The century of Columbus

by James J. Walsh

Probably the easiest way to tell the extent of the scholarship of France during Columbus' Century is to say that many good authorities have declared that before the end of the century France had taken away from Italy the palm for classical scholarship. The first important teacher of the French was, however, an Italian, Jerome Aleander, who arrived in France shortly after the beginning of the sixteenth century with an introduction from Erasmus. He lectured on Greek as well as Latin, and probably also on Hebrew. He became Rector of [{532}] the University of Paris in 1512, but returned to Rome in 1517 and was appointed Librarian to the Vatican. His distinguished services for learning and the Church brought him a cardinal's hat, and he became one of the most prominent members of the Papal Court at this time. It was under his direction that the first Greek printing in France was done. Three of Plutarch's treatises on Morals were printed in Paris in 1509 in order to serve as text-books for his pupils.

His successor as a teacher of the classics in Paris was the distinguished Frenchman Budaeus, who, before the end of his life, came to be looked upon as perhaps the most eminent of living scholars. He went on diplomatic missions to Popes Julius II and Leo X and thus became very much interested in the New Learning. He learned Greek for himself, and under Francis I and Henry II his fame as a Greek scholar, to quote Sandys, [Footnote 49] was "one of the glories of his country." "He opened a new era in the study of Roman Law by his annotations on the 'Pandects' of Justinian, and a little later he broke fresh ground as the first serious student of the Roman coinage in his treatise 'De Asse,' It was the ripe result of no less than nine years' research, and in twenty years passed through ten editions. Its abundant learning is said to have aroused the envy of Erasmus" (Sandys).

[Footnote 49: "A History of Classical Scholarship," Cambridge University Press, 1908, p. 170.]

His devotion to study became a proverb. It is said that even on his wedding day, by an exceptional act of self-denial, he limited his time of study to three hours only. It is interesting to learn that his wife shared his enthusiasm for study at least to the extent of aiding him in every possible way by devoted attention, which prevented him from being interrupted or harassed by any cares. Once, when he was busy reading in his library, one of the servants suddenly rushed in to inform him that the house was on fire. The scholar, without lifting up his eyes from his book, simply said: "Go and tell my wife; you know very well that I must not be bothered about household matters." He suffered greatly from headaches, which the best physicians of his day vainly endeavored to cure by the application of the actual cautery to his scalp. [{533}] After a time, however, it was suggested to him that what was needed was not a cure, but a better regulation of his life. He learned to take long walks, and spent some time each day cultivating his garden to the great alleviation of his headaches.

His greatest contribution to the scholarship of the time was his successful urging of Francis I, helped as he was by that monarch's sister, Marguerite of Navarre, to establish the College de France, though for a time at the beginning it had no such ambitious title, but was called simply the Corporation of the Royal Readers. It had no official residences or even public lecture rooms. As was said at the time, "it was built on men." Budaeus' statue rightly stands before the College buildings now, for he was the real founder. The amount that was accomplished for genuine education and scholarship before the buildings were erected and the machinery of a college set going shows how much more men mean than an institution.

This Corporation of the Royal Readers had at first teachers of Greek, Hebrew and Mathematics, five in number. The first two teachers in it were Pierre Danès, Danesius as he is known, who edited an important edition of Pliny and later of Justin Martyr and afterwards became Bishop of Lavaur and took an important part in the Council of Trent, and Jacques Toussain, an industrious scholar, the compiler of a Greek and Latin Dictionary. Three men are said to have attended Toussain's lectures for some time, whose influence on the after-time was to be very marked, and yet the contrast of whose characters is very striking. They were Ignatius Loyola, John Calvin and François Rabelais. Turnebus was also one of the students of Toussain, and himself later became a distinguished professor, first at Toulouse and afterwards as the successor of his master at Paris. Toussain had been famous for his erudition. He was a living library. Turnebus, though attracting great attention when a young man by his marvellous memory, became a specialist in Greek textual criticism. He published a series of Greek texts, including Aeschylus and Sophocles, just at the end of Columbus' Century, and edited Cicero's "Laws." He wrote commentaries on Varro and the elder Pliny.

FRANCIS I LISTENING TO MACAULT's TRANSLATION OF DIODORUS SICULUS, TITLE PAGE OF WOOD-ENGRAVING (TORY)

We have from Montaigne, who was one of his pupils just as our century closes, a curiously interesting description of [{534}] Turnebus, which serves to show that the genus professor has been at all times about the same and that his pupils have loved him often just in proportion as they have found many things to laugh at in his dress and manners. It is, indeed, a distinction, [{535}] however, to have been the thus beloved master of Montaigne, himself no laggard in scholarliness.

"I have seen Adrianus Turnebus, who, having never professed anything but studie and letters, wherein he was, in mine opinion, the worthiest man that lived these thousand years, . . . notwithstanding had no pedanticall thing about him but the wearing of his gowne, and some external fashions, that could not well be reduced and uncivilized to the courtiers' cut. For his inward parts, I deeme him to have been one of the most unspotted and truly honest minds that ever was. I have sundry times of purpose urged him to speake of matters farthest from his study, wherein he was so clear-sighted, and could with so quicke an apprehension conceive, and with so sound a judgment distinguish them, that he seemed never to have professed or studied other facultie than warre, and matters of state."