88 LXVI. Lessons of A. D. 1339. cause, and without an effect; that it was easy for them to CHAP. satisfy themselves and their more ignorant contemporaries; and that the idiom, which they had so marvelously acquired, was transcribed in few manuscripts, and was not taught in any university of the West. In a corner of Italy, it faintly existed as the popular, or at least as the ecclesiastical, dialect. The first impression of the Doric and Ionic colonies has never been completely erazed: the Calabrian churches were long attached to the throne of Constantinople; and the monks of St. Basil pursued their studies in mount Athos and the schools of the East. Calabria was the native country of Barlaam, who has already appeared as a sectary and an ambassador; and Barlaam was the first who revived, beyond the Alps, the memory, or at least the writings of Homer." He is described, by Petrarch and Boccace, as a man of a diminutive stature, though truly great in the measure of learning and genius; of a piercing discernment, though of a slow and painful elocution. For many ages (as they affirm) Greece had not produced his equal in the knowledge of history, grammar, and philosophy; and his merit was celebrated in the attestations of the princes and doctors of Constantinople. One of these attestations is still extant; and the emperor Cantacuzene, the protector of his adversaries, is forced to allow that Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato, were familiar to that profound and subtle logician.89 In the court of Avignon, he formed an intimate connection with Petrarch," the first of the Latin scholars; and the desire of mutual instruction was the principle of their literary commerce. The Studies of Tuscan applied himself with eager curiosity and assiduous Petrarch, diligence to the study of the Greek language; and in a labo- ...1374. rious struggle with the dryness and difficulty of the first ru 86 In Calabria quæ olim magna Græcia dicebatur, coloniis Græcis repleta, remansit quædam linguæ veteris cognitio (Hodius, p. 2). If it were eradicated by the Romans, it was revived and perpetuated by the monks of St. Basil, who possessed seven convents at Rossano alone (Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, tom. i. p. 520). 87 Ii Barbari (says Petrarch, the French and Germans) vix, non dicam libros sed nomen Homeri audiverunt. Perhaps, in that respect, the xiiith century was less happy than the age of Charlemagne. 88 See the character of Barlaam, in Boccace de Genealog. Deorum, 1. xv. c. 6. 89 Cantacuzen. 1. ii. c. 36. 90 For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaam, and the two interviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the excellent Memoires sur la · Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p. 406...410. tom. ii. p. 75...77. A. D. 1339 LXVI. CHAP. diments, he began to reach the sense, and to feel the spirit, of poets and philosophers, whose minds were congenial to his own. But he was soon deprived of the society and lessons of this useful assistant: Barlaam relinquished his fruitless embassy; and, on his return to Greece, he rashly provoked the swarms of fanatic monks, by attempting to substitute the light of reason to that of their navel. After a separation of three years, the two friends again met in the court of Naples; but the generous pupil renounced the fairest occasion of improvement; and by his recommendation Barlaam was finally settled in a small bishopric of his native Calabria.91 The manifold avocations of Petrarch, love and friendship, his various correspondence and frequent journies, the Roman laurel, and his elaborate compositions in prose and verse, in Latin and Italian, diverted him from a foreign idiom; and as he advanced in life, the attainment of the Greek language was the object of his wishes, rather than of his hopes. When he was about fifty years of age, a Byzantine ambassador, his friend, and a master of both tongues, presented him with a copy of Homer; and the answer of Petrarch is at once expressive of his eloquence, gratitude, and regret. After celebrating the generosity of the donor, and the value of a gift more precious in his estimation than gold or rubies, he thus proceeds; "Your present of the ge"nuine and original text of the divine poet, the fountain of "all invention, is worthy of yourself and of me: you have "fulfilled your promise, and satisfied my desires. Yet your "liberality is still imperfect: with Homer you should have "given me yourself; a guide, who could lead me into the "fields of light, and disclose to my wondering eyes the spa"cious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, alas! Homer ❝is dumb, or I am deaf; nor is it in my power to enjoy the "beauty which I possess. I have seated him by the side of "Plato, the prince of poets near the prince of philosophers; "and I glory in the sight of my illustrious guests. Of their "immortal writings, whatever had been translated into the "Latin idiom, I had already acquired; but if there be no 91 The bishopric to which Barlaam retired, was the old Locri, in the middle ages Sta. Cyriaca, and by corruption Hieracium, Gerace (Dissert. Chorographica Italiæ medii Evi, p. 312). The dives opum of the Norman times soon lapsed into poverty, since even the church was poor; yet the town still contains 3000 inhabitants (Swinburne, p. 340). LXVI. "profit, there is some pleasure, in beholding these venerable CHAP. "Greeks in their proper and national habit. I am delighted "with the aspect of Homer; and as often as I embrace the "silent volume, I exclaim with a sigh, Illustrious bard! with "what pleasure should I listen to thy song, if my sense of "hearing were not obstructed and lost by the death of one "friend, and in the much lamented absence of another. Nor "do I yet despair; and the example of Cato suggests some "comfort and hope, since it was in the last period of age "that he attained the knowledge of the Greek letters."92 The prize which eluded the efforts of Petrarch, was ob- Of Boctained by the fortune and industry of his friend Boccace,93 cace, A. D. the father of the Tuscan prose. That popular writer, who 1360, &c. derives his reputation from the Decameron, an hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may aspire to the more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study of the Greek language. In the year one thousand three hundred and sixty, a disciple of Barlaam, whose name was Leo, or Leontius Pilatus, was detained in his way to Avignon by the advice and hospitality of Boccace, who lodged the stranger in his house, prevailed on the republic of Florence to allow him an annual stipend, and devoted his leisure to the first Greek professor, who taught that language in the Western countries of Europe. The appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager Leo Pilatus, first disciple; he was clothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or Greek proa mendicant; his countenance was hideous; his face was fessor at Florence, overshadowed with black hair; his beard long and uncomb- and in the ed; his deportment rustic; his temper gloomy and incon- West, stant; nor could he grace his discourse with the ornaments,...1363. or even the perspicuity, of Latin elocution. But his mind. was stored with a treasure of Greek learning: history and fable, philosophy and grammar, were alike at his command; 92 I will transcribe a passage from this epistle of Petrarch (Famil. ix. 2.) Donasti Homerum non in alienum sermonem violento alveo derivatum, sed ex ipsis Græci eloquii scatebris, et qualis divino illi profluxit ingenio. ... Sine tuâ voce Homerus tuus apud me mutus, immo vero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel adspectû solo, ac sæpe illuin amplexus atque suspirans dico, O magne vir, &c. 93 For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born in 1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. medii Ævi, tom. i. p. 248, &c.) and Tiraboschi (tom. v. p. 83. 