G az e tt e T u lliana SOCIETE INTERNATIONALE DES AMIS DE CICERON INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF CICERO'S FRIENDS SOCIETÀ INTERNAZIONALE DEGLI AMICI DI CICERONE ANNEE 3, NUMERO 2, ÉTE-AUTOMNE 2011 - ISSN 2102-653X AGAINST HUMAN CICERO AND BOCCACCIO: NEW PERSPECTIVES OF RESEARCH STUPIDITY Dear members, our Society has Paasche Grudin, Michaela & Grudin, suffered significant setbacks with Robert, Boccaccio's Decameron and the hacking. We complained to the Ciceronian Renaissance, to be published Italian police and the investigation by Palgrave Macmillan in 2012. is ongoing. The result of this misa- dventure is that we have lost data. It was necessary to seize them a- gain. Above all, the technicians of Readers of Boccaccio’s Decameron have long been troubled by a the company Step.init had to daunting array of interpretive challenges : Boccaccio’s apparently rebuild part of the site structure. This fight against stupidity cost us inconsistent treatment of women, his general espousal of mutually a lot of energy and - it is not contradictory viewpoints, and his book’s apparent lack of the- incidental - an important part of matic development. Even individual sections of the great work, our budget. The management team like his Preface, his opening description of the plague in Florence, of the SIAC is aware that this the key tales of Ciappelletto and Griselda, and the canzoni sung at thorny situation had for main con- the end of each Day, have caused critical confusion, debate and sequence to put our scientific and educational activities in dormancy. frustration. These problems are, if anything, intensified by our Let there be no misunderstanding: awareness of Boccaccio’s penchant for allegory and his opening we are more determined than ever description of his 100 novelle as “parables” or “fables.” In their to enforce our Society and our site. new book-length manuscript, Boccaccio’s Decameron and the Here is the proof: you will soon re- Ciceronian Renaissance, Michaela Paasche Grudin and Robert ceive on your email box a Grudin demonstrate that the solution to these conundra may be newsletter. To make our job easier we decided to sign up directly for found in Boccaccio’s appropriation of Ciceronian social theory as you to this new device of voiced especially in Cicero’s De inventione and his later books, information. Obviously, you keep De legibus, De re publica and De officiis. Using these and other your freedom: you can cancel the Ciceronian works, the Grudins show that Boccaccio’s puzzling subscription from the first message masterpiece takes on organic consistency when viewed as an by clicking a link ad hoc. This early modern adaptation of a pre-Christian, humanistic vision. listing of all the members will take Please, note that Mrs and Mr Grudin hope that they can find a time. For those of you who want to help us, nothing is more simple: go way of sharing their research with members of our Society. Do to the website tulliana.eu and click not hesitate to contact them directly ([email protected]). on Newsletter, located at the Philippe Rousselot (tr. by T. Frazel) bottom of the left column. Just put your name and email address. This newsletter will complement our RULES FOR SUBMITTING Tulliana Gazette. It will inform our community of the diverse novelties PAPERS TO THE GAZETTE concerning our SIAC - including scientific activity of members - and Articles should be sent as e-mail attachments to the address contri- the current works in the ciceronian [email protected] or by following the instructions displayed domain : seminars, conferences, publications, awards, scholarships, at the click of the but-ton Acta Tulliana, on the left column of the etc..Thanks to all for your patience home page. and your confidence. You are requested to write in character size 12, and the font Times The President Philippe Rousselot New Roman. (tr. by Tom Frazel) 1 Scientific section - Books about Cicero and the Roman republic BOOKS ABOUT CICERO 1997-1999: A 'REVOLUTION' FOR THE IN 2011 ROMAN RES PUBLICA T. W. Caspar, Recovering the an- A 'revolution' for the Roman cient view of founding. A commen- res publica. In this way we tary on Cicero's De Legibus, could remember the years Lanham, Md. [e. a.], Lexington 1997-1999, which saw the Books, VII, 217 pp. release of three important H. Essler, Glückselig und unsterb- works in the History of lich. Epikureische Theologie bei Ci- Thought and Political cero und Philodem; mit einer Edition Philosophy (Philip Pettit, von Pherc. 152/157, Kol. 8 - 10, Republicanism. A Theory of Basel, Schwabe, 399 pp. Freedom and Government, I. Gildenhard, Creative eloquence. Oxford 1997, Quentin Skinner, The construction of reality in Liberty before Liberalism, Cicero's speeches, Oxford [e. a.], Cambridge 1998 and Maurizio publica. If the scholar of Oxford Univ. Press, 454 pp. Viroli, Repubblicanesimo, antiquity, Millar, focuses, in a L. Hermand-Schebat, Pétrarque Rome-Bari 1999). It also saw, 'classic' way, on institutions and épistolier et Cicéron. Étude d' une in an independent manner, the procedures (see K.