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'Hic fæces varias Veneris moresque profanos, Quos natura fugit, me docuisse pudet.' |
[247] 'Romam, in quâ natus sum ... ego sum ortus Romæ oriundus a Placentiâ.'
[248] The naïve surprise with which Vespasiano records the fact of virginity (see especially the Lives of Ambrogio Traversari and the Cardinal Portogallo) shows how rare the virtue was, and what mysterious honour it conferred upon men who were reputed to be chaste.
[249] Poggio and Fazio are the authorities for this incident.
[250] De falso Creditâ et Ementitâ Constantini Donatione.
[251] It is printed in Muratori, vol. xx.
[252] The protection extended to Manetti and to Filelfo ought, however, to be here mentioned. Nearly all the contemporary scholars of Italy dedicated works to Alfonso.
[254] 'Itaque Chrysoloras, mœrore confectus, compulsus precibus, malo coactus, filiam tibi nuptui dedit a te corruptam, quæ si extitisset integra, ne pilum quidem tibi abrasum ab illius natibus ostendisset. An tu illam unquam duxisses uxorem si virginitatem per te servare potuisset? Tibi pater illam dedisset profugo, ignobili, impuro? Primariis suæ civitatis viris servabatur virgo, non tibi, insulsæ pecudi et asello bipedali, quem ille domi alebat tanquam canem aliquem solent senio et ætate confectum.'—Poggii Opp. p. 167. This is just one of the tales with which the invectives of that day abound, and with which it is almost impossible to deal. It may be true; for certainly Filelfo, by his immorality and grossness in after-life, justified the worst calumnies that his enemies could invent. Yet there is little but Poggio's word to prove it, while Rosmini has shown that Filelfo's position at Byzantium was very different from what his foe suggests. Tiraboschi accepts the charge as 'not proven;' but he clearly leans in private against Filelfo, moved by the following passage from a letter of Ambrogio Traversari:—'Nuper a Guarino accepi litteras, quibus vehementer in fortunam invehitur quod filiam Joannis Chrysoloræ clarissimi viri is acceperit, exterus, qui quantum libet homo bono ingenio, longe tamen illis nuptiis impar esset, queriturque substomachans uxorem Chrysoloræ venalem habuisse pudicitiam, mœchumque ante habuisse quam socerum.' Vol. vi. lib. iii. cap. v. 21. All that can be said now is that Filelfo's own morality and the corruption of Byzantine society render a story believed by Guarino and Traversari, and openly told by Poggio, not improbable.