received when he sought refuge there. On his
reinstalment to power, Cosmo founded the
celebrated Laurentian library at Florence, called
after his son Lorenzo, who greatly enriched it.
Another Florentine of large fortune, Niccolo
Niccoli, devoted his wealth to a similar purpose. He
collected a library of eight hundred volumes in
the Greek, Latin, and Oriental languages; but
his liberality exceeded his means. He died
poor in 1436. Cosmo was appointed one of
sixteen trustees, and he undertook to pay all
Niccolo's debts, if allowed sole disposal of the
library. This was agreed to, and the books were
placed for public use in the Biblioteca Marciana
A building was erected by Cosmo, divided into
separate compartments or chambers devoted
respectively to manuscripts in different languages.

The Academy of Platonic Philosophy, founded
by Cosmo, is the first institution that assumed
the name of "Academy" in Italy. The
academicians were divided into three categories—the
patrons [mecenati], the hearers [ascoltatori]
and the novices or disciples, consisting of young
aspirants to philosophy. Their great festival
was held on the thirteenth of November, the
anniversary of the birth and death of Plato
The superintendence of the academy was
entrusted to Marsilio Ficino, the son of Cosmo's
private physician.

"In a villa overhanging the towers of
Florence, on the steep slope of that lofty hill
crowned by the mother city, the ancient
Fiesole, in gardens which Tully might have
envied, with Ficino, Landino, and Politian by
his side, Lorenzo* delighted his hours of leisure
with the beautiful visions of Platonic philosophy,
for which the summer stillness of an
Italian sky appears the most congenial
accompaniment. Never could the sympathies of the
soul with outer nature be more finely touched;
never could more striking suggestions be
presented to the philosopher and the statesman.
Florence lay beneath them; not with all the
magnificence which the later Medici have
given her, but, thanks to the piety of former
times, presenting almost as varied an outline to
the sky. One man, the wonder of Cosmo's
age, Brunelleschi, had crowned the beautiful
city with the vast dome of its cathedral—a
structure unthought of in Italy before, and
rarely since surpassed. It seemed, amidst
clustering towers of inferior churches, an
emblem of the Catholic hierarchy under its
supreme head; like Rome itself, imposing,
unbroken, unchangeable, radiating to every part
of the earth, and directing its convergent
curves to heaven. Round this were numbered,
at unequal heights, the Baptistery, with its
gates, as Michael Angelo called them, worthy
of paradise; the tall and richly decorated
belfry of Giotto; the church of the Carmine
with the fresco of Masaccio; those of Santa
Maria Novella (in the language of the same
great man), as beautiful as a bride; of Santa
Croce, second only to the Cathedral of St. Mark;
and of San Spirito, another great monument
of the genius of Brunelleschi—the numerous
convents that rose within the walls of Florence,
or were scattered immediately about them.
From these the eye might turn to the trophies
of a republican government that was rapidly
giving way before the citizen prince who now
surveyed them; the Palazzo Vecchio, in which
the Signory of Florence held their councils,
raised by the Guelf aristocracy, the exclusive
but not tyrannous faction that long swayed
the city; or the new and unfinished palace
which Brunelleschi had designed for one of the
Pitti family before they fell, as others had
already done in the fruitless struggle against
the house of Medici; itself destined to become
the abode of the victorious race, and to
perpetuate, by retaining its name, the revolutions
that had raised them to power. The prospect,
from an elevation of a great city, is one of the
most impressive as well as beautiful we ever
beheld. Mountains, bright with various hues
and clothed with wood, bounded the horizon,
and on most sides, at no great distance, but
embosomed in these, were other villas and
domains. Herds of buffaloes pastured in the
valley down which the yellow Arno steals
silently through the long reaches to the sea."**
* At Cosmo's death, Lorenzo di Medici became
the patron of the academy.
** Hallam.

Ficino held a course of public lectures on
Platonic philosophy, which were attended by
the most celebrated men of the day.

Under Leo X. (son of Lorenzo di Medici),
the University of Rome rose to pre-eminence.
The most learned professors were induced by
liberal offers to hold lectures; young Greeks of
promising talent were invited to Rome with a
view to spread among the Roman youth a
better knowledge of, and love for, Greek classics.
The new Pope appointed as his secretaries
Pietro Bembo and Jacopo Sadoleto, the two
most elegant Latin writers of the day. The
Vatican library was entrusted to Beroaldo.
There was not a man of note, poet, artist, or
orator who did not turn his looks or wend his
steps towards the holy city, and every man of
merit met with a hospitable welcome from the
magnanimous pontiff. The published letters of
Leo X., chiefly with Bembo and Erasmus, are
so many patent proofs of his exertions for the
promotion of literature. Aided by the genius of
Michael Angelo and of Raphael, the magnificent
Basilica of the Vatican rose at his command.

Amongst the academies of Italy, the
Academia della Crusea, or Academy of the Sieve,
implying that the good grain alone was taken,
held a prominent position. A violent attack
upon Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, in the
magazine issued by the academy in 1578,
supposed to have been written by Salviati, gave
great offence to the poet. This academy
counted amongst its members some of the most
learned men of Italy.

In 1587, the University of Genoa was in high
repute. It offered Tasso a salary of four
hundred gold crowns for a course of lectures on
ethics and Aristotle.