Dryden has missed the point of this passage.
[79] "Quid autem ineptius quam, toto seculo renovato, religione, imperiis, magistratibus, locorum vocabulis, ædificiis, cultu, moribus, non aliter audire, loqui, quam locutus est Cicero? Si revivisceret ipse Cicero, rideret hoc Ciceronianorum genus."—Erasmus.
[80] [Vol. I., p. 298], [392]; II., [114].
[*81] On the whole subject of women, see [note *1], [p. 72]. Their education was the same as that of their brothers. Cf. Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy (1904), vol. V., p. 250, note 1, and Burckhardt, The Civilisation of the Renaissance (1878), vol. II., p. 161.
[82] Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, VI., ii., p. 317-30; Shepherd's Life of Poggio Bracciolini, passim; Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, ch. i.
[*83] Cf. Flamini, Versi inediti da G.M. Filelfo (Livorno, 1892, per nozze).
[*84] Porcellio Napolitano was the laureate and secretary of Alphonso I. of Aragon and of Naples, and later the secretary and familiar of Sigismondo Malatesta. Porcellio seems to have hated Basinio, another court poet, whose works, with a long commentary, have been published (Battaglini, Basinii, Parmensis Poetæ Opera Præstantiora (Rimini, 1794)). Basinio seems to have proved before the Court of Rimini that Porcellio was ignorant of Greek. "One can be a fine Latin poet without knowing Greek," he answered in a rage, but truly enough. Basinio, however, asserted that not only Virgil and all the great poets and prose writers knew Greek, but showed that while that language was forgotten Italy was plunged in darkness. But enough of such absurdities, which have besides nothing to do with Urbino or even Dennistoun's history of it.
[85] Nearly all we know of him will be found in the Scriptores, XX., 67, and XXV., 1.
[86] See [vol. I., pp. 209-11]. Portions of the same poem are contained in Nos. 709 and 710 of the Urbino Library, the former corrected by the author, the latter in his autograph. Some of his minor lyrics were published at Paris in 1549, along with those of two other minstrels who sang the praises of the Malatesta.
[*87] On Giovanni Santi, see Campori, Notizie e docum. per la vita di Giov. Santi e di Raffaello Santi da Urbino (Modena, 1870); Guerrini, Elogio Stor. di Giov. Santi (Urbino, 1822); Schmarzow, Giovanni Santi der Vater Raffaels, in Kunstchronik (Leipsig), An. XXIII., No. 27; Schmarzow, Giovanni Santi in Vierteljahrsschrift für Kultur und Lett. der Renaissance (Leipsig), vol. II., Nos. 2-4. Cf. also Crowe & Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in Italy, vol. III.