‘IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE ANCIENTS’: THE ORIGINS OF HUMANISM FROM LOVATO TO BRUNI Ronald G. Witt BRILL ‘IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE ANCIENTS’ STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL AND REFORMATION THOUGHT EDITED BY HEIKO A. OBERMAN, Tucson, Arizona IN COOPERATION WITH THOMAS A. BRADY, Jr., Berkeley, California ANDREW C. GOW, Edmonton, Alberta SUSAN C. KARANT-NUNN, Tucson, Arizona JÜRGEN MIETHKE, Heidelberg M. E. H. NICOLETTE MOUT, Leiden ANDREW PETTEGREE, St. Andrews MANFRED SCHULZE, Wuppertal VOLUME LXXIV RONALD G. WITT ‘IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE ANCIENTS’ ‘IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE ANCIENTS’ THE ORIGINS OF HUMANISM FROM LOVATO TO BRUNI BY RONALD G. WITT BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON • KÖLN 2001 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Witt, Ronald G. ‘In the footsteps of the ancients’ : the origins of humanism from Lovato to Bruni / by Ronald G. Witt. p. cm. — (Studies in medieval and Reformation thought, ISSN 0585-6914 ; v. 74) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 9004113975 (alk. paper) 1. Lovati, Lovato de, d. 1309. 2. Bruni, Leonardo, 1369-1444. 3. Latin literature, Medieval and modern—Italy—History and criticism. 4. Latin literature, Medieval and modern—France—History and criticism. 5. Latin literature, Medieval and modern—Classical influences. 6. Rhetoric, Ancient— Study and teaching—History—To 1500. 7. Humanism in literature. 8. Humanists—France. 9. Humanists—Italy. 10. Italy—Intellectual life 1268-1559. 11. France—Intellectual life—To 1500. PA8045.I6 W58 2000 808’.0945’09023—dc21 00–023546 CIP Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Witt, Ronald G.: ‘In the footsteps of the ancients’ : the origins of humanism from Lovato to Bruni / by Ronald G. Witt. – Leiden ; Boston ; Köln : Brill, 2000 (Studies in medieval and reformation thought ; Vol. 74) ISBN 90–04–11397–5 ISSN 0585-6914 ISBN 90 04 11397 5 © Copyright 2000 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ..................................................................... vii Abbreviations .............................................................................. xi Chapter One Introduction ...................................................... 1 Chapter Two The Birth of the New Aesthetic ...................... 31 Chapter Three Padua and the Origins of Humanism .......... 81 Chapter Four Albertino Mussato and the Second Generation 117 Chapter Five Florence and Vernacular Learning .................. 174 Chapter Six Petrarch, Father of Humanism? ........................ 230 Chapter Seven Coluccio Salutati ............................................ 292 Chapter Eight The Revival of Oratory .................................. 338 Chapter Nine Leonardo Bruni ............................................... 392 Chapter Ten The First Ciceronianism ................................... 443 Chapter Eleven Conclusion .................................................... 495 Appendix .................................................................................... 509 Bibliography ............................................................................... 515 Indexes Index of Persons .................................................................... 549 Index of Places ....................................................................... 556 Index of Subjects ................................................................... 558 This page intentionally left blank vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In memoriam Paul Oskar Kristeller (1905-1999) Sibi et post eum ascendere volentibus viam aperuit. In the course of the twenty-three years since I first conceived of taking up this project, I have depended heavily on the generosity of a large intellectual community in multifarious ways, but because this volume embodies only half of the original design, I postpone men- tioning those who contributed principally to the still unfinished first and earlier part. The present book could not have been written with- out the expert advice of Francis Newton and Diskin Clay of Dukes Department of Classical Studies. In the case of Francis Newton, my debt goes back to the beginning of my research on early humanism and before. James Hankins, John Headley, Kenneth Gouwens, Ric- cardo Fubini, Majorie Curry Woods, and Paul Gaziano read the entire manuscript, each at different stages of its development. Francesca Santoro LHoir, Giuseppe Mazzotta, Timothy Kircher, and