ON THE REVIVAL OF LITERATURE. 



317 



delight and glory of Constantine, who founded and named it after his own 

 name ; the metropolis of the eastern empire ; the rival of ancient Rome ; the 

 seat of elgance, refinement, and luxury; the asylum of science upon its 

 banishment from the west of Europe, by the savage incursions of the northern 

 tribes; where the language of Homer, and Herodotus, and Plato, and Aris- 

 totle, and Sophocles, and Demosthenes, was still spoken as the common 

 tongue, and their writings still studied and idolized, — fell prostrate before 

 the haughty banners of the Turks; the most enterprising, but at the same 

 time the rudest and most barbarous of all the Saracen powers. All Europe 

 trembled at the intelligence, and an utter extinction was predicted to the little 

 learning and virtue which were now beginning to glimmer in the midst of the 

 general darkness. 



The fear, however, was without foundation ; and the very event which was 

 apprehended, and with much reason, to be most fatal to the cause of true 

 religion and science, proved most propitious to their promotion. Thus 

 inscrutable are the ways of Providence, in a thousand instances, to the cal- 

 culations of man, and thus triumphant the Divine government when it seems 

 most trampled upon. The career of the Crescent, though it overran the most 

 ' delightful provinces of the Greek empire, and spread to an enormous extent 

 towards the East, did not, except in a few instances, advance farther in a 

 north-western direction than the borders of Transylvania and Hungary ; while 

 Italy, whose most renowned scholars had found an asylum at Constantinople, 

 upon its general ravage by the Goths, now offered, in return, to the scholars 

 of Constantinople an asylum from Turkish fury and oppression ; thus ena- 

 bling the elegant and accomplished Greeks, a second time, to give letters to 

 Europe ; at this period to the modern world, as they had done two thousand 

 years before to the ancient. 



Several of the Italian governments had, indeed, for half a century, begun 

 to feel the importance of literature and science, and, consequently, to offer 

 protection and patronage to scholars of every description. Florence, Naples, 

 and Ferrara are particularly entitled to this eulogy ; and, in a somewhat 

 inferior degree, Venice, Urbino, Mantua, and Milan. It was a growing spirit, 

 and a growing patronage; till, at length, upon the introduction of Giovanni 

 de' Medici, into the college of cardinals, in 1490, and more especially upon 

 his election to the pontificate in 1513, Rome surpassed every other state in 

 the splendid and extensive encouragement it afforded to wit and wisdom of 

 every kind (with the lamentable exception of that it ought chiefly to have 

 prized), but especially to classical literature and the fine arts. 



III. The Latin tongue was, at this time, so far revived as to become culti- 

 vated and understood in all its elegancies ; and Dante, Petrarch, Boccacio^ 

 Trissino, Sanazzaro, Ariosto, and a bright galaxy of other writers, too exten- 

 sive to be enumerated, had progressively given a character and almost a 

 mature polish to modern Italian. 13ut a knowledge of Greek, the master- 

 tongue of the world, of Attic eloquence and refinement, was but very limited 

 and imperfect, amid the best scholars of the day ; and hence, as I have already 

 observed, the fugitive scholars of Constantinople were hailed in almost every 

 part of Italy and especially by the splendid and illustrious family of the Me- 

 dici, first at Florence, and afterward at Rome. The directors, indeed, of the 

 early studies of Leo X., or Giovanni de' Medici, as he was then called, were 

 partly drawn from this well-spring of genuine taste and genius; Demetrius 

 Chalcondyles and Petrus ^gineta, both native Greeks, being among the 

 more prominent of his tutors. While, in the very first year of his election 

 to the pontificate, he founded a Greek institute of great extent and magnifi- 

 cence in the centre of the apostolic see; gave a general invitation to young 

 and noble Greeks to quit their country, and take up their residence under his 

 protection ; purchased for the accommodation of these illustrious strangers 

 the noble palace of the Cardinal of Sion, on the Esquilian hill, which he 

 splendidly endowed as an academy; and, as far as their talents or education 

 fitted them for the purpose, inducted them into the Roman church, and con- 

 ferred upon them some of its highest dignities and distinctions. 



