r the express
purpose of founding a public library. This project had occupied the mind
of Petrarch, and its utility had been recognised by Coluccio de'
Salutati, but no one had as yet arisen to accomplish it. "Being
passionately fond of literature, Messer Palla always kept copyists in
his own house and outside it, of the best who were in Florence, both for
Greek and Latin books; and all the books he could find he purchased, on
all subjects, being minded to found a most noble library in Santa
Trinita, and to erect there a most beautiful building for the purpose.
He wished that it should be open to the public, and he chose Santa
Trinita because it was in the centre of Florence, a site of great
convenience to everybody. His disasters supervened and what he had
designed he could not execute."'[64]

* * * * *

'Cosimo used to regret that "he had not begun to spend money upon public
works ten years earlier than he did." Every costly building that bore
his name, each library he opened to the public, and all the donations
lavished upon scholars, served the double purpose of cementing the
despotism of his house and of gratifying his personal enthusiasm for
culture. . . . . Of his generosity to men of letters, the most striking
details are recorded. When Niccolo de' Niccoli ruined himself, Cosimo
opened for him an unlimited credit with the Medicean bank.'[65]

FOOTNOTES:

[59] Symonds, _The Revival of Learning_, pp. 174, 175.

[60] _Ibid._, pp. 172-7.

[61] Symonds, _Revival of Learning_, pp. 139, 140.

[62] Symonds, _Revival of Learning_, pp. 180-2.

[63] Putnam, _Books and their Makers_, vol. i., p. 338.

[64] Symonds, _Revival of Learning_, p. 167.

[65] _Ibid._, pp. 172-3.

_The Dukes of Urbino._

'Mr. Roscoe has observed that "by no circumstance in the character of an
individual is the love of literature so strongly evinced as by the
propensity for collecting together the writings of illustrious scholars,
and compressing the 'soul of ages past' within the narrow limits of a
library." But it is not easy now to appreciate the obstacles attending
such a pursuit in the age of Federigo. The science of bibliography can
scarcely be said to have existed before the invention of printing, in
consequence of the extreme difficulty of becoming acquainted with works
of which there were but few copies, and these widely scattered, perhaps
scarcely known. Great outlay was required, either