[543] Pii II. Comment. l. iv. p. 205. There were some Romans, too, who awaited him at Viterbo. ‘Singuli per se verba facere, ne alius alio melior videretur, cum essent eloquentiâ ferme pares.’ The fact that the Bishop of Arezzo was not allowed to speak in the name of the general embassy of the Italian states to the newly chosen Alexander VI., is seriously placed by Guicciardini (at the beginning of book i.) among the causes which helped to produce the disaster of 1494.
[544] Told by Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 1160.
[545] Pii II. Comment. l. ii. p. 107. Comp. p. 87. Another oratorical princess, Madonna Battista Montefeltro, married to a Malatesta, harangued Sigismund and Martin. Comp. Arch. Stor. iv. i. p. 442, note.
[546] De Expeditione in Turcas, in Murat. xxiii. col. 68. ‘Nihil enim Pii concionantis majestate sublimius.’ Not to speak of the naïve pleasure with which Pius describes his own triumphs, see Campanus, Vita Pii II., in Murat. iii. ii. passim. At a later period these speeches were judged less admiringly. Comp. Voigt, Enea Silvio, ii. 275 sqq.
[547] Charles V., when unable on one occasion to follow the flourishes of a Latin orator at Genoa, replied in the ear of Giovio: ‘Ah, my tutor Adrian was right, when he told me I should be chastened for my childish idleness in learning Latin.’ Paul. Jov. Vita Hadriani VI. Princes replied to these speeches through their official orators; Frederick III. through Enea Silvio, in answer to Giannozzo Manetti. Vesp. Bist. Comment. p. 64.
[548] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, De poetis Nostri Temp. speaking of Collenuccio. Filelfo, a married layman, delivered an introductory speech in the Cathedral at Como for the Bishop Scarampi, in 1460. Rosmini, Filelfo, ii. 122, iii. 147.
[549] Fabroni, Cosmus, Adnot. 52.
[550] Which, nevertheless, gave some offence to Jac. Volaterranus (in Murat. xxiii. col. 171) at the service in memory of Platina.
[551] Anecdota Lit. i. p. 299, in Fedra’s funeral oration on Lod. Podacataro, whom Guarino commonly employed on these occasions. Guarino himself delivered over fifty speeches at festivals and funerals, which are enumerated in Rosmini, Guarino, ii. 139-146. Burckhardt, 332. Dr. Geiger here remarks that Venice also had its professional orators. Comp. G. Voigt, ii. 425.
[552] Many of these opening lectures have been preserved in the works of Sabellicus, Beroaldus Major, Codrus Urceus, &c. In the works of the latter there are also some poems which he recited ‘in principio studii.’