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Humanism, Diplomacy, and the Cultural Gift in Fifteenth-Century Florence

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Humanism, Diplomacy, and the Cultural Gift in Fifteenth-Century Florence NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Costumed Words: Humanism, Diplomacy, and the Cultural Gift in Fifteenth-Century Florence A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of History By Brian Maxson EVANSTON, ILLINOIS June 2008 2 ABSTRACT Costumed Words: Humanism, Diplomacy, and the Cultural Gift in Fifteenth-Century Florence Brian Maxson This project argues that displays of humanist learning in diplomacy served to demonstrate the extraordinary good will of the Florentine regime towards a host ruler. I call this act of surpassing previous oratorical gestures a “cultural gift”. Although the singular goal of humanism in diplomacy remained offering cultural gifts in the ritual marking the entrance of diplomats into a host space, the techniques that diplomats used towards this end changed over time and from person to person. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, basic displays of humanist rhetoric by humanist dilettantes were more than the usual oratorical display. As humanist performances became increasingly common, humanist authors increasingly lent their pens and voices to ensure successful diplomatic orations. At first, the low familial status of most of these figures prevented their direct involvement in diplomacy, forcing famous humanists like Leonardo Bruni to write orations for other diplomats. Over time, the challenges of continually offering extraordinary oratorical performances led to the involvement of figures that lacked prominent familial histories but possessed extraordinary literary reputations. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The path from first generation college graduate to completing a PhD would never have been possible without the continuous help from others. I cannot thank enough Edward Muir, my advisor, for his guidance and support of me over the years. Ethan Shagan and Marco Ruffini have offered me honest and helpful advice on chapter drafts. Without them, this dissertation would have taken a far different and perhaps no shape at all. I would also like to thank Janet Afary for her helpful suggestions on various aspects of this project. As an undergraduate, Christopher Celenza and Stuart Lingo literally explained to me what graduate school was and that it was something that I could do. I thank them for starting me on this road of research and teaching. The best part of graduate school at Northwestern has been the constant exchange of ideas with my graduate cohort. I would like to thank in particular Nicholas Baker, Suzanne Lavere, Elise Lipkowitz, Peter Mazur, Beth Condie-Pugh, and Christopher Sparshott. The procurement of the financial aid and resources for this project has been more of a team effort than an individual one. The staff of the Northwestern Library and particularly its Interlibrary Loan Department has been indefatigable in their efforts to find books and microfilms for me. The staff of the Office of Fellowships has been enormously generous with their assistance finding fellowships and helping me apply for them. I am grateful to the staff and scholars at the Archivio di Stato in Florence and Venice and the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence for their assistance and patience with my research and the Italian language. I would also like to thank the Northwestern Department of History and Graduate School, the J. William Fulbright Foundation, and the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Foundation for their monetary support. 4 The constant support of my family has gotten me through the rough patches over the past six years. I would like thank my parents, Ron and Cathy, for teaching me determination, a strong work ethic, and to love learning. The encouragement of my brother Ron and in-laws Jim, Annette, Chad and Melissa Murray started on day one, continued through my defense, and filled every day in between. My uncle and friend Conover Wilkinson has shown through example the art of the autodidact, without which I never would have encountered Renaissance History in the first place. My longtime friends Jeff McClintic and Jason Sieggreen have heard more about Renaissance diplomats and humanists than I am sure they ever wanted, but have always done so with patience and understanding. More than any person, my infinite gratitude goes to my wife Jennifer, whose love, personal strength, and sacrifices have made accomplishing this project possible. If I succeed, it is because she has lifted me up. If I fail, it is because of her that I get back up. