He set to work upon the
most defective plays of Plautus, which were destitute even of a list of
the characters, and went carefully through the whole remains of this
author, chiefly with an eye to the language. Possibly it was he who
gave the first impulse for the public representations of these plays.
Afterwards Pomponius Laetus took up the same subject, and acted as
producer when Plautus was put on the stage in the houses of great
churchmen. That these representations became less in common after 1520,
is mentioned by Giovio, as we have seen, among the causes of the
decline of eloquence.
We may mention, in conclusion, the analogy between Ciceronianism in
literature and the revival of Vitruvius by the architects in the sphere
of art. And here, too, the law holds good which prevails elsewhere in
the history of the Renaissance, that each artistic movement is preceded
by a corresponding movement in the general culture of the age. In this
case, the interval is not more than about twenty years, if we reckon
from Cardinal Adrian of Corneto (1505) to the first avowed Vitruvians.
Neo-Latin Poetry
The chief pride of the humanists is, however, their modern Latin
poetry. It lies within the limits of our task to treat of it, at least
in so far as it serves to characterize the humanistic movement.
How favourable public opinion was to that form of poetry, and how
nearly it supplanted all others, has been already shown.
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