We need not proceed to describe the other rooms. On the first floor there
were 260 books, consisting for the most part of romances with miniature
illuminations. One of these was the _Destruction de Thebes_, which at one
time belonged to the Duc de la Valliere, and is now in the National
Library at Paris. The upper floor contained nearly six hundred volumes
mostly concerned with astronomy and natural science.
It appears from the memoranda in the lists that there had been a habit of
lending books to public institutions and to members of the royal family
from the time when the library was first established; and it is
estimated that about two hundred of the books must have been saved in
this way to form the beginning of a new library in the Louvre, which,
after the expulsion of the English, began to attain some importance in
the reign of Louis XI.
CHAPTER VI.
ITALY--THE RENAISSANCE.
The study of the classics had languished for a time after the deaths of
Petrarch and Boccaccio. It revived again upon the coming of Chrysoloras,
who is said to have lighted in Italy 'a new and perpetual flame.' Poggio
Bracciolini was one of his first pupils; and he became so distinguished
in literature that the earlier part of the fifteenth century is known as
the age of Poggio. Leonardo Aretino describes the enthusiasm with which
the Italians made acquaintance with the ancient learning. 'I gave myself
up to Chrysoloras,' he writes, 'and my passion for knowledge was so
strong that the daily tasks became the material of my nightly dreams.
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