evening walks in the garden; or, like the dance-songs (_ballate_), of which Poliziano wrote a great number, they were sung with music in the public squares. In short, they belonged to the life of the people who had furnished models for the rhymes composed for them by the poets of quality, with greater refinement, and not always without a secondary object in view. Poliziano’s versatility is wonderfully shown in the labours he undertook in the field of classical philology while thus wandering through the woods of poetry. He was one of the first to establish the true principles of textual criticism; at the request of Innocent VIII. he translated Herodian’s Roman history into Latin,[45] and made the writings of Hippocrates and Galen accessible to those of his countrymen who were not acquainted with Greek. On the latter occasion he claimed the assistance of the learned doctor Pietro Leoni, who was then lecturing in Padua, to secure the correct rendering of the medical terms.[46] The most talented poet of the fifteenth century was also the philologer who, while equal to others in knowledge of antiquity, represents its spirit with more truth and originality. In trying to rival the classical letter-writers, Poliziano followed a fashion that had influenced statesmen and men of learning from Petrarca downwards. He left a mass of epistolary testimony to the character of his age, the value of which must not be lightly estimated, though it may not always answer the expectations raised by the names. Like Ficino and others, Poliziano had arranged his Latin correspondence for publication, and wrote a dedication to Piero de’ Medici, when death cut short his career.[47] More interesting to us than the generality of these letters, which nevertheless contain valuable matter, are his confidential letters in the vulgar tongue, not meant for publication. Even this highly gifted man was not free from the bad habit of the learned men of the fifteenth century—the intermixture of Latin phrases with Italian when the subject gave no occasion for it. CHAPTER IX. POLIZIANO IN THE MEDICEAN HOUSE. SCALA AND RUCELLAI.