In a letter of remonstrance to Cosmo de’ Medici, Filelfo inveighed bitterly against Niccolo Niccoli, whom he asserted Cosmo had himself acknowledged to be guilty of insolence to the learned, and particularly of contumelious conduct towards the eminent Manuel Crysoloras.—“Ad ea tu sane leniter respondisti, ac subridens, non oportere inquiens mirari me nec æge ferre Nicolai Nicoli detractionem; eo enim esse hominem ingenio ut neminem doctum virum relinquat intactum mordacitate suà, quique ne soli quidem ipsi parceret, upote qui et Manuelem Chrysoloram sapientem et summum illum virum barbam pediculosam adhuc semper nominet, et Ambrosium monachum cui magis affectus est quam propriæ animæ, attonitum per contumeliam vocet.”—Philelfi Epistolæ, p. 12.
[229] Philelfi Satyræ, quartæ decadis, hecatosticha prima.
This satire concludes with the following atrocious address to the judges of Cosmo.
“En Mundum servat conjectum in vincula carcer,
Qui rebus momenta dabit non parva futuris.
Nunc etiam atque etiam vobiscum volvite curas,
Et lustrate animo quæ sint potiora saluti
Urbis consilia: his castas accommodet aures
Quisque suas. Vobis res coram publica sese
Offeret in medium, referens stragesque necesque