[533] The letters of Bembo and Sadoleto have been often printed; those of the former, e.g. in the Opera, Basel, 1556, vol. ii., where the letters written in the name of Leo X. are distinguished from private letters; those of the latter most fully, 5 vols. Rome, 1760. Some additions to both have been given by Carlo Malagola in the review Il Baretti, Turin, 1875. Bembo’s Asolani will be spoken of below; Sadoleto’s significance for Latin style has been judged as follows by a contemporary, Petrus Alcyonius, De Exilio, ed. Menken, p. 119: ‘Solus autem nostrorum temporum aut certe cum paucis animadvertit elocutionem emendatam et latinam esse fundamentum oratoris; ad eamque obtinendam necesse esse latinam linguam expurgare quam inquinarunt nonnulli exquisitarum literarum omnino rudes et nullius judicii homines, qui partim a circumpadanis municipiis, partim ex transalpinis provinciis, in hanc urbem confluxerunt. Emendavit igitur ‘eruditissimus hic vir corruptam et vitiosam linguæ latinæ consuetudinem, pura ac integra loquendi ratione.’
[534] Corio, Storia di Milano, fol. 449, for the letter of Isabella of Aragon to her father, Alfonso of Naples; fols. 451, 464, two letters of the Moor to Charles VIII. Compare the story in the Lettere Pittoriche, iii. 86 (Sebastiano del Piombo to Aretino), how Clement VII., during the sack of Rome, called his learned men round him, and made each of them separately write a letter to Charles V.
[535] For the correspondence of the period in general, see Voigt, Wiederbelebung, 414-427.
[536] Bembo thought it necessary to excuse himself for writing in Italian: ‘Ad Sempronium,’ Bembi Opera, Bas. 1556, vol. iii. 156 sqq.
[537] On the collection of the letters of Aretino, see above, pp. 164 sqq., and the note. Collections of Latin letters had been printed even in the fifteenth century.
[538] Comp. the speeches in the Opera of Philelphus, Sabellicus, Beroaldus, &c.; and the writings and lives of Giann. Manetti, Æneas Sylvius, and others.
[539] B. F. De Viris Illustribus, ed. Mehus, p. 7. Manetti, as Vesp. Bisticci, Commentario, p. 51, states, delivered many speeches in Italian, and then afterwards wrote them out in Latin. The scholars of the fifteenth century, e.g. Paolo Cortese, judge the achievements of the past solely from the point of view of ‘Eloquentia.’
[540] Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 198, 205.
[541] Pii II. Comment. l. i. p. 10.
[542] The success of the fortunate orator was great, and the humiliation of the speaker who broke down before distinguished audiences no less great. Examples of the latter in Petrus Crinitus, De Honestâ Disciplinâ, v. cap. 3. Comp. Vespas. Fior. pp. 319, 430.