The discernment of character, possessed by Cosimo in a very high degree, not only enabled him to extend enlightened patronage to arts and letters, but also to provide for the future needs of erudition. Stimulated by the presence of the Greeks who crowded Florence during the sitting of the Council in 1438, he formed a plan for encouraging Hellenic studies. It was he who founded the Platonic Academy, and educated Marsilio Ficino, the son of his physician, for the special purpose of interpreting Greek philosophy. Ficino, in a letter to Lorenzo de' Medici, observes that during twelve years he had conversed with Cosimo on matters of philosophy, and always found him as acute in reasoning as he was prudent and powerful in action. 'I owe to Plato much, to Cosimo no less. He realised for me the virtues of which Plato gave me the conception.' Thus the man whose political cynicism is enshrined in such apophthegms as these:--'A few ells of scarlet would fill Florence with citizens;' 'You cannot govern a State with paternosters;' 'Better the city ruined than the city lost to us'--must, by his relations to scholars and his enthusiasm for culture, still command our admiration and respect. Among the friends of Cosimo, to whose personal influence at Florence the Revival of Learning owed a vigorous impulse, Niccolo de' Niccoli claims our earliest attention.[145] The part he took in promoting Greek studies has been already noticed, and we have seen that his private library formed the nucleus of the Marcian collection. Of the eight hundred volumes bequeathed to his executors, the majority had been transcribed by his own hand; for he was assiduous in this labour, and plumed himself upon his skill in cursive as well as printed character.[146] His whole fortune was expended long before his death in buying manuscripts or procuring copies from a distance. 'If he heard of any book in Greek or Latin not to be had in Florence, he spared no cost in getting it; the number of the Latin books which Florence owes entirely to his generosity cannot be reckoned.'[147] Great, therefore, must have been the transports of delight with which he welcomed on one occasion a manuscript containing seven tragedies of Sophocles, six of Æschylus, and the 'Argonautica' of Apollonius Rhodius.[148] Nor was he only eager in collecting for his own use. He lent his books so freely that, at the moment of his death, two hundred volumes were out on loan;[149] and, when it seemed that Boccaccio's library would perish from neglect, at his own cost he provided substantial wooden cases for it in the Convent of S. Spirito. We must not, however, conclude that Niccolo was a mere copyist and collector. On the contrary, he made a point of collating the several MSS. of an author on whose text he was engaged, removed obvious errors, and suggested emendations, helping thus to lay the foundations of modern criticism. His judgment in matters of style was so highly valued that