Jacopo Sadoleto's career was not dissimilar to that of his friend Bembo, though the two men offer many points of difference in character and turn of mind. Born at Modena in 1477, he studied Latin at Ferrara, and Greek at Rome, where he settled in the reign of Alexander VI. His copy of hexameters on the newly-discovered statue of Laocoon made him famous. Frigid and laboured as these verses may appear to us, who read them like a prize exercise, they had the merit of originality when first produced. Leo made the poet his secretary and Bishop of Carpentras. Sadoleto passed a good portion of his life in the duties of his see, composing moral treatises, annotating the Psalms, and publishing a 'Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.'[383] Though strongly tinctured with Ciceronian purism, his taste was more austere than Bembo's. Nature had given him an intellect adapted to grave studies, sincerity of purpose, and true piety. Living in the dawn of the Reformation, Sadoleto was deeply conscious of the perils of the Church; nor did he escape the suspicion of sharing the new heresy.[384] His celebrated letter to Clement VII., after the sack of Rome in 1527, shows that he viewed this disaster as a punishment inflicted on the godless capital of Christendom. In 1536 Paul III. recalled him to Rome, and made him cardinal. He died in 1547, and was buried in S. Pietro in Vincoli. Sadoleto's correspondence may be reckoned among the most valuable materials for the literary annals of this period.
Next to Sadoleto a place must be found for the grave and studious Egidio Canisio. He was born at Viterbo in 1470, and was therefore an exact contemporary of Bembo. His powers of Latin oratory gained him the fame of a great speaker, and the address with which he opened the Lateran Council in 1512 was committed to the press in that year. Egidius was already General of the Augustine Order. Five years later he received the red hat of a cardinal, and in 1518 he represented the Holy See as Legate at the Court of Spain. He died in 1532, leaving a vast mass of miscellaneous works on theology, philosophy, Biblical criticism, and universal history. Few of these have been printed. It is said that, besides Greek and Latin, he was a master of Hebrew and Chaldee, Turkish, Persian, and Arabic.
A more brilliant figure is presented by the witty but unscrupulous historian Paulus Jovius. He was born at Como in 1483, and came at the age of thirty-three to Rome, with the beginning of his comprehensive History already written.[385] Leo, who delighted in listening to recitations of new literary works, declared that nothing had been penned more perfect since the days of Livy. This high praise induced Jovius to fix his residence at Rome, where Clement VII. made him Bishop of Nocera in 1528. After spending twenty-one years in the expectation, continually frustrated, of being received in the Sacred College, he retired to Como, and died at Florence in 1552. Jovius was the cleverest of all the Latinists produced by the Italians. His style is fluent, sparkling with anecdote, highly picturesque in its descriptive passages, and adorned by characteristic details. In addition to the histories, he produced a series of biographies of great and varied value, some of which are libels, others panegyrics, while all are marked by acute observation and mastery of the matter in hand. He was wont to say that he could use a golden or a silver pen at will: the golden was exercised upon the Life of Leo; the silver, dipped in ironic gall, upon the Life of Hadrian. The sketches of eminent men, known by the name of 'Elogia,' were composed in illustration of a picture gallery of portraits collected in his villa. They include not only Italians, but Greeks, Germans, French and English worthies, dead and living notabilities of every kind.[386] If Brantôme had chosen Latin instead of French, he would have made a book not altogether unlike this of Jovius. The versatility of the author was further illustrated by a Latin treatise on Roman fishes, and by an Italian essay on mottoes and devices.[387]
Among the celebrities of the Roman Academy a place apart must be reserved for Baldassare Castiglione; for though his biography belongs to the political even more than to the literary annals of the period, few men represent the age of Leo in its culture with more dignity and grace combined. He was born in 1478 at Casatico, in the Duchy of Mantua; his father's family held the county of Castiglione, and his mother was a Gonzaga. In his youth he received an education framed upon the system set in vogue by Vittorino and Guarino, and became the living illustration of those varied accomplishments which he described in the 'Cortegiano.' His scholarship was sound and elegant; as a writer of Latin verse he distinguished himself among the best men of his generation. Sensitive to the beauty of the arts, he proved an excellent critic of modern painting and of antique sculpture, and assisted Raphael in the composition of his famous letter to Leo on the exploration of old Rome. At the same time he did not neglect the athletic exercises which formed an indispensable branch of an Italian nobleman's training. Cultivated at all points, he early devoted his abilities to the service of princes; for at this period in Italy there was no sphere for such a character outside the Courts. After spending some time at Milan and Naples, Castiglione removed to Rome, where Julius II. discerned the use that might be made of him in furthering the interests of his nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere. Federigo da Montefeltre, Duke of Urbino, had died in 1482, leaving his son Guidobaldo in possession of his fiefs and titles; but it was known that this prince could have no heirs. In him the male line of the Montefeltri ended. His sister Giovanna had been married to Giovanni della Rovere, a brother of the Pope, and Julius hoped that their son Francesco Maria might be declared successor to the Duchy of Urbino. Castiglione therefore attached himself to the person of Guidobaldo, with the special purpose of making himself necessary to the princes of Urbino and furthering the claims of Francesco, then a boy of about fifteen. Of his residence at Urbino, and of the polished splendour of Guidobaldo's Court, he has left an ever-memorable record in his 'Cortegiano,' that mirror of gentle breeding for the sixteenth century in Europe. Guidobaldo received the Count of Castiglione with marked favour, made him captain of fifty men at arms, and employed him in several offices of trust. Not the least important of these was the mission to England, undertaken in 1506 by Castiglione as Guidobaldo's proxy for receiving from Henry VII. the investiture of the Garter. After the death of Guidobaldo, Francesco Maria della Rovere was proclaimed Duke of Urbino, and Castiglione continued to enjoy his confidence until the year 1517, when Leo succeeded in placing his nephew Lorenzo de' Medici upon the Ducal throne.
