Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/57

 LATINI

34

LLTOn

Columbanus) ; in Gennany at Saint GaU (614), Reich- enau (794), Fulda (744), Lorech (763), Hersfeld (768;, Corvey (822), Hirschau (830); in France at St. Mar- tin's of Tours (founded in 372, but later restored), Fleury or Saint-Benott-sur-Loire (620), Ferridres (630), Ck)rbic (662), Cluny (910). The reforms of Cluny and later of Clairvaux were not favourable to studies, as the chief aim of the reformers was to com- bat the secular spirit and re-establish strict religious observances. This influence is in harmony with the tendencies of scholasticism. Consequently, from the twelfth century and especially the thirteenth, the copying of manuscripts became a secular business, a source of gain. To Gudeman (" Grundriss zur Geschichte der klassischen Philologie", Leipzig, 1909, p. 160) we owe the following list of the most ancient or most useful manuscripts of the Latin classics for the Middle Ages. Eighth-ninth centuries: Cicero's Orations, Horace, the philosopher Seneca, Martial. Ninth century : Terence, Lucretius, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Ovid, Lucan, Val- erius-Maximus, Columella, Persius, Lucan, the philoso- pher Seneca, Pliny the Elder, QuintusCurtius, the The- baid of Statins, Silius Italicus, Plinv the Younger, Juvenal, Tacitus, Suetonius, Florus, Cfaudian. Ninth- Tenth centuries: Persius, Quintus Curtius, Caesar, Cicero, Horace, Livy, Phaedrus, Persius, Lucan, the philosopher Seneca, Valerius Flaccus, Martial, Jus- tin, Ammianus Marcellinus. Tenth century: Caesar, Catullus, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Ovid, Lucan, Per- sius, Quintus Curtius, Pliny the Elder, Quintilian, Statins, Juvenal. Eleventh century: Caesar, Sallust, Livy, Ovid, Tacitus, Apuleius. Thirteenth century: Cornelius Nepos, Propertius, Varro, *'De lingua latina".

This list, however, furnishes only incomplete in- formation. An author like Quintus Curtius is repre- sented by numerous manuscripts in every century; another, like Lucretius, was not copied anew between the ninth century and the Renaissance. Moreover, it was customary to compile manuscripts of epitomes and anthologies, some of which have preserved the only extant fragments of ancient authors. The teaching of grammar was very deficient; this majy^, perhaps, account for the backwardness of philological science in the Middle Ages. Latin grammar is r^uced to an abridgment of Donatius, supplemented by the mea- gre conmientaries of the tealciier, and replaced since the thirteenth century by the "Doctrinale" of Alex- ander de Vflledieu (de Villa Dei).

III. The Renaissance brought to light; the hidden treasures of the Middle Ages. Prior to this period, classical culture had been an individuaJ, isolated fact. From the fourteenth century on it became collective and social. The attitude of the Cliurch towards this movement is too important to be treated within the brief limits of this article (see Humanism; Renais- sance; Leo X; Pius 11; etc.). As to Latin studies, in particular, the Church continued to influence very actively their development At the beginning of the modern era Latin was the court language of sove- reigns, notabl^^ of the Italian chanceries. The Roman curia ranks with Florence and Naples, amons the first for the eminence, fame, and grace of its Latinists. Poggio was a papal secretary'. Bembo and Sadoleto became cardinals. Schools and universities soon yielded to the influence of the Humanists (see Hu- manism). In France, the Netherlands, and Germany the study of the ancient classics was more or less openly influenced by tendencies hostile to the Church and Christianity. But the Jesuits soon made Latin the basis of their teaching, organized the same in a systematic way and introauced compulsory and daily construing of Cicero. The newly founded Lou vain University (1426) became a centre of Latin studies, owin^ chiefly to the Ecole du Lis founded in 1437 and especially to the Ecole dcjs Trois Langues (Greek, Latin, Hebrew), opened in 1517. It was at the Ecole

du Lis that Jan van Pauteran (Despauterius) taught, the author of a Latin grammar destined to survive two centuries, but unfortunately too clearly dependent on Alexander de Villedieu's above-mentioned "Doo- trinale'*. In the seventeenth century Port Royal in- troduced a few reforms in the method of teauching, substituted French for Latin in the recitations, and added to the programme of studies. But the general lines of education remained the same.

