot. Litt. iv. p. 307.
[511] The best are to be found in the Deliciae Poetarum Italorum, and in the Appendices to the various editions of Roscoe, Leo X. Several poets and writers, like Alcyonius, De Exilio, ed. Menken, p. 10, say frankly that they praise Leo in order themselves to become immortal.
[512] Paul. Jov. Elogia speaking of Guido Posthumus.