37. It was on occasion of a tournament, wherein Lorenzo himself and his brother Julian had appeared in the lists, that poems were composed by Luigi Pulci, and by Politian, then a youth, or rather a boy, the latter of which displayed more harmony, spirit, and imagination, than any that had been written since the death of Petrarch.[352] It might thus be seen, that there was no real incompatibility between the pursuits of ancient literature and the popular language of fancy and sentiment; and that, if one gave chastity and elegance of style, a more lively and natural expression of the mind could best be attained by the other. [352] Extracts from this poem will be found in Roscoe’s Lorenzo, and in Sismondi, Littérature du Midi, ii. 43, who praises it highly, as the Italian critics have done, and as by the passages quoted it seems well to deserve. Roscoe supposes Politian to be only fourteen years old when he wrote the Giostra di Giuliano. But the lines he quotes allude to Lorenzo as chief of the republic, which could not be said before the death of Pietro in December, 1469. If he wrote them at sixteen, it is extraordinary enough; but these two years make an immense difference. Ginguéné is of opinion, that they do not allude to the tournament of 1468, but to one in 1473. |Paul II. persecutes the learned.| 38. This period was not equally fortunate for the learned in other parts of Italy. Ferdinand of Naples, who came to the throne in 1458, proved no adequate representative of his father Alfonso. But at Rome they encountered a serious calamity. A few zealous scholars, such as Pomponius Lætus, Platina, Callimachus Experiens, formed an academy in order to converse together on subjects of learning, and communicate to each other the results of their private studies. Dictionaries, indexes, and all works of compilation being very deficient, this was the best substitute for the labour of perusing the whole body of Latin antiquity. They took Roman names; an innocent folly, long after practised in Europe. The pope, however, Paul II., thought fit, in 1468, to arrest all this society on charges of conspiracy against his life, for which there was certainly no foundation, and of setting up Pagan superstitions against Christianity, of which, in this instance, there seems to have been no proof. They were put to the torture, and kept in prison a twelvemonth, when the tyrant, who is said to have vowed this in his first rage, set them all at liberty; but it was long before the Roman academy recovered any degree of vigour.[353] [353] Tiraboschi, vi. 93. Ginguéné. Brucker. Corniani ii. 280. This writer, inferior to none in his acquaintance with the literature of the fifteenth century, but, though not an ecclesiastic, always favourable to the court of Rome, seems to strive to lay the blame on the imprudence of Platina. |Mathias Corvinus.| |His library.|