-J. filiation, Paris, PUPS, 577 pp. output of Fergus Millar, The Hölkeskamp, Reconstructing the S. Koster, Ciceros "Rosciana Ameri- Crowd in Rome in the Late Roman Republic. An Ancient na" im Prosarhythmus rekonstruiert, Republic, Ann Arbor 1998, and Modern Political Culture Stuttgart, Steiner, 178 pp. which, as is known, Research, Princeton and Oxford D. Mankin (ed.), Cicero, De oratore, interpreting the late Roman 2010, 13-14) , Pettit, Skinner and Viroli work on the level of book III, Cambridge [e. a.], Cambri- Republic as democratic', has ideas. The neo-Roman theory of dge Univ. Press, XI, 346 pp. given rise to numerous free states evoked by the R. Nickel, Orakelkunst und Vor- reflections and, not historian Skinner (an expression hersage. Marcus Tullius Cicero, infrequently, to strong of the broader interpretation of Mannheim, Artemis & Winkler, reactions. 'Republican'), in fact, re- 216 pp. evaluates the entire political C. J. Smith (ed.), Praise and blame language of 'civic virtues' and, in Roman republican rhetoric, above all, of a 'Republican Swansea, Classical Press of Wales, paradigm', which, through law, Cicero, Sallust and Livy, would XI, 248 pp. bring the values of the res K. Tempest, Cicero. Politics and publica into the reality of the persuasion in ancient Rome, London free Italian municipalities, and [e. a.], Continuum, XIV, 256 pp. K. Zawadzki, Ciceros Zitierungs- technik in der Schrift "De natura deorum". Eine exemplarische Unter- SIAC MEMBERSHIP suchung anhand des Abschnittes 1, If you want to become a 25 - 27, München, AVM, 88 pp. member of the SIAC you should link to the site Tullia- by Stefano Rozzi na, draw up the accompan- What have they in common, ying questionnaire and pay 25 these four volumes? The euros as contribution. You revaluation, by different routes, can use Paypal. of the 'model' of the res 2 Scientific section - Books about Roman Thought then move on to Machiavelli, Harrington and the theorists of Wilfried Stroh, La puissance du the American Revolution. All discours, Une petite histoire de la this would have been 'productive' rhétorique dans la Grèce antique et à to date, although absorbed or Rome, Traduit de l’allemand et du latin overshadowed by liberal par Sylvain Bluntz, coll. Le miroir des hegemony theory. To propose a more human society, Skinner, humanistes, 11, Belles Lettres, ISBN- Viroli and Pettit go on to 13-978-2-251-34604-5, November hypothesize the existence of a 2010, 514 p., price Fnac 25,65 €. 'third' freedom, the 'neo-Roman', understood as 'non-domination'. Inspired by the now classic C. Wirszubski, Libertas as a In 1970, Roland Barthes noted in l’Ancienne rhétorique that a Political Idea at Rome During manual that could provide a chronological and systematic the Late Republic and Early overview of ancient and classical rhetoric did not exist. Principate, Cambridge 1950, it Everyone had to, in that area, develop their own knowledge. would help to overcome the With humor, W. Stroh seeks to fill, finally, that gap. It is ingrained dichotomies between welcome to see the collection « Le miroir des humanistes » freedom ‘of the ancients' and ‘of continue the publication of his recent work, translated, as the moderns' of Benjamin always, by Sylvain Bluntz. This kleine Geschichte, published Constant (De la liberté des Anciens a comparee cells des in German in 2009, forms a thick volume intended for the Modernes, Paris 1819) and the educated public and students. The freedom of spirit and ‘positive’ freedom (freedom of) charming style of this book contrast with the dryness that is and 'negative' (freedom from) of the usual mark of such works. It abounds in formulas worthy Isaiah Berlin (Two Concepts of of a passionate teacher and everything taken from his joy of Liberty: An Inaugural Lecture teaching. The delight of writing can not hide that this is a delivered before the University of manual or a compendium, as shown in the strict chronological Oxford on 31 October 1958, organizing the chapters, each of which paints a portrait of the Oxford, 1959) , offering a real masters of rhetoric and presents, in detail, their main works. alternative to liberalism and In this historical Who's who (Stroh’s words), the author communitarianism. We just have to follow the developments of the forgets nothing and nobody (or almost). Always presented case, limiting ourselves - for now with their Greek name, Latin equivalent and translation, the - to observe, with some concepts of rhetoric evolving over the pages, from conjectural satisfaction, that after the crisis and almost instinctive origin to their theoretical and technical of 'modernity' and the concept of development, over nearly a thousand years, from Sicily to 'state', the 'ancient' appears very Gorgias to the Africa of Augustine.