duced to him by Petrarch; and so thoroughly devoted was he to the interests of literature, that although he detested his person,* he solicited and prevailed on him to remain for nearly three years in his family. By his influence with the Florentines, he obtained for the Greek a pension and a school, but so confined was the taste of the age for elegant literature, that not more than ten individuals could be found in Italy who could read the language he professed. Wearied with his tedious occupation, Leo longed to visit Greece, and, accordingly, embarked against the entreaties of his patrons; but scarcely had he landed at Constantinople, ere he again sighed for the delights of Italy; he set out on his return, had reached the Adriatic, and was already within sight of &c. l. i. c. i. p. 2.) Petrarch seems to consider him an Italian, "Leo noster, vere Calaber, sed ut ipse vult Thessalus, quasi nobilius sit Græcum esse quam Italum; idem tamen ut apud nos Græcus sit apud illos puto Italus, quo scilicet utrobique peregrina nobilitetur origine."-Rer. Senil. 1. iii. apud Hodium et Tiraboschi. Aspectu horridus homo est," says Boccacio, in enumerating those by whom he had been aided in the composition of his mythology," turpi facie, barba prolixa et capillitio nigro, et meditatione occupatus assidua, moribus incultus nec satis urbanus."-De Genealogia Deorum, l. xv. c. 6. p. 388. + So says Petrarch in a letter to Homer, in reply to one written to him in the name of the poet by Boccacio. his destination, when the vessel was struck by lightning, and the unfortunate professor perished.* After the death of Pilatius, an interval of upwards of thirty years occurred ere his chair was dignified by the presence of a successor; during which, those who sought to acquire a knowledge of Greek, were obliged for that purpose to travel to Constantinople.+ But towards the close of the fourteenth century, during the negotiations for the union of the eastern and western churches, a new professor was found in Manuel Chrysoloras. He had been ambassador from John Palæologus to the court of Richard II. of England; and charmed with his passage through Italy, he was easily prevailed on to return and fix his abode at Florence.‡ Here his exertions as a lecturer were attended with brilliant success; and his class, amongst other illustrious scholars, could boast the names of Leonardo Bruni, and Carlo Marsuppini, * Gibbon, c. lxvi. Schoell, 1. vii. c. 99. iv. p. 334. Mill's Theo. Ducas, vol. i. p. 281. ii. Berington, b. + Tiraboschi, vol. v. l. iii. c. i. p. 401. vol. vi. p. 2. 1. iii. c. Tiraboschi, ib. p. 126. Gibbon, ib. Mill's Theo. Ducas, vol. i. p. 301. § Chancellor to the Republic of Florence, where he died in A.D. 1444. His literary taste was said to have been engendered from perpetually contemplating, when a boy, a portrait (both denominated Aretino,) of Palla Strozzi,* the reformer of the University of Florence, of Ambrosio Traversari, General of the Camaldolite Friars, of Guarino of Verona, the celebrated Poggio Bracciolini, Francesco Filelfo, whom I have frequently mentioned, Vittorino Rambaldoni,+ Pietro Paolo Vergerio, Gregorio da Tiferna, who was subsequently, in 1458, the first professor of Greek who had appeared at Paris, and John Aurispa, the Sicilian, by whose means the Italians were first made acquainted with the works of Plato, Xenophon, Lucian, Strabo, Callimachus, and Pindar. Chrysoloras may, in fact, be regarded as the perfecter of the task commenced by Petrarch and Boccacio,§ and the effectual of Petrarch suspended in a room where he was confined. Gibbon, n. c. lxvi. * A Florentine, successor of Bruni. He + Better known by the title of Vittorino de Feltre. was president of the academy founded at Mantua, by John Francesco Gonzaga. ↑ Besides these, he likewise introduced into Italy Plotinus, Proclus, Dion Cassius, Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Procopius, Oppian, and the fragments attributed to Orpheus. Schoell, 1. vii. c. 100. Ginguené, vol. vi. c. xviii. p. 287. Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. i. l. i. c. 4. p. 102. § With these names I should likewise associate that of John Malpaghino, called John of Ravenna, the amanuensis of Petrarch, and subsequently a teacher of Greek at Padua and Florence. Ginguené, vol. ii. c. xii, s. 2. reviver of Greek learning in the West. He resigned his situation in A.D. 1400, and was afterwards a teacher in the schools of Padua and Milan, and died during the Council of Constance, at an advanced age, fifteen years after his departure from Florence. After this event, a considerable time elapsed before the arrival of any new Greeks of eminence, but still the taste which had been implanted was productive of ample fruits, and numerous native professors were found to supply the institutions of the various states. New patrons, too, arose in the Medici, Pope Nicolas V. and Alfonso of Arragon, under whose inspection the work of collecting and translating manuscripts was carried on with vigour and success. During this interval, and previous to the fall of Constantinople, Rome and the North were successively visited by George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza,* who had been driven from Thessalonica by the Turks in 1430, and George Gemistius Pletho, whose name has acquired celebrity, as well from his literary as grammatical labours. But the most remarkable individual of the emigrants of this era was John Bessarion, of Trebizond, who in 1438 was present * See Hodius, l. i. c. iii. iv. Ginguené, v. iii. c. xx. pp. 360, 361. Tiraboschi, v. ii. p. ii. c. ii. p. 139. + Ginguené, v. iii. c. 18. at the Council of Florence, and in the year following was invested with the purple by Eugene IV. After the dissolution of the council, he fixed his abode at Rome, where his talents and consequent influence rendered him an efficient protector to his fugitive countrymen, and a valuable friend and promoter of letters.* It was thus, as I have before mentioned, that a refuge was providentially prepared for the miserable Greeks on their expulsion from Byzantium ; and here arriving, according to Filelfo, destitute of every resource, and mourning their relatives abandoned to slavery or death, they were received with that hospitality which their precursors had secured for them. Amongst these melancholy emigrants, I have already mentioned the name of Lascaris, the protegé of Bessarion, and the friend of Leo X. Demetrius Chalcondylas, who had arrived some time before, had been appointed to the vacant chair of Chrysoloras. But it would be alike tedious and uninteresting to continue the list, or to trace the story of those, who, in the succeeding years, were gradually forced by tyranny to abandon their country, and seek an asy * Gibbon, c. lxvi. Ducas, vol. i. p. 318. xx. p. 358. Berington, b. vi. p. 488. Mill's Theo. |