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Originally published in 1986.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691611006 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 07/14/2014 |
| Series: | Princeton Legacy Library , #89 |
| Pages: | 548 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance
By Margaret L. King
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1986 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-05465-0
CHAPTER 1
The Humanists: Or do litteratorum
1. The New Learning
Far from his native Greece, the learned Manuel Chrysoloras died in 1415 during sessions of the Council of Constance that was to resolve the schism of the Latin Church and burn John Hus. More than any other single figure, Chrysoloras had stimulated among the humanists a love of Greek learning. Yet none among his friends and students, struck though they were by their loss, composed his eulogy. It was written and delivered by the young Venetian nobleman, Andrea Giuliani. Urged to the task by his teacher Guarino Veronese, a former pupil of Chrysoloras, on behalf of the learned of Italy, Giuliani lamented the death of their majestic guide and inspiration.
For Venetians had by this time joined the community of those who loved the studia humanitatis. Giuliani himself had fallen under their spell. At the advanced age of twenty-three, he had undertaken a program of literary studies. Eight years later, then a young statesman pressed by official tasks, he spoke upon the invitation of a group of his peers about the ideal of eloquence central to humanism. May God give me the capacity to describe to you, he implored, "the divine eloquence of these orations of Cicero — for I know that my gifts are not equal to the task to which I am moved not by my own will, but assume it gladly so I might accede to yours." Curiosity about the new learning had invaded the hearts of the sober guardians of imperial Venice.
Fired with love of the humanities, Venetians carved time from busy lives to study the "divine eloquence" of ancient masters. Once the hero of Chioggia, where Venice had fought to the death with Genoa and won, Carlo Zeno was later disgraced for an indiscretion in the matter of accepting gifts from enemies of the state. In retirement, he took up the studia humanitatis full time — not, as his eulogist Leonardo Giustiniani put it, like a busy man engaged in a variety of tasks, but like a philosopher or orator, a professional. He studied as though life offered no pleasure more intense.
Giustiniani might have been describing himself. In his youth a poet of sensual love whose rhymes were sung by gondoliers, later in life the author of exquisite sacred verse, Giustiniani yearned for quiet days filled with deep thoughts and intense memories. On the island of Murano, in retreat from the plague and tedious obligations, he admired the natural symmetries of nature and artful harmonies of music, and pondered problems of moral philosophy and of history. Eagerly, he reflected upon the nature of the republic, the governance of the family, the fortunes and misfortunes of Venetian ancestors, the happiness of past ages, and the tragedy of this one: "and all that those many minds, each in its age, had thought of any matter, I in an instant can know." Nothing delighted him more than fellowship with those books which provided him that harvest.
Ermolao Barbaro the Younger also rejoiced when duty or accident removed him from the press of duties and allowed him time for studies. The republic will do quite well without me, he wrote Giorgio Merula, "but without letters I shall not survive." In Padua, where he had taken refuge from the rumor of plague, he devoted his leisure to his beloved studies. A few years later, when ambassador to Milan, he crowed to his friend Girolamo Donato about the chief benefit of his assignment: the opportunity for serious study. "The shades of Dioscorides and Aristotle," he wrote, "have won me this legation." And later still, when his embassy to Rome had resulted in ecclesiastical preferment and Venetian disfavor, he welcomed again the opportunity for study. "A great part of my life has always been devoted to study," he wrote to Ugolino Verino; "now it shall be the whole." And to Antonio Calvo: "Born to letters, pledged to letters, without letters I cannot exist. ... O happy calamity, which has restored letters to me and me to letters, and indeed myself to myself." With his dearly-won time, he completed his emendation of Pliny.
Books were the object of this passion for learning that suffused so many Quattrocento Venetians and engaged them with the other humanist circles of Italy. They discovered, borrowed, copied and collected books with fervor. Francesco Barbaro had congratulated Poggio Bracciolini for his momentous discoveries of ancient manuscripts during the Council of Constance, but was even more delighted when he made a discovery of his own. As Venetian ambassador to the papal curia in 1426, he one day strayed from his path and stumbled upon a treasure in a dismal warehouse attached to the monastery of Santa Maria di Frascati. Amid barrels of wine lay Greek books, beautifully written, worthy of the library of a Varro or a Ptolemy, neglected and unread. Barbaro described his triumph to his friend and mentor Guarino Veronese "that you may know that in this age the good fortune and diligence of one 'barbarian' (Barbaro) unearthed near Rome these treasures of Greek learning which the Roman people allowed to be hidden and buried in squalor and dirt." Gregorio Correr was also proud of his discoveries in a monastic library near Basel: he had rescued Salvianus' De providentia Dei, as he put it, "from German dungeons." Books were lost as well as found. Lauro Quirini mourned the devastation suffered when Constantinople fell to the Turks: "More than one hundred twenty thousand volumes," he lamented. What Greek literature had achieved "through such length of time, with so much labor, with such industry" had "perished, alas, perished" — how can we restrain our tears?
