The Cambridge Modern History. R. Nisbet Bain
curiosity; Greek codices were sought, not only by students eager for knowledge, but also by a much larger world. Commercial houses at Florence, such as that of the Medici, with agencies throughout Europe and the Levant, spared no expense in procuring Greek books. Princes, and sometimes Popes, joined in the competition. A new Greek classic gave not only the kind of pleasure which an expert finds in a rare book, but also the pride of possession, not necessarily allied with knowledge, which a wealthy collector feels in a good picture. In short, classical antiquity, Greek especially, was vehemently the fashion in Italy, if that phrase be not less than just to the earnestness of the movement. A letter-writer of the time has related that, just after the publication of Politian’s Miscellanea at Florence in 1489, he happened to go into a public office, and found the clerks neglecting their business while they devoured the new book, divided in sheets among them. In an age when the demand for manuscripts had all these forces behind it, the search could not fail to be well-organised, if only as a branch of commerce. For Greek books, Constantinople was the chief hunting-ground. Thither, for at least half a century before the fatal year 1453, many Italian humanists repaired; enjoying, we may suppose, every facility for research. Three such men are foremost among those who brought copies of the Greek classics to Italy. Giovanni Aurispa (1369-1459) went to Constantinople in youth, to study Greek; and, returning to Italy in 1423, carried with him no less than 238 manuscripts. A quiet teacher and student, as he is described by Filelfo, -” placidis Aurispa Camoenis deditus,”—he closed his long life at Ferrara. Guarino da Verona (1370-1460), who also acquired Greek at Constantinople, brought back with him a large number of Greek books. But neither he nor Aurispa can have had better opportunities than Francesco Filelfo (1398-1481), afterwards so conspicuous as a humanist. He studied Greek at Constantinople with John (brother of Manuel) Chrysoloras, whose daughter he married. In selecting the books which he brought home with him, he doubtless had access to the best stores of the Eastern metropolis. Considerable interest therefore attaches to the list of his Greek books which Filelfo gives in a letter to Ambrogio Traversari, written shortly after his return to Venice in 1427. The manuscripts which he enumerates are those which he had carried with him to Italy. He says that he is expecting a few more (“olios...nonnullos”“) by the next Venetian ships from the Bosporus; but we may assume that the catalogue in this letter includes the great bulk of his Greek library. It comprises the principal Greek poets (including the Alexandrian), with the notable exception of the Attic dramatists, who are represented only by “seven plays of Euripides.” In prose he has the historians, from Herodotus to Polybius; of the orators, Demosthenes, Aeschines, and “one oration of Lysias”; no dialogue of Plato, but nearly all the more important writings of Aristotle: also much prose literature, good and bad, of the Alexandrian and Roman ages. The list contains no book which is not now extant.
Not all men, however, were in a position to seek manuscripts for themselves at Constantinople or elsewhere. The majority of collectors perforce relied on agents. A typical figure in the manuscript-trade of the Renaissance was Vespasiano da Bisticci of Florence (1421-98), to whose pen we owe vivid portraits of several among his more distinguished clients. He acted as an agent in procuring and purchasing manuscripts. He also employed a staff of copyists which was probably the largest in Europe. But he was not merely a man of business. He was scholar enough to see that his men made correct transcripts. In his later years the printer was beginning to supersede the scribe. Vespasiano regarded this new mechanical contrivance with all the scorn of a connoisseur in penmanship, and of one who grieved that those treasures which he procured for the select few should be placed within the reach of the multitude. Among the eminent men of whom Vespasiano became the biographer was Niccolo de1 Niccoli, of Florence, one of the most notable collectors in the earlier Renaissance. Niccoli was an elegant Latin scholar, and held a prominent place in the literary circle of Cosmo de’ Medici. His house was filled with choice relics of antiquity, marbles, coins, and gems; in the refined luxury of his private life he seemed to Vespasiano “a perfect model of the men of old”; but the object to which he devoted most of his wealth and thought was the acquisition of Greek and Latin manuscripts. It was to him that Aurispa brought the famous eleventh-century codex now known as the Laurentian, containing Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Apollonius Rhodius. Bred in the days when good copyists were scarce, Niccoli had become inured, like Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Poggio, to the labour of transcribing manuscripts, and a large proportion of those in his library were the work of his own hand. At his death in 1437 he bequeathed 800 manuscripts to Cosmo de’ Medici and fifteen other trustees, among whom were Ambrogio Traversari and Poggio.
