How it was
possible to endure this infliction for two and even three hours, can
only be understood when we take into account the intense interest then
felt in everything connected with antiquity, and the rarity and
defectiveness of treatises on the subject at a time when printing was
but little diffused. Such orations had at least the value which we have
claimed for many of Petrarch's letters. But some speakers went too far.
Most of Filelfo's speeches are an atrocious patchwork of classical and
biblical quotations, tacked on to a string of commonplaces, among which
the great people he wishes to flatter are arranged under the head of
the cardinal virtues, or some such category, and it is only with the
greatest trouble, in his case and in that of many others, that we can
extricate the few historical no- tices of any value which they really
contain. The speech, for instance, of a scholar and professor of
Piacenza at the reception of the Duke Galeazzo Maria, in 1467, begins
with Julius Caesar, then proceeds to mix up a mass of classical
quotations with a number from an allegorical work by the speaker
himself, and concludes with some exceedingly indiscreet advice to the
ruler. Fortunately it was late at night, and the orator had to be
satisfied with handing his written panegyric to the prince. Filelfo
begins a speech at a betrothal with the words: 'Aristotle, the
peripatetic.
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