Note 879 — Chapter V · THE PERFECT MAN OF SOCIETY.
S. G. C. (Samuel George Chetwynd) Middlemore translation
Caelius Calcagninus (Opere, p. 514) describes the education of a young Italian of position about the year 1506, in the funeral speech on Antonio Costabili: first, ‘artes liberales et ingenuae disciplinae; tum adolescentia in iis exercitationibus acta, quæ ad rem militarem corpus et animum praemuniunt. Nunc gymnastae (i.e. the teachers of gymnastics) operam dare, luctari, excurrere, natare, equitare, venari, aucupari, ad palum et apud lanistam ictus inferre aut declinare, caesim punctimve hostem ferire, hastam vibrare, sub armis hyemen juxta et aestatem traducere, lanceis occursare, veri ac communis Martis simulacra imitari.’ Cardanus (De prop. Vita, c. 7) names among his gymnastic exercises the springing on to a wooden horse. Comp. Rabelais, Gargantua, i. 23, 24, for education in general, and 35 for gymnastic art. Even for the philologists, Marsilius Ficinus (Epist. iv. 171 Galeotto) requires gymnastics, and Maffeo Vegio (De Puerorum Educatione, lib. iii. c. 5) for boys.