FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
99
The labouis of those who may justly be called the restorers of classical literature, were mainly instrumental in producing that state of things, which turned men's minds towards the invention of printing, and nourished it to maturity, when indented. The monks themselves, so far as they contributed to the perusal of legends and mira- enlous stories, were the unconscious instruments of that spreading desire for knowledge, which ushered in the invention of printing, and which issued in the Reformation itself.
We lost a g^reat number of ancient authors, by the conquest of Egypt by the Saracens, which deprived Europe of die use of the papyrus. They could find no substitute, and knew of no other expedient but writing on parchment,which became every day more scarce and costly. Ignorance and barbarism unfortunately seized on Roman manuscripts, and industriously defaced pages once imagined to have been immortal. The most elegant compositions of classic Rome were con- verted into the psalms of a breviary, or the pray- ers of a missal. Livy and Tacitus " hide their diminished heads" to preserve the legends of a saint, and immortal truths were converted into clumsy fictions. At Rome, a part of a book of Livy was found, between the Imes of a parch- ment but half effaced, on which they had substi- tuted a book of the bible ; and the recent disco- veiv of Cicero de Rupublica, which lay concealed under some monkish writing, shows the Cute of ancient manuscripts.
In these times, manuscripts were important articles of commerce ; being excessively scarce, and preserved with theutmost care, usurers them- selves considered them as precious objects for pawn. A student of Pavia, who was reduced, nised a new fortune by leaving in pawn a manu- ■cript of a body of law ; and a grammarian, who «as rained by a fire, rebuilt his house with two anall volumes of Cicero.
In this age of manuscript, there is reason to believe, that when a man of letters accidentally obuinel an unknown work, he did not make the turest use of it, and cautiously concealed it from bis cotemporaries. Leonard Aretino, a distin- guished scholar at this time, having found a Greek manuscript of Procopius De Hello Gothica, tnielated it into Latin, and published the work ; Init concealing the author's name, it passed as his own, till another manuscript of the same work bemg found, the fraud of Aretino was apparent. The first public library in Italy was founded b^ I person of no considerable fortune : his credit, Ins frugality, and fortitude, were indeed equal to » treasuiy. Nicholas Niccoli, the son of a mer- cknt, after the death of his fother relinquished llie beaten roads of gain, and devoted his soul to itgdv, and his fortune to assist students. At his death, he left his library to the public, but his debts being greater than his effects, the princely genetosity of Cosmo de Medici realized the in- tentions of its former possessor, and afterwards enriched it by the addition of an apartment, in <liicb he placed the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Cbaldaic, and Indian manuscripts. — lyiireaH.
Mr. Watson in his history of printing quotes an epistle of Antonius Boronia, to Alphonsus king of Naples and Sicily, in which are the following expressions: — ^" i on lately wrote to me from Florence, that the works of Titus Livius are there to be sold, that the price of each book is one hundred and twenty crowns of gold; therefore I entreat your Majesty that you pur- chase it, and cause it to be sent to me. One thing I want to know of your prudence, whether I or Poggio, have done best ; he that he might buy a country house near Florence sold Livy, which he had writ in a very fair hand ; and I, to purchase Livy, have exposed a piece of land to sale." No man, of this period, devoted himself with so much industry to the restoring of classi- cal manuscripts and literature, than Poggio. No difiiculty, no want of assistance, no expense or labour aiscouraged him. His youth was spent in travelling to attain what seemed to be the sole object of his life ; and when he became secretary to the popes, eight of whom employed him in succession, he used the influence and opportu- nities his situation gave him, for the promotion of literature and the collecting of manuscripts at Rome ; though he complains that his zeau was not assisted by the great. He found under a heap of rubbisn in a decayed coffer the works of Quintilian ; and to his great joy drew it out of its grave. " Oh, great gains ! Oh unexpected feli- city ! I entreat you my Pogpo, send me the manuscript as soon as possible, that I may see it before I me." exclaims Aretino, in a letter over- flowing wiUi enthusiasm on P(^gio's discovery of the above manuscript.
The term academy was revived in Italy, at this time, but with a signification somewhat different from what it had ^me in ancient times. It was used to imply, not a school in which phi- losophy was taught by a master to his pupils, but an association of individuals for the cultiva- tion of learning or science, and usually constitu- ted and endowed by the head of the state in which it was established. What was now called an academy, in fact more nearly resembled what was anciently denominated a Museum, — the name given, for example, to the famous associa- tion of the learned, founded by the first Ptolemy at Alexandria, which so long subsisted in that city. The emperor Charlemagne is also recorded, to have established in his palace at Paris a society of this description. It was the fancy of the members of this society to assume each a classical or scriptural appellation. At their meet- ings they were accustomed to give account of such books as they had been studying ; and their attention is said to have been directed, not with- out effect, to the regulation and improvement of the vernacular language of the country.
It has of late be^me common, more especially in England and the United States of America, to give the name of academies to those semina- ries in which so many various branches of edu- cation are taught as to entitle them to rank, it may be thought, as a sort of minor universities In this sense, many of the principal towns in
