The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

1123

Giov. Villani, iv. 29, vi. 46. The name occurs as early as 1150 in Northern countries. It is defined by William of Malmesbury (iii. 237, ed. Londin, 1840): ‘Epicureorum … qui opinantur animam corpore solutam in aerem evanescere, in auras effluere.’

1124

See the argument in the third book of Lucretius. The name of Epicurean was afterwards used as synonymous with freethinker. Lorenzo Valla (Opp. 795 sqq.) speaks as follows of Epicurus: ‘Quis eo parcior, quis contentior, quis modestior, et quidem in nullo philosophorum omnium minus invenio fuisse vitiorum, plurimique honesti viri cum Graecorum, tum Romanorum, Epicurei fuerunt.’ Valla was defending himself to Eugenius IV. against the attacks of Fra Antonio da Bitonto and others.

1125

Inferno, vii. 67-96.

1126

Purgatorio, xvi. 73. Compare the theory of the influence of the planets in the Convito. Even the fiend Astarotte in Pulci (Morgante, xxv. str. 150) attests the freedom of the human will and the justice of God.

1127

Comp. Voigt, Wiederbelebung, 165-170.

1128

Vespasiano Fiorent. pp. 26, 320, 435, 626, 651. Murat. xx. col. 532.

1129

In Platina’s introd. to his Life of Christ the religious influence of the Renaissance is curiously exemplified (Vitæ Paparum, at the beginning): Christ, he says, fully attained the fourfold Platonic ‘nobilitas’ according to his ‘genus’: ‘quem enim ex gentilibus habemus qui gloria et nomine cum David et Salomone, quique sapientia et doctrina cum Christo ipso conferri merito debeat et possit?’ Judaism, like classical antiquity, was also explained on a Christian hypothesis. Pico and Pietro Galatino endeavoured to show that Christian doctrine was foreshadowed in the Talmud and other Jewish writings.

1130

On Pomponazzo, see the special works; among others, Bitter, Geschichte der Philosophie, bd. ix.

1131

Paul. Jovii, Elog. Lit. p. 90. G. M. was, however, compelled to recant publicly. His letter to Lorenzo (May 17, 1478) begging him to intercede with the Pope, ‘satis enim poenarum dedi,’ is given by Malagola, Codro Urceo, p. 433.

1132

Codri Urcei Opera, with his life by Bart. Bianchini; and in his philological lectures, pp. 65, 151, 278, &c.

1133

On one occasion he says, ‘In Laudem Christi:’

Phoebum alii vates musasque Jovemque sequuntur,At mihi pro vero nomine Christus erit.

He also (fol. x. b) attacks the Bohemians. Huss and Jerome of Prague are defended by Poggio in his famous letter to Lion. Aretino, and placed on a level with Mucius Scaevola and Socrates.

1134

‘Audi virgo ea quae tibi mentis compos et ex animo dicam. Si forte cum ad ultimum vitae finem pervenero supplex accedam ad te spem oratum, ne me audias neve inter tuos accipias oro; cum infernis diis in aeternum vitam degere decrevi.’

1135

‘Animum meum seu animam’—a distinction by which philology used then to perplex theology.

1136

Platina, Vitae Pontiff. p. 311: ‘Christianam fidem si miraculis non esset confirmata, honestate sua recipi debuisse.’ It may be questioned whether all that Platina attributes to the Pope is in fact authentic.

1137

Preface to the Historia Ferdinandi I. (Hist. Ztschr. xxxiii. 61) and Antid. in Pogg. lib. iv. Opp. p. 256 sqq. Pontanus (De Sermone, i. 18) says that Valla did not hesitate ‘dicere profiterique palam habere se quoque in Christum spicula.’ Pontano, however, was a friend of Valla’s enemies at Naples.

