This school system, directed by a few distinguished humanists, not only
attained a remarkable perfection of organization, but became an
instrument of higher education in the modern sense of the phrase. With
the education of the children of two princely houses in North Italy
institutions were connected which may be called unique of their kind.
At the court of Giovan Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua (1407-1444) appeared
the illustrious Vittorino da Feltre, one of those men who devote their
whole life to an object for which their natural gifts constitute a
special vocation.
He directed the education of the sons and daughters of the princely
house, and one of the latter became under his care a woman of learning.
When his reputation extended far and wide over Italy, and members of
great and wealthy families came from long distances, even from Germany,
in search of his instructions, Gonzaga was not only willing that they
should be received, but seems to have held it an honour for Mantua to
be the chosen school of the aristocratic world. Here for the first time
gymnastics and all noble bodily exercises were treated along with
scientific instruction as indispensable to a liberal education. Besides
these pupils came others, whose instruction Vittorino probably held to
be his highest earthly aim, the gifted poor, whom he supported in his
house and educated, 'per l'amore di Dio,' along with the highborn
youths who here learned to live under the same roof with untitled
genius.
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