COLUCCIO SALUTATI. -(1330-1406.)

The honor of taking rank immediately after Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio devolved upon Salutati, whose mission it was to correct the texts of the Greek and Latin authors, to form libraries and academies, and to see that the manuscripts tallied exactly with the originals. He had the reputation of being the most elegant Latin scholar of his day, and as Pope Urban V. was anxious to have him as Apostolic Secretary, he was compelled to take holy orders. Being a widower at the time, he seemed likely to rise to the highest dignities in the Church, but the Pope having removed the Holy See to Avignon, Coluccio, not feeling any decided vocation for a religious life, threw off his priestly robes and remained in Italy, where he soon contracted a second marriage.

As soon as it was known that he was free, several sovereigns and princes invited him to come and reside at their Court, but though he had acted as Chancellor of Perugia, and had gone thence to the Court of Rome, he was unwilling to leave Florence, where he had accepted, in 1375, the post of Chancellor, with the arduous task of conciliating the interests and appeasing the cravings of Guelphs and Ghibellines, and of the many Florentine families which were at daggers drawn with each other.

For thirty years Salutati discharged these duties with unquestioned authority, and he became the model secretary of the Republic, after whom Gianozzo Manetti, Leonardo Bruni, and Carlo Marsuppini shaped their conduct. The duty of corresponding with crowned heads devolved upon him, and he was equal to the task of upholding the interests of the country, of forming alliances in the hour of danger, and of averting perils of various kinds.

He occupied a very prominent place in Florentine politics during the fourteenth century, and he possessed sufficient influence to take the lead in very important negotiations, as when at the time of the great Papal schism he wrote to Innocent VII. urging him to put an end to a scandal which threatened to be the ruin of the Church. The celebrated John Galeas Visconti, when ready to make war with Florence, declared that he dreaded the arguments of Salutati more than a great army. His manifestoes are abiding proofs of his political genius, just as they are masterpieces of literature and eloquence.

Politics, however, did not make him forget his fondness for literature, as was shown when Giuliano Sanseverino in the University of Bologna, and John de San Miniato, a monk of the Camaldoli order, at Florence, forbade their hearers to read the ancient poets and the profane writers of antiquity. It was in answer to them that he composed some Latin verses which were so much admired that he received, as Petrarch had done, the honors of a public demonstration. But before the laurel wreath could be placed upon his brows he had passed away, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and from the account of his funeral at Santa Maria Novella which has been handed down to us, we learn that the ceremonial was the same as that afterwards observed at the obsequies of Leonardo Bruni and Marsuppini, the Gonfaloniere in office mounting the platform upon which the coffin rested, and placing upon the forehead of the defunct the laurel crown. His " Political Letters " are regarded as his greatest work, but little of what he wrote has been published. The Latin poems which appear in the third volume of the "Illustrious Italian Poets" are well known, and his "Political Letters" have been edited in turn by Abbe Mehus and Lami, but they are far from being complete.

There is to be seen in the church of Fiesole the tomb of a bishop named Salutati, who died in 1466, and who very possibly may have belonged to the same family. This prelate, whose tomb is one of the finest creations of Mino da Fiesole, was famous as a jurisconsult, and he wrote several works on civil and canon law. A great favorite of Pope Eugenius IV., Nicholas V. continued to treat him with affection, and made him Bishop of Fiesole in 1450.

Some writers have attributed this handsome monument which is such a credit to the church within which it is erected, to the first of the Salutati, but works of art possess the double merit of being beautiful in themselves and of becoming, in course of time, historical documents. The monument in question is signed and dated, so that there can be no question as to its having been carved by Mino.

FRANCO SACCHETTI. -(13355-1410.)

Racy, and at times rather loose in his stories, Sacchetti is not gifted with the same inventive powers as Boccaccio, and he is more the reflex of others than a type by himself. But he has plenty of spirit, and it is evident that he shares with his readers the amusement which he is trying to make them feel. His "Tales" possess a considerable amount of interest from the fact that Sacchetti, who was much mixed up in the course of contemporary events, introduced into his stories characters taken from real life, gathering up anecdotes still fresh about Dante, Giotto, and other men of note. He brings them vividly before our eyes, and writers such as Vasari, Scipione Ammirato, and others still more celebrated, have been glad to make use of information derived from his writings.

He came of a very good family, having been a son of Franco di Benci d'Uguccione. he was connected with the Dante family, and was surnamed the Good (d Buono). His first literary efforts were in the poetical line, and he was classed among the imitators of Petrarch. He held public office at Faenza and San Aliniato, was Captain of the Florentine province in the Romagna, Ambassador to Genoa, and Podesti't at Bibbiena. It is believed that he wrote his "Tales" at Casentino. The copy which I have examined contains about 258, and he is not particular in the choice of a subject, so long as it is an amusing one, being racy to the verge of licentiousness. Some fifteen of them, however, are of a different character, the heroes being such men as Dante and Giotto, and it is worthy of note that while several austere writers are immoral in their lives, he, with all his light and fanciful stories, is at bottom full of honesty and uprightness.

Sacchetti had three wives, all of illustrious descent; the first being a Strozzi, the second a Gherardini, and the third the daughter of Francesco di ser Santi Bruni and for six-and-twenty years there was a fourth lady who inspired his poems, and to whom he dedicated his compositions. He had two sons; one, Philip, being a poet, while the other, Nicholas, was Gonfaloniere of Justice in 1419.

There is much to admire about him, for he was at once a patriot and a gentleman. His genial humor, as well as the incidents he related concerning the most noted men of his time, have kept his name alive. His public career was a successful one, and his writings are instinct with force and good-humor. He died at the age of seventy-five, beloved by his contemporaries, and his writings, extending from grave to gay, comprise Sermons, Letters, and a burlesque poem (of which a new edition was published as recently as 1819) called "La Battaglia delle Vecchio con le Giovane," the very title of which shows how amusing it must have been in the hands of a writer so gifted with humor. He was, little as he may have imagined such to be the case, both an artist and an historian.