Venetians engaged with non-Venetians in the circulation of important texts. Leonardo Bruni asked Pietro Miani to give to Chrysoloras Bruni's copy of The City of God, and to request that scholar to bring to the curia any interesting Greek manuscripts. Gasparino Barzizza copied Giovanni Corner's text of Pliny, and emended the Venetian's manuscript of Cicero's De oratore. Guarino Veronese received from Leonardo Giustiniani a copy of Plutarch's life of Themistocles and had to remind Andrea Giuliani to return Pliny's letters, since the owner required them. Ambrogio Traversari received from Francesco Barbaro a rare Lactantius codex, which he promised to emend and return with Xenophon's Agesilaus, and employed Leonardo Giustiniani as agent in acquiring materials he needed for his busy scribes. Pietro Donato's will carefully provided for the return of books he had borrowed over the years from the Florentine exile Palla Strozzi. Ludovico Foscarini wrote to Guarnerio d'Artegna that Thucydides, for several days now his guest, was on the way home, but that he was in urgent need of more books from that bibliophile's store: "Without Greek friends I cannot lead a decent life here — I beg you, send me Appian or Herodotus."
As books circulated, libraries formed. Pietro Barbo's favored histories; Giovanni Marcanova's, medicine; Georgio Valla's, mathematics and science. The large inventoried collections of Pietro Barozzi, Pietro Donato, Jacopo Zeno, and Marcanova were willed to Paduan libraries. The patrician Domenico Morosini prohibited by his will the dispersion of his collection; the commoners Marcantonio Sabellico and Pietro Cirneo bequeathed theirs, respectively, to family and teacher. The precious libraries of Marco Barbo (some 500 volumes) and Pietro Tommasi (130) were scattered. During his visit to Venice in 1433, Ambrogio Traversari — finding little of interest in monastic libraries — admired the private collections of Francesco Barbaro, Tommasi, and Giovanni Corner, the latter's particularly remarkable for the elegance of its manuscripts. In Crete, Lauro Quirini became an entrepreneur of books. As duke of that Venetian island, the nobleman Marco Lippomano arranged to copy the pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanics; as a tourist in Constantinople, the commoner Jacopo Languschi transcribed with Giovanni Aurispa a valuable text of Cicero.
Pietro del Monte purchased all the books he could find, according to the Florentine bookseller Vespasiano de' Bisticci, and kept a scribe employed in his house. Guglielmo Quirini asked Febo Capella to acquire books for him in Milan, and Pietro Miani arranged to have books shipped from England on a Venetian vessel. Some books journeyed from library to library. A Catullus first copied by Girolamo Donato the Elder formed part of the collection of his kinsman Pietro Donato, then passed successively to Giovannino Corradini, Francesco Barbaro, and Ermolao Barbaro the Younger. Leonardo Sanuto's collection circulated to family and friends, with each transaction carefully noted. The libraries of Marcantonio Morosini and Daniele Renier provided texts used by Aldo Manuzio's press. Pietro Marcello the Elder was the divulgator in Venice of Cicero's letters to Atticus, and Domenico Bollani's manuscript of Petrarch's Epistolae familiares provided the text for that work's editio princeps. Cardinal Bessarion donated his famous library of Greek manuscripts to Venice in 1468, persuaded by Paolo Morosini, thinking that in that cosmopolitan city they would find a wide readership. Ironically, his books arrived with pomp, but languished, inaccessible, for years. Bernardo Bembo's collection, descended to the Vatican, gives evidence of loving accumulation. It includes a copy of Leonardo Bruni's translation of Plato's Phaedo, transcribed and annotated by Bembo himself when not yet twenty, and a manuscript of Petrarch's On the Solitary Life in the author's hand. The autograph was carefully verified by Bembo, who duly noted on the guard-leaf that the hand was "undoubtedly" Petrarch's, though "hastily written."
For not only ancient authors, but modern works and translations were read and discussed by Venetian humanists among themselves and with non-Venetian friends. Leonardo Giustiniani discussed with Ambrogio Traversari the latter's translation of Diogenes Laertius, and urged the Florentine monk to interest himself in sacred works written in the language of the people. Pietro Dolfin defended to Pietro Barozzi his commissioning for transcription works of the Florentine Leon Battista Alberti: to the Bishop Barozzi's scolding, the Abbot Dolfin replied that the works, though admittedly not religious, were not antireligious. Leonardo Bruni sent one of his works to Jacopo Foscari for comment — "since you are, as I have gathered from your letters, an admirer and lover of my works" — and Marco Dandolo accepted the criticism of his work by Battista Guarini. Ludovico Foscarini asked Damiano dal Borgo for his works, and Bernardo Giustiniani requested of Francesco Capodilista copies of the orations of Guarino Veronese and George of Trebizond — his teachers — so that their fame could be spread abroad. Pietro Tommasi praised Poggio Bracciolini's dialogue On Avarice to Francesco Barbaro and encouraged Guarino to translate Chrysoloras' works. Niccolò Canal begged Francesco Filelfo for his translation of Xenophon's Cyropaedeia, which he required for companionship, along with the poet Paolo Marsi, at the Battle of Negropont; "and who could more typify that century," wondered Marsi's biographer, "than this general who, leaving on a difficult enterprise, wished to have with him a philosophical book and a humanist poet?"
