of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza, Lascaris, Andronicus Callistus, and
others who fled from Greece to escape the domination of the Turks.
With the help of these men and their pupils a knowledge of Greek and
of Greek literature was diffused through Italy, and in a short time
throughout the Continent. Everywhere collections of Greek manuscripts
began to be formed; agents were sent to the East to buy them wherever
they could be discovered, and copyists and translators were busy at
work in all the leading centres of Italy. The fall of Constantinople
in 1453 tended to help the Greek revival in the West by the dispersion
of both scholars and manuscripts through Italy, France, and Germany.

Humanism owes its rapid development in Italy not indeed to the
universities, for the universities, committed entirely to the
Scholastic principles of education, were generally hostile, but rather
to the exertions of wandering teachers and to the generous support of
powerful patrons. In Rome it was the Popes who provided funds for the
support of Humanist scholars, for the collection and copying of
manuscripts, and for the erection of libraries where the great
literary treasures of Greece and Rome might be available for the
general public; in Florence it was the de' Medici, notably Cosmo
(1429-64) and Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-92), by whose exertions
Florence became the greatest centre of literary activity in Europe; in
Milan it was the Viscontis and the Sforzas; in Urbino Duke Federigo
and his friends; and in Ferrara and Mantua the families of d'Este and
Gonzaga. Academies took the place of universities. Of these the
academy of Florence, supported by the de' Medici and patronised by the
leading Greek and Italian scholars, was by far the most influential
and most widely known. The academy of Rome, founded (1460) by
Pomponius Laetus, was frankly Pagan in its tone and as such was
suppressed by Paul II. It was revived, however, and patronised by