still the favourite of the King, who distinguishes him in every possible way, but he was soon to fall into disfavour; his former benefactor became his persecutor, and he was forced to fly in disguise to a remote fortress, there to die young and forgotten.[1] Janus Pannonius belonged to the best class of Renaissance scholars. It is only in that age that we find such ardent admiration of and genuine enthusiasm for everything connected with classical culture. Pedantry and dry scholastic study had not yet made the world tired of the past, and for the Renaissance scholar the classical authors had the dignity of antiquity, together with the zest of novelty.
The Florentine Vespasiano, the wealthiest of the dealers in books and manuscripts, speaks in a pathetic manner of Pannonius, years after he had met him. Pannonius had been educated at Ferrara, where he far excelled all his fellow students in his knowledge of Greek and Latin. When his uncle, John Vitéz, the Archbishop of Esztergom, urged him to return to Hungary, he went, on his way back, to Florence, to see the great men of the day—Cosimo de' Medici, Poggio, the great humanist, and the Greek Argiropolis, the commentator of Aristotle. "Once," says Vespasiano, "there came to me a remarkably handsome youth, of dignified appearance, clad in a crimson robe. I cried out joyfully, 'Welcome here! You are a Hungarian, are you not?' On which he greeted me with great warmth, and told me in his own charming manner 'that
- ↑ In 1464 Matthias writes of Janus Pannonius that he is the pride of his Court, and that he is always striving to anticipate the King's wishes, but eight years later he writes to the Prince of Saxony requesting him to imprison Janus, should he enter Saxony, and declares himself ready to return this "friendly service" in a similar way, if necessary.
