Notwithstanding that the period in which he flourished was
remarkable for its number of men, who, by their genius and
learning revived the golden ages of ancient literature, he was
admitted by all to be without his equal, be it in erudition or
intellect, power of writing or intimacy with Latin. Guarino of
Verona, in spite of the severity with which he was treated by him
in his controversies, likens him, in one of his Epistles (Ep.
Egreg. Viro Poggio Flor. 26 Maji 1455), to "the purest models of
antiquity," and commends him for his "vigorous eloquence and
encyclopaedic stores of information": "pristini socculi floret, et
viget eloquentia, virtutisque thesaurus." Another of the best
spirits of that age, Benedotto Accolti of Arezzo, in his work on
the Eminent Men of his Time, puts him on a level with, if not
superior to any of the ancient historians, Livy and Sallust alone
excepted; for he says, "some of whom" (he is speaking, along with
Bracciolini, of Bruni, Marsuppini, Guarino, Rossi, Manetti, and
Traversari) "so wrote history, that, with the exception of Livy
and Sallust, there were none of the ancients to whom they might
not justly be considered as equal or superior"--"quorum aliqui ita
historias conscripserunt, ut Livio et Sallustio exceptis, nulli
veterum sint, quibus illi non pares aut superiores fuisse recte
existimentur" (Benedict. Accoltus Arez. in Dial. de Praest. Viris
sui aevi. Muratori. t. XX. p. 179). L'Enfant does not make this
exception, for, speaking of Bracciolini's History of Florence, he
says, that in "reading it one is reminded of Livy, Sallust and the
best historians of antiquity":--"A legard de son Histoire, on ne
sauroit le lire sans y reconnoitre Tite Live, Salluste, et les
meilleurs historiens de l'antiquite" (Poggiana, Vol. II. p. 83).
Sismondi, too, in the opening pages of the 8th volume of his
"Histoire des Republiques Italiennes du Moyen Age," says in a