he was sent for, and began his book in defense of Christianity against Jews and Gentiles, as also his original translation of Scriptures. Nicholas Perotti, when he presented to the Pope his translation of Polybius, received in return five hundred papal ducats, all new, in a purse, with the remark that this was not equal to his merits, but, in time, enough would come to make him content.

It has already appeared that the court of Nicholas V. was crowded with literary men, for whom salaries were provided in compensation for easy and pleasant work, and to whom often princely donations were given besides. Poggio the veteran and Valla were there, the latter received with favor, notwithstanding the bad odor in which he stood on account of his free thinking, and as bitter still toward the professor of eloquence, George of Trebisond, as he had been toward his literary brethren at Naples. Aurispa in his old age comes to Rome for a while to be confirmed in his office of secretary, and to receive benefices from the willing patron of letters. So, also, Pier Candido Decembrio, withdrawing from Milan, obtains a secretaryship, and then the supervision of the abbreviators, or clerks to whom the preparation of papal briefs was committed. Of the visit of Filelfo to Rome we have already spoken: it was greatly to the surprise of his enemies that he too received with a golden gift the honorary appointment of a secretary, and the assurance of such a provision, that neither he nor his posterity should suffer want. To these names we add that of Giovanni Tortello, an eminent grammarian, who composed a valuable work de orthographia for the Pope,† and who, besides being continued in the office of Cubicularius or gentleman in waiting, which he held under Eugenius, had now the important additional one of librarian.

One man of considerable eminence and great worth, Biondo

* Vespasiano adds "of Aristotle," but concerning this Manetti says nothing.— Manetti, says Mr. Voigt, was not inclined to forsake Florence until banishment, for some unknown reason, forced him to do so. He now received a salary of 600 scudi without obligation to do any work.

Voigt, p. 316. An excellent lexicon, says Voigt, for copyists and emenders of texts.

Flavio,-or Flavio Biondo, as some write his name,-fell, for some reason or other, under the displeasure of Nicholas. He was a native of Forli, born in 1388, and he died in 1463. While yet young, he was sent by his townspeople to transact some public affairs at Milan, and there was the first to copy a newly found manuscript of Cicero's treatise de claris oratoribus. He enjoyed the esteem of Francis Barbaro, and may have served him for a time as his chancellor in the government of Bergamo. Not long after the accession of Eugenius to the papacy, he was invited to Rome to act as one of the apostolical secretaries, and continued to hold that office under the three successors of Eugenius until his death. Pius II. (Æneas Sylvius), had a great esteem for him. Nicholas gave ear to some calumnies against him, but he seems to have been restored to favor towards the end of that Pope's life, when he presented to him his Italia illustrata. He appears to have been a most estimable man, far superior in character to the mass of the humanists and removed from their jealousies and ambitions. His path lay one side from theirs. Slightly versed in Greek, not partaking much of the aesthetic spirit of humanism, he was the antiquarian of the time. In the work above mentioned

he

gave a description of Italy according to the fourteen regions into which it was anciently divided, and examined the early state of each province and city. In his Roma instaurata, a work, says Tiraboschi, of marvelous learning for the time, he described the architectural monuments of ancient Rome. This was dedicated to Eugenius. In a later work, Roma triumphans, dedicated to Pius II., he gave an account of the political, legal, and religious antiquities of Rome. In this he was very much the path-breaker. Comp. Voigt, p. 305, and Tiraboschi, vol. vi., book 3, at the beginning.

Here too a number of Greeks deserve mention, who were employed chiefly as copyists or as translators, and who had, besides the Pope, another willing and able patron in their own countryman, Cardinal Bessarion.*

For the Greeks the principal work still is Humphrey Hody, (Prof. at Oxford, etc.) de Græcis illustribus Linguæ Græca instauratoribus, Lond. 1742, a

Bessarion, a native of Trebisond, was born in 1395, and studied first at Constantinople and afterwards in the Morea, where he had, it is said, Gemistus Pletho, the Platonist, for his master. He became an ecclesiastic, and had acquired such a reputation, when the council of Ferrara was on the carpet, as to be selected to represent the Greeks there, at which time also he was promoted to be Bishop of Nicæa. He repaired to the council, and at first defended Greek orthodoxy, but in process of time decided to accept of "filioque " and of the Roman Pope, renounced his schism and his country,-which, indeed, it was not hard to give up as things were, if something better should offer, and from this time was domiciled in Italy as a Roman ecclesiastic. In 1439 Pope Eugenius raised him to the dignity of a Cardinal, and thereupon he gave himself to the study of Latin, which he learned to write. Nicholas V. appointed him legate at Bologna, and he exerted himself to restore the University there, which political troubles had weakened. Other public missions, whether undertaken to effect a league against the Turks, or to reconcile Louis XI. and Charles the Bold, were put into his hands. He died in 1472 in returning from this last embassy.

