Francesco Filelfo, Letter to Lorenzo Medici (Part 25)

“So Nonius Marcellus and Festus Pompeius and Caper and Diomedes and Donatus and Servius and Priscian and Phocas and Aulus Gellius and Macrobius and the other most approved authors who have taught us something about grammar are not only to be learned, but even to be learned by heart. For it is a bad sort of Latinity which does not know the meaning of words, their peculiarities, their differences, or their genders and constructions. In this matter, you must consult the ancient authors.

For indeed, I see certain people of our time who want to make a big show of themselves in the art of grammar, but have sunk into the greatest errors. Of them, Giovanni Tortelli of Arezzo seems to me to hold the chief place: when he wants to be seen to know both Greek and Latin literature, he makes it as clear as possible that he knows neither.

Therefore, you should take care that your children are full of the goods of both intellect and learning, as the riches of the greatest fortune. You’ll do perfectly well if you take care that they grow up to be just like you.

I should not of course omit what seemed correct to Quintilian, that most acute man, that one should as much as possible start with the Greek language and literature. If I might pass over the other arts and sciences, which we know have come from Greek learning, who would dare to claim themselves a professor without knowing Greek literature?

And so in turn and at the same time, in my opinion, one should study Greek and Latin literature – a practice which I have always observed in raising my own children, and which I still observe even today. I have never had cause to regret it, when I see that they have advanced so far above the common herd in the literature and speech of each language. But you will consider this in the best light according to your own wisdom.”

Quare et Nonius Marcellus et Festus Pompeius et Caper et Diomedes et Donatus et Servius et Priscianus et Phocas et Au. Gellius et Macrobius et caeteri probatissimi auctores qui aliquid de arte grammatica tradiderunt, non solum discendi sunt, verum etiam ediscendi. Nam male ea latinitas habeat, quae aut significata verborum, aut proprietates, aut differentias aut genera constructionesve ignorarit. Qua in re prisci auctores consulendi sunt.

Video enim quosdam nostrae tempestatis homines, qui cum magnum de se quiddam voluerunt in arte grammatica profiteri, in maximos errores devenerunt. E quorum numero principatum mihi tenere visus est Ioannes Tortelius arretinus, qui, cum et graecam et latinam litteraturam novisse videri vult, utranque ignoravisse apertissime declarat.

Curandum igitur tibi est, ut liberi tui aeque abundent ingenii atque doctrinae bonis ut amplissimae fortunae divitiis; quod tum cumulate feceris, si operam dabis ut tibi sint quam simillimi.

Nec illud certe praetermiserim, quod Quintiliano etiam viro acutissimo videtur, a graeco sermone, quo ad eius fieri possit, atque litteratura esse incipiendum. Ut enim caeteras artis disciplinasque praeteream, quas omnis inde fluxisse novimus, quis audeat se profiteri grammaticum graecis litteris ignoratis?

Et vicissim quidem ac simul, mea sententia, studendum est graecis atque latinis litteris, id quod ego in omnibus meis liberis et observavi antehac semper, et hoc etiam tempore observo, idque me fecisse nunquam poenituit, cum eos viderim in utraque et litteratura et oratione egregie profecisse. Sed haec tu, pro tua prudentia, perpulchre considerabis.

Francesco Filelfo, Letter to Lorenzo Medici (Part 21):

“Who, however, will deny after hearing these many things which we have laid out up to this point that there was a common Latin tongue which was for the orator not as much a source of admiration if he knew it as it was a source of mockery if he didn’t know it, since the people would think (as Crassus says) that he was not only not an orator, but scarcely even a person if he couldn’t speak it?

Therefore, we shouldn’t wonder if, in a language known to all, the whole theater shouted, ‘We know that it’s barbarous!’ if one syllable had been pronounced either too short or too long. For the habit of daily speech was to be preserved, which was a consensus of the educated, as we say that the mode of living which we should preserve is that decreed by the consensus of good people.”

