there. The Greek professorship at Florence
was in 1363 conferred upon a Greek, on
the recommendation of Boccacio. Leonzio
Pilato was a man, according to Boccacio's
description, of repugnant aspect and horrible
features. He wore a long tangled beard,
matted, as was his black, uncombed hair; he
shunned all society; he possessed, however, a
perfect knowledge of the language and literature
of the Greeks, and was a pupil of the
celebrated Barlaam. For two years he
expounded the works of Homer, and translated
the Odyssey and Iliad into Latin.* The revival
of Greek literature is owing in a great measure
to him and to the encouragement he received
from his two patrons, Boccacio and Petrarch.
This was the first chair of Greek literature
established in Italy. At a great expense,
Boccacio collected all the Greek manuscripts
he could hear of, and for three years studied
assiduously under Pilato. In Petrarch's letters
to Boccacio there are many passages which
throw considerable light upon this interesting
subject. In a letter, dated 5th March, 1361,
he thus describes to Boccacio the departure of
Leonzio. "This Leonzio, notwithstanding my
entreaties, more obdurate than the rocks he is
about to encounter, left me shortly after your
departure. Fearing lest, from continual
intercourse with him, I should catch his ill humour—
for the infirmities of the mind are as contagious as
those of the body—I let him go, and gave him a
Terence to beguile him on the way, a book of which
he seemed especially fond, though I cannot
explain what this most melancholy Greek has in
common with that most lively African; so true it
is that there are no dissimilarities that have not
some point of resemblance. He embarked,
uttering in my presence a thousand imprecations
against Italy and the Latin name. He could
scarcely have landed in Greece when I received
a letter from him more rugged and of greater
length than his beard, in which he lauds Italy
above the skies, utters maledictions against
Constantinople, and entreats me to invite him back,
in terms of supplication such as Peter used
when he found he was sinking." Leonzio
perished on his way back.
* The manuscript is preserved in the library at
Florence.

Filippo Villani, who wrote The Lives of
Illustrious Florentines, was in 1404 appointed
public lecturer on Dante, at Florence.

The student of Italian literature will be
astonished to find that the Italian language,
which, in the fourteenth century, as poets,
Dante and Petrarch had cultivated with so
much elegance, and which Boccacio had raised
almost to perfection by his tales in prose, should
have become suddenly neglected and have fallen
almost into decay. For nearly one hundred
years after the death of Boccacio, which took
place on the 21st December, 1375, no author
of any eminence wrote in the Italian dialect.
This is explained by the memorable events
which occurred in the first part of the fifteenth
century. The great schism in the Church of
Rome, which led to the Reformation, the art
of printing discovered in Germany, and almost
immediately transplanted to Italy, by increasing
the copies of the ancient classics, the fall of
the Eastern Empire,* and the consequent
migration of many Greeks into Italy, gave an.
impulse to the study of Greek literature. The
discoveries of Vasco di Gama,† of a new world
by Columbus (1494), attracted the attention
of the learned to scientific investigations.
Libraries were established for public use,
universities founded, professorships instituted.‡
* Constantinople taken by the Turks, 1453.
† Doubles the Cape of Good Hope, 1491.
‡ Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, from his
accession in 1458 to his death in 1490, availed
himself of the dispersion of libraries at Constantinople
to purchase Greek manuscripts, and employed four
transcribers at Florence, besides thirty at Buda, to
enrich his collection. According to Panzar, the
number of books printed in Italy from 1471 to 1480
was 1297.

But it must not be supposed that the Italian
language was entirely forgotten. If men of
learning and science preferred the idiom of the
Greeks and Latins, the people learned by heart
the verses of the Divine Comedy and the
sonnets of Petrarch. Whilst the stately sage
or assiduous student pored over Greek and
Latin manuscripts, the light-hearted
gondolier, on the other hand, hummed the ditties
of Petrarch as he plied his oar, or sang them
under the balcony of his mistress; and the
muleteer, as he led his string of mules up the
steep ascent of the Apennines, pondered over
the mysteries of II Libro; whilst the Hundred
Tales elicited many an uproarious burst of
laughter from the gay and thoughtless bachelor.

The works of Aristotle, Plato, Homer,
Demosthenes, &c., became universally studied
in the schools. Debating clubs, such as exist
at Oxford and Cambridge, were established at
the universities for the discussion of
controversial points. Medals, inscriptions, statues,
antiques of every description, were eagerly
sought for. The foundation was thus laid for
valuable museums and rare collections, private
as well as public. Great progress in
mathematics and astronomy was followed by the
introduction of algebra and of the mariner's
compass.

A point which cannot fail to strike the
observant reader is the protection which the
princes of Italy accorded to men of letters.
Popes, emperors, kings, and princes eagerly
sought the society of, and awarded the place of
honour to, men of genius, whose friendship
they courted. The sovereign power of intellect
was acknowledged, and the hereditary nobility
of rank held out a fraternal hand to the self-
created nobility of talent. Amongst the princes
of the fourteenth century who distinguished
themselves as patrons of literature, Robert,
King of Naples, holds a prominent place. His
court (from 1309 to 1343) was not only one of