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Leonardo Bruni and the Restoration of the University of Rome (1406)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Gordon Griffiths
Gordon Griffiths*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

Leonardo Bruni has been celebrated in the works of Hans Baron for his Florentine patriotism. What stimulated this in Bruni's early works (the Laudatio Florentinae Urbis and the second of the Dialogi addressed to Vergerio), according to Baron, was the Florentine victory over Giangaleazzo Visconti in 1402. Yet Bruni had hardly completed the last of these tributes to Florence before he was off for Rome to spend ten years in the papal curia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , Spring 1973 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1973

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References

1 Most recently by Holmes, George, The Florentine Enlightenment (London, 1969), pp. 48–49, 84.Google Scholar

2 Denifle, Heinrich, Die Universitäten des Mittelalters bis 1400 (Berlin, 1885), p. 312.Google Scholar

3 Ferdinand Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, II (Dresden, 1926), Book XII, Ch. vn, section 2, 551: Gregorovius thought that the bull was ‘doubtless’ composed by Poggio Bracciolini, because he had been a scribe (scriptor) from the last years of Boniface IX. Scribe he was, but not secretary until 1415, and composition was the function of a secretary. In any case, Poggio's name does not appear at the bottom of this bull in either capacity (though it does appear on many other bulls of this year, in the location appropriate to his rank of scribe). A few days before the proclamation of the bull, a safeconduct was issued to Poggio which lists his titles as scriptor and exhibitor, but not secretarius (Reg. Vat. 334, fol. 219, August 24, 1406). von Hofmann, Walter, Forschungen zur Geschichte der kurialen Behörden vom Schisma bis zur Reformation, 2 vols. (Rome, 1914 Google Scholar, being Vols, XII and XIII of the Bibl. Preuss. Inst.), Vol. II (Quellen, Listen und Excurse), 105ff, lists the secretaries appointed from the pontificate of Urban VI onward. Leonardo Bruni, appointed in 1405, is number 15 on the list; Poggio Bracciolini, appointed in 1415, is number 50.

4 Ludwig von Pastor, Geschichte der Papste, Vol. 1 (1901), p. 167.

5 R. Valentini, ‘Gli istituti romani di alta cultura e la presunta crisi dello Studium Urbis (1370-1420),’ Archivio della Societa Romana di Storia Patria, 59 (1936), 198-199. Valentini is the only one to have noticed Leonardo Brum's name on the bull.

6 Odoricus Raynaldus, the continuator of Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, Vol. xxvil (Lucca, 1752), ad 1406, 2, 147-148. Raynaldus uses a modernized spelling; in view of Baron's concern with this problem ('Brum's Spelling,’ in his From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni, [Chicago, 1968]), I have taken pains here to retain the spelling as it appears in the Vatican Register.

7 Filippo Maria Renazzi, Storia dell'Universitä degli studi di Roma, detta comunemente la Sapienza … 4 vols. (Rome, 1803-1806), 1, 273-274. For commentary, see 1, 110-113.

8 ‘Links findet sich der Name des konzipierenden Sekretärs.’ Gerd Tellenbach, Repertorium Germankum, Vol. II: Verzeichnis der in den Registern und Kameralakten Urbans VI, Bonifaz’ IX, Innocenz’ VII, und Gregors XII vorkommenden Personen … (Berlin, 1933), p. 75. This was not an autograph signature. What the Register contains are the copies, made from the originals, which were of course sent to the addressees. On the lower right the name is that of the scribe who made the clean copy for despatch. The scribe of the Register copied both names from the original. Ulrich Kuhne confirms this: ‘Den Namen des expedierenden Sekretars, des Reinschreibers… ubernahm der Registerschreiber aus dem Original’ (Repertorium Germankum, Vol. 111 [Berlin, 1935]).

9 In the bull: studia.

10 Vergerio put these subjects at the bottom of his list in De Ingenuis Moribus (1402). Garin, Eugenio, L'educazione in Europa, 1400-1600, 2nd ed. (Bari, 1966), p. 117 Google Scholar. For the rivalry between humanists and scholastics considered as a rivalry between departments of study, see Kristeller, Paul O., Renaissance Thought (New York, 1961), p. 102.Google Scholar

11 C. A. Combi, ‘Un discorso inedito di Pier Paolo Vergerio il seniore da Capodistria,’ Archivio storicoper Trieste, Vlstria e il Trentino, 1 (1882), 354. Vergerio emphasized the importance of Greek in his De Ingenuis Moribus. Garin, op. cit., p. 117.

