He was worthy, in
many respects, to be the chief of those haughty merchants and
manufacturers, who wielded more power, through the length of their
purses and the cultivation of their brains, than did all the
contemporaneous and illiterate barons of the rest of Christendom, by
dint of castle-storming and cattle-stealing.
In an age when other nobles were proud of being unable to write their
own names, or to read them when others wrote them, the great princes
and citizens of Florence protected and cultivated art, science, and
letters. Every citizen received a liberal education. Poets and
philosophers sat in the councils of the republic. Philosophy,
metaphysics, and the restoration of ancient learning occupied the
minds and diminished the revenues of its greater and inferior
burghers. In this respect, the Medici, and their abetters of the
fifteenth century, discharged a portion of the debt which they had
incurred to humanity. They robbed Italy of her freedom, but they gave
her back the philosophy of Plato. They reduced the generality of
Florentine citizens, who were once omnipotent, to a nullity; but they
had at least, the sense to cherish Donatello and Ghiberti,
Brunelleschi and Gozzoli, Ficino and Politian.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34