Dott. Comm. GUIDO BIAGI
Seated at one of the plutei in the
Laurenziana Library, Florence (1906)
In the quarter of a century which passed from this meeting until his death we were fellow-students, and during that period I never succeeded in exhausting the vast store of knowledge he possessed, even though he gave of it with the freest generosity. From him I learned for the first time of the far-reaching influence of the humanistic movement upon everything that had to do with the litteræ humaniores, and this new knowledge enabled me to crystallize much that previously had been fugitive. “The humanist,” Doctor Biagi explained to me, “whether ancient or modern, is one who holds himself open to receive Truth, unprejudiced as to its source, and—what is more important—after having received Truth realizes his obligation to the world to give it out again, made richer by his personal interpretation.”
This humanistic movement was the forerunner and the essence of the Renaissance, being in reality a revolt against the barrenness of mediævalism. Until then ignorance, superstition, and tradition had confined intellectual life on all sides, but the little band of humanists, headed by Petrarch, put forth a claim for the mental freedom of man and for the full development of his being. As a part of this claim they demanded the recognition of the rich humanities of Greece and Rome, which were proscribed by the Church. If this claim had been postponed another fifty years, the actual manuscripts of many of the present standard classics would have been lost to the world.
The significance of the humanistic movement in its bearing upon the Quest of the Perfect Book is that the invention of printing fitted exactly into the Petrarchian scheme by making it possible for the people to secure volumes that previously, in their manuscript form, could be owned only by the wealthy patrons. This was the point at which Doctor Biagi’s revelation and my previous study met. The Laurenziana Library contains more copies of the so-called humanistic manuscripts, produced in response to the final efforts on the part of patrons to thwart the increasing popularity of the new art of printing, than any other single library. Doctor Biagi proudly showed me some of these treasures, notably Antonio Sinibaldi’s Virgil. The contrast between the hand lettering in these volumes and the best I had ever seen before was startling. Here was a hand letter, developed under the most romantic and dramatic conditions, which represented the apotheosis of the art. The thought flashed through my mind that all the types in existence up to this point had been based upon previous hand lettering less beautiful and not so perfect in execution.
“Why is it,” I demanded excitedly, “that no type has ever been designed based upon this hand lettering at its highest point of perfection?”
HAND-WRITTEN HUMANISTIC CHARACTERS