POGGIO BRACCIOLINI. -(1380-1459.)

Poggio, born at Terranuova in the territory of Florence in 1380, sometimes called Poggio Fiorentino, from having been a Chancellor of the Republic.

His early studies were made at Florence, from which city he proceeded to Rome, where he was employed in the Papal Secretary's department. He remained there for half a century, continuously engaged in profound study and in the drawing up of Bulls and Briefs. He was deep in the confidence of successive popes, and employed upon missions of the most delicate nature. He was present at the Council of Constance, and whenever Martin V. and Eugenius IV. made a journey on Church affairs he formed one of their suite. Poggio, in one of his letters, says that he cannot remember having, during his fifty years' service at the same Court, remained a year in the same town.

His specialty as a savant was Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and he took advantage of his continued travels to unearth forgotten manuscripts, thereby rendering great service to literature. He travelled through the whole of Germany and Switzerland, visiting all the depositories of manuscripts, and often making valuable discoveries. He was seventy-two years of age when the Holy Father allowed him to go and reside at Florence, the Republic having induced him to accept the post of Chancellor. But he soon found that the duties which it involved were beyond his strength, and he retired from public life, writing at his retreat in the suburbs his " History of Florence," which embraces the events that occurred from 1350 to 1453. This work was in Latin, and it was his son Giacomo Bracciolini who translated it into the vulgar tongue.

The other literary achievements of Bracciolini are his translation into Latin of Xenophon's "Cyropaedia" and of the first five books of Diodorus of Sicily. In the philosophical line he has left a work entitled Historia, Convivialis," and several moral treatises, including " Avarice, Nobility, the Wretchedness of Human Affairs," and "The Misfortunes of Princes and Vicissitudes of Fortune." Many of his Epistles and Orations have also been preserved, and they are all remarkable for the perfect Latin in which they are couched.

Poggio was very severe upon the savants of his age, and being jealous, irascible, and always inclined to carp at others, he was constantly engaged in controversics, which were carried on in a spirit of violence of which we can scarcely form an adequate idea at the present time. It has been thought that he was animated by some special dislike for Francesco Filelfo, about whom he wrote four pamphlets, in which he accused him of all the evil deeds which a human being could well commit, but these are not so strong as the five pamphlets directed against Lorenzo Valla, the Hellenist and Secretary of the King of Naples, who translated the Iliad, and Herodotus and sop. Guarino of Verona was not spared, nor were the Bishop of Feltro, Jacopo Zeno, and the Duke of Savoy. So bitter was he that he vented his wrath upon communities, involving them all in one common condemnation. He was very learned, and had a European reputation, but for all that, hatred is the distinguishing characteristic by which he is known.

CARLO MARSUPPINI. -(1399-1453.)

Carlo Marsuppini and Leonardo Bruni cannot well be spoken of apart. They were contemporaries, both had the same career and much the same intellectual tendencies, and both had the good fortune to be handed down to posterity in the work of men of genius.

While Rossellino has enshrined to us the features of Leonardo Bruni, Desiderio da Settignano has immortalized the name of Carlo Marsuppini by the monument in Santa Croce, which is opposite that erected to the former.

Gregory, the father of Carlo, was Governor of Genoa under Charles VI. From Genoa he came to Florence, where he acquired, in 1431, the rights of citizenship. Carlo was intrusted to the care of John of Ravenna, who encouraged him to study ancient literature. He chose the scholastic career, and was a candidate for the professorship of literature at the University of Florence. This post having been given to Filelfo, Carlo became his bitter enemy, and when the former was banished from Florence in 1434, he succeeded to the vacant post.

As his pupils comprised two nephews of Pope Eugenics IV., the latter, in return, appointed him Apostolic Secretary, and in 1444 he took the place of Chancellor of the Florentine Republic left vacant by the death of his compatriot, Leonardo Bruni. It was in this quality that he presented an address to the Emperor Frederick III., when the latter passed through Florence in 1452 ; the reply was made by neas Sylvius, destined to become one of the most famous of the popes, under the title of Pius II., and who was at that time secretary to the Emperor. neas Sylvius made an impromptu reply, and Marsuppini, who was expected to make a second speech in answer to this, was at a loss what to say. This incident caused great excitement at the time, for Marsuppini was obliged to turn round to his neighbor Manetti, and ask his assistance. His real abilities do not appear, however, to have been called into question, for the famous Alatteo Palmieri was instructed to prepare a funeral oration, and to place a wreath upon him after death, as had been done in the case of his predecessor.

We have no direct proof of his ability, for he left very few works behind him ; but Poggio, whose excellent judgment is beyond all doubt, introduces Marsuppini as one of the characters in his dialogue "De Infelicitate," and both Flavin Biondo and Plating have spoken in very eulogistic terms of him.

His best-known work was a translation in hexameters of the singular poem attributed to Homer, "The Batrachoinyomaebie," the first edition of which was published in Parma in 1492. His letters, like those of Leonardo Bruni, are highly interesting, for he was in more or less frequent intercourse with the most celebrated men of the day. Many personal details concerning him are to be found in the " Vossian Letters " of Apostolo Zeno and in Vespasiano Fiorentino.

Those two tombs of Leonardo Bruni and of Marsuppini do honor to human genius, for Greek art itself has produced nothing more perfect, and if the names of the two men who are buried in them had not been kept alive by the merit of their own works the sculptors who have carved their likenesses in marble would have immortalized them. Carlo Marsuppini died at the age of fifty-four, and the funeral oration pronounced by Palmieri is still extant.

His name, together with that of Gianozzo Manetti and Leonardo Bruni, constantly recurs in the history of the little courts of the Romagna and the Marches, for he was continually being employed as an intermediary between the Vatican and the princes who were attached to the Holy See as Vicars of the Church, such as the Estes, the Montefeltros, the Malatestas, and even the Sforzas.