Some works by Venetians received high acclaim from the audience beyond the lagoons. Andrea Giuliani's oration for Chrysoloras circulated widely — a sign of favor — and was praised enthusiastically by Gasparino Barzizza, Poggio Bracciolini, and Guarino Veronese. Francesco Barbaro's On Marriage was even more of a success. Extant in a multitude of contemporary manuscripts, it was celebrated by Ambrogio Traversari and Pier Paolo Vergerio.
The humanists enticed each other to the joys of the intellectual life. Niccolò Barbo exhorted Andrea Trapesunzio — his teacher's son — not to abandon literary studies for a soldier's career. Ermolao Barbaro the Younger encouraged his junior contemporary Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in Greek studies, and bestowed advice on Giorgio Merula, charged to write the history of the exploits of his Milanese masters. Jacopo Zeno praised the antiquarian Ciriaco d'Ancona for recovering lost antiquity single-handedly, calling him "the one and only liberator and preserver, patron, and parent of antiquity." The Venetians received in their turn encouragements to study from abroad. Gasparino Barzizza begged of Daniele Vitturi news of his studies, and Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini urged the young Jacopo Foscari to further efforts in his; Guarino commended Foscari's vast learning. In Rome, the papal camerarius Andrea Fiocchi found his duties prevented study, and urged his former student Paolo Barbo to devote himself while he still could find the time to the studia humanitatis: "later you will grieve the loss of so precious a treasure." In Florence, Ficino wrote of the joys of philosophy to several Venetian friends — to Marco Aurelio, Febo Capella, Sebastiano Badoer, Ermolao Barbaro the Younger, Marco Barbo, Girolamo Donato, Pietro Molin, and above all to Bernardo Bembo and Antonio Vinciguerra, his "Castor" and "Pollux."
Venetian humanists were involved, too, in the quarrels of the age. Francesco Barbaro resolved the debate between Poggio Bracciolini and Guarino Veronese on the relative merits of Caesar and Scipio, and healed the tensions between Niccolo Niccoli and Leonardo Bruni, and between Niccoli and Francesco Filelfo. He and Pietro Tommasi were instrumental in reconciling Poggio and Filelfo, and Jacopo Foscari had been involved as the recipient of Poggio's invective against Filelfo. The acrimonious dispute between Poggio and Valla involved several Venetians: Barbaro and Tommasi again, and Lorenzo Zane. Venetians were the objects of such invectives as well: Leonardo Bruni denounced Lauro Quirini, who had questioned his understanding of Aristotle, as arrogant and ignorant. Poggio Bracciolini accused Jacopo Zeno of "insane greed."
2. Learned Friends
Venetians were involved in the wider world of Italian humanism not only through the written word, but through actual contact in cities beyond their own. Sent abroad by the Signoria as ambassadors, governors, or secretaries, they often looked forward to assignments that offered leisure for study and discourse with learned men. When Paolo Barbo declined the office of podesta of Verona to accept a more arduous magistracy at home, Ludovico Foscarini marveled at his decision — "You are nourished on hard work, like the gods on nectar" — and regretted that Barbo would not be able to enjoy the tranquillity one found in the podestariate, or pleasant conversation. About to embark on the same office Barbo had declined, Foscarini shared with Girolamo Barbarigo his yearning for that opportunity to return to the studies he had pursued since childhood. As he had hoped, he did engage in the literary life of Verona, as is demonstrated by his profound friendship with the woman humanist and recluse Isotta Nogarola. Foscarini's term as governor of Friuli also yielded intellectual pleasures. "Here I find quiet," he wrote Girolamo da Ponte, "here I find new strength, here I am refreshed, here I enjoy letters, here I resume my interrupted studies ...; we are always hearing issues proposed by experts, or debating about some learned matter or other, or discussing history." His studies in Udine were particularly fruitful because of the proximity of San Daniele and Guarnerio d'Artegna's library, "than which none in all of Italy or the world is more renowned."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance by Margaret L. King. Copyright © 1986 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
- FrontMatter, pg. i
- CONTENTS, pg. vii
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, pg. xi
- GUIDE TO THE FORMAT OF CITATIONS IN NOTES, PROFILES, AND BIBLIOGRAPHY, pg. xiii
- ABBREVIATIONS, pg. xv
- INTRODUCTION. A City Without Walls, pg. xvii
- ONE. The Humanists: Or do litteratorum, pg. 3
- TWO. Themes: Unanimitas, pg. 92
- THREE. Choices: Moenia civitatis, pg. 206
- PREFACE. The Venetian Humanist Circle (1400-1490): Definition of the Core Group, pg. 255
- PROFILES, pg. 315
- BIBLIOGRAPHY, pg. 451
- INDEX, pg. 501