Quis autem ex iis, quae non pauca in hunc usque locum perstrinximus, negare audeat latinum sermonem fuisse vulgarem, quem orator, si sciret, non tantae admirationi erat quantae, ubi nesciret, irrisioni, cum eum, ut dicebat Crassus, non oratorem modo, sed ne hominem quidem putarent esse?

Non igitur mirari oportebat si, in lingua omnibus cognita, theatra tota exclamabant “barbare scimus!”, si fuit una syllaba prolata aut brevior aut longior. Nam consuetudo quottidiani sermonis servanda erat, quae ita erat quidam eruditorum consensus, ut vivendi bonorum consensum dicimus.

Francesco Filelfo, Letter to Lorenzo Medici (Part 17)

“How great a change of speech and of manners occurred in the Roman people is made clear enough to us by the opinion of Publius Scipio Aemilianus. When he returned after the defeat and ruin of Numantia, he had scarcely entered the city when, led forth onto the speaker’s platform by the tribune of plebs Gnaeus Carbo, who was eager to agitate the Gracchan sedition had been nearly extinguished, asked him what his opinion was on the death of Tiberius Gracchus. Carbo did not doubt that Scipio would censure his death, since he had his sister conjoined in marriage, and he thought that it would transpire that he would add much to the flames of sedition from the authority of such a great man. But the outcome was much different than he had hoped.

For Scipio, being a man endowed with gravity and a singular sense of justice, said that it appeared that Gracchus had been justly killed. When the assembly, provoked by the tribune’s goading and its own madness, was railing against this response, he said, ‘Those to whom Italy is a stepmother – not a mother – should be silent.’ He then added, ‘…those, whom I sold under the crown.’ And when a murmur arose again, he said, ‘You will not bring it about that I fear those whom I led as captives now that they are free.’ Scipio said that Italy was the stepmother, not the mother, to that ignorant mob, because it had been mixed together from so many and such different peoples.

Therefore, it was not absurd for Lucius Crassus to advise (as we read in Cicero), that there was no better mode of speaking, ‘than Latin, so that we can speak plainly, aptly, and fittingly for whatever is the matter at hand.’

He adds that we would try in vain to teach one who does not know how to speak, and that further, we cannot hope that one will speak decorously if they cannot speak Latin.”

Quanta esset in populo romano et locutionis et morum facta mutatio perspicuo nobis sit argumento unius Publii Scipionis Aemiliani sententia, qui post eversionem ruinasque Numantiae ubi revertisset, vix urbem ingressus cum esset, productus in rostra a Cn. Carbone tribuno plebis, qui gracchanam seditionem iam propemodum extinctam excitare cupiebat, quae sua de Tyberii Gracchi morte sententia foret interrogavit. Non enim Scipionem dubitabat Carbo illius necem accusaturum, quoniam eius sororem coniunctam matrimonio haberet, et ita fore ut ex auctoritate amplissimi viri incrementi plurimum, quod animo cogitarat, seditionis incendiis adiiceret. Sed longe evenit contra.

Nam Scipio, ut erat vir gravitate et iustitia singulari, respondit illum iure sibi caesum videri. Ad quod quidem dictum ubi concio, tribunicio suasu furoreque irritata, obstreperet, “Taceant” inquit “quibus Italia noverca, non mater est”. Moxque addidit: “quos ego sub corona vendidi”. Atque orto deinde murmure, “Non” inquit “efficietis ut quos vinctos adduxi, solutos verear”. Italiam inquit Scipio novercam esse, non matrem, illi multitudini imperitae, quod ex tot et tam variis gentibus confusa esset.

Non igitur absurde monet apud Ciceronem L. Crassus, nullum esse dicendi modum meliorem “quam ut latine, ut plane, et ad id, quodcunque agetur, apte congruenterque dicamus”.

Subditque frustra conandum esse ut eum doceamus qui loqui nesciat, nec sperandum, qui latine non possit, hunc ornate esse dicturum.