medical college, designed on an Italian model, which still bears his name; among its provisions was one which stipulated that holders of travelling medical scholarships should be required to study at Padua, Bologna, Montpellier, or Paris.1 The Italian Renaissance was first known in England in the scholarly world. Its progress in the arts, in social life, in a hundred ways, did not come until after it had penetrated the intellectual classes. What may therefore be called the first period of Italian influence in England, beginning in the second quarter of the fifteenth century and lasting for a hundred years, was essentially a scholarly influence which found its home at the universities. The initial impulse toward the new learning was thus given by Italy to England. By holding up its own example as a model, Italy formed the English secular type of scholar and directed his intellectual interests. Its influence, however, in the scholarly world was one of foundation rather than of development. It was paramount in assisting the one; it diminished with the growth of the other. It was practically over with the generation which followed after Grocyn and Linacre, when English scholarship was developing along its own lines, barely affected by foreign influence. Its purpose had already been accomplished in the very beginning of the sixteenth century. The new learning of the Italian Renaissance had been transplanted to England, the new type of humanist established there. The influence of Italy 1 Mullinger, II, 163. first felt by Oxford men had spread thence to Cambridge, to the court, the homes of the nobility, the public schools, and by degrees through all England. VI The patronage of learning which has always been one of the proudest boasts of the Catholic Church existed especially in the Renaissance, when a genuine love for it on the part of churchmen atoned for many other shortcomings. The higher clergy, moreover, were mostly university men, whose scholarly interests had been awakened early in life, and who later were placed in a position to show their gratitude. An account of Italian influence on the new learning in England therefore requires some brief mention at least of the great churchmen who aided in fostering the move ment. The many ecclesiastical ties which bound all Europe to Rome had long familiarized the English clergy with Italy. Already in early medieval times an Englishman named Nicholas Breakspere, had ascended the papal throne as Adrian the Fourth. During the long period of the Crusades, and the centuries when religious enthusiasm still stirred mankind, English pilgrims passed as a rule through Italy on their way to Palestine. So long as scholastic theology and canon law were studied as much at Bologna as at Oxford, there was little for Englishmen to bring back with them. A new era dawned, however, when the wave of the Renaissance swept over one country while the other was still unaffected by it. The Church Councils, especially, brought the prelates of different nations, and their numerous retinues, in close contact with one another. Henry Chichely, Archbishop of Canterbury, after returning from that of Siena, gave valuable gifts to Oxford, and founded All Souls College. At the Council of Constance, where gleams of the new humanism for the first time crossed the Alps, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and an uncle of Henry the Fifth, met Poggio Bracciolini and invited him to England. During Poggio's residence there, from 1420 to 1422', while he himself accomplished little, the great Florentine scholar found in John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, Nicholas Bildstone, the Archdeacon of Winchester, and especially Richard Pettworth, Beaufort's secretary, men of considerable cultivation. Still another learned prelate of this early period was Thomas Arundel, also Archbishop of Canterbury, who corresponded with the scholarly chancellor of Florence, Coluccio de' Salutati. English learning, however, was to make its progress at Oxford and not in the ecclesiastical centres. Even such churchmen as Grey, Flemming and Gunthorpe were to assist by their gifts of books rather than their personal example. In developing the new learning, there was thus at the outset an essential difference be 1 Vide p. 180. 2 Poggio, Epistola, II, 12, 18, 20, 22, 35; V, 22, etc. tween the scholars and the dignitaries of the church. Both were university men, and the former were also for the most part in orders; but their preferments as a rule were only minor ones. The work in which they achieved real success was in their teaching at Oxford; while the assistance lent the cause by the great churchmen came rather through protecting the interests of scholars, as well as in gifts and donations of manuscripts. Many prelates, however, set a personal example of learning, among whom were Bishop Waynflete, and Peter Courtenay, the Bishop of Exeter, who had studied at Padua. Thomas Langton, too, the Bishop of Winchester, had in his youth been in Italy, and was later sent by Richard the Third on an embassy to Rome. Returning to England, he founded a school for boys in his own house at Winchester, desiring perhaps to emulate Vittorino da Feltre. He showed further interest in the new learning by his connection with Oxford, and in sending Richard Pace to study in Italy. The many churchmen who displayed a similar interest, or were in some way connected with Italy, are far too numerous to mention here. A few examples only of the learned ecclesiastics a type so prominent in the Renaissance can be given. Of these William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, was among the most prominent. After having been at Oxford, he visited Italy, where he perhaps developed his interest in letters. The examples of the great Italian cardinals may also have urged him to follow them in his patronage of learning. His wit, his genial temper and courtesy, no less than his own culture, made him the friend and protector of the scholars who were preaching the new learning in England. To Erasmus he was "my special Maecenas":1 Warham's kindness alone kept him from seeking the rich libraries and cultivated circles of Rome.2 A zeal for learning and the patronage of scholars became almost an affectation on the part of the higher clergy. Some like Pace and Tunstall had studied at Padua, while the former even published in Venice a portion of the works of Plutarch, which he dedicated to Cardinal Campeggio, who was also interested in the success of humanism at the court. Stephen Gardiner, too, the friend of Erasmus, and Richard Foxe, the founder of Corpus Christi, had both been on embassies to Rome. Edward Bonner was also eager to learn Italian. In all ranks of the church an interest in the new learning was shown, even by those who were to leave the Roman faith, but who in their zeal for letters continued former traditions. The great patrons of learning were most beneficial in establishing scholarly foundations. This was especially true of Cambridge, where the new learning came far later than at Oxford. During the entire fifteenth century the traces of Italian learning were barely noticeable there. A copy of Petrarch's poems had, it is true, found its way to the library of Peterhouse so early as 1426. A few similar books were gradually acquired, and John Gunthorpe 8 Ibid., CCCCXXXVII. 4 Mullinger, I, 433. 1 Epist., CXLIV. |