book two

authors who, in their lifetime, were brought into such intimate relationship by their love of country, their period, their natural inclinations, and their thirst for knowledge. They loved each other and held each other in great esteem; many things they wrote to each other and of each other. They were two men with but one soul; they enjoyed the instructions of the same master, attended the same school, lived in the same State. And yet they did not attain the same degree of honor--’twas Cicero who soared higher. In short, they lived together in the best of harmony. And believe me, you could bring together few such men from all ages and all races. To follow common hearsay, Varro was the more learned, Cicero the more eloquent. However, if I should dare to speak my own say as to ultimate superiority, and if any god or man would constitute me judge in a question of such great importance, or rather would, without taking offense, deign to listen to a voluntary judgment on my part, I should speak freely and as my reason dictates. Both men are indeed great. My love and my intimate knowledge of one of them may, perhaps, deceive me. But the one whom I consider in every sense superior is--Cicero. Alas, what have I said? To what yawning precipice have I ventured? Oh well, the word has been spoken, the step taken. And may I be accused of great rashness rather than of small judgment. Farewell.

[53]. “Doctissimus” was as confirmed an epithet when speaking of Varro as “crafty” of Ulysses, “aged” of Nestor, “divus” of Augustus, etc. It is unnecessary to give here quotations from the Latin authors bearing out Petrarch’s statement. Without seeking them at all, the following have been encountered in the preparation of these notes. St. Augustine, _De civ. dei_, III, 4: “vir doctissimus eorum Varro;” IV, 1: “vir doctissimus apud eos Varro et gravissimae auctoritatis;” IV, 31: “Dicit etiam idem auctor acutissimus atque doctissimus;” Seneca, _ad Helviam_, viii, 1; Apuleius, _Apol._, 42.

[54]. The reference seems to be a direct one to Cicero’s _Academica posteriora_; but the wording proves beyond doubt that our author is quoting instead from St. Augustine. Petrarch’s words are (Vol. III, p. 275):

doctissimus Varro est, quod sine ulla dubitatione amicus tuus Marcus Cicero in iis ipsis libris in quibus nihil affirmandum disputat, affirmare non timuit, ut quodammodo luce tui nominis perstringente oculos, videatur interim dum de te loquitur suum principale propositum non vidisse.

St. Augustine says (_De civ. dei_, VI, 2):

in eis libris, id est Academicis, ubi cuncta dubitanda esse contendit, addidit “sine ulla dubitatione doctissimo.” Profecto de hac re sic erat certus, ut auferret dubitationem, quam solet in omnibus adhibere, tamquam de hoc uno etiam pro Academicorum dubitatione disputaturus se Academicum fuisset [sic] oblitus.

The only variation between these two passages is that Petrarch has substituted for the simpler statement of St. Augustine the figure of the dazzling light.

Petrarch, however, did not have a first-hand acquaintance with the _Ac. posteriora_. In _Rer. mem._, I, 2, p. 396, the chapter on Varro gives the entire substance of the present letter. According to Ancona-Bacci (Vol. I, p. 514), the _Liber rer. mem._ was composed earlier than 1350--the date of this letter to Varro--which therefore may have been modeled after the corresponding chapter of the _Rer. mem._, in which _Ac. post._, i, 3, 9 is cited in full. Hence it results that _Rer. mem._ I, 2 was based on St. Augustine, and _Fam._, XXIV, 6, on _Rer. mem._

[55]. St. Augustine distinctly says, _De civ. dei_, XIX, 22: “Varro doctissimus Romanorum;” and Quintilian, _Inst._, x, 1, 95: “Terentius Varro, vir Romanorum eruditissimus.”

[56]. Lactantius, _Divin. Inst._, i, 6, 7: “M. Varro, quo nemo umquam doctior ne apud Graecos quidem vixit, in libris rerum divinarum quos ad C. Caesarem pontificem maximum scripsit....” (cf. Petrarch, Vol. III, p. 276).

[57]. _Catonis Disticha_, III, 5 (in _Poetae latini minores_, Vol. III):

Segnitiem fugito, quae vitae ignavia fertur; Nam cum animus languet, consumit inertia corpus.

P. de Nolhac says (II, p. 110, n. 2) that he has not found in Petrarch a single reference to the _Catonis Disticha_, which were so widespread in the Middle Ages. The above, to be sure, is not actually cited by Petrarch, but it does seem to give the thought contained in “servata ex Catonis praecepto ratione otii” (III, p. 276).

[58]. St. Augustine, _De civ. dei_, VI, 2:

And although Varro is less pleasing in his style, he is imbued with erudition and philosophy to such an extent that in every branch of those studies which we today call secular and which they were wont to call liberal, he imparts as much to him who is in pursuit of knowledge as Cicero delights him who is desirous of excelling in the choice of words.

