A profound self-analysis is not to be looked for in the 'Commentaries'
of Pius II.What we here learn of him as a man seems at first sight to be chiefly confined to the account which he gives of the various steps in his career.But further reflection will lead us to a different conclusion with regard to this remarkable book.There are men who are by nature mirrors of what surrounds them.It would be irrelevant to ask incessantly after their convictions, their spiritual struggles, their inmost victories and achievements.Aeneas Sylvius lived wholly in the interest which lay near, without troubling himself about the problems and contradictions of life.His Catholic orthodoxy gave him all the help of this kind which he needed.And at all events, after taking part in every intellectual movement which interested his age, and notably furthering some of them, he still at the close of his earthly course retained character enough to preach a crusade against the Turks, and to die of grief when it came to nothing.
Nor is the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, any more than that of Pius II, founded on introspection.And yet it describes the whole man--not always willingly--with marvelous truth and completeness.It is no small matter that Benvenuto, whose most important works have perished half finished, and who, as an artist, is perfect only in his little decorative speciality, but in other respects, if judged by the works of him which remain, is surpassed by so many of his greater contemporaries--that Benvenuto as a man will interest mankind to the end of time.It does not spoil the impression when the reader often detects him bragging or lying; the stamp of a mighty, energetic, and thoroughly developed nature remains.By his side our modern autobiographers, though their tendency and moral character may stand much higher, appear incomplete beings.He is a man who can do all and dares do all, and who carries his measure in himself.Whether we like him or not, he lives, such as he was, as a significant type of the modern spirit.
Another man deserves a brief mention in connection with this subject--a man who, like Benvenuto, was not a model of veracity: Girolamo Cardano of Milan (b.1500).His little book, 'De propria vita,' will outlive and eclipse his fame in philosophy and natural science, just as Benvenuto's Life, though its value is of another kind, has thrown his works into the shade.Cardano is a physician who feels his own pulse, and describes his own physical, moral, and intellectual nature, together with all the conditions under which it had developed, and this, to the best of his ability, honestly and sincerely.The work which he avowedly took as his model--the 'Confessions' of Marcus Aurelius--he was able, hampered as he was by no stoical maxims, to surpass in this particular.He desires to spare neither himself nor others, and begins the narrative of his career with the statement that his mother tried, and failed, to procure abortion.It is worth remark that he attributes to the stars which presided over his birth only the events of his life and his intellectual gifts, but not his moral qualities; he confesses (cap.10) that the astrological prediction that he would not live to the age of forty or fifty years did him much harm in his youth.But there is no need to quote from so well-known md accessible a book; whoever opens it will not lay it down il] the last page.Cardano admits that he cheated at play, that e was vindictive, incapable of all compunction, purposely cruel in his speech.He confesses it without impudence and without feigned contrition, without even wishing to make himself an object of interest, but with the same simple and sincere love of fact which guided him in his scientific researches.And, what is to us the most repulsive of all, the old man, after the most shocking experiences and with his confidence in his fellowmen gone, finds himself after all tolerably happy and comfortable.He has still left him a grandson, immense learning, the fame of his works, money, rank and credit, powerful friends, the knowledge of many secrets, and, best of all, belief in God.After this, he counts the teeth in his head, and finds that he was fifteen.
Yet when Cardano wrote, Inquisitors and Spaniards were already busy in Italy, either hindering the production of such natures, or, where they existed, by some means or other putting them out of the way.There lies a gulf between this book and the memoirs of Alfieri.
