In their Latin
poems they sing his praises and celebrate his amour with the fair
Isotta, in whose honour and as whose monument the famous rebuilding of
San Francesco at Rimini took place -- 'Divae Isottae Sacrum'. When the
humanists themselves came to die, they were laid in or under the
sarcophagi with which the niches of the outside walls of the church
were adorned, with an inscription testifying that they were laid here
at the time when Sigismundus, the son of Pandulfus, ruled. It is hard
for us nowadays to believe that a monster like this prince felt
learning and the friendship of cultivated people to be a necessity of
life; and yet the man who excommunicated hirn, made war upon him, and
burnt him in effigy, Pope Pius II, says: 'Sigismondo knew history and
had a great store of philosophy; he seemed born to all that he
undertook'.
Propagators of Antiquity; Epistolography: Latin Orators
There were two purposes, however, for which the humanist was as
indispensable to the republics as to princes or popes, namely, the
official correspondence of the State, and the making of speeches on
public and solemn occasions.
Not only was the secretary required to be a competent Latinist, but
conversely, only a humanist was credited with the knowledge and ability
necessary for the post of secretary. And thus the greatest men in the
sphere of science during the fifteenth century mostly devoted a
considerable part of their lives to serve the State in this capacity.
Pages:
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270