Bessarion's importance did not consist in his theological writings, which were chiefly confined to the points of differenee between the eastern and western churches, and were, as Mr. Voigt somewhat bitterly says, a justification of his apostasy, nor in his philosophical, in which he strove against the inclination of the Aristotelians unduly to exalt their head at the expense of Plato,-nor in his general weight of mind, and largeness of views, which were by no means remarkable. But it was as a fosterer of learning, a collector of books, a friend of his unfortunate countrymen that he appears to the most advantage. He was in truth a Pope Nicholas, moving in a smaller orbit, surrounded like him by a learned coterie, of whom, be

posthumous work published by Dr. S. Jebb. See for him Allibone's dictionary. Comp. also Heeren's gesch. des stud. der class. Literatur. vol. ii., Tiraboschi, and Voigt. For their works see Fabricius Bibl. Græc, ed. Harless, the last volume, and Dr. W. Smith's dictionary of Biography and Mythology.

sides some of the Greeks, Niccolò Perotti and Platinawhom we shall speak of when we enter into the next period,― were the most remarkable members. Mr. Voigt thinks that Nicholas out of jealousy kept him away from Rome during the five years of his legation at Bologna, but under Pius II. and Paul II. he became almost the center of literary activity in the Papal city. An academy or reunion met for some years at his house, where questions in philosophy were discussed, and Latin literature received a share of attention. A part of his income was constantly demanded to help his countrymen, especially after the fall of Constantinople, and he educated at his own charge a number of young Greeks at the University of Padua. Another portion was devoted to the collection of books; and his library of 600 codices, on which he spent more than 30,000 scudi, was left, to the great chagrin of the literati at Rome, to the republic of Venice.

Among the Greeks who appeared at the council of Ferrara and Florence was George Gemistus, also called Pletho, the instructor of Bessarion in philosophy. We know little of the events of his life, either before or after his coming into Italy. He held before that visit some public place under the Byzantine emperor in the Morea, to which he seems to have returned, and he is said to have died in extreme old age. Without going over the dam, as Bassarion did, into Romanism, he favored the union of the two churches. He is principally memorable. as an accurate and earnest student of the works of Plato, and must be regarded as the first person that laid the foundation for the cultivation of a more accurate acquaintance with that philosophy in Western Europe. His works are more valuable than those of most of the Greek emigrants.

Among these emigrants of an early time, George of Trebisond, so called not from his birthplace, which was in Crete, but from the origin of his family, deserves mention. He was born in 1395 and came to Italy about the year 1420, when we find him under the care, as it were, of Francis Barbaro, who seeks the academical place for him which Filelfo was about to leave in order to go to Constantinople. In the learning of Latin he had for his masters Guarino and Vittorino. From

Vicenza, where he was unsuccessful, he makes his way to Venice, and teaches eloquence there for some years. From Venice the influence of his friend Barbaro paved his way to Rome,he having already renounced the Greek errors, to become an orthodox Catholic. At Rome the field of his instructions was the same as before, but he had an advantage over the occidentals, through his superior knowledge of the Peripatetic philosophy, in applying those principles of rhetoric which Aristotle had laid down. Here too he occupied himself with translations, and when the palmy days of Nicholas V. came on, received some of the fruits of his munificence. On one occasion it is said, when the Pope made him a present, he blushed, which the other observing said, "take, take, for thou wilt not always have a Nicholas." He also received the appointment and the pay of apostolical scribe.

Trapezuntius, as he is called, was a disputatious, self-conceited, jealous, and irascible man, and when Lorenzo Valla came to Rome the quarrel broke out between them, to which we have alluded, concerning the relative merits of Cicero and Quintilian, the Greek taking the side of Cicero. His freedom in criticising the style of Guarino in one of his orations produced a feud between the two. Poggio and he were at loggerheads because he claimed the greater part of the merit in Poggio's translations of Xenophon's Cyropædia and of Diodorus Siculus. Another quarrel broke out between him and Theodore of Gaza, which the latter clearly began by publicly finding fault with a definition given by George in his lecture room. The enemies of George and his own misconduct alienated the mind of Pope Nicholas from him. In his translation of the Evangelical Preparation of Eusebius he had left out some things which seemed to him to conflict with the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, had put in other things, and made wholesale alterations. This want of fidelity being made known to Nicholas by Bessarion and Perotti, the book was given to another person to emend. George also executed his translation of Ptolemy's Almagest, and wrote a commentary on it besides, in the brief space of nine months. When this came to the notice of the Pope, he received orders to quit Rome, and accordingly