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Front Matter …………………………………………………… 1 2. Introduction …………………………………………………… 6 3. Chapter One …………………………………………………… 34 4. Chapter Two …………………………………………………… 75 5. Chapter Three …………………………………………………… 115 6. Chapter Four …………………………………………………… 155 7. Conclusion …………………………………………………… 194 8. Bibliography …………………………………………………… 199 9. Notes …………………………………………………… 213 6 INTRODUCTION Florentine Intellectuals lacked the familial status necessary to make civic humanism a reality in foreign politics. In an age in which scholars have repeatedly stressed the conflation between cultural and political pursuits by intellectuals, a combination called civic humanism, most famous Florentine intellectuals remained confined to domestic political positions. These intellectuals, called humanists for their obsession with the fields of study comprising the humanities, were wealthier than many of their patrician peers; however, they generally came from newer Florentine families. As parvenus, these humanists simply lacked the familial prestige necessary to serve as diplomats. In fact, it was humanist dilettantes, patricians that dabbled in humanist studies and befriended learned men - but who themselves produced little if any original scholarship - that were responsible for pushing humanist ideas and rhetorical forms into mainstream foreign politics. To carry out this integration, these patricians used humanism in the orations that dominated the initial meeting between the diplomat and the host ruler. Previously, plain orations that greeted the host ruler and outlined the diplomats’ commission were the norm for these meetings. The combination of humanist words coming from the mouth of an illustrious Florentine patrician enhanced the ritual formality of the meeting between two states. By going beyond the standard practice, Florentine diplomats offered host rulers an implicit acknowledgement of the extraordinary attention that Florence was giving its relations with the host ruler. This acknowledgement served as a cultural gift. Once humanist oratory was common in diplomacy, the Florentine government again searched for ways to go beyond what was common in particularly important diplomatic exchanges. This search for the extraordinary gradually made the literary reputations and words of famous humanists more crucial in 7 diplomacy. By the 1480s, these factors were of equal importance to the more traditional characteristic of familial ancestry in Florentine diplomats. The story of the integration of humanism into diplomatic oratory, thus, is the story of the elevation of the social status of humanist parvenus in Renaissance Florence. The Current Conception in the Secondary Literature In a revealing anecdote, Vespasiano da’ Bisticci described the oration when the Emperor Frederick III entered the city of Florence in 1452. An address had to be delivered on the Emperor’s visit, and it would have been more seemly if this had been made by one of the Signoria than by someone who was only attached to it as chancellor. Messer Giannozzo [Manetti] who was a member of the College, ought to have spoken it, rather than Messer Carlo d’Arezzo [Marsuppini], who was chancellor. However, some of those who were unwilling that Giannozzo should have this honour settled that it should be given to Messer Carlo and told him of it several days before. On the appointed day some two hundred citizens attended, and according to the arrangement Messer Carlo addressed the Emperor. When he had finished the Emperor requested Messer Aeneas [Silvius Piccolomini] to reply, proposing in addition diverse other matters which required an immediate answer, whereupon the Signoria called upon messer Carlo to reply to them. He, however, affirmed he could not do this without due preparation. The Signoria called on him several times, but he always refused on the same plea. And now those who had plotted to deprive Giannozzo of his due honour turned to him begging him to answer so that they might not be 8 shamed, as they would be, before the Emperor, the King of Hungary, and all the nobility. Giannozzo, seeing that disgrace was imminent, turned on those who had worked against him, accepted, as the Emperor was awaiting a reply at once. His speech had not the air of an impromptu, but of one which had been more carefully prepared than that delivered by messer Carlo. When he had finished all men of intelligence who understood Latin decided that Giannozzo’s unprepared speech was far better than Carlo’s prepared one. That day his fame increased greatly, and those who had thwarted him found they had made a mistake. The Emperor and his nobles regarded him as a most remarkable man, as indeed he was, one who need not go begging for words to express his ideas, because he had already good store of them. Clearly, Vespasiano had a low opinion of Carlo Marsuppini; regardless, his comments are illuminating regarding the current historiographical view of the role of humanism in diplomacy. Vespasiano’s description of this diplomatic reception ritual, the event whose script shaped the arrival of
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