1138

Especially when the monks improvised them in the pulpit. But the old and recognised miracles did not remain unassailed. Firenzuola (Opere, vol. ii. p. 208, in the tenth novel) ridicules the Franciscans of Novara, who wanted to spend money which they had embezzled, in adding a chapel to their church, ‘dove fusse dipinta quella bella storia, quando S. Francesco predicava agli uccelli nel deserto; e quando ei fece la santa zuppa, e che l’agnolo Gabriello gli portò i zoccoli.’

1139

Some facts about him are to be found in Bapt. Mantuan. De Patientia, l. iii. cap. 13.

1140

Bursellis, Ann. Bonon. in Murat. xxiii. col. 915.

1141

How far these blasphemous utterances sometimes went, has been shown by Gieseler (Kirchengeschichte, ii. iv. § 154, anm.) who quotes several striking instances.

1142

Voigt, Enea Silvio, iii. 581. It is not known what happened to the Bishop Petro of Aranda who (1500) denied the Divinity of Christ and the existence of Hell and Purgatory, and denounced indulgences as a device of the popes invented for their private advantage. For him, see Burchardi Diarium, ed. Leibnitz, p. 63 sqq.

1143

Jov. Pontanus, De Fortuna, Opp. i. 792-921. Comp. Opp. ii. 286.

1144

Æn. Sylvii, Opera, p. 611.

1145

Poggius, De Miseriis Humanae Conditionis.

1146

Caracciolo, De Varietate Fortunae, in Murat. xxii., one of the most valuable writings of a period rich in such works. On Fortune in public processions, see p. 421.

1147

Leonis X. Vita Anonyma, in Roscoe, ed. Bossi, xii. p. 153.

1148

Bursellis, Ann. Bonon. in Murat. xxiii. col. 909: ‘Monimentum hoc conditum a Joanne Bentivolo secundo patriae rectore, cui virtus et fortuna cuncta quæ optari possunt affatim praestiterunt.’ It is still not quite certain whether this inscription was outside, and visible to everybody, or, like another mentioned just before, hidden on one of the foundation stones. In the latter case, a fresh idea is involved. By this secret inscription, which perhaps only the chronicler knew of, Fortune is to be magically bound to the building.

[According to the words of the chronicle, the inscription cannot have stood on the walls of the newly built tower. The exact spot is uncertain.—L.G.]

1149

‘Quod nimium gentilitatis amatores essemus.’ Paganism, at least in externals, certainly went rather far. Inscriptions lately found in the Catacombs show that the members of the Academy described themselves as ‘sacerdotes,’ and called Pomponius Lætus ‘pontifex maximus;’ the latter once addressed Platina as ‘pater sanctissimus.’ Gregorovius, vii. 578.

1150

While the plastic arts at all events distinguished between angels and ‘putti,’ and used the former for all serious purposes. In the Annal. Estens. Murat. xx. col. 468, the ‘amorino’ is naively called ‘instar Cupidinis angelus.’ Comp. the speech made before Leo X. (1521), in which the passage occurs: ‘Quare et te non jam Juppiter, sed Virgo Capitolina Dei parens quæ hujus urbis et collis reliquis præsides, Romamque et Capitolium tutaris.’ Greg. viii. 294.

1151

Della Valle, Lettere Sanesi, iii. 18.

1152

Macrob. Saturnal. iii. 9. Doubtless the canon did not omit the gestures there prescribed. Comp. Gregorovius, viii. 294, for Bembo. For the paganism thus prevalent in Rome, see also Ranke, Päpste, i. 73 sqq. Comp. also Gregorovius, viii. 268.

1153

Monachus Paduan. l. ii. ap. Urstisius, Scriptt. i. pp. 598, 599, 602, 607. The last Visconti (p. 37) had also a number of these men in his service (Comp. Decembrio, in Murat. xx. col. 1017): he undertook nothing without their advice. Among them was a Jew named Helias. Gasparino da Barzizzi once addressed him: ‘Magna vi astrorum fortuna tuas res reget.’ G. B. Opera, ed. Furietto, p. 38.

