Alfonso was far surpassed in learning by Federigo of Urbino, who had but few courtiers around him, squandered nothing, and in his appropriation of antiquity, as in all other things, went to work considerately.It was for him and for Nicholas V that most of the translations from the Greek, and a number of the best commentaries and other such works, were written.He spent much on the scholars whose services he used, but spent it to good purpose.There were no traces of a poets' court at Urbino, where the Duke himself was the most learned in the whole court.Classical antiquity, indeed, only formed a part of his culture.An accomplished ruler, captain, and gentleman, he had mastered the greater part of the science of the day, and this with a view to its practical application.As a theologian, he was able to compare Scotus with Aquinas, and was familiar with the writings of the old Fathers of the Eastern and Western Churches, the former in Latin translations.In philosophy, he seems to have left Plato altogether to his contemporary Cosimo, but he knew thoroughly not only the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle but the Physics and some other works.The rest of his reading lay chiefly among the ancient historians, all of whom he possessed; these, and not the poets, 'he was always reading and having read to him.'
The Sforza, too, were all of them men of more or less learning and patrons of literature; they have been already referred to in passing.
Duke Francesco probably looked on humanistic culture as a matter of course in the education of his children, if only for political reasons.
It was felt universally to be an advantage if a prince could mix with the most instructed men of his time on an equal footing.Lodovico il Moro, himself an excellent Latin scholar, showed an interest in intellectual matters which extended far beyond classical antiquity.
Even the petty rulers strove after similar distinctions, and we do them injustice by thinking that they only supported the scholars at their courts as a means of diffusing their own fame.A ruler like Borso of Ferrara, with all his vanity, seems by no means to have looked for immortality from the poets, eager as they were to propitiate him with a 'Borseid' and the like.He had far too proud a sense of his own position as a ruler for that.But intercourse with learned men, interest in antiquarian matters, and the passion for elegant Latin correspondence were necessities for the princes of that age.What bitter complaints are those of Duke Alfonso, competent as he was in practical matters, that his weakliness in youth had forced him to seek recreation in manual pursuits only! or was this merely an excuse to keep the humanists at a distance? A nature like his was not intelligible even to contemporaries.