.[911] This
is subject to some exception, when fairly considered; several ancient
authors were never lost, and therefore cannot be said to have been
discovered; and we know that Italy did not always anticipate other
countries in classical printing. But her superior merit is
incontestable. Poggio Bracciolini, who stands perhaps at the head of the
restorers of learning, in the earlier part of the fifteenth century,
discovered in the monastery of St. Gall, among dirt and rubbish in a
dungeon scarcely fit for condemned criminals, as he describes it, an
entire copy of Quintilian, and part of Valerius Flaccus. This was in
1414; and soon afterwards, he rescued the poem of Silius Italicus, and
twelve comedies of Plautus, in addition to eight that were previously
known: besides Lucretius, Columella, Tertullian, Ammianus Marcellinus,
and other writers of inferior note.[912] A bishop of Lodi brought to
light the rhetorical treatises of Cicero. Not that we must suppose these
books to have been universally unknown before; Quintilian, at least, is
quoted by English writers much earlier. But so little intercourse
prevailed among different countries, and the monks had so little
acquaintance with the riches of their conventual libraries, that an
author might pass for lost in Italy, who was familiar to a few learned
men in other parts of Europe. To the name of Poggio we may add a number
of others, distinguished in this memorable resurrection of ancient
literature, and united, not always indeed by friendship, for their
bitter animosities disgrace their profession, but by a sort of common
sympathy in the cause of learning; Filelfo, Laurentius Valla, Niccolo
Niccoli, Ambrogio Traversari, more commonly called Il Camaldolense, and
Leonardo Aretino.

[Sidenote: Greek language unknown in the West.]

From the subversion of the Western Empire, or at least from the time
when Rome ceased to pay obedience to the exarchs of Ravenna, the Greek
language and literature had been almost entirely forgotten within the
pale of the Latin church. A very few exceptions might be found,
especially in the earlier period of the middle ages, while the eastern
emperors retained their dominion over part of Italy.[913] Thus
Charlemagne is said to have established a school for Greek at
Osnaburg.[914] John Scotus seems to have been well acquainted with the
language. And Greek characters may occasionally, though very seldom, be
found in the writings of learned men; such