This noble bequest was worthily used by Cosmo de’ Medici, who stands out as the first great founder of libraries at the Renaissance. Already, in his exile from Florence, he had founded at Veniqe, in 1433, the Library of San Giorgio Maggiore. In 1441, when the new hall of the Convent of San Marco at Florence was ready to receive books, he placed there 400 of Niccoli’s volumes. Of the other 400 the greater part passed into his own large collection, which became the nucleus of the Medicean Library. For the new Abbey which he had built at Fiesole he also provided a library, giving a commission to Vespasiano, who set forty-five copyists to work, and produced 200 manuscripts in twenty-two months. The Medicean collection, joined to those of San Marco and of the Abbey at Fiesole, form the oldest part of the books now in the Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana.
Another great library which first took shape in the fifteenth century is that of the Vatican. A papal library of some sort had existed from very early times, and had received from Pope Zacharias (741-52) a large addition to its stock of Greek manuscripts. This old collection had been deposited in the Lateran. When the papal Court was removed to Avignon in 1309, the books were taken thither. The Great Schism, which began in 1378, was closed by the election of Martin V in 1417. The books were subsequently brought back from Avignon to Rome, and placed in the Vatican. Eugenius IV (1431-47), who came next after Martin V, interested himself in this matter. But his successor, Nicholas V (1447-55), has the best claim to be called the founder of the Vatican Library. As Tommaso Parentucelli, he had catalogued the Library of San Marco at Florence for Cosmo de’ Medici. He was thus well qualified to build up a great collection for the Vatican. During the eight years of his pontificate, he enlarged that collection with energy and judgment, adding to it several thousands of manuscripts. The number of Latin manuscripts alone was, at his death, 824, as is shown by a catalogue dated April 16, 1455. He had intended also to erect a spacious library, which should be thrown open to the public; but he did not live to execute that design. His successor, Calixtus III (1455-8), added many volumes brought from Constantinople after its capture by the Turks. Sixtus IV (1471-84),—Francesco della Rovere, a Franciscan monk of learning and eloquence,—became the second founder of the library. In 1475 he appointed as librarian the erudite Bartolommeo Sacchi, known as Platina from the Latinised name of his birthplace Piadena. Under the supervision of Platina, to whom Sixtus IV gave a free hand, the collection was lodged in its present abode, a suite of rooms on the ground-floor of a building in the Vatican which had been erected by Nicholas V, but had hitherto been used for other purposes. Before his death in 1481, Platina enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing these rooms suitably furnished and decorated. A catalogue had also been made, and the Vatican Library had been completely established in its new home.
Among private founders of libraries in the fifteenth century mention is due to Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, who created there a great collection of classics, of theology, and of medieval and humanistic literature. Vespasiano states that during fourteen years a large staff of scribes was constantly occupied in adding to this collection, and records with marked satisfaction that no printed book was suffered to profane it. Few private libraries then in existence can have rivalled that of Urbino; but many others must have been very considerable. Such, for instance, was the library of Cardinal Bessarion at Rome, said by Vespasiano to have contained 600 Greek and Latin manuscripts. The owner presented it, in 1468, to St Mark’s at Venice; but, with that apathy towards the Classical Renaissance which characterised the Venetian Republic down to the close of the fifteenth century, a generation went by before the munificent gift was worthily housed.
The incessant quest for manuscripts, and the gradual formation of large libraries, slowly improved the external facilities for humanistic study. Much progress was made in this respect during the interval between the death of Petrarch in 1374 and that of Politian in 1494. Yet, even in the latter part of the fifteenth century, good classical texts were far from abundant. It was only by the printing press that such