Murat. xxv. col. 295 sqq., with the Italian translation in the
Opere Volgari di L. B. Alberti, vol. i. pp. lxxxix-cix, where the conjecture is made and shown to be probable that this ‘Vita’ is by Alberti himself. See, further, Vasari, iv. 52 sqq. Mariano Socini, if we can believe what we read of him in Æn. Sylvius (
Opera, p. 622,
Epist. 112) was a universal dilettante, and at the same time a master in several subjects.
308
Similar attempts, especially an attempt at a flying-machine, had been made about 880 by the Andalusian Abul Abbas Kasim ibn Firnas. Comp. Gyangos, The History of the Muhammedan Dynasties in Spain (London, 1840), i. 148 sqq. and 425-7; extracts in Hammer, Literaturgesch. der Araber, i. Introd. p. li.
309
Quidquid ingenio esset hominum cum quadam effectum elegantia, id prope divinum ducebat.
310
This is the book (comp. p. 185, note 2) of which one part, often printed alone, long passed for a work of Pandolfini.
311
In his work, De Re Ædificatoria, l. viii. cap. i., there is a definition of a beautiful road: ‘Si modo mare, modo montes, modo lacum fluentem fontesve, modo aridam rupem aut planitiem, modo nemus vallemque exhibebit.’
312
One writer among many: Blondus, Roma Triumphans, l. v. pp. 117 sqq., where the definitions of glory are collected from the ancients, and the desire of it is expressly allowed to the Christian. Cicero’s work, De Gloria, which Petrarch claimed to own, was stolen from him by his teacher Convenevole, and has never since been seen. Alberti, in a youthful composition when he was only twenty years of age, praises the desire of fame. Opere, vol. i. pp. cxxvii-clxvi.
313
Paradiso, xxv. at the beginning: ‘Se mai continga,’ &c. See above, p. 133, note 2. Comp. Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 49. ‘Vaghissimo fu e d’onore e di pompa, e per avventura più che alla sua inclita virtù non si sarebbe richiesto.’
314
De Vulgari Eloquio, l. i. cap. i. and esp. De Monarchia, l. i. cap. i., where he wishes to set forth the idea of monarchy not only in order to be useful to the world but also ‘ut palmam tanti bravii primus in meam gloriam adipiscar.’
315
Convito, ed. Venezia, 1529, fol. 5 and 6.
316
Paradiso, vi. 112 sqq.
317
E.g. Inferno, vi. 89; xiii. 53; xvi. 85; xxxi. 127.
318
Purgatorio, v. 70, 87, 133; vi. 26; viii. 71; xi. 31; xiii. 147.
319
Purgatorio, xi. 85-117. Besides ‘gloria’ we here find close together ‘grido, fama, rumore, nominanza, onore’ all different names for the same thing. Boccaccio wrote, as he admits in his letter to Joh. Pizinga (Op. Volg. xvi. 30 sqq.) ‘perpetuandi nominis desiderio’.
320
Scardeonius, De Urb. Patav. Antiqu. (Græv. Thesaur. vi. iii. col. 260). Whether ‘cereis’ or ‘certis muneribus’ should be the reading, cannot be said. The somewhat solemn nature of Mussatus can be recognised in the tone of his history of Henry VII.
321
Franc. Petrarca, Posteritati, or Ad Posteros, at the beginning of the editions of his works, or the only letter of Book xviii. of the Epp. Seniles; also in Fracassetti, Petr. Epistolæ Familiares, 1859, i. 1-11. Some modern critics of Petrarch’s vanity would hardly have shown as much kindness and frankness had they been in his place.
322
Opera, ed. 1581, p. 177: ‘De celebritate nominis importuna.’ Fame among the mass of people was specially offensive to him. Epp. Fam. i. 337, 340. In Petrarch, as in many humanists of the older generation, we can observe the conflict between the desire for glory and the claims of Christian humility.
323
‘De Remediis Utriusque Fortunæ’ in the editions of the works. Often printed separately, e.g. Bern, 1600. Compare Petrarch’s famous dialogue, ‘De Contemptu Mundi’ or ‘De Conflictu Curarum Suarum,’ in which the interlocutor Augustinus blames the love of fame as a damnable fault.
324
Epp. Fam. lib. xviii. (ed. Fracassetti) 2. A measure of Petrarch’s fame is given a hundred years later by the assertion of Blondus (Italia Illustrata, p. 416) that hardly even a learned man would know anything of Robert the Good if Petrarch had not spoken of him so often and so kindly.
325
It is to be noted that even Charles IV., perhaps influenced by Petrarch, speaks in a letter to the historian Marignola of fame as the object of every striving man. H. Friedjung, Kaiser Karl IV. und sein Antheil am geistigen Leben seiner Zeit, Vienna, 1876, p. 221.
326
Epist. Seniles, xiii. 3, to Giovanni Aretino, Sept. 9, 1370.
327
Filippo Villani, Vite, p. 19
328
Both together in the epitaph on Boccaccio: ‘Nacqui in Firenze al Pozzo Toscanelli; Di fuor sepolto a Certaldo giaccio,’ &c. Comp. Op. Volg. di Boccaccio, xvi. 44.
329
Mich. Savonarola, De Laudibus Patavii, in Murat. xxiv. col. 1157. Arquà remained from thenceforth the object of special veneration (comp. Ettore Conte Macola, I Codici di Arquà, Padua, 1874), and was the scene of great solemnities at the fifth centenary of Petrarch’s death. His dwelling is said to have been lately given to the city of Padua by the last owner, Cardinal Silvestri.
330
The decree of 1396 and its grounds in Gaye, Carteggio, i. 123.
331
Reumont, Lorenzo de’ Medici, ii. 180.
332
Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 39.
333
Franco Sacchetti, nov. 121.
334
The former in the well-known sarcophagus near San Lorenzo, the latter over a door in the Palazzo della Ragione. For details as to their discovery in 1413, see Misson, Voyage en Italie, vol. i., and Michele Savonarola, col. 1157.
335
Vita di Dante, l. c. How came the body of Cassius from Philippi back to Parma?
336
‘Nobilitatis fastu’ and ‘sub obtentu religionis,’ says Pius II. (Comment. x. p. 473). The new sort of fame must have been inconvenient to those who were accustomed to the old.
That Carlo Malatesta caused the statue of Virgil to be pulled down and thrown into the Mincio, and this, as he alleged, from anger at the veneration paid to it by the people of Mantua, is a well-authenticated fact, specially attested by an invective written in 1397 by P. P. Vergerio against C. M., De dirutâ Statuâ Virgilii P. P. V. eloquentissimi Oratoris Epistola ex Tugurio Blondi sub Apolline, ed. by Marco Mantova Benavides (publ. certainly before 1560 at Padua). From this work it is clear that till then the statue had not been set up again. Did this happen in consequence of the invective? Bartholomæus Facius (De Vir. Ill. p. 9 sqq. in the Life of P. P. V. 1456) says it did, ‘Carolum Malatestam invectus Virgilii statua, quam ille Mantuæ in foro everterat, quoniam gentilis fuerat, ut ibidem restitueretur, effecit;’ but his evidence stands alone. It is true that, so far as we know, there are no contemporary chronicles for the history of Mantua at that period (Platina, Hist. Mant. in Murat. xx. contains nothing about the matter), but later historians are agreed that the statue was not restored. See for evidence, Prendilacqua, Vita di Vitt. da Feltre, written soon after 1446 (ed. 1871, p. 78), where the destruction but not the restoration of the statue is spoken of, and the work of Ant. Possevini,
