LINACRE. 3 turn had instructed the Florentines in reading and comprehending those writings of the ancient Greeks, whom Boccaccio had tauglit them to ad- mire. For, even so early as the middle of the four- teenth century, this last celebrated man had intro- duced a love of the Greek language amongst the Italians, — had founded at Florence a chair for the teaching of it, and placed in it one of the most learned of the Greeks of Constantinople. The name of this early professor was Leontius Pilatus, whom Boccaccio received into his own house, (though he is represented as a man of very dis- agreeable and unaccommodating manners ;) sup- ported him during his stay at Florence ; entered himself as one of his first scholars ; and procured, at his own expense, the Greek MSS. which were employed in the lectures of the professor. For, as this was before the invention of the art of printing, the lecturer read aloud from his own copy, which was perhaps the only one of the author (possessed by the class) upon whom he was making commentaries to a very numerous auditory. The knowledge, however, of this co- pious and beautiful language must have been confined to a few, till after the capture of Constan- tinople, the consequent dispersion of the Greeks, and, more especially, till after the invention of printing. Without the aid of printing, learning could never have become accessible to the bulk of the people ; and without the demand for books, which learning occasions, the art of printing itself might, to this day, have been classed among the useless contrivances invented by ingenious vision- aries. The impatience manifested, at the time we B 2
