" --Cam. Soc. 1843, Ellis, Letters, 357.
But many English students were attracted to visit Italy
for the express purpose of sitting under Italian teachers.
As early as 1395, one Thomas of England, a brother of
the Augustine order, went to Italy and purchased manuscripts,
"books of the modern poets," and translations and
other early works of Leonardo Bruni.[1] Thomas was one
of the first of a number of enlightened Englishmen who
journeyed laboriously and in steady procession to Italy,
this time not only to Rome, but to the northern towns,
then, with Venice, "the common ports of humanity,"
whither they were attracted by the fame of the bright
galaxy of humanists--of Coluccio Salutati, collector of
Latin manuscripts, Manuel Chrysoloras, Niccolo de' Niccoli,
grubbing Poggio Bracciolini, Pope Nicholas, sometime
Cosimo de' Medici's librarian and the founder of the
Vatican Library, Giovanni Aurispa, famous collector of
Greek manuscripts in the East, the renowned Guarino da
Verona, Palla degli Strozzi, would-be founder of a public
library, Cosimo de' Medici, whose princely collections are
the chiefest treasures of the Laurentian Library, Francesco
Filelfo, another importer of Greek books from Constantinople,
and Vespasiano, the great bookseller.
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