1154

E.g. Florence, where Bonatto filled the office for a long period. See too Matteo Villani, xi. 3, where the city astrologer is evidently meant.

1155

Libri, Hist. des Sciences Mathém. ii. 52, 193. At Bologna this professorship is said to have existed in 1125. Comp. the list of professors at Pavia, in Corio, fol. 290. For the professorship at the Sapienza under Leo X., see Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, v. p. 283.

1156

J. A. Campanus lays stress on the value and importance of astrology, and concludes with the words: ‘Quamquam Augustinus sanctissimus ille vir quidem ac doctissimus, sed fortassis ad fidem religionemque propensior negat quicquam vel boni vel mali astrorum necessitate contingere.’ ‘Oratio initio studii Perugiæ habita,’ compare Opera, Rome, 1495.

1157

About 1260 Pope Alexander IV. compelled a Cardinal (and shamefaced astrologer) Bianco to bring out a number of political prophecies. Giov. Villani, vi. 81.

1158

De Dictis, &c. Alfonsi, Opera, p. 493. He held it to be ‘pulchrius quam utile.’ Platina, Vitae Pontiff. p. 310. For Sixtus IV. comp. Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 173, 186. He caused the hours for audiences, receptions, and the like, to be fixed by the ‘planetarii.’ In the Europa, c. 49, Pius II. mentions that Baptista Blasius, an astronomer from Cremona, had prophesied the misfortunes of Fr. Foscaro ‘tanquam prævidisset.’

1159

Brosch, Julius II. (Gotha, 1878), pp. 97 and 323.

1160

P. Valeriano, De Infel. Lit. (318-324) speaks of Fr. Friuli, who wrote on Leo’s horoscope, and ‘abditissima quæque anteactæ ætatis et uni ipsi cognita principi explicuerat quæque incumberent quæque futura essent ad unguem ut eventus postmodum comprobavit, in singulos fere dies prædixerat.’

1161

Ranke, Päpste, i. 247.

1162

Vespas. Fiorent. p. 660, comp. 341. Ibid. p. 121, another Pagolo is mentioned as court mathematician and astrologer of Federigo of Montefeltro. Curiously enough, he was a German.

1163

Firmicus Maternus, Matheseos Libri viii. at the end of the second book.

1164

In Bandello, iii. nov. 60, the astrologer of Alessandro Bentivoglio, in Milan, confessed himself a poor devil before the whole company.

1165

It was in such a moment of resolution that Ludovico Moro had the cross with this inscription made, which is now in the Minster at Chur. Sixtus IV. too once said that he would try if the proverb was true. On this saying of the astrologer Ptolemæus, which B. Fazio took to be Virgilian, see Laur. Valla, Opera, p. 461.

1166

The father of Piero Capponi, himself an astrologer, put his son into trade lest he should get the dangerous wound in the head which threatened him. Vita di P. Capponi, Arch. Stor. iv. ii. 15. For an instance in the life of Cardanus, see p. 334. The physician and astrologer Pierleoni of Spoleto believed that he would be drowned, avoided in consequence all watery places, and refused brilliant positions offered him at Venice and Padua. Paul. Jov. Elog. Liter. pp. 67 sqq. Finally he threw himself into the water, in despair at the charge brought against him of complicity in Lorenzo’s death, and was actually drowned. Hier. Aliottus had been told to be careful in his sixty-second year, as his life would then be in danger. He lived with great circumspection, kept clear of the doctors, and the year passed safely. H. A. Opuscula (Arezzo, 1769), ii. 72. Marsilio Ficino, who despised astrology (Opp. p. 772) was written to by a friend (Epist. lib. 17): ‘Praeterea me memini a duobus vestrorum astrologis audivisse, te ex quadam siderum positione antiquas revocaturum philosophorum sententias.’

1167

For instances in the life of Ludovico Moro, see Senarega, in Murat, xxiv. col. 518, 524. Benedictus, in Eccard, ii. col. 1623. And yet his father, the great Francesco Sforza, had despised astrology, and his grandfather Giacomo had not at any rate followed its warnings. Corio, fol. 321, 413.

