This purity of taste was no mere matter of æsthetic sensibility with Vittorino. Habits which brutalise the mind or debase the body, however sanctioned by the usage of the times, met with little toleration in his presence. Swearing, obscene language, vulgar joking, and angry altercation were severely punished. Personal morality and the observance of religious exercises he exacted from his pupils. Lying was a heinous offence. Those who proved intractable upon these points were excluded from his school. Of the rest Vespasiano writes with emphasis that 'his house was a sanctuary of manners, deeds, and words.'[293]
Concerning the noble Italian youths who were educated with the Gonzaga family at Mantua, enough has been said in another place.[294] Appended to Rosmini's copious biography will be found, by those who are curious to read such details, the notices of forty more or less distinguished pupils.[295] Beside the two sons of Gian Francesco Gonzaga already mentioned, Vittorino educated three other children of his master--Gianlucido, Alessandro, and Cecilia.[296] Wholly dedicated to the cares of teaching, and more anxious to survive in the good fame of his scholars than to secure the immortality of literature, Vittorino bequeathed no writings to posterity. He lived to a hale and hearty old age; and when he died, in 1446, it was found that the illustrious scholar, after enjoying for so many years the liberality of his princely patron, had not accumulated enough money to pay for his own funeral. Whatever he possessed, he spent in charity during his lifetime, trusting to the kindness of his friends to bury him when dead. Few lives of which there is any record in history, are so perfectly praiseworthy as Vittorino's; few men have more nobly realised the idea of living for the highest objects of their age; few have succeeded in keeping themselves so wholly unspotted by the vices of the world around them.
[Footnote 294: Vol. I., _Age of the Despots_, p. 138.]
[Footnote 296: See Rosmini, p. 183, and Vespasiano, p. 493, for the record of her virtues, her learning, and her refusal to wed the infamous Oddo da Montefeltro.]
By the patronage extended to Vittorino da Feltre the Court of Mantua took rank among the high schools of humanism in Italy. Ferrara won a similar distinction through the liberality of the House of Este. What has already been said about Milan applies, however, in a less degree to Ferrara. The arts and letters, though they flourished with exceeding brilliance beneath the patrons of Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso, were but accessories to a splendid and voluptuous Court life. Literature was little better than an exotic, cultivated for its rarity and beauty by the princes of the Este family.