her Giuliano, another
great humanist, Giorgio Merula of Milan, dedicated his _Plautus_,
published in Venice in 1472, showing at how early an age the Magnifico
had taken his place among the recognized patrons of the Italian
Renaissance.

We ought not, moreover, to omit mention of another achievement of
Lorenzo, though performed in a sphere of effort lying outside of the
strict limits of our Renaissance survey. Seeing it was the "Revival of
Letters," however, which induced the revival of the cultivation of the
vernacular Italian literature, surely it is not out of place to refer to
it here. Early in life Lorenzo became imbued with the conviction that his
native tongue was unsurpassed as a medium for "the expression of noble
thoughts in noble numbers." Not only did he encourage others to study
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, but by following out his own precepts
he became one of the great Italian poets. His _Selve d'Amore,_ his
_Corinto_, his _Ambra_, his _La Nencia da Barberino_, his _Laude_, his
_Sonetti_, his _Cansoni_, etc., are all poems that live in the Italian
literature of to-day. Not as a man ashamed of the vernacular, and forced
to use it because he can command no better, does Lorenzo write. "He is
sure of the justice of his cause, and determined by precept and example
and by the prestige of his princely rank to bring the literature he loves
into repute again."

But of these poems we cannot here take further note. By the scholars of
the Renaissance such work was looked askance at. If they did produce any
of these "trifles," as they were called, they almost blushed to own them,
and were ashamed to communicate them to each other. That he dared to
be natural says much for Lorenzo, and it was largely due to his
encouragement that Cristoforo Landino undertook his great work on
"Dante," to which we owe so much to-day.

In conjunction with his patronage of printing, there was no line of
effort in which Lorenzo did more real good than in collecting manuscripts
and antiquities, and in making them practically public property. On this
account he is styled, by Niccolo Leonicino, "Lorenzo de' Medici, the
great patron of learning in this age, whose messengers are dispersed
through every part of the earth for the purpose of collecting books on
every science, and who has spared no expense in procuring for your use,
and that of others who may devote themselves to similar studies, the
materials necessary for your purpose." The