Who, after all, is happy?--and by what means? By blunting all feeling for such misery? One of the speakers in the dialogue in which Pierio clothed his argument, can give an answer to these questions-- the illustrious Gasparo Contarini, at the mention of whose name we turn with the expectation to hear at least something of the truest and deepest which was then thought on such matters.As a type of the happy scholar, he mentions Fra Urbano Valeriano of Belluno, who was for years a teacher of Greek at Venice, who visited Greece and the East, and towards the close of his life travelled, now through this country, now through that, without ever mounting a horse; who never had a penny of his own, rejected all honours and distinctions, and after a gay old age, died in his eighty-fourth year, without, if we except a fall from a ladder, having ever known an hour of sickness.And what was the difference between such a man and the humanists? The latter had more free will, more subjectivity, than they could turn to purposes of happiness.The mendicant friar, who had lived from his boyhood in the monastery, and never eaten or slept except by rule, ceased to feel the com- pulsion under which he lived.Through the power of this habit he led, amid all outward hardships, a life of inward peace, by which he impressed his hearers far more than by his teaching.Looking at him, they could believe that it depends on ourselves whether we bear up against misfortune or surrender to it.'Amid want and toil he was happy, because he willed to be so, because he had contracted no evil habits, was not capricious, inconstant, immoderate; but was always contented with little or nothing.' If we heard Contarini himself, religious motives would no doubt play a part in the argument--but the practical philosopher in sandals speaks plainly enough.An allied character, but placed in other circumstances, is that of Fabio Calvi of Ravenna, the commentator of Hippocrates.He lived to a great age in Rome, eating only pulse 'like the Pythagoreans,' and dwelt in a hovel little better than the tub of Diogenes.Of the pension which Pope Leo gave him, he spent enough to keep body and soul together, and gave the rest away.He was not a healthy man, like Fra Urbano, nor is it likely that, like him, he died with a smile on his lips.At the age of ninety, in the sack of Rome, he was dragged away by the Spaniards, who hoped for a ransom, and died of hunger in a hospital.But his name has passed into the kingdom of the immortals, for Raphael loved the old man like a father, and honoured him as a teacher, and came to him for advice in all things.Perhaps they discoursed chiefly of the projected restoration of ancient Rome, perhaps of still higher matters.Who can tell what a share Fabio may have had in the conception of the School of Athens, and in other great works of the master?
We would gladly close this part of our essay with the picture of some pleasing and winning character.Pomponius Laetus, of whom we shall briefly speak, is known to us principally through the letter of his pupil Sabellicus, in which an antique coloring is purposely given to his character.Yet many of its features are clearly recognizable.He was a bastard of the House of the Neapolitan Sanseverini, princes of Salerno, whom he nevertheless refused to recognize, writing, in reply to an invitation to live with them, the famous letter: 'Pomponius Laetus cognatis et propinquis suis salutem.Quod petitis fieri non potest.Valete.' t An insignificant little figure, with small, quick eyes, and quaint dress, he lived, during the last decades of the fifteenth century, as professor in the University of Rome, either in his cottage in a garden on the Esquiline hill, or in his vineyard on the Quirinal.In the one he bred his ducks and fowls; the other he cultivated according to the strictest precepts of Cato, Varro, and Columella.He spent his holidays in fishing or bird-catching in the Campagna, or in feasting by some shady spring or on the banks of the Tiber.Wealth and luxury he despised.Free himself from envy and uncharitable speech, he would not suffer them in others.It was only against the hierarchy that he gave his tongue free play, and passed, till his latter years, for a scorner of religion altogether.He was involved in the persecution of the humanists begun by Pope Paul II, and surrendered to this pontiff by the Venetians; but no means could be found to wring unworthy confessions from him.He was afterwards befriended and supported by popes and prelates, and when his house was plundered in the disturbances under Sixtus IV, more was collected for him than he had lost.No teacher was more conscientious.Before daybreak he was to be seen descending the Esquiline with his lantern, and on reaching his lecture-room found it always filled to overflowing.
A stutter compelled him to speak with care, but his delivery was even and effective.His few works give evidence of careful writing.No scholar treated the text of ancient authors more soberly and accurately.The remains of antiquity which surrounded him in Rome touched him so deeply that he would stand before them as if entranced, or would suddenly burst into tears at the sight of them.As he was ready to lay aside his own studies in order to help others, he was much loved and had many friends; and at his death, even Alexander VI sent his courtiers to follow the corpse, which was carried by the most distinguished of his pupils.The funeral service in the Aracceli was attended by forty bishops and by all the foreign ambassadors.
