[*65] Far from being indispensable, the democratic institutions had very little to do with the progress of the arts which were fostered by individuals, whether in a tyranny such as Urbino or in a so-called republic such as Florence.
[*66] Neither absurd nor revolting, I think, since, a little fantastically certainly, but very truly none the less, it expresses that continuity of the religious sense in Europe which is perhaps the one eternal thing to be found in it. If the saints are not in a very real sense the gods in exile, they are excellent imitations of them.
[*67] Not Plato, but Plethon. He refused the name of Plato with which he was hailed by Cosimo de' Medici. Cf. Ficino in preface to his Plotini Epitome (Firenze, 1492). "Magnus Cosimus, quo tempore concilium inter Graecos et Latinos, sub Eugenio pontefice Florentinæ tractabatur, philosophum Graecum, nomine Gemistum cognomine Plethonem, quasi Platonem alterum de mysteriis Platonicis disputantem frequenter audivit; e cujus ore ferventi sic afflatus est protinus, sic animatus, ut inde Academiam quandam alta mente conceperit, hanc opportuno primum tempore pariturus." Marsilio Ficino had a poor understanding of Plato.
[*68] Cf. Georgios Trapezuntios, Comparatio Platonis et Aristotelis.
[69] See [vol. I., p. 297]. His oration on the death of Federigo is No. 1233 of the Vat. Urb. MSS.
[70] Maestro Arrigo, of Cologne, alias Heinrich v. Coln, had then a press at Urbino. The typographic art had been introduced there about 1481, and at Cagli five years earlier by Roberto da Fano and Bernardino da Bergamo.
[*71] Francesco da Urbino, who was certainly Michelangelo's schoolmaster, does not seem to be the same as his friend Francesco Urbino, so touchingly spoken of in the following letter from Michelangelo to Vasari:—
"Messer Giorgio, Dear Friend,—Although I write but badly, yet will I say a few words in reply to yours. You know that Urbino is dead, for which I owe the greatest thanks to God; at the same time my loss is heavy and sorrow infinite. The grace is this, that while Urbino living kept me alive, in dying he has taught me to die not unwillingly but rather with a desire for death. I had him with me twenty-six years, and always found him faithful and true. Now that I had made him rich and thought to keep him on the staff and rest of my old age he has departed, and the only hope left me is that of seeing him again in Paradise, and of this God has given a sign in his most happy death. Even more than dying, it grieved him to leave me alive in this treacherous world, with so many troubles; the better part of me went with him, nothing is left to me but endless sorrow. I commend myself to you....
"Your Michael Angelo Buonarroti, in Rome.
"The 23 day of February, 1556."