Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/335

 A R E T I N. 299 UT queart laxis Rfcfonare fibris MIi -i " llniti'n FArnuIi luoruin ....., . ! i v r .>itMuf. SOLve ptillutis Labus rtatuni. The firft and fixth i llables of each verfe muft be taken for this purpole. Sjine pretend that the word Gamtnut, lo liv- qu'.-nt in mu'lc, came from Aretin's having ufod the firft letters of the alphabet to mark his notes, and taking the let- ter G, which tiie Gitk " :ramma j and that he did it toFurrticrc, at (hew that mufic came from ce. the word GAMMUTi A R F.TIN (LEONARD.) This name was given him from hi* being of Arezzo ; and he is better known by it, than by that of Brunus, or Bruni, his family-name. '4e was one of the abieft men of the hrtc^nth century [AJ. He lludied Gicck under Emanuel Chryfoloras, and was afterwards appointed fecretary of" the briefs to pope Innocent VII. of which office he acquitted himfclf honourably under this pope Jo and the four following ones ; and w;;s afterwards fecretary ca P - 59- to the republic of Florence. He tranflated fome of Plutarch's Lives into Latin [B], and the Lthics of Ariftotle. He com- pofed three books " Of the Punic war," which may ferve as a fupplement to thole wanting in Livy : the two firft treat of the firft Punic war, the third of the diforders into which the Carthaginians fell, by the mutiny of the foldiers and the re- volt of the people; asalfoofthe war againft ihe Gauls, and againft thofe of Jllyria [c]. He wrote likewife the Hiftory of Italy during his own time, beginning with the fchifm againft pope Urban VI. in 1378, and ending with the victory obtained by the Florentines in 1440. He has alfo given us the 4t Hiftory of the Republic of Florence, 5 ' and that of " ancient Greece from the command of Therair.encs and " Thrafybulus among the Athenians, to the death of Epa- c minondas." He was reputed to be the author of a [A] PJU!US Jovius fays, Elocr. cap. Demofihenes, Marh Antony, and ix. [>. i~. that Aretin was the firft re- Ca'o of Utica. ftorer of the Greek language in Italy. [c] Mr. Baylc fay, Aretin has donr Philelphus (Conviv. lib. i.)afcribes to nothing but tiandated the Greek of him a great deal of eloquence, and a Polyb'.us, though he ha, ticnicJ it in large fund of genius and erudition, his preface; and from thence it comes Poggius has fethtm above all h^ con- that Bad:us f kenfius has put the narre temporaries in point of ch quence and of Poly bins at the beginning of this fcience. In Philelph. invcil. 2 work in his Paris edition. Vofl". de [BJ The life of Piulus ^miliu?, Hiftor. Latin, p. 559. the tvy Gracchi, Pyrrhus, Sertuiius, reputation,
 * c Hiltory of the Goths," which gained him a good deal of