The high
estimation in which these branches of science were held makes it
intelligible why distinguished philologists turned their attention to
law and medicine, while on the other hand specialists were more and
more compelled to acquire something of a wide literary culture. We
shall presently have occasion to speak of the work of the humanists in
other departments of practical life.
Nevertheless, the position of the philologists, as such, even where the
salary was large, and did not exclude other sources of income, was on
the whole uncertain and temporary, so that one and the same teacher
could be connected with a great variety of institutions. It is evident
that change was desired for its own sake, and something fresh expected
from each newcomer, as was natural at a time when science was in the
making, and consequently depended to no small degree on the personal
influence of the teacher. Nor was it always the case that a lecturer on
classical authors really belonged to the university of the town where
he taught. Communication was so easy, and the supply of suitable
accommodation, in monasteries and elsewhere, was so abundant, that a
private appointment was often practicable. In the first decades of the
fifteenth century, when the University of Florence was at its greatest
brilliance, when the courtiers of Eugenius IV, and perhaps even of
Martin V thronged the lecture-room, when Carlo Aretino and Filelfo were
competing for the largest audience, there existed, not only an almost
complete university among the Augustinians of Santo Spirito, not only
an association of scholars among the Camaldolesi of the Angeli, but
individuals of mark, either singly or in common, arranged to provide
philosophical and philological teaching for themselves and others.
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