This entire section (VI, 2) is a panegyric, and proves St. Augustine a great admirer of Varro. Quintilian, _Inst._, x, 1, 95, is much briefer: “plus tamen scientiae conlaturus quam eloquentiae.”

[59]. Petrarch (Vol. III, p. 276) quotes verbatim from St. Augustine, _De civ. dei_, VI, 2. The sense, at any rate, is perfectly clear in both passages, but seems to have escaped Fracassetti, who, after correctly rendering “tanto aver letto da far meraviglia che ti restasse tempo di scriver nulla,” continues, “e scritto aver tanto che non s’intende come trovassi tempo per leggere alcuna cosa” (Vol. 5, p. 156).

We are reminded, too, of Cicero’s similar boast regarding his own literary activity at Astura in 45 B. C., “Legere isti laeti qui me reprehendunt tam multa non possunt quam ego scripsi” (_ad Att._, xii, 40, 2).

[60]. William Ramsay, in Smith’s _Dict. of Grk. and Rom. Biogr., s. v._ “Varro,” says:

It has been concluded from some expressions in one of Petrarch’s letters, expressions which appear under different forms in different editions, that the Antiquities were extant in his youth, and that he had actually seen them, although they had eluded his eager researches at a later period of life when he was more fully aware of their value. But the words of the poet, although to a certain extent ambiguous, certainly do not warrant the interpretation generally assigned to them, nor does there seem to be any good foundation for the story that these and other works of Varro were destroyed by the orders of Pope Gregory the Great, in order to conceal the plagiarism of St. Augustine.

And, to the opposite effect, J. A. Symonds, _The Revival of Learning_, (Scribner, 1900), p. 53, n. 3: “cf. his Epistle to Varro for an account of a MS of that author.” P. de Nolhac is of the opinion that Petrarch’s remembrances of the _Antiquitates_ went through the same evolution as those of the _De gloria_ (cf. the second letter to Cicero, n. 10).

[61]. With this sentiment compare the words of another enthusiastic humanist, John Addington Symonds, who writes (Preface, _op. cit._, written in 1877): “To me it has been a labor of love to record even the bare names of those Italian worthies who recovered for us in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ‘the everlasting consolations’ of the Greek and Latin classics.”

V. TO QUINTILIAN

(_Fam._, XXIV, 7)

I had formerly heard of thy name, and had read something of thine, wondering whence it was that thou hadst gained renown for keen insight. It is but recently that I have become acquainted with thy talents. Thy work entitled the _Institutes of Oratory_ has come into my hands, but alas how mangled and mutilated![62] I recognized therein the hand of time--the destroyer of all things--and thought to myself, “O Destroyer, as usual thou dost guard nothing with sufficient care except that which it were a gain to lose. O slothful and haughty Age, is it thus that thou dost hand down to us men of genius, though thou dost bestow most tender care on the unworthy? O sterile-minded and wretched men of today, why do you devote yourselves to learning and writing so many things which it were better to leave unlearned, but neglect to preserve this work intact?”

However, this work caused me to estimate thee at thy true worth. As regards thee I had long been in error, and I rejoice that I have now been corrected. I saw the dismembered limbs of a beautiful body, and admiration mingled with grief seized me. Even at this moment, indeed, thy work may be resting intact in someone’s library, and, what is worse, with one who perhaps has not the slightest idea of what a guest he is harboring unawares.[63] Whosoever more fortunate than I will discover thee, may he be sure that he has gained a work of great value, one which, if he be at all wise, he will consider among his chief treasures.

In these books (whose number I am ignorant of, but which must doubtless have been many) thou hast had the daring to probe again a subject treated with consummate skill by Cicero himself when enriched by the experience of a lifetime. Thou hast accomplished the impossible. Thou didst follow in the footsteps of so great a man, and yet thou didst gain new glory, due not to the excellence of imitation but to the merits of the original doctrines propounded in thine own work. By Cicero, the orator was prepared for battle; by thee he is molded and fashioned, with the result that many things seem to have been either neglected or unheeded by Cicero. Thou gatherest all the details which escaped thy master’s notice with such extreme care that (unless my judgment fail me) thou mayest be said to conquer him in diligence in just the degree that he conquers thee in eloquence. Cicero guides his orator through the laborious tasks of legal pleading to the topmost heights of oratory. He trains him for victory in the battles of the courtroom. Thou dost begin far earlier, and dost lead thy future orator through all the turns and pitfalls of the long journey from the cradle to the impregnable citadel of eloquence. The genius of Cicero is pleasing and delightful, and compels admiration. Nothing could be more useful to youthful aspirants. It enlightens those who are already far advanced, and points out to the strong the road to eminence. Thy painstaking earnestness is of assistance, especially to the weak, and, as though it were a most experienced nurse, offers to delicate youth the simpler intellectual nourishment.