Marcello Simonetta willingly gave their comments on chapters 3, 5, 6, and 10 respectively. On specific points I had recourse to the expertise and assistance of Felicia Traub, Patricia Osmond, Robert Bjork, Peter Burian, Mark Sosower, Lucia Stadter, and Edward Mahoney. I am deeply grateful to all these scholars for the correc- tions and improvements they have made. A presentation of a late version of the manuscript in one of the Duke History Departments Conversations with Colleagues was extremely profitable, as was a similar presentation to the Triangle Intellectual History Seminar. I am deeply in debt to two decades of Duke University Staff mem- bers: Dorothy Sapp and Betty Cowan in the 1980s and Jenna Gol- nik, Andrea Long, and Deborah Carver in the 1990s. Without them I would never have gotten through the series of emergencies plaguing a sometimes absent-minded and technologically naive researcher. Of the dozens of libraries I have visited over the years, I would like to single out for special thanks the staffs of the Bibliothèque nationale of Paris, the Biblioteca nazionale and Biblioteca riccardiana of Flor- ence, the libraries of the American Academy in Rome and Harvards Villa I Tatti in Florence, the Newberry Library, the Biblioteca viii viii acknowledgements apostolica vaticana, and the Duke Library, especially the staff of Special Collections. I would also like to thank Professor Heiko A. Oberman for accepting this book in his series Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought. Gera van Bedaf, my editor at Brill, was a pleasure to work with. Her professionalism, efficiency and tolerance in this enterprise were remarkable. In the last stages of compiling the bibliography, I relied heavily on the research skills of my undergraduate assistant at Duke, Robert Shibley. Christopher Ross, Walker Robinson, and Philip Tinari helped with proofing. Mark Jurdevic prepared the indexes with intel- ligence and dispatch. I would especially like to express my deep ap- preciation for the work of Andrew Sparling, who served as the copyeditor of the manuscript, but whose real contribution extended much further, to the mode of presentation and to the ideas them- selves. The general argument, even if necessarily specialized at points, has been rendered far more accessible to a general audience by his having taken it in hand. He could not have been more con- cerned with the quality of the final version had it been his own work. Finally, I want to thank my family: my three children for whom the dictates of writing such a book contributed significantly to the con- text in which they spent much of their youth performed over time various services too numerous to mention; and my wife of thirty-five years, who has always stood in the front line when it came to testing out my ideas or exploring ways of expressing them. Over the years my research has been generously supported by the National Endow- ment for the Humanities and by a number of foundations. A Gug- genheim Fellowship in 1978-79 and a summer grant from the Coun- cil of Learned Societies helped me in the initial stages of research. Subsequently, I received a National Endowment for the Humanities for a semesters study in 1983 at the National Humanities Center in the Research Triangle; a second for a semester at the Newberry Library in l991 and a third (with a generous salary supplement from Duke) for a years residence at the American Academy in Rome. A Fulbright-for-Research-in-Two-Countries supported me for a year in Rome and Paris in 1985-86. Five grants from the Duke University Research Council were used for the purchase of microfilm. I can only hope that the results of this study and the one forthcoming will in some measure justify the expenditure of these precious resources. I dedicate this book to the memory of Paul Oskar Kristeller, whose magisterial writings instilled in me the fundamental principle guiding ix acknowledgements ix all my work: that an appreciation of the distinctiveness of the Italian Renaissance cannot be had apart from an understanding of the me- dieval culture out of which it developed. Mine is only one of many testimonies to Kristellers enormous contribution to the study of me- dieval and Renaissance culture. Those of us in this field can fittingly attribute to his achievement the assessment Boccaccio rendered of Petrarchs in his letter to Jacopo Pizzinga in 1372: He has opened the road for himself and for those who want to ascend after him. R.W. Durham, North Carolina February 2000 This page intentionally left blank xi ABBREVIATIONS ASF Archivo di Stato,