Gentile de' Becci was probably a native of Urbino, but the interest attaching to his name is owing rather to the distinction attained by his pupils than to his own. He was selected by Pietro de' Medici to train up his son Lorenzo the Magnificent; and to have educated such a mind is an unexceptionable title to fame. Yet the Christian philanthropist who sighs over the dross which mingled with its ore, the impure uses to which its bright metal was in some respects misdirected, by a master who might have moulded it to holier purposes, and might have enriched by its talents the treasury of truth and the triumphs of religion, may well hesitate ere he grants to the preceptor of Lorenzo a reflected share of his glory, without also holding him responsible for that pagan epicureanism which spread like a pestilence from the Medicean court throughout Italy. Nor do the notices remaining of Becci tend to nullify such an inference. The favour of his patrons naturally obtaining for him rapid promotion, he was raised to the see of Arezzo in 1473. But his life was that of a statesman rather than that of a good pastor. We read of his tact as a diplomatist, his skill in public affairs, his dexterous civil administration of his diocese, by directing towards commercial industry energies which had wasted themselves on faction; we are assured that his popularity was confirmed by his encouragement of liberal arts, by his mild and courteous character; we are told that in political science his pen was ably employed. But regarding his theological attainments, the purity of his morals, the zeal of his clerical ministrations, his eulogists are silent. We may add that to him Guicciardini in some degree imputes the miscarriage of the proposed league of Italy against the French invasion in 1492, in consequence of his personal ambition, when sent to conduct the negotiations at Rome on the part of the Medici, whilst his thoughtless extravagance there wasted resources of the Florentines which might have been better spent on military preparations.

Of Ludovico Odasio it is unnecessary to add anything to what we have already had occasion to say.[69] Francesco Venturini of Urbino is reputed the first after the revival who wrote a complete Latin grammar. It was dedicated to Count Ottaviano Ubaldini, and was printed at Florence in 1482, and again in his native town by Henry of Cologne, in 1493-4.[70] Among his pupils he is said to have numbered both Raffaele and Michael Angelo.[*71] Besides Berni da Gubbio, whose Diary has been edited in the Scriptores of Muratori, there were several annotators of events in their native duchy, whose prose writings remain in the Vatican Library, and have supplied us with useful information; but they were not historians, and it is unnecessary to bring them forth from their obscurity. Of one name, however, we may make an exception.

Polydoro di Vergilio was born at Urbino about 1470, and studied at Bologna. His relation, Adrian Castellesi, who, when Cardinal of Corneto, was well known both in England and at Rome,[72] had been sent by Innocent VIII. as legate to Scotland, but remained at London in consequence of the death of James III. at the battle of Stirling. There he was joined by Polydoro, who, on taking priest's orders, had, through his influence, obtained from Alexander VI. the collectorship of an old house-tax in England called Romescot, or Peter's pence, originally imposed in Saxon times for the maintenance of English pilgrims to Rome. Aliens being there frequently objects of church preferment, he, in 1503, obtained the rectory of Church Langton in Leicestershire; and, on his patron's appointment in the following year to the see of Bath and Wells, the path of further promotion was opened to him. In 1507 he became prebendary of Lincoln and of Hereford, and archdeacon of Wells, on which he resigned his collectorship. In 1515 he shared an imprisonment in the Tower, brought upon Adrian by the jealousy of Wolsey, whose haughty spirit, disappointed of the purple, attributed the delayed honours to the Bishop's influence. Letters were consequently written by Sadoleto in Leo's name to the English court on behalf of Polydoro, and Wolsey having received the much coveted scarlet hat, there was no further pretext for his detention. The date of his return home is variously stated at 1534 or 1550, and he carried from Henry VIII. a recommendation which procured him letters of nobility from his own sovereign. His literary talents being probably somewhat overrated in Italy, the long residence he made in the hotbed of heresy, without exercising his pen in defence of his Church, appears to have brought the purity of his faith under suspicion. That there was no tangible ground for the imputation may be presumed from his spending the rest of his life unquestioned at Urbino, where he died in 1555, and was buried in the Duomo.

The favour which Vergilio obtained in Adrian's eyes was partly owing to his success in cultivating the niceties of the Latin tongue, to restore which in its purity was a favourite project of the Cardinal. Before quitting Italy he had dedicated to Guidobaldo I. his Proverbiorum Libellus, a volume scarcely meriting the controversy upon which he entered with Erasmus as to the priority of suggesting such a collection. In 1499 he finished his treatise De Inventoribus Rerum, which was placed in the index of prohibited works, in consequence of tracing certain liturgical observances back to pagan superstitions; Grossi, however, vindicates his orthodoxy by ascribing the obnoxious passages to heretical interpolation. His essay De Prodigiis is an attempt to explain upon natural principles all omens, auguries, and other superstitious observances. As it is inscribed to Duke Francesco Maria I., he probably returned to Italy before 1538.

But what chiefly interests us is a Latin History of England, which he is said to have undertaken at the suggestion of Henry VII., or more probably of Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, who procured him access to certain archives. This work, from being the first general compilation of the sort given to the public, obtained more consideration than its superficial and inaccurate matter deserved; and Mr. Roscoe well observes that it has not gained the suffrages of posterity, either by ability or freedom from bias. Among the impugners of its veracity are Whear, Humphrey Lloyd, Henry Savile, and Bishop Bale. Some of these excuse his blunders on the questionable plea of his ignorance of English government, dialects, and manners, while Leland regrets that a writer so little trustworthy should have cast over his deceptions the graces of style. Anticipating perhaps such an aspersion, he, in his dedication of the work to Henry VIII., dated from London in 1530, compared the chronicles of Bede and Gildas, crude in form and phraseology, to meat served without the salt which it was his object to supply. Yet while the English blame him for misrepresentations,—avenged in the stinging Latin epigram,

"Maro and Polydore bore Virgil's name;
One reaps a poet's, one a liar's fame,"—

Giovio cites the testimony of French and Scotch authors to his partiality for the land of his adoption. More serious, but unestablished, is a charge greatly resented by his countrymen, that, after garbling records and ancient muniments thrown open to his examination, he consummated the outrage by destroying the evidence of his villainy. It may, however, be well to keep in view that, although Bale claims him as a willing reformer of certain Romish abuses, his adherence to that Church brought on him distrust of the Protestants, in an age when theological disputes were matter affecting life and limb.