Three eclogues are extant from the pen of Pontano, a distinguished humanist at the court of Ferdinand I and his successors at Naples, and a Latin poet of considerable grace and feeling.

VALLA, LAURENCE, a learned humanist, born in Rome, and a valiant defender of the claims of scholarship; was a distinguished Latinist (1405-1457).

If classical learning and the graces of literature received but intermittent encouragement from the sovereign pontiffs, both the secular interests of their government and the vindication of the Church's dogmatic teaching afforded the most profitable exercise for talents which sceptical humanists sold, as readily as did the condottieri their swordsto the best paymaster, regardless of their personal convictions.