THE BENIVIENI. -(1453-1542.)

Jerome Benivieni, though the youngest, was the most celebrated of the family, all the members of which were admitted to the intimacy of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and, as members of his Academy, were the friends and colleagues of Ficino, Politian, and Pico della, Mirandola. Domenico, the eldest of the brothers, though gifted with great knowledge as a philosopher, was above all things a theologian, so much so that he was surnamed " II Scotino," or the little Scot, after the gifted Michael Scotus of Great Britain. Professor of Dialectics in the University of Pisa, and afterwards Director of the hospital of Pescia, he was appointed by Lorenzo a canon of the basilica of San Lorenzo, and he always remained a fast friend of Savonarola.

IIEROMM k MISSPPROPHFI~DEFFIIG! E Fra Girolamo Savonarola.

Antony, the second brother, was both a man of letters and a doctor, as was often the case in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, notably with the brothers Ficino. He has left some technical works behind him, including a curious treatise on medicine, and his name disappears at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Jerome, the youngest of the three brothers, was born about 1453, and wrote a good deal of poetry, belonging to the Academy of Plato, and publishing verses on "Platonic Love " in Italian. An intimate friend of all the most gifted men of his time, he was the inseparable companion of Pico della Mirandola, who showed his confidence in Jerome by making him his almoner for the distribution of the moneys which he gave to the poor, and of the dowries for young girls who were reported to be worthy of this favor.

Pico has written a commentary on Jerome Benivieni as a preface to his "Love Sonnets," and he was so attached to him in life that he would not be separated from him in death, and was buried in the same tomb at San Marco.

Like his brother Domenico, he was a firm believer in Savonarola, and besides the defence which he wrote of the monk, he translated his works from Latin into the vulgar tongue.

ANGELO POLITIAN. -(1454-1494.)

Politian, whose name is synonymous with deep learning, and who exercised a considerable influence over his generation, was born on the 14th of July, 1454, at Monte Pulciano, a small town in Tuscany celebrated for its excellent wine. His proper name, as would appear from a degree of doctor, the certificate of which is still preserved at Florence, was Ambrogini, the name by which he is familiarly known being derived from his place of birth.

Cristoforo Landino taught him Latin, and Andronicus, of Thessalonica, Greek ; in philosophy he was the most brilliant of Marcilio Ficino's pupils, and as he was anxious to master the doctrines of Aristotle as opposed to those of Plato, he studied his writings under Argyropulos. His earliest work was a translation of Homer into Latin verse; but this did not bring him into any great notice, and the first success which he obtained was by writing some Stanze for the tournament got up by Giuliano de' Medici. It is scarcely credible that he should have written these verses, which were soon on everybody's lips, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, and it has been argued that the tournament was held not in 1468, but in 1473.

The death of Giuliano was a great blow for Politian, who wrote in Latin an account of the Pazzi conspiracy ; but Lorenzo intrusted to him the education of his two sons, Pietro and Giovanni, the latter of whom became Pope, under the title of Leo X.

When nine-and-twenty years of age, at a time when Florence was a centre of study for all Italy, Politian was called to the chair of Latin and Greek literature, and his lectures were thronged, for he was as eloquent as he was learned. As Lorenzo had sent him to Rome in charge of his son Pietro, who was received with great pomp by Innocent VIII., that pontiff requested Politian to translate Herodianus into Latin, and recompensed him with a gift of two hundred gold crowns. Politian, however, was above taking this present, for he had a private fortune of his own, and had been given a priory and a canonry, in the metropolitan church of Florence, besides which, he lived at the expense of Lorenzo. He had formed a close intimacy with Pico Bella Mirandola, who had renounced his social position in order to devote his whole time to literature ; and these two friends, together with Giovanni Lascaris and a few others, formed themselves into a select literary group. Lorenzo placed the celebrated Laurentiana library at their disposal ; and it was from this period that dates the publication of the Miscellaneoe, in which ancient literature received so high a need of praise.

The teaching of Politian acquired so much celebrity that students from all parts of the world came to take lessons from him ; two or three of them after wards became professors in the Universities of Oxford and Oporto, and by the influence of John Texeira, Chancellor of the kingdom of Portugal, he was appointed historiographist to King John II., and instructed to write the annals of Portuguese conquest in the colonies. It was while preparing this great work that he died, before reaching the age of forty.

The most infamous calumnies were propagated as to the cause of his death, and a writer of some weight, Paolo Giovio, has not scrupled to adopt them as true. Other writers have reproduced his statements, but it is more pleasant to believe the assertions of those who attribute his premature death to grief at the death of his patron, Lorenzo, and the disasters which overtook his family. Pietro de' Medici, his pupil, had been driven from Florence, and the fortunes of the Medici were trembling to their base, when the poet took up his lyre to sing the plaintive melody " Monodia in Laurentium Medici," in which he poured out his own grief and extolled the virtues of his lost protector. Bembo has cleared him of the calumnies to which Paolo Giovio gave currency, and Dandolo, who has already been referred to as the author of " Florence Down to the Fall of the. Republic," has contributed to the same end by the discovery of a document written by the Dominican monk Ubaldino, who was charged by Savonarola to conduct his funeral in the convent of San Marco, where he had so often discoursed. In this document, which is entitled " Rubertus Ubaldinus de Galliano Dominicanoe familioe monachus, de obitu et sepulture domini Angeli Politiani," it is said that Politian died like a good Christian, and there is an allusion to the grief which he felt at the decease of Lorenzo and Pico della, Mirandola. The fierce disputes between the writers of that day go far to explain these cruel insinuations, as has already been seen in the case of Filelfo and Poggio. Politian's bitterest enemy was one Giorgio Merula, of Alexandria, a professor at the University of Milan. When the Miscellanece were published Merula found that they contained several ideas of his own, and opinions contrary to his as well, and he accordingly wrote a strong pamphlet, which, though not printed, was distributed throughout Florence. To this Politian replied with another pamphlet, in which he spoke of his adversary, under the pseudonym of Mabilius, in very cutting terms. The feud, however, was ultimately healed, and Merula became a warm friend of Politian before his death.

The influence of Politian upon his contemporaries was very great, his chief speciality, despite the halo of poesy which the publication of the Stanze had cast around him, being his intimate knowledge of the Latin and Greek authors. He wrote very little in the vulgar tongue, and with the exception of the Stanze, the only known works by him in Italian are a Canzone, which is transcribed in Crescimbeni's History of Literature, and a beautiful poem called "Orfeo."