When the
continuous narrative after the manner of Livy--that Procrustean bed of
so many writers is abandoned, the change is marvelous. The same Platina
and Giovio, whose great histories we only read because and so far as we
must, suddenly come forward as masters in the biographical style. We
have already spoken of Tristano Caracciolo, of the biographical works
of Fazio and of the Venetian topography of Sabellico, and others will
be mentioned in the sequel.
The Latin treatises on past history were naturally concerned, for the
most part, with classical antiquity. What we are most surprised to find
among these humanists are some considerable works on the history of the
Middle Ages. The first of this kind was the chronicle of Matteo
Palmieri (449-1449), beginning where Prosper Accedence ceases. On
opening the 'Decades' of Biondo of Forli, we are surprised to find a
universal history, 'ab inclinatione Romanorum imperii,' as in Gibbon,
full of original studies on the authors of each century, and occupied,
through the first 300 folio pages, with early mediaeval history down to
the death of Frederick II. And this when in Northern countries nothing
more was current than chronicles of the popes and emperors, and the
'Fasciculus temporum.' We cannot here stay to show what writings Biondo
made use of, and where he found his materials, though this justice will
some day be done to him by the historians of literature.
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