to be able to do much more than extend his patronage to the old man
and despatch emissaries to the East for more and more manuscripts;
but discerning the allurements of the new gospel, Cosimo directed
a Florentine enthusiast who knew Greek to spread the serene creed
among his friends, who were all ripe for it, and this enthusiast was
none other than a youthful scholar by name Marsilio Ficino, connected
with S. Lorenzo, Cosimo's family church, and the son of Cosimo's own
physician. To the young and ardent Marsilio, Plato became a god and
Gemisthos not less than divine for bringing the tidings. He kept a lamp
always burning before Plato's bust, and later founded the Platonic
Academy, at which Plato's works were discussed, orations delivered,
and new dialogues exchanged, between such keen minds as Marsilio,
Pulci, Landini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Leon Battista Alberti, the
architect and scholar, Pico dell a Mirandola, the precocious disputant
and aristocratic mystic, Poliziano, the tutor of Lorenzo's sons, and
Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. It was thus from the Greek invasion
of Florence that proceeded the stream of culture which is known as
Humanism, and which, no doubt, in time, was so largely concerned in
bringing about that indifference to spiritual things which, leading
to general laxity and indulgence, filled Savonarola with despair.

I am not concerned to enter deeply into the subject of the
Renaissance. But this must be said--that the new painting and
sculpture, particularly the painting of Masaccio and the sculpture
of Donatello, had shown the world that the human being could be made
the measure of the Divine. The Madonna and Christ had been related
to life. The new learning, by leading these keen Tuscan intellects,
so eager for reasonableness, to the Greek philosophers who were so
wise and so calm without any of the consolations of Christianity,
naturally set them wondering if there were not a religion of Humanity