1168

For the facts here quoted, see Annal. Foroliviens. in Murat. xxii. col. 233 sqq. (comp. col. 150). Leonbattista Alberti endeavoured to give a spiritual meaning to the ceremony of laying the foundation. Opere Volgari, tom. iv. p. 314 (or De Re Ædific. 1. i.). For Bonatto see Filippo Villani, Vite and Delia Vita e delle Opere di Guido Bonati, Astrologo e Astronomo del Secolo Decimoterzo, raccolte da E. Boncompagni, Rome 1851. B.’s great work, De Astronomia, lib. x. has been often printed.

1169

In the horoscopes of the second foundation of Florence (Giov. Villani, iii. 1. under Charles the Great) and of the first of Venice (see above, p. 62), an old tradition is perhaps mingled with the poetry of the Middle Ages.

1170

For one of these victories, see the remarkable passage quoted from Bonatto in Steinschneider, in the Zeitschr. d. D. Morg. Ges. xxv. p. 416. On B. comp. ibid. xviii. 120 sqq.

1171

Ann. Foroliv. 235-238. Filippo Villani, Vite. Macchiavelli, Stor. Fior. l. i. When constellations which augured victory appeared, Bonatto ascended with his book and astrolabe to the tower of San Mercuriale above the Piazza, and when the right moment came gave the signal for the great bell to be rung. Yet it was admitted that he was often wide of the mark, and foresaw neither his own death nor the fate of Montefeltro. Not far from Cesena he was killed by robbers, on his way back to Forli from Paris and from Italian universities where he had been lecturing. As a weather prophet he was once overmatched and made game of by a countryman.

1172

Matteo Villani, xi. 3; see above, p. 508.

1173

Jovian. Pontan. De Fortitudine, l. i. See p. 511 note 1, for the honourable exception made by the first Sforza.

1174

Paul. Jov. Elog. sub v. Livianus, p. 219.

1175

Who tells it us himself. Benedictus, in Eccard, ii. col. 1617.

1176

In this sense we must understand the words of Jac. Nardi, Vita d’Ant. Giacomini, p. 65. The same pictures were common on clothes and household utensils. At the reception of Lucrezia Borgia in Ferrara, the mule of the Duchess of Urbino wore trappings of black velvet with astrological figures in gold. Arch. Stor. Append. ii. p. 305.

1177

Æn. Sylvius, in the passage quoted above p. 508; comp. Opp. 481.

1178

Azario, in Corio, fol. 258.

1179

Considerations of this kind probably influenced the Turkish astrologers who, after the battle of Nicopolis, advised the Sultan Bajazet I. to consent to the ransom of John of Burgundy, since ‘for his sake much Christian blood would be shed.’ It was not difficult to foresee the further course of the French civil war. Magn. Chron. Belgicum, p. 358. Juvénal des Ursins, ad. a. 1396.

1180

Benedictus, in Eccard, ii. col. 1579. It was said of King Ferrante in 1493 that he would lose his throne ‘sine cruore sed sola fama’—which actually happened.

1181

Comp. Steinschneider, Apokalypsen mit polemischer Tendenz, D. M. G. Z. xxviii. 627 sqq. xxix. 261.

1182

Bapt. Mantuan. De Patientia, l. iii. cap. 12.

1183

Giov. Villani, x. 39, 40. Other reasons also existed, e.g. the jealousy of his colleagues. Bonatto had taught the same, and had explained the miracle of Divine Love in St. Francis as the effect of the planet Mars. Comp. Jo. Picus, Adv. Astrol. ii. 5.

1184

They were painted by Miretto at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Acc. to Scardeonius they were destined ‘ad indicandum nascentium naturas per gradus et numeros’—a more popular way of teaching than we can now well imagine. It was astrology ‘à la portèe de tout le monde.’

