Never indeed was more expected from
preachers than at that time especially from the Lenten preachers; and
there were not a few audiences which could not only tolerate, but which
demanded a strong dose of philosophy from the pulpit. But we have here
especially to speak of the distinguished occasional preachers in Latin.
Many of their opportunities had been taken away from them, as has been
observed, by learned laymen. Speeches on particular saints' days, at
weddings and funerals, or at the installation of a bishop, and even the
introductory speech at the first mass of a clerical friend, or the
address at the festival of some religious order, were all left to
laymen. But at all events at the Papal court in the fifteenth century,
whatever the occasion might be, the preachers were generally monks.
Under Sixtus IV, Giacomo da Volterra regularly enumerates these
preachers, and criticizes them according to the rules of the art. Fedra
Inghirami, famous as an orator under Julius II, had at least received
holy orders and was canon at St. John Lateran; and besides him, elegant
Latinists were now common enough among the prelates. In this matter, as
in others, the exaggerated privileges of the profane humanists appear
lessened in the sixteenth century on which point we shall presently
speak more fully.
What now was the subject and general character of these speeches? The
national gift of eloquence was not wanting to the Italians of the
Middle Ages, and a so-called 'rhetoric' belonged from the first to the
seven liberal arts; but so far as the revival of the ancient methods is
concerned, this merit must be ascribed, according to Filippo Villani,
to the Florentine Bruno Casini, who died of the plague in 1348.
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