Angelo Poliziano seriously
exhorts (1491) King John of Portugal to think betimes of his
immortality in reference to the new discoveries in Africa, and to send
him materials to Florence, there to be put into shape _(operosius
excolenda), _otherwise it would befall him as it had befallen all the
others whose deeds, unsupported by the help of the learned, 'lie hidden
in the vast heap of human frailty.' The king, or his humanistic
chancellor, agreed to this, and promised that at least the Portuguese
chronicles of African affairs should be translated into Italian, and
sent to Florence to be done into Latin. Whether the promise was kept is
not known. These pretensions are by no means so groundless as they may
appear at first sight; for the form in which events, even the greatest,
are told to the living and to posterity is anything but a matter of
indifference. The Italian humanists, with their mode of exposition and
their Latin style, had long the complete control of the reading world
of Europe, and till last century the Italian poets were more widely
known and studied than those of any other nation. The baptismal name of
the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci was given, on account of his book of
travels, to a new quarter of the globe, and if Paolo Giovio, with all
his superficiality and graceful caprice, promised himself immortality,
his expectation has not altogether been disappointed.
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