From the time of Petrarch's
letters and treatises down to near the end of the fifteenth century,
the heaping up of learned quotations, as in the case of the orators, is
the main business of most of these writers. Subsequently the whole
style, especially in Italian, was purified, until, in the 'Asolani' of
Bembo, and the 'Vita Sobria' of Luigi Cornaro, a classical perfection
was reached. Here too the decisive fact was this, that antiquarian
matter of every kind had meantime begun to be deposited in encyclopedic
works (now printed), and no longer stood in the way of the essayist.
It was inevitable too that the humanistic spirit should control the
writing of history. A superficial comparison of the histories of this
period with the earlier chronicles, especially with works so full of
life, color, and brilliancy as those of the Villani, will lead us
loudly to deplore the change. How insipid and conventional appear by
their side the best of the humanists, and particularly their immediate
and most famous successors among the historians of Florence, Leonardo
Aretino and Poggio! The enjoyment of the reader is incessantly marred
by the sense that, in the classical phrases of Fazio, Sabellico,
Foglietta, Senarega, Platina in the chronicles of Mantua, Bembo in the
annals of Venice, and even of Giovio in his histories, the best local
and individual coloring and the full sincerity of interest in the truth
of events have been lost.
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