But, lest the flattering remarks which I have been making cause thee to suspect my sincerity, permit me to say (in counterbalancing them) that thou shouldst have adopted a different style. Indeed, the truth of what Cicero says in his _Rhetorica_ is clearly apparent in thy case, namely that it is of very little importance for the orator to discourse on the general, abstract theories of his profession, but that, on the contrary, it is of the very highest importance for him to speak from actual practice therein.[64] I do not deny thee experience, the second of these two qualities, as Cicero did to Hermagoras, of whom he was treating.[65] But I submit that thou didst possess the latter in only a moderate degree; the former, however, in such a remarkable degree that it seems now scarcely possible for the mind of man to add a single word.

I have compared this magnificent work of thine with that book which thou didst publish under the title _De causis_.[66] (And I should like to say in passing that this work has not been lost, that it might result the more clearly that our age is especially neglectful of only the highest and best things, and not so much so of the mediocre.) In such comparison it becomes plain to the minds of the discerning that thou hast performed the office of the whetstone rather than that of the knife,[67] and that thou hast had greater success in building up the orator than in causing him to excel in the courts. Pray do not receive these statements in bad part. For it is as true of thee as of others (and thou must be aware of the fact) that a man’s intellectual powers are not equally suited for development in all directions, but that they will evince a special degree of qualification in one only. Thou wert a great man, I acknowledge it; but thy highest merit lay in thy ability to ground and to mold great men. If thou hadst had suitable material to hand, thou wouldst easily have produced a greater than thyself, O thou who didst so wisely develop the rare intellects intrusted to thy care!

There was, however, quite a jealous rivalry between thee and a certain other great man--I mean Annaeus Seneca. Your age, your profession, your nationality, even, should have been a common bond between you; but envy (that plague among equals) kept you apart. In this respect I think that thou, perhaps, didst exercise the greater self-restraint; for, whereas thou canst not get thyself to give him full praise, he speaks of thee most contemptuously. I myself should hesitate to be judged by an inferior. Yet, if I were constituted judge of such an important question, I should express this opinion. Seneca was a more copious and versatile writer, thou a keener; he employed a loftier style, thou a more cautious one. Furthermore, thou didst praise his genius and his zeal and his wide learning, but not his choice nor his taste. Thou dost add, in truth, that his style was corrupt, and vitiated by every fault.[68] He, on the other hand, numbers thee among those whose name is buried with them,[69] although thy reputation is still great, and thou hadst been neither dead nor buried during his lifetime. For he passed away under Nero, whereas thou didst go from Spain to Rome under Galba, when both Seneca and Nero were no more. After many years thou didst assume charge of the grandnephews of Emperor Domitian by his express orders, and becamest sponsor for their moral and intellectual development.[70] Thou didst fulfil thy trust, I believe, so far as lay in thy power and with hopeful prospects in both these directions; although, as Plutarch shortly afterward wrote to Trajan, the indiscretions of thy wards were made to detract from thine own fair name.[71]

I have nothing more to say. I ardently desire to find thee entire; and if thou art anywhere in such condition, pray do not hide from me any longer. Farewell.

_Written in the land of the living, between the right slope of the Apennines and the right bank of the Arno, within the walls of my own city where I first became acquainted with thee, and on the very day of our becoming acquainted,[72] on the seventh of December, in the thirteen hundred and fiftieth year of Him whom thy master preferred to persecute rather than to profess._

NOTES ON _Fam._, XXIV, 7, TO QUINTILIAN

[62]. Lapo di Castiglionchio gave Petrarch a copy of the _Institutes_ in 1350. (For further details see n. [72].)

[63]. How very much like a prophecy this reads! But it was a most natural exclamation for the “first modern scholar,” who stood at the threshold of the Renaissance, when so many of the classics had as yet to be discovered.

In a footnote of the Latin edition (Vol. III, p. 278), Fracassetti informs us that in one of the codices the following remark is added: “This turned out to be true, for the complete Quintilian was found at Constance.” This refers to the discovery of a complete manuscript of Quintilian in 1416. The Florentine scholar Poggio Bracciolini, while attending the Council of Constance in the capacity of apostolic secretary, found this copy in an old tower of the monastery of St. Gall. It is, perhaps, the same as the one now preserved at Florence--the Codex Laurentianus.

The story of the discovery is well told in a letter by Poggio. This letter gives such a faithful picture of the enthusiasm of the humanists, and is of such great interest that, although rather a long letter, it has been thought best to give a translation of it here in full (from the Latin text of Jacques Lefant, _Poggiana_,