DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0079
THE SCHOLARS OF THE RENAISSANCE 53
HI
Classics, philosophy, science, could have found no happier
patron than Francis I—the Sorbonne no more unpromising
monarch. He was full of meteoric gifts and coruscating
energies. His life in Paris was a restless one. He went
“quasi tous les jours faire des mommons en masque, et
habits dissimules et inconnus”—returning from his escapades
to discuss Plautus and Virgil, or to scheme for the bold
dissemination of the study of Greek in his Kingdom. As
to other votaries of the Renaissance, Greek was a magic
word to him. But there was no form of knowledge that
did not appeal to him, and he helped and was helped by
the burst of learning that followed his accession. The question
of education interested him, and anyone with something to
say on the matter found at least a hearing from him.
Discrimination was not the gift of his day, and he had not
the power of distinguishing real talent from the plausible
brilliance of charlatans. Sincere charlatans belong to enthu-
siastic times, and “faddists” are not confined to the nine-
teenth, or the twentieth century. We hear of a certain
Camillo da Forti, philosopher-poet, who came from Italy
to Paris with a scheme to set before the King. He would
teach him Greek and Latin in three months. It was the
easiest thing in the world. He had made a great amphi-
theatre—it had taken him forty years to perfect it. It had
tier upon tier of drawers, and they represented memory.
Each tier was divided and sub-divided into various branches
of knowledge; each drawer was labelled with a different
intellectual quality. How any man was to learn by it, it
HI
Classics, philosophy, science, could have found no happier
patron than Francis I—the Sorbonne no more unpromising
monarch. He was full of meteoric gifts and coruscating
energies. His life in Paris was a restless one. He went
“quasi tous les jours faire des mommons en masque, et
habits dissimules et inconnus”—returning from his escapades
to discuss Plautus and Virgil, or to scheme for the bold
dissemination of the study of Greek in his Kingdom. As
to other votaries of the Renaissance, Greek was a magic
word to him. But there was no form of knowledge that
did not appeal to him, and he helped and was helped by
the burst of learning that followed his accession. The question
of education interested him, and anyone with something to
say on the matter found at least a hearing from him.
Discrimination was not the gift of his day, and he had not
the power of distinguishing real talent from the plausible
brilliance of charlatans. Sincere charlatans belong to enthu-
siastic times, and “faddists” are not confined to the nine-
teenth, or the twentieth century. We hear of a certain
Camillo da Forti, philosopher-poet, who came from Italy
to Paris with a scheme to set before the King. He would
teach him Greek and Latin in three months. It was the
easiest thing in the world. He had made a great amphi-
theatre—it had taken him forty years to perfect it. It had
tier upon tier of drawers, and they represented memory.
Each tier was divided and sub-divided into various branches
of knowledge; each drawer was labelled with a different
intellectual quality. How any man was to learn by it, it