Many visitors in the course of centuries have visited this hermitage. Popes, emperors, men of piety and men of learning have prayed in its chapel. And up here in the shade of these huge pines those conversations took place which the learned Cristofero Landini has described, when some of the ablest scholars of the Early Italian Renaissance stayed here together in the summer of 1468, and whiled away several days in learned philosophical discussion.
The Conversations of Camaldoli are remarkable chiefly for their learned interest, but their setting is attractive, as they enable us to realise the friendly relations of some of the most distinguished men of the Medicean circle—men to whom the revival of learning and modern scholarship owes a debt of gratitude. For these conversations take us back to the time when the Republic of Florence, following the example of the Republic of Venice, had become the home of several learned Greeks. The spirit of a new era was stirring in every department of human knowledge, and those who studied the works of Plato and of his expositors at first hand and with some thoroughness, showed a renewed interest in Virgil and Horace, Dante and Petrarch. The Greek writers were translated into Latin, and many of them in a Latin garb first saw the daylight of print. But the works of Latin and Italian authors likewise engrossed attention, and Italian itself once more was looked upon as a language capable of expressing the great thoughts of great men.
Among those who, according to Landini, met together at Camaldoli on a summer day of 1468, were several whose life-work was bound up in revising, editing and translating the great works of antiquity. The first to arrive were the two young Medici, Lorenzo, afterwards surnamed the Magnificent, and his brother Giuliano, who was afterwards stabbed in the rising organised by the Pazzi. They were accompanied by Alemanno Rinuccini, who is known for his translation of some of Plutarch’s Lives; by Donato Acciajuoli, the author of a commentary on Aristotle; by Donato’s brother Piero; by Marco Parenti, and by Antonio Canegiano, “most learned men,” Landini calls them, “who had studied eloquence for years and who had gained proficiency in philosophical discussion by means of arduous study.” They were resting at the hermitage when Landini describes himself as arriving. He brought his brother with him. Landini is chiefly remembered among us for his commentary on Dante, but he also wrote commentaries on Horace and Virgil. He taught Latin at the newly-founded Academy of Florence, and in later days he became Chancellor of the Republic.
The party had barely exchanged greetings when the news was brought that two other friends had arrived at the monastery, where they were leaving their horses to come up to the Eremo on foot, led by the prior Mariotto. The order of Camaldoli had recently lost a shining light in its general, Ambrogio Traversari, known as il famoso Greco, who not only read Greek but spoke it with fluency. Mariotto was his pupil. The men he was conducting were Leone Battista Alberti, and Marsilio Ficino—men as different as possible in appearance and bearing, but who stand as representative figures of the Italian Renaissance, each in a special direction.
Whoever came into contact with Leone Battista felt that the gods had bestowed on him the fulness of their gifts, for he set the mark of originality on whatever he handled. His many-sidedness in after days was only excelled by that of Lionardo da Vinci. As a mere youth, Leon Battista wrote a comedy which passed for a rediscovered classic; and he is the author of the first treatises on painting, sculpture and architecture that can lay claim to a scientific basis. He worked as an architect, and the front of Santa Maria Novella at Florence was his design. He was a famous talker, a man of clever sayings, and eloquent in praise of beauty wherever he found it—in art, in nature and in man. From youth upwards he was renowned for his agility, and increasing years dealt kindly with his good looks. At the time of his coming to Camaldoli he was in the sixties.
Marsilio Ficino, whom he is here described as having met on his way from Rome, was the greatest Hellenist of his age and the keenest intellect among the older Florentine humanists. Small, frail and visionary, he combined in himself the qualities that distinguish and endear the typical scholar—patience, sagacity, preciseness, extreme modesty and a high tone of mental elevation. His fame rests on his translation into Latin of the works of Plato, and he was the colleague of Landini at the Florentine Academy, where he taught Greek. In the large fresco of Domenico Ghirlandajo in Santa Maria Novella at Florence, Marsilio Ficino and Landini are both represented among the painter’s distinguished contemporaries.
Such were the men who met together at the hermitage of Camaldoli, upwards of four hundred years ago, rejoicing in the thought of spending a few days together. On the first day they rested. On the next they attended mass, and then they sallied forth into the forest, and there, under a spreading beech, they sat down and Leone Battista opened the discussion. Starting from the fact that the responsibilities of public life were about to devolve on the two young Medici owing to the ill-health of their father, he spoke of the duties of a citizen, and passed on to compare the respective merits of a life of activity and of a life of contemplation. This was a favourite subject of discussion at the time, and Leone Battista ended by pronouncing in favour of contemplation, a view which was in accordance with Plato’s ideality and with the Christian exaltation of Mary above Martha. On the following day the same subject was discussed in the same company, and on the days after they spoke of the greatest good and of the true aim of human existence. No doubt these Conversations are largely of Landini’s making, but they were much appreciated by his contemporaries, and Marsilio Ficino is known to have admired them greatly. They were often reprinted at that period; now they have fallen into oblivion, and only the student now and again disturbs the dust which accumulates round them on the bookshelf.
On leaving the hermitage we had intended ascending to the Prato al Soglio, from where there is a splendid view, and from there crossing the mountains by a path which led to Badia a Prataglia. But owing to the snow that lay behind the Eremo this was impossible, and we found ourselves instead on a grassy road skirting the mountain always at about the same level. From one point of this road we looked down on the huge monastery of Camaldoli; further along and the outlook was over apparently limitless masses of pine forest; further again and the slopes below us were clothed with beeches, their leafless branches just touched by the first tinge of red. Finally we were out again on the bare mountain, with the panorama of the Apennines about us, and Serravalle with its tower hanging far below in the blue mist like a bird. The road now became a rough path over uneven, mountainous ground, such as we had crossed on the previous day, but we were at a higher elevation, and the surroundings of sky and scenery were proportionately grander.
I have often thought that the sky of different mountainous regions is different, just as the sea along different lines of the coast varies. Whether we have seen the Mediterranean in sunny weather or in rough, we carry away with us the impression of its restless readiness to run to froth be it counter to a breeze or against a jutting headland. Similarly the North Sea stays with us in its glassy reluctance to break, and the Atlantic in the mighty inherent roll of its waves. As great a difference in character belongs to the sky of different mountainous regions, though it is less easily fixed in word and thought. To me heaviness and sullenness seemed to characterise the sky of the Apennines; once it sank into the mountains, there it stayed. The obvious reason was the poor clothing of the soil and the want of running water; there were none of those surface currents which carry down and dissolve the mists of thick weather elsewhere. For once outside the forest region of Camaldoli, there was a marked want of trees and a marked want of water. The denudation of the soil is something terrible, and already in April many streams were running dry.
The path we followed had many beautiful outlooks, but there was a good deal of snow, and we had come far out of our way. We were glad at last to catch sight of the white line of the driving road into Romagna winding in and out among the mountains below, for the days in April are short. In this case a shower of rain caused us to put on additional speed; we were down in the road before dark, and soon afterwards established in comfortable quarters at the Casa Rossi. This is no inn, in the ordinary sense of the word—the family let the upper part of their house in summer—but they took us in for a couple of nights and made us welcome.