1185

He says (Orationes, fol. 35, ‘In Nuptias’) of astrology: ‘haec efficit ut homines parum a Diis distare videantur’! Another enthusiast of the same time is Jo. Garzonius, De Dignitate Urbis Bononiae, in Murat. xxi. col. 1163.

1186

Petrarca, Epp. Seniles, iii. 1 (p. 765) and elsewhere. The letter in question was written to Boccaccio. On Petrarch’s polemic against the astrologers, see Geiger. Petr. 87-91 and 267, note 11.

1187

Franco Sacchetti (nov. 151) ridicules their claims to wisdom.

1188

Gio. Villani, iii. x. 39. Elsewhere he appears as a devout believer in astrology, x. 120, xii. 40.

1189

In the passage xi. 3.

1190

Gio. Villani, xi. 2, xii. 58.

1191

The author of the Annales Placentini (in Murat. xx. col. 931), the same Alberto di Ripalta mentioned at p. 241, took part in this controversy. The passage is in other respects remarkable, since it contains the popular opinion with regard to the nine known comets, their colour, origin, and significance. Comp. Gio. Villani, xi. 67. He speaks of a comet as the herald of great and generally disastrous events.

1192

Paul. Jov. Vita Leonis xx. l. iii. where it appears that Leo himself was a believer at least in premonitions and the like, see above p. 509.

1193

Jo. Picus Mirand. Adversus Astrologos, libri xii.

1194

Acc. to Paul, Jov. Elog. Lit. sub tit. Jo. Picus, the result he achieved was ‘ut subtilium disciplinarum professores a scribendo deterruisse videatur.’

1195

De Rebus Caelestibus, libri xiv. (Opp. iii. 1963-2591). In the twelfth book, dedicated to Paolo Cortese, he will not admit the latter’s refutation of astrology. Ægidius, Opp. ii. 1455-1514. Pontano had dedicated his little work De Luna (Opp. iii. 2592) to the same hermit Egidio (of Viterbo?)

1196

For the latter passage, see p. 1486. The difference between Pontano and Pico is thus put by Franc. Pudericus, one of the interlocutors in the dialogue (p. 1496): ‘Pontanus non ut Johannes Picus in disciplinam ipsam armis equisque, quod dicitur, irrumpit, cum illam tueatur, ut cognitu maxime dignam ac pene divinam, sed astrologos quosdam, ut parum cautos minimeque prudentes insectetur et rideat.’

1197

In S. Maria del Popolo at Rome. The angels remind us of Dante’s theory at the beginning of the Convito.

1198

This was the case with Antonio Galateo who, in a letter to Ferdinand the Catholic (Mai, Spicileg. Rom. vol. viii. p. 226, ad a. 1510), disclaims astrology with violence, and in another letter to the Count of Potenza (ibid. p. 539) infers from the stars that the Turks would attack Rhodes the same year.

1199

Ricordi, l. c. n. 57.

1200

Many instances of such superstitions in the case of the last Visconti are mentioned by Decembrio (Murat. xx. col. 1016 sqq.). Odaxius says in his speech at the burial of Guidobaldo (Bembi Opera, i. 598 sqq.), that the gods had announced his approaching death by thunderbolts, earthquakes, and other signs and wonders.

1201

Varchi, Stor. Fior. l. iv. (p. 174); prophecies and premonitions were then as rife in Florence as at Jerusalem during the siege. Comp. ibid. iii. 143, 195; iv. 43, 177.

1202

Matarazzo, Archiv. Stor. xvi. ii. p. 208.

1203

Prato, Arch. Stor. iii. 324, for the year 1514.

1204

For the Madonna dell’Arbore in the Cathedral at Milan, and what she did in 1515, see Prato, l. c. p. 327. He also records the discovery of a dead dragon as thick as a horse in the excavations for a mortuary chapel near S. Nazaro. The head was taken to the Palace of the Triulzi for whom the chapel was built.

