The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

1263

From the stars, since Gauricus did not know physiognomy. For his own fate he had to refer to the prophecies of Cocle, since his father had omitted to draw his horoscope.

1264

Paul. Jov. l. c. p. 100 sqq. s. v. Tibertus.

1265

The most essential facts as to these side-branches of divination, are given by Corn. Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, cap. 57.

1266

Libri, Hist. des Sciences Mathém. ii. 122.

1267

‘Novi nihil narro, mos est publicus’ (Remed. Utr. Fort. p. 93), one of the lively passages of this book, written ‘ab irato.’

1268

Chief passage in Trithem. Ann. Hirsaug. ii. 286 sqq.

1269

‘Neque enim desunt,’ Paul. Jov. Elog. Lit. p. 150, s. v. ‘Pomp, Gauricus;’ comp. ibid. p. 130, s. v. Aurel. Augurellus, Maccaroneide. Phant. xii.

1270

In writing a history of Italian unbelief it would be necessary to refer to the so-called Averrhoism, which was prevalent in Italy and especially in Venice, about the middle of the fourteenth century. It was opposed by Boccaccio and Petrarch in various letters, and by the latter in his work: De Sui Ipsius et Aliorum Ignorantia. Although Petrarch’s opposition may have been increased by misunderstanding and exaggeration, he was nevertheless fully convinced that the Averrhoists ridiculed and rejected the Christian religion.

1271

Ariosto, Sonetto, 34: ‘Non credere sopra il tetto.’ The poet uses the words of an official who had decided against him in a matter of property.

1272

We may here again refer to Gemisthos Plethon, whose disregard of Christianity had an important influence on the Italians, and particularly on the Florentines of that period.

1273

Narrazione del Caso del Boscoli, Arch. Stor. i. 273 sqq. The standing phrase was ‘non aver fede;’ comp. Vasari, vii. 122, Vita di Piero di Cosimo.

1274

Jovian. Pontan. Charon, Opp. ii. 1128-1195.

1275

Faustini Terdocei Triumphus Stultitiae, l. ii.

1276

E.g. Borbone Morosini about 1460; comp. Sansovino, Venezia l. xiii. p. 243. He wrote ‘de immortalite animæ ad mentem Aristotelis.’ Pomponius Lætus, as a means of effecting his release from prison, pointed to the fact that he had written an epistle on the immortality of the soul. See the remarkable defence in Gregorovius, vii. 580 sqq. See on the other hand Pulci’s ridicule of this belief in a sonnet, quoted by Galeotti, Arch. Stor. Ital. n. s. ix. 49 sqq.

1277

Vespas. Fiorent. p. 260.

1278

Orationes Philelphi, fol. 8.

1279

Septimo Decretal. lib. v. tit. iii. cap. 8.

1280

Ariosto, Orlando, vii. 61. Ridiculed in Orlandino, iv. 67, 68. Cariteo, a member of the Neapolitan Academy of Pontanus, uses the idea of the pre-existence of the soul in order to glorify the House of Aragon. Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, ii. 288.

1281

Orelli, ad Cic. De Republ. l. vi. Comp. Lucan, Pharsalia, at the beginning.

1282

Petrarca, Epp. Fam. iv. 3, iv. 6.

1283

Fil. Villani, Vite, p. 15. This remarkable passage is as follows: ‘Che agli uomini fortissimi poichè hanno vinto le mostruose fatiche della terra, debitamente sieno date le stelle.’

1284

Inferno, iv. 24 sqq. Comp. Purgatorio, vii. 28, xxii. 100.

1285

This pagan heaven is referred to in the epitaph on the artist Niccolò dell’Arca:

‘Nunc te Praxiteles, Phidias, Polycletus adoraMiranturque tuas, o Nicolae, manus.’In Bursellis, Ann. Bonon. Murat. xxiii. col. 912.

1286

In his late work Actius.

1287

Cardanus, De Propria Vita, cap. 13: ‘Non pœnitere ullius rei quam voluntarie effecerim, etiam quæ male cessisset;’ else I should be of all men the most miserable.

1288

Discorsi, ii. cap. 2.

1289

Del Governo della Famiglia, p. 114.

1290

Comp. the short ode of M. Antonio Flaminio in the Coryciana (see p. 269):

Dii quibus tam Corycius venustaSigna, tam dives posuit sacellum,Ulla si vestros animos piorumGratia tangit,Vos jocos risusque senis facetiSospites servate diu; senectamVos date et semper viridem et FalernoUsque madentem.At simul longo satiatus ævoLiquerit terras, dapibus DeorumLætus intersit, potiore mutansNectare Bacchum.

1291

Firenzuola, Opere, iv. p. 147 sqq.

1292

Nic. Valori, Vita di Lorenzo, passim. For the advice to his son Cardinal Giovanni, see Fabroni, Laurentius, adnot. 178, and the appendices to Roscoe’s Leo X.

1293

Jo. Pici Vita, auct. Jo. Franc. Pico. For his ‘Deprecatio ad Deum,’ see Deliciae Poetarum Italorum.

1294

Orazione, Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi viii. 120 (Magno Dio per la cui costante legge); hymn (oda il sacro inno tutta la natura) in Fabroni,’ Laur. adnot. 9; L’Altercazione, in the Poesie di Lor. Magn. i. 265. The other poems here named are quoted in the same collection.

1295

If Pulci in his Morgante is anywhere in earnest with religion, he is so in canto xvi. str. 6. This deistic utterance of the fair pagan Antea is perhaps the plainest expression of the mode of thought prevalent in Lorenzo’s circle, to which tone the words of the dæmon Astarotte (quoted above p. 494) form in a certain sense the complement.