grace of description, in short, the genius of the whole, must be claimed by Boccaccio alone. There is unhappily much in the Decamerone that offends delicacy; and yet the poems were written for the amusement of the ladies, per cacciar la malinconia delle femine, as the author says. It has been well and pointedly remarked, that Boccaccio has been less scrupulous in violating the laws of morals, which we receive from God, than in shocking the rules that regulate the purity of language, and which proceed only from the will and caprice of men. Some passages have even been construed into a contempt of religion. His wit may not, perhaps, always be under restraint, and occasionally improper expressions may have escaped him in censuring the profligacy of the monastic orders. Indeed whenever any act of peculiar sensuality and atrocity is to be performed, a monk is the actor. It was surmised that his laughter at false relics proceeded from a secret contempt for religion. None of his stories gave greater scandal than that wherein he describes a witty preacher imposing upon his congregation a parrot's feather for a feather dropt from the wing of the angel Gabriel, and some common coals as part of the fire which had roasted Saint Laurence. But no man was more free from the vanity or hardihood VOL. I. U of impiety than Boccaccio. His various books abound with passages expressive of religious awe; and, indeed, in his large work on the heathen gods, he even proposes the modest doubt whether such a subject can with propriety be treated by a Christian. It is no wonder that the monastic clergy have always inveighed against the Decamerone. But they never succeeded in impeding its popularity. It was too consonant with the taste of the world for authority to overthrow it. The young and the gay read it for its scenes of pleasure; the man of the world admired its lively pictures of human nature; and the scholar found in it the treasures of Italian prose. Once only did the monks prevail. At Florence, in the year 1497, the monk Savonarola persuaded the people to destroy all the copies which they possessed of the Decamerone. Dante and Petrarca were similarly honoured. (85) CHAPTER V. FLORENCE. State of Letters and Art in Florence in the time of the Medici. Cosmo de Medici. - The Architects Brunelleschi, Michelozzi, and Alberti. - Sculpture.- Donatello and Ghiberti. - Chrysoloras and his patron Palla Strozzi. -Ambrogio Traversari.-Lionardo Aretino. - Poggio Bracciolini.-Filelfo.- Greeks at Florence. Pletho.Gennadius. Bessarion. George of Trebisond, and Theodore Gaza. - Introduction of the Platonic Philosophy. -Lorenzo de Medici.-The Platonic Academyat Florence - Ficino.-Landino. -Poliziano. - Pico de Mirandola.— Italian Poetry. Burchiello. - The Pulci. - Benevieni. CHAPTER V. FLORENCE. WHEN HEN particular places and buildings at Florence brought former times to my mind, I often wished that I had lived and travelled in the days of Cosmo de' Medici, and his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent. Yet I always consoled myself by the thought, that I could combine reflection with observation, and that my knowledge of the literature of Tuscany must be more perfect than if the subject had been viewed by me at any earlier period. When I resided at Florence, the literary heroes of the fifteenth century were yet fresh in fame, the fire which they kindled was still alive, and if in conversing with the learned men of the age, or in reading |