Yet he was certainly a very accurate scholar; and he showed a
proper manly spirit when he boxed Poggio's ears in the Theatre of Pompey
for reminding him of the cleverness expected from 'a starving Greek.' His
life, one is glad to think, had a very peaceful end. The old man had a
house at Rome in the Piazza Minerva: his tombstone, much defaced, is
before the curtain as one enters the Church of S^ta. Maria. His son
Andrea used to help him in his work, and launched a pamphlet now and
again at Theodore of Gaza. The brilliant scholar fell into a second
childhood, and might be seen muttering to himself as he rambled with
cloak and long staff through the streets of Rome. The grand-daughter who
took charge of him married Madalena, a fashionable poet; and Pope Leo X.
delighted in hearing their anecdotes about old times, when George and
Theodore fought their paper-wars, and wielded their pens in the battle of
the books.
Before leaving the subject of the libraries in the two great capitals, we
ought to bestow a word or two upon those splendidly endowed institutions
by which a few Florentine book-collectors have kept up the literary fame
of their city, without pretending to emulate the splendour of the Medici,
or the wealth of the Vatican, or the curious antiquities of St. Mark. We
desire especially to say something in remembrance of the 'Riccardiana'
which, from its foundation in the sixteenth century, has been famous for
the value of its historical manuscripts.
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