1205

‘Et fuit mirabile quod illico pluvia cessavit.’ Diar. Parmense in Murat. xxii. col. 280. The author shares the popular hatred of the usurers. Comp. col. 371.

1206

Conjurationis Pactianae Commentarius, in the appendices to Roscoe’s Lorenzo. Politian was in general an opponent of astrology. The saints were naturally able to cause the rain to cease. Comp. Æneas Sylvius, in his life of Bernadino da Siena (De Vir. Ill. p. 25): ‘jussit in virtute Jesu nubem abire, quo facto solutis absque pluvia nubibus, prior serenitas rediit’.

1207

Poggi Facetiae, fol. 174. Æn. Sylvius (De Europa, c. 53, 54, Opera, pp. 451, 455) mentions prodigies which may have really happened, such as combats between animals and strange appearances in the sky, and mentions them chiefly as curiosities, even when adding the results attributed to them. Similarly Antonio Ferrari (il Galateo), De Situ Iapygiae, p. 121, with the explanation: ‘Et hae, ut puto, species erant earum rerum quæ longe aberant atque ab eo loco in quo species visae sunt minime poterant.’

1208

Poggi Facetiae, fol. 160. Comp. Pausanias, ix. 20.

1209

Varchi, iii 195. Two suspected persons decided on flight in 1529, because they opened the Æneid at book iii. 44. Comp. Rabelais, Pantagruel, iii. 10.

1210

The imaginations of the scholars, such as the ‘splendor’ and the ‘spiritus’ of Cardanus, and the ‘dæmon familiaris’ of his father, may be taken for what they are worth. Comp. Cardanus, De Propria Vita, cap. 4, 38, 47. He was himself an opponent of magic; cap. 39. For the prodigies and ghosts he met with, see cap. 37, 41. For the terror of ghosts felt by the last Visconti, see Decembrio, in Murat. xx. col. 1016.

1211

‘Molte fiate i morti guastano le creature.’ Bandello, ii. nov. 1. We read (Galateo, p. 177) that the ‘animæ’ of wicked men rise from the grave, appear to their friends and acquaintances, ‘animalibus vexi, pueros sugere ac necare, deinde in sepulcra reverti.’

1212

Galateo, l. c. We also read (p. 119) of the ‘Fata Morgana’ and other similar appearances.

1213

Bandello, iii. nov. 20. It is true that the ghost was only a lover wishing to frighten the occupier of the palace, who was also the husband of the beloved lady. The lover and his accomplices dressed themselves up as devils; one of them, who could imitate the cry of different animals, had been sent for from a distance.

1214

Graziani, Arch. Stor. xvi. i. p. 640, ad a. 1467. The guardian died of fright.

1215

Balth. Castilionii Carmina; Prosopopeja Lud. Pici.

1216

Alexandri ab Alexandro, Dierum Genialium, libri vi. (Colon. 1539), is an authority of the first rank for these subjects, the more so as the author, a friend of Pontanus and a member of his academy, asserts that what he records either happened to himself, or was communicated to him by thoroughly trustworthy witnesses. Lib. vi. cap. 19: two evil men and a monk are attacked by devils, whom they recognise by the shape of their feet, and put to flight, partly by force and partly by the sign of the cross. Lib. vi. cap. 21: A servant, cast into prison by a cruel prince on account of a small offence, calls upon the devil, is miraculously brought out of the prison and back again, visits meanwhile the nether world, shows the prince his hand scorched by the flames of Hell, tells him on behalf of a departed spirit certain secrets which had been communicated to the latter, exhorts him to lay aside his cruelty, and dies soon after from the effects of the fright. Lib. ii. c. 19, iii. 15, v. 23: Ghosts of departed friends, of St. Cataldus, and of unknown beings in Rome, Arezzo and Naples. Lib. ii. 22, iii. 8: Appearances of mermen and mermaids at Naples, in Spain, and in the Peloponnesus; in the latter case guaranteed by Theodore Gaza and George of Trebizond.