History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume II (of 2) / Revised Edition

by John William Draper

Cosmo de' Medici. Florence.As if to prove that the impending crisis was not the offspring of human intentions, and not occasioned by any one man, though that man might be the sovereign pontiff, Nicolas V. found in his patronage of letters and art a rival and friend in Cosmo de' Medici. An instructive incident shows how great a [193] change had taken place in the sentiments of the higher classes: Cosmo, the richest of Italians, who had lavished his wealth on palaces, churches, hospitals, libraries, was comforted on his death-bed, not, as in former days would have been the case, by ministers of religion, but by Marsilius Ficinus, the Platonist, who set before him the arguments for a future life, and consoled his passing spirit with the examples and precepts of Greek philosophy, teaching him thereby to exchange faith for hope, forgetting that too often hopes are only the day-dreams of men, not less unsubstantial and vain than their kindred of the night. Ficinus had perhaps come to the conviction that philosophy is only a higher stage of theology, the philosopher a very enlightened theologian. Reappearance of Platonism in Italy. He was the representative of Platonism, which for so many centuries had been hidden from the sight of men in Eastern monasteries since its overthrow in Alexandria, and which was now emerging into existence in the favouring atmosphere of Italy. His school looked back with delight, and even with devotion, to the illustrious pagan times, commemorating by a symposium on November 13th the birthday of Plato. The Academy of Athens was revived in the Medicean gardens of Florence. Not that Ficinus is to be regarded as a servile follower of the great philosopher. Doctrines of Marsilius Ficinus. He alloyed the doctrines of Plato with others derived from a more sinister source—the theory of the Mohammedan Averroes, of which it was an essential condition that there is a soul of humanity, through their relations with which individual souls are capable of forming universal ideas, for such, Averroes asserted, is the necessary consequence of the emanation theory.

Revival of Greek learning in Italy.Under such auspices, and at this critical moment, occurred the revival of Greek literature in Italy. It had been neglected for more than seven hundred years. In the solitary instances of individuals to whom here and there a knowledge of that language was imputed, there seem satisfactory reasons for supposing that their requirements amounted to little more than the ability of translating some "petty patristic treatise." The first glimmerings of this revival appear [194] in the thirteenth century; they are somewhat more distinct in the fourteenth. The capture of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders had done little more than diffuse a few manuscripts and works of art along with the more highly prized monkish relics in the West. It was the Turkish pressure, which all reflecting Greeks foresaw could have no other result than the fall of the Byzantine power, that induced some persons of literary tastes to seek a livelihood and safety in Italy.

Gradual progress of the Restoration.In the time of Petrarch, 1304-1374, the improvement did not amount to much. That illustrious poet says that there were not more than ten persons in Italy who could appreciate Homer. Both Petrarch and Boccacio spared no pains to acquaint themselves with the lost tongue. The latter had succeeded in obtaining for Leontius Pilatus, the Calabrian, a Greek professorship at Florence. He describes this Greek teacher as clad in the mantle of a philosopher, his countenance hideous, his face overshadowed with black hair, his beard long and uncombed, his deportment rustic, his temper gloomy and inconstant, but his mind was stored with the treasures of learning. Leontius left Italy in disgust, but, returning again, was struck dead by lightning in a storm while tied to the mast of the ship. The author from whom I am quoting significantly adds that Petrarch laments his fate, but nervously asks whether "some copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be recovered from the mariners."

The restoration of Greek to Italy may be dated A.D. 1395, at which time Chrysoloras commenced teaching it. A few years after Aurispa brought into Italy two hundred and thirty-eight Greek manuscripts; among them were Plato and Pindar. The first endeavour was to translate such manuscripts into Latin. To a considerable extent, the religious scruples against Greek literature were giving way; the study found a patron in the pope himself, Eugenius IV. As the intention of the Turks to seize Constantinople became more obvious, the emigration of learned Greeks into Italy became more frequent. And yet, with the exception of Petrarch, and he was scarcely an exception, not one of the Italian scholars was an ecclesiastic.

Lorenzo de' Medici, his villas, gardens, and philosophy. [195] Lorenzo de' Medici, the grandson of Cosmo, used every exertion to increase the rising taste, generously permitting his manuscripts to be copied. Nor was it alone to literature that he extended his patronage. In his beautiful villa at Fiesole the philosophy of the old times was revived; his botanic garden at Careggi was filled with Oriental exotics. From 1470 to 1492, the year of his death, his happy influence continued. He lived to witness the ancient Platonism overcoming the Platonism of Alexandria, and the pure doctrine of Aristotle expelling the base Aristotelian doctrine of the schools.

Effects instantly produced by the Greek language.The last half of the fifteenth century revealed to Western Europe two worlds, a new one and an old; the former by the voyage of Columbus, the latter by the capture of Constantinople; one destined to revolutionize the industrial, the other the religious condition. Greek literature, forced into Italy by the Turkish arms, worked wonders; for Latin Europe found with amazement that the ancient half of Christendom knew nothing whatever of the doctrine or of the saints of the West. Now was divulged the secret reason of that bitter hatred displayed by the Catholic clergy to Grecian learning. Causes of the prevailing dislike of Greek. It had sometimes been supposed that the ill-concealed dislike they had so often shown to the writings of Aristotle was because of the Arab dress in which his Saracen commentators had presented him; now it appeared that there was something more important, more profound. It was a terror of the Greek itself. Very soon the direction toward which things must inevitably tend became manifest; the modern languages, fast developing, were making Latin an obsolete tongue, and political events were giving it a rival—Greek—capable of asserting over it a supremacy; and not a solitary rival, for to Greek it was clear that Hebrew would soon be added, bringing with it the charms of a hoary antiquity and the sinister learning of the Jew. With a quick, a jealous suspicion, the ecclesiastic soon learned to detect a heretic from his knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, just as is done in our day from a knowledge of physical science. The authority of the Vulgate, that corner-stone of the Italian system, was, in the expectation of Rome, [196] inevitably certain to be depreciated; and, in truth, judging from the honours of which that great translation was soon despoiled by the incoming of Greek and Hebrew, it was declared, not with more emphasis than truth, yet not, perhaps, without irreverence, that there was a second crucifixion between two thieves. Long after the times of which we are speaking, the University of Paris resisted the introduction of Greek into its course of studies, not because of any dislike to letters, but because of its anticipated obnoxious bearing on Latin theology.

