It was Laetus who introduced and conducted the representations of ancient, chiefly Plautine, plays in Rome.Every year, he celebrated the anniversary of the foundation of the city by a festival, at which his friends and pupils recited speeches and poems.Such meetings were the origin of what acquired, and long retained, the name of the Roman Academy.It was simply a free union of individuals, and was connected with no fixed institution.Besides the occasions mentioned, it met at the invitation of a patron, or to celebrate the memory of a deceased member, as of Platina.At such times, a prelate belonging to the academy would first say mass; Pomponio would then ascend the pulpit and deliver a speech; someone else would then follow him and recite an elegy.The customary banquet, with declamations and recitations, concluded the festival, whether joyous or serious, and the academicians, notably Platina himself, early acquired the reputation of epicures.At other times, the guests performed farces in the old Atellan style.As a free association of very varied elements, the academy lasted in its original form down to the sack of Rome, and included among its hosts Angelus Coloccius, Johannes Corycius and others.Its precise value as an element in the intellectual life of the people is as hard to estimate as that of any other social union of the same kind; yet a man like Sadoleto reckoned it among the most precious memories of his youth.A large number of other academies appeared and passed away in many Italian cities, according to the number and significance of the humanists living in them, and to the patronage bestowed by the great and wealthy.Of these we may mention the Academy of Naples, of which Jovianus Pontanus was the centre, and which sent out a colony to Lecce, and that of Pordenone, which formed the court of the Condottiere Alviano.The circle of Lodovico il Moro, and its peculiar importance for that prince, has been already spoken of.
About the middle of the sixteenth century, these associations seem to have undergone a complete change.The humanists, driven in other spheres from their commanding position, and viewed askance by the men of the Counter-reformation, lost the control of the academies: and here, as elsewhere, Latin poetry was replaced by Italian.Before long every town of the least importance had its academy, with some strange, fantastic name, and its own endowment and subscriptions.Besides the recitation of verses, the new institutions inherited from their predecessors the regular banquets and the representation of plays, sometimes acted by the members themselves, sometimes under their direction by young amateurs, and sometimes by paid players.The fate of the Italian stage, and afterwards of the opera, was long in the hands of these associations.
PART FOUR
THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN
Journeys of the Italians Freed from the countless bonds which elsewhere in Europe checked progress, having reached a high degree of individual development and been schooled by the teachings of antiquity, the Italian mind now turned to the discovery of the outward universe, and to the representation of it in speech and form.
On the journeys of the Italians to distant parts of the world, we can here make but a few general observations.The Crusades had opened unknown distances to the European mind, and awakened in all the passion for travel and adventure.It may be hard to indicate precisely the point where this passion allied itself with, or became the servant of, the thirst for knowledge; but it was in Italy that this was first and most completely the case.Even in the Crusades the interest of the Italians was wider than that of other nations, since they already were a naval power and had commercial relations with the East.From time immemorial the Mediterranean Sea had given to the nations that dwelt on its shores mental impulses different from those which governed the peoples of the North; and never, from the very structure of their character, could the Italians be adventurers in the sense which the word bore among the Teutons.After they were once at home in all the eastern harbors of the Mediterranean, it was natural that the most enterprising among them should be led to join that vast inter- national movement of the Mohammedans which there found its outlet.A new half of the world lay, as it were, freshly discovered before them.Or, like Polo of Venice, they were caught in the current of the Mongolian peoples, and carried on to the steps of the throne of the Great Khan.
At an early period, we find Italians sharing in the discoveries made in the Atlantic Ocean; it was the Genoese who, in the thirteenth century found the Canary Islands.In the same year, 1291, when Ptolemais, the last remnant of the Christian East, was lost, it was again the Genoese who made the first known attempt to find a sea-passage to the East Indies.Columbus himself is but the greatest of a long list of Italians who, in the service of the western nations, sailed into distant seas.
The true discoverer, however, is not the man who first chances to stumble upon anything, but the man who finds what he has sought.Such a one alone stands in a link with the thoughts and interests of his predecessors, and this relationship will also determine the account he gives of his search.For which reason the Italians, although their claim to be the first comers on this or that shore may be disputed, will yet retain their title to be pre-eminently the nation of discoverers for the whole latter part of the Middle Ages.The fuller proof of this assertion belongs to the special history of discoveries.