Castiglione was now deprived of what had become the necessity of his life, a post of honour in the Court of a reigning sovereign. He therefore transferred his allegiance to his natural lord, the Marquis of Mantua, who appointed him ambassador at Rome. The first and most brilliant period of the courtier's life was passed at Urbino; the second, less fruitful in literary achievements, embraced his residence among the wits of Leo's circle. At Rome Castiglione adapted himself to the customs of the papal society, penning Latin elegiacs, consorting with artists, and exercising the pleasant patronage of a refined Mæcenas. His friendship with Raphael is not the least interesting episode in this chapter of his biography. Substantial records of it still remain in the epitaph composed by the courtly scholar on the painter, and in Castiglione's portrait now preserved in the Louvre collection. That picture represents the very model of an Italian nobleman as culture and Court life had made him—tranquil, with grave open eyes, and a mouth as well suited for urbane discourse as gentle merriment. The owner of this face was not born to lead armies or to control unruly multitudes, but to pass his time in the loggie of princes—self-contained and qualified to win favour without the sacrifice of personal dignity. It forms a strong contrast to earlier and later portraits—to that of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, for example, and to the Spanish grandees of the next century. Castiglione was still in Rome during the pontificate of Clement VII., who, recognizing his great ability as a diplomatist, sent him to Charles V. At Madrid the Pope's nuncio was unable to avert the disaster of 1527, and Castiglione had the bitter mortification of hearing at a distance how the Rome he knew and loved so well, had been ravaged by the brigands of Germany and Spain. It is clear, however, from the diplomatic correspondence of that memorable moment, and from the letter addressed by Clement to Castiglione's mother in 1529, that he never lost the confidence of his master; in spite of his failure to negotiate between them, he was respected alike by the Pope and the Emperor. He died at Toledo two years after the sack of Rome, worn out, it is said, by disappointment and regret. Not only in his book of the 'Courtier,' but also in his life, Castiglione illustrated the best qualities of an Italian gentleman, moulded by the political and social conditions of the sixteenth century into a refined scholar and a courtly diplomatist.
Of Alberto Pio, whose life in some respects may be compared with Castiglione's, I have had occasion to speak in the [last chapter]. His first cousin, Gian Francesco Pico della Mirandola, demands more than passing notice. By no prince of that troubled period were the cruel vicissitudes of Italian politics more painfully experienced. Few of the scholars could boast of wider learning and a nobler spirit. He was born in 1470, and succeeded his father, Galeotto, in the lordship of Mirandola. In 1502 his brother Lodovico expelled him from his capital. Julius II. restored him. After being dispossessed a second time by Trivulzi, general of the French forces, he was once more reinstated, but only for a brief period. His nephew, Galeazzo, murdered him in 1533 before the crucifix, together with his heir, Alberto. In the intervals of his unquiet and unhappy life, Gian Francesco Pico devoted himself to studies not unlike those of his more famous uncle.[388] Early in his youth he had conceived the strongest admiration for Savonarola; and the work by which he is best known to posterity is a Life of his great master. Savonarola's principles continued to rule his thought and conduct through life. During the pontificate of Leo he composed a long address to the Lateran Council upon the reformation of the Church,[389] and dared to entertain the friendship of Reuchlin and Willibad Pirkheimer. His residence in Rome, and the dedication of his treatise on 'Divine Love' to Leo, justify our ranking him with the Roman scholars.
