Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/173

164 Rome, under the patronage of pope Nicholas V. and cardinal Bessarion. He wrote a Greek Grammar, printed by Aldus Manutius, in 1499. and a Treatise on the Grecian Months. He also translated Hippocrate's Aphorisms, Aristotle on Animals, and other works into Latin. This latter work he dedicated to pope Sixtus IV. and received from his holiness no other recompense than the price of the binding, which this charitable father of the church munificently bestowed upon him. Gaza also translated some of Cicero's works into Greek.

"Authors," observes D'Israeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, "have too frequently received ill-treatment, even from those to whom they dedicated their works. Some who felt hurt at the shameless treatment of such mock mæcenases, have observed that no writer should dedicate his works but to his ; as was practised by the ancients, who usually addressed those who had solicited their labours, or animated their progress."

"Every man believes," writes Dr. Johnson, to Baretti, "that mistresses are unfaithful, and patrons are capricious. But he excepts his own mistress, and his own patron.

Theocritus fills his Idylliums with loud complaints of the neglect of his patrons; and Tasso was as little successful in his dedications. Ariosto, in presenting his Orlando Furioso to the cardinal d'Este, was gratified with the bitter sarcasm of—"Where the devil did you find all this nonsense."

1478. Ptolomæ Cosmographia ex emendatione Domitii Caldecini. Rome, Arn. Buckenik, folio. It has already been stated that the celebrated Conrad Sweynheym left his profession of a printer, and dissolved his partnership with Arnold Pannartz, to follow the art of engraving. This edition of Ptolemy is the book which for three years occupied his time and his talents; and which after all he did not live to complete. The finishing hand was put to it by his associate in this new pursuit Arn. Buckenik, or Buking. It is a very rare and curious book. A copy in the La Vallier collection, which wanted many of the plates, sold for more than two hundred and forty livres. It is the second edition of the work. There are twenty-seven geographical plates.—One of the world, ten of different parts of Europe, four of Africa, and twelve of Asia.—Beloe.

Great efforts were made at Milan about this period to promote the revival of learning and the progress of the typographic art. This city produced many scholars, who exerted their abilities in correcting the press, and was celebrated for many individuals who, by defraying the expenses themslves [sic] effectually encouraged the labours of the printers. In the colophons of various books between the years 1475 and 1500, information is given, that they were printed at the private expense of different individuals. This will particularly be found in those works which came forth from the presses of Valdarfer, Lavagna, and Scinzenzeler. Santander has enumerated many of these, but he has not mentioned the three secretaries of the duke of Milan, whose names appear to an edition of Isocrates.—Beloe.

It is curious to remark how great a multitude of editions of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine were published towards the close of this century; which will of course, demonstrate the kind of learning which then prevailed. Belles lettres, however, were beginning to revive, and men of rank and fortune were not wanting who employed both their influence and wealth to procure for publication the venerable remains of the writers of Greece and Rome. Various examples of this liberal and munificent spirit have already been given, and many more will be introduced in the course of the work. The pages of Roscoe, of Gibbon, and others, point out many illustrious names of those, who at an enormous sum purchased manuscripts for the libraries which they founded. Literature, like virtue, is often its own reward, and the enthusiasm some experience in the permanent enjoyments of a vast library has far outweighed the neglect or the calumny of the world, which some of its votaries have received. From the time that Cicero poured forth his feelings in his oration for the poet Archias, innumerable are the testimonies of men of letters of the pleasurable delirium of their researches. Had not sovereigns and rich individuals formed libraries to which men of learning had access, knowledge could not have advanced, even at the very slow manner in which it did; as they in general, were too poor to purchase books, and had not sufficient leisure to find out where they were to be bought, or, while dispersed, where they were to be met with. "At this rate," observes Dr. Henry, "none but kings, bishops, and abbots, could be possessed of any books: which is the reason that there were no schools but in kings' palaces, bishops' sees, or monasteries." The same observations will apply also to printing. For when the secret became known it soon spread over divers nations, became patronized by popes and kings, and esteemed a divine blessing to mankind. The progressive change from school divinity to the cultivation of the studies of humanity, is strongly manifested from the prodigious number of editions of the various works of Cicero, which followed each other in rapid succession, from the three books de Oratore, printed at the Subiaco monastery, by Sweynheym and Pannartz, to the entire collection of all the works of this popular author, printed at Milan in 1498, by Ajexander Minutianus, in 4 vols, folio. Panzer describes near three hundred editions of different works of Cicero, published before the close of this century, many which, either from their dedications or prefaces, or from some circumstance or other, involve something which tends to illustrate the revival of learning. For an enumeration of these