439. .451.) may be consulted. The editions, versions, imitations of his novels, are innumerable. Yet he was ashamed to communicate that trifling, and perhaps scandalous work to Petrarch his respectable friend, in whose letters and memoirs he conspicuously appears. A. D. 1360 CHAP. and he read the poems of Homer in the schools of Florence. LXVI. It was from his explanation that Boccace composed and transcribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey, which satisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch, and which perhaps, in the succeeding century, was clandestinely used by Laurentius Valla, the Latin interpreter. It was from his narratives that the same Boccace collected the materials for his treatise on the genealogy of the heathen gods, a work, in that age, of stupendous erudition, and which he ostentatiously sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite the wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers.94 The first steps of learning are slow and laborious; no more than ten votaries of Homer could be enumerated in all Italy; and neither Rome, nor Venice, nor Naples, could add a single name to this studious catalogue. But their numbers would have multiplied, their progress would have been accelerated, if the inconstant Leo, at the end of three years, had not relinquished an honourable and beneficial station. In his passage, Petrarch entertained him at Padua a short time; he enjoyed the scholar, but was justly offended with the gloomy and unsocial temper of the man. Discontented with the world and with himself, Leo depreciated his present enjoyments, while absent persons and objects were dear to his imagination. In Italy he was a Thessalian, in Greece a native of Calabria; in the company of the Latins he disdained their language, religion, and manner; no sooner was he landed at Constantinople, than he again sighed for the wealth of Venice and the elegance of Florence. His Italian friends were deaf to his importunity; he depended on their curiosity and indulgence, and embarked on a second voyage; but on his entrance into the Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and the unfortunate teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast, was struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropt a tear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether some copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the hands of the mariners.95 94 Boccace indulges an honest vanity: Ostentationis causâ Græca carmina adscripsi... jure utor meo; meum est hoc decus mea gloria scilicet inter Etruscos Græcis uti carminibus. Nonne ego fui qui Leontium Pilatum, &c. (de Genealogia Deorum, l. xv. c. 7. a work which, though now forgotten, has run through thirteen or fourteen editions). 95 Leontius, or Leo Pilatus, is sufficiently made known by Hody (p. 2...11), LXVI. Greek Manuel A. D. 1390... 1415. But the faint rudiments of Greek learning, which Pe- CHAP. trarch had encouraged and Boccace had planted, soon withered and expired. The succeeding generation was con- Foundatent for a while with the improvement of Latin eloquence: tion of the nor was it before the end of the fourteenth century, that a language new and perpetual flame was rekindled in Italy.96 Previous in Italy by to his own journey, the emperor Manuel dispatched his en- Chrysovoys and orators to implore the compassion of the Western loras, princes. Of these envoys, the most conspicuous, or the most learned, was Manuel Chrysoloras,97 of noble birth, and whose Roman ancestors are supposed to have migrated with the great Constantine. After visiting the courts of France and England, where he obtained some contributions and more promises, the envoy was invited to assume the office of a professor; and Florence had again the honour of this second invitation. By his knowledge, not only of the Greek, but of the Latin, tongue, Chrysoloras deserved the stipend, and surpassed the expectation, of the republic: his school was frequented by a crowd of disciples of every rank and age; and one of these, in a general history, has described. his motives and his success. "At that time," says Leonard Aretin,98 98 "I was a student of the civil law; but my soul was inflamed with the love of letters; and I bestowed "some application on the sciences of logic and rhetoric. "On the arrival of Manuel, I hesitated whether I should "desert my legal studies, or relinquish this golden opportu"nity; and thus, in the ardour of youth, I communed with and the Abbé de Sade (Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 625...634. 670...673), who has very happily caught the lively and dramatic manner of his original. 96 Dr. Hody (p. 54.) is angry with Leonard Aretin, Guiarinus, Paulus Jovius, &c. for affirining, that the Greek letters were restored in Italy post septingentos annos; as if, says he, they had flourished till the end of the viith century. These writers most probably reckoned from the last period of the exarchate; and the presence of the Greek magistrates and troops at Ravenna and Rome, must have preserved, in some degree, the use of their native tongue. 97 See the article of Emanuel, or Manuel Chrysoloras, in Hody (p. 12... 54.) and Tiraboschi (tom. vii. p. 113...118). The precise date of his arrival floats between the years 1390 and 1400, and is only confined by the reign of Boniface IX. 98 The name of Aretinus has been assumed by five or six natives of Arezzo in Tuscany, of whom the most famous and the most worthless lived in the xvith century. Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, the disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator, and an historian, the secretary of four successive popes, and the chancellor of the republic of Florence, where he died A. D. 1444, at the age of seventy-five (Fabric. Bibliot. medii Ævi, tom. i. p. 190, &c. Tiraboschi, tom. vii. p. 33...38). |