If Gian Francesco Pico and Sadoleto bring us close upon the threshold of the German Reformation, we cross it in the company of Aleander. Jerome Aleander was born at Motta, in the Marches of Treviso, in the year 1480. His studies, more comprehensive than those of the stylists, included theology, philosophy, and science, together with the Oriental languages, in addition to the indispensable Greek and Latin culture. Before he reached the age of thirty he travelled to Paris, and professed Hebrew and the humanities at the University. French scholarship may be said to date from the impulse given to these subjects by Aleander, who rose to such fame that he was made Rector of the University. After leaving Paris, he spent some time in Germany, and came first to Rome in 1516 in the train of Erard van der Mark, Bishop of Lüttich. Here Leo appointed him librarian of the Vatican. The rest of Aleander's life was spent in the service of the Church. Despatched as nuntius to Germany by Leo in 1520, he vainly attempted, as all students of the Reformation know, to quench the fire of Luther's kindling. When he returned to Italy, Clement VII. gave him the archbishopric of Brindisi, and Paul III. raised him to the scarlet in 1538. He died in 1542, leaving in France the memory of his unrivalled learning, in Germany the fame of an intolerant persecutor, in Italy the reputation of a stanch though unsuccessful champion of the Church.
Aleander's three predecessors in the Vatican Library—Tommaso Inghirami of Siena, Filippo Beroaldo of Bologna, and Zanobio Acciaiuoli of Florence—made their mark in Roman society by erudition rather than by authorship.[390] Inghirami's eloquence won the admiration of contemporaries, who called him the second Cicero; as a writer he had no celebrity.[391] A fortunate find of MSS. at Bobbio earned for him the post of Vatican librarian. Leo, like all the members of the Medicean family, was bent upon the rediscovery of buried classics. But the world had been already ransacked, and, though he employed agents for this purpose in the East as well as Europe, only one great treasure came to light. Gian Angelo Arcimboldi disinterred the first five books of Tacitus's 'Annals' at Corvey, and sold them to the Pope for 500 golden florins. Filippo Beroaldo, who was entrusted with the task of editing this precious codex, received the librarianship as his reward. Leo's privilege granted to the printers of Beroaldo's edition expresses in truly noble language the highest ideal of humanism, and reflects real credit on his patronage of letters.[392] Of Acciaiuoli there is not much to say. His knowledge of Hebrew and the classic languages gained for him a reputation for singular learning. In his capacity as librarian he began to catalogue the documents of the 'Secreta Bibliotheca,' founded by Sixtus IV. It is worthy of notice that Acciaiuoli is the only Florentine whom we have had occasion to mention among the learned courtiers of Leo. Florence, always foremost in the van of culture, had shaken off at this period the traditions of strict humanism. Her greatest writers, Guicciardini, Machiavelli, Varchi, Segni, and Giannotti, exchanged the Latin language for their mother speech, and sought for honour in fields removed from verbal scholarship or Ciceronian niceties of phrase.
The Roman Sapienza never held the same rank as the Universities of Padua or Bologna; nor could it compete as an academy of culture with the High Schools of Florence and Ferrara. The Popes of the Renaissance, occupied with nepotism and political aggrandisement, had but small care for the interests of education. Nor did Rome, always overcrowded by foreigners, require the students who brought custom and prestige to minor cities.[393] Leo X. resolved, as far as he was able, to raise the studies of his capital from the decadence into which they had fallen. In 1513 he reformed the statutes of the University, increased the appointments of the professors, and founded several new chairs. Yet, though scholars no less respectable than Janus Parrhasius of Cosenza, Tommaso Inghirami, and Filippo Beroaldo were numbered among the teachers, the Sapienza failed to take firm root in Rome:—the most flourishing school of humanism at this period was Ferrara, governed by Leoniceno, Celio Calcagnini, and Lilius Gyraldus. To Hellenistic studies, just now upon the point of decadence in Italy, Leo gave encouragement by the establishment of a Greek press, and by the foundation of the Gymnasium Caballini Montis, where Joannes Lascaris and Marcus Musurus lectured. Musurus we have already learned to know as the inmate of Alberto Pio's palace at Carpi, and as Aldo's most efficient helper. Soon after his elevation to the Papacy, Leo invited the venerable Lascaris to Rome; but he did not long retain the services of so illustrious a Hellenist. Lascaris, who had taught Greek in Paris during the reign of Charles VIII., and who had long served Louis XII. as ambassador at Venice, was induced by Francis I. to superintend the library at Fontainebleau in 1518. He once more visited Rome during the pontificate of Clement, and died there at the age of ninety—the last of the Greek exiles who transplanted Hellas into Latium. Between the visit of Manuel Chrysoloras in 1398 and the death of John Lascaris in 1535 more than a century had elapsed, in the course of which Italy,[394] after acquiring Greek literature and committing its chief treasures to the press, had seen her learning pass beyond the Alps and flourish with new vigour on a northern soil. The epitaph composed by Lascaris for his own tomb in Santa Agata touchingly expresses the grief of an exile for his country's servitude, together with the gratitude of one who found a new home in an alien land:—