Tendency of "The Imitation of Christ." We can scarcely look in any direction without observing instances of the wonderful change taking place in the opinions of men. To that disposition to lean on a privileged mediating order, once the striking characteristic of all classes of the laity in Europe, there had succeeded a sentiment of self-reliance. Of this perhaps mo better proof can be furnished than the popularity of the work reputed to have been written by Thomas à Kempis, and entitled "The Imitation of Christ." It is said to have had probably more readers than any other book except the Bible. Its great celebrity is a proof how profoundly ecclesiastical influence had been affected, for its essential intention was to enable the pious to cultivate their devotional feeling without the intervention of the clergy. Such a work, if written in the present day, would have found an apt and popular title in "Every Man his own Priest." There is no reason for supposing that the condition to which man had at that time been brought, as the general result of Italian Christianity, was one of intense selfishness, as has been asserted; the celebrity of this book was rather dependent on a profound distrust everywhere felt in the clergy, both as regards morals and intellect. And why should we be surprised that such should be the case with the laity, when in all directions the clergy themselves were giving proof that they could not trust their own strength? They could not conceal their dread at the incoming of Greek; they could not speak without horror of the influence of Hebrew; they were loud in their protestations against the study of pagan philosophy, and held up to the derision and condemnation of the world science denounced by them as profane. [197] Danger to the unity of the Church. They foresaw that that fictitious unity of which they had boasted was drawing to an end; that men would become acquainted with the existence and history of churches more ancient, and, therefore, more venerable than the Roman, and, like it, asserting an authenticity upon unimpeachable proofs. But once let sects with such an impressive prestige be introduced to the knowledge of the West, once let the appearance of inviolate unity be taken from the Latin Church, and nothing could prevent a spontaneous decomposition forthwith occurring in it. It must break up into sects, which, in their turn, must break up, in process of time, into smaller and smaller divisions, and, through this means, the European must emerge at last into individual liberty of thought. The compelling hand of ecclesiastical tyranny must be removed, and universal toleration ensue. Nor were such anticipations mere idle suspicions, for such was the course that events actually took. Scarcely had the Reformation occurred when sectarian subdivisions made their appearance, and in modern times we see that an anarchy of sects is the inevitable harbinger of individual liberty of thought.

Higher requirements in evidence.As we have just said, it was impossible to look in any direction on the latter half of the fifteenth century without recognizing the wonderful change. It had become obviously useless any longer to assert an immobility of humanity when men were standing face to face with the new forms into which it had been transposed. New ideas had driven out old ones. Natural phenomena could not again be likened to human acts, nor the necessities of man regarded as determining the movements of the universe. A better appreciation of the nature of evidence was arising, perhaps in part through the influence of the lawyers, but in part through a commencing taste for criticism. We see it in such facts as the denial that a miracle can be taken as the proof of anything else than the special circumstances with which it is connected; we see it in the assertion that the martyrdom of men in support of a dogma, so far from proving its truth, proves rather its doubtfulness, no geometer having ever thought it worth his while to die in order to establish any [198] mathematical proposition, truth needing no such sacrifices, which are actually unserviceable and useless to it, since it is able spontaneously to force its own way. Disbelief setting in in Italy. In Italy, where the popular pecuniary interests were obviously identical with those of the Church, a dismal disbelief was silently engendering.

And now occurred an event the results of which it is impossible to exaggerate.

Invention of printing: its early history.About A.D. 1440 the art of printing seems to have been invented in Europe. It is not material to our purpose to inquire into the particulars of its history, whether we should attribute it to Coster of Haarlaem or Gutenberg of Mentz, or whether, in reality, it was introduced by the Venetians from China, where it had been practised for nearly two thousand years. In Venice a decree was issued in 1441 in relation to printing, which would seem to imply that it had been known there for some years. Coster is supposed to have printed the "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis" about 1440, and Gutenberg and Faust the Mentz Bible without date, 1455. The art reached perfection at once; their Bible is still admired for its beautiful typography. Among the earliest specimens of printing extant is an exhortation to take up arms against the Turks, 1454; there are also two letters of indulgence of Nicolas V. of the same date. In the beginning each page was engraved on a block of wood, but soon movable types were introduced. Impressions of the former kind pass under the name of block books; at first they were sold as manuscripts. Two of Faust's workmen commenced printing in Italy, but not until 1465; they there published an edition of "Lactantius," one of "Cicero de Officiis," and one of "Augustine de Civitate Dei." The art was carried to France 1469, and in a few years was generally practised in all the large European towns. Early books and booksellers. The printers were their own booksellers; the number of copies in each edition usually about three hundred. Folios were succeeded by quartos, and in 1501 duodecimos were introduced. Very soon the price of books was reduced by four fifths, and existing interests required regulations not only respecting the cost, but also respecting the contents. Thus the University of Paris established a tariff for [199] their sale, and also exercised a supervision in behalf of the Church, and the State. From the outset it was clear that printing would inevitably influence the intellectual movement synchronously occurring.