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 two eminent masters in succession, Giovanni da Ravenna, and Gasparino Barzizza,—the latter a great Ciceronian scholar, but exempt from the narrow purism of a later time. Another Paduan teacher whose influence Vittorino must have felt was Vergerius, already celebrated for his essay on the formation of character ("De Ingenuis Moribus"),—the earliest and most lucid statement of the principles on which humanistic training rested; an essay which, amidst the throng of Renaissance treatises on education, remained a classic for two centuries, going through some forty editions before the year 1600. Vittorino, after holding a chair of Rhetoric at Padua, and then teaching privately at Venice, was invited by Gian Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, to undertake the tuition of his children. A villa was assigned to him at Mantua, where he was to reside with his pupils. He settled there in 1425, and remained till his death in 1446. The villa had been of the most luxurious kind, and was known as the "House of Pleasure" ("La Gioiosa"); Vittorino, by a slight but meaning change, named it the "Pleasant House" ("La Giocosa"); banished the luxury which had environed the young Gonzagas; and turned the place into a seat of plain living and regular study. But he was a thorough believer in bright surroundings as conducive to mental and moral health. The house was cheerful and beautiful; it stood in large grounds, fringed by a river; there was ample space and provision for every kind of outdoor