In the nineteenth century, classical philology re- vived as a historical science. The men who brought about this progress were mainlv Germans, Dutch, and English. The Catholic Church had no share in this labour until towards the close of the century. In ^e middle of the nineteenth century sprang up in France a controversy of a pedago^cal nature, concerning the use of the Latin classics in Christian schools. Abb^ Gaume insisted that Christians, especially future priests, should obtain their hterary training from the reading and interpretation of the Fathers of the Church, and he went so far as to call classical educa^ tion the canker-worm (ver rongeur) of modern society. Dupanloup, superior of the Paris seminary of Notre- Dame des Champs, later Bishop of Orleans, took up the defence of the classical authors, whereupon there broke out a long polemical controversy whicn belongs to the history of Catholic Liberalism. Louis Veuillot answered Dupanloup, but the Holy See was silent and the French bishops did not alter the curriculum of their "petits s^minaires" or preparatory schools for the clergy. Veuillot withdrew from the discussion in 1852. Dubner edited a collection of patristic texts so graded as to serve all Christian schools from the ele- mentary to the upper classes. Less positive at- tempts were made to introduce selections from the principal ecclesiastical \ivTiter8 of Christian antiquity (Nounsson, for the state lyc^es and colleges; Monier, for the Catholic colleges). In Belgium Guillaume urged the simultaneous comparative study of a Chris- tian and a pagan author. Both in Belgium and France the traditional use of the pagan authors has held its own in most educational houses; in this re- spect, the Jesuit schools and the government institu- tions do not differ. In recent times attacks have been aimed, not merely at pagan authors, but in general at all mental training in Latin. The leaders of this new opposition are on the one hand the so-called *'prac- ticar' men, i. e. representatives of the natural and applied sciences, and on the other declared adver- saries of the Catholic Church, many of whom hold the opinion that the study of Latin makes men more ready to receive the teachings of Faith. Once again, therefore, the destinies of the Church and of the J^tin classics are brought into connexion. On this subject see the various articles of The Cathouc Encyclo- pedia concerning schools, studies, education, the history of philology, etc.

Sandys, History ofClassical Scholarship: The Survival of (he Latin Classics^ I (Cambridge, 1903-8), ch. xxxii; Boissieb, La fin du paganitme, I (Pans, 1891) 233-398: Lrjay, Littera-. tura in Revue de phitologie de liUSraure et d'histoire ancienne, XVI (1892), 22| Roger, L'enseignement dca leltrea claaaiques d'Aitsone • Alcutn (Paris, 1905); Chatelain, Vncialia scriptura codicum latinorum (Paris, 1902): Traube, VorUtungen und Ab- handlungen, 1 (Munich, 1909) ; Haskins, A List of Text-Books from the close o' the twelfth century in Harvard Studies in Classi- cal Philology, XX (1909), 75; Laorangb, Vie de Mgr Dupan- loup (Paris, 1907).

Paul Lejay,

Latmi, Brunetto, Florentine philosopher- and statesman, b. at Florence, c. 1210; the son of Buonac- corso Latini, d. 1294. A notary by profession, Brunetto shared in the revolution of 1250, by which the Ghibel- line power in Plorence was overthrow^n, and a Guelph democratic government established. In 1260, he was sent by the Commune as ambassador to Alfonso X of Castile, to implore his aid against King Manfred and the Ghibellines, and he has left us in his "Tesoretto" {II, 27-50), a dramatic account of how, on his return