' He
told Cosmo de' Medici, when translating Plato's Dialogues, that they
alone seemed to be infused with real life, while all other books passed
by like fleeting and shadowy things.
We are chiefly concerned with Poggio as the discoverer of long-lost
treasures. He saved Quintilian and many other classics from complete
extinction. 'Some of them,' said his friend Barbaro, 'were already dead
to the world, and some after a long exile you have restored to their
rights as citizens.' As a famous stock of pears had been named after an
Appius or Claudius, so it was said that these new fruits of literature
ought certainly to be named after Poggio.
The sole remaining copy of an ancient work upon aqueducts was discovered
by him in the old library at Monte Cassino, which had survived the
assaults of Lombards and Saracens, but in that later age seemed likely to
perish by neglect. We have the record of an earlier visit by Boccaccio,
in which the carelessness of its guardians was revealed. The visitor, we
are told, asked very deferentially if he might see the library. 'It is
open, and you can go up,' said a monk, pointing to the ladder that led to
an open loft. The traveller describes the filthy and doorless chamber,
the grass growing on the window-sills, and the books and benches white
with dust. He took down book after book, and they all seemed to be
ancient and valuable; but from some of them whole sheets had been taken
out, and in others the margins of the vellum had been cut off.
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