12 Clementine Decretals, Lib. v, tit. I, cap. I ('Inter Sollicitudines’), in A. Friedberg, ed., Corpus Juris Canonici, Vol. II (Leipzig, 1879), col. 1179. The text explicitly refers to instruction at the residence of the Roman curia: ‘… ubicunque Romanam curiam residere contigerit, nee non in Parisiensi, Oxoniensi, Bononiensi et Salamantino studiis providimus erigendas, statuentes, ut in quolibet locorum ipsorum teneantur viri catholici, sufficientem habentes hebraicae, graecae(?), arabicae et chaldaeae linguarum notitiam … ut instructi et edocti sufficienter in linguis huiusmodi fructum speratum possint Deo auctore producere, fidem propagaturi salubriter in ipsos populos infideles.’ Rashdall makes clear the distinction between the Studium Curiae and the Studium Urbis in The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1936), Vol. 11, 28-31 and 38-39, and recognizes that the decree of the Council of Vienne was directed at the former. So too does Robert Weiss in his ‘Study of Greek in England during the fourteenth century,’ Rinascimento, 2 (1951), 226.

13 Berthold Altaner, ‘Die Durchfuhrung des Vienner Konzilsbeschlusses über die Errichtung von Lehrstuhlen für orientalische Sprachen,’ Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 52 (1933), 226-236; Robert Weiss, op. cit., p. 227, and ‘England and the Decree of the ^Council of Vienne on the Teaching of Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac’ in Melanges Renaudet (Geneva, 1952), pp. 1-9.

14 Rashdall recognizes the limited purpose of the decree of Vienne (op. cit., n, 31). On medieval motives for learning Greek, see Robert Weiss, ‘The Translators from the Greek of the Angevin Court of Naples,’ Rinascimento, 1 (1950), 195-226, and Berthold Altaner, ‘Die Kenntniss des Griechischen in den Missionsorden wahrend des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Humanismus,’ Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 53 (1934), 436-493. On the missionary motives at Vienne, see Ewald Müller, Das Konzil von Vienne, 1311-1312 (Münster, 1934), pp. 153-157, and specifically for the decree'Inter sollicitudines,’ pp. 636-642.

15 Leonardi Bruni Arretini Epistolarum Libri VIII, ed. L. Mehus (Florence, 1741), Book I, No. 4 (August 4, 1405) and No. 5 (undated).

16 Ibid., No. 10 (March 11, 1406).

17 The new needs of the popes during the Schism affected the choice of secretaries. ‘Neben humanistischer Bilding, auf welche unter Innocenz VII und seinen unmittclbaren Nachfolgern gesehen wurde, und gewandter Feder, gab die diplomatisch-politische Befahigung den Ausschlag. Eine ganze Reihe von Humanisten wie Bruni, Loschi, Poggio und andre vereinigte ja beides in sich. Unter den Schismapapsten ist das Sekretaramt nicht mehr so sehr ein bureaukratisches, als ein politisches Amt…’ (Hofmann, op. cit., 1, 144). Bruni was not the only secretary charged with drafting bulls concerning the government of Rome. Francesco da Montepulciano, another humanist, was responsible for an even larger number. Reg. Vat. 334 contains about fifteen over his name as secretary, all concerning some aspect of the government of the city of Rome. The one dated 12 Kalends of February (January 21,1406), the date of Brum's four bulls, contains the same opening paragraph as one of these (Cf. fol. LXII with LXVIII).

18 Reg. Vat. 334, fols. 68-70. Poggio's name appears as the scribe of the last of these.

19 Garin, op. cit., p. 118; Baron, Hans, From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni (Chicago, 1968), pp. 166–171 Google Scholar; and The Crisis oj“the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny (Princeton, 1955, 2 vols.; rev. ed. in one vol., 1966), passim.

20 Epistolarum (cit. supra, n. 15), Book vm, No. 4: ‘Aliud est enim historia, aliud laudatio. Historia quidem veritatem sequi debet, laudatio vero multa supra veritatem extollit, ut in laudibus Athenarum factum ab Aristide supra ostendimus.'

21 Baron gives the Latin text in From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni, pp. 232-263. The passage I have translated is from the final page.

22 There would be some inconsistency between the bull and the Laudatio if, as Baron suggests (From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni, p. 167), Bruni were offering in the Laudatio a Florentine counterpart to the claim of Aristides that Athens had been ‘the nursery’ of Greek culture. But as Baron goes on to point out, Bruni was praising Florence for preeminence in the vernacular, not in Latin letters. With regard to these, only Rome could be the nursery. All that Bruni could claim for Florence so far as humanistic studies were concerned was that, while these had elsewhere become extinct, in Florence a few seeds had remained, which, however, were daily growing, and in a short time, in his opinion, would produce something quite brilliant (… totiusque humanitatis, que jam penitus extincta videbantur, hie semina quedam remanserunt, que quidem in diem crescunt, brevi tempore, ut credimus, lumen non parvum elatura). This is from the Proem to the Dialogus which Bruni sent to Vergerio in 1401. For the text, Garin, Eugenio, Prosatori Latini del Quattrocento (Milan, 1952, pp. 38–99)Google Scholar, p. 44. For Baron's commentary, see his From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni, pp. 121 and 165-168. Here he points out that Bruni later increased his claims for Florence.

23 Denifle, op. cit., p. 310.

24 . Ibid. There exist two versions of Boniface's act of foundation, the first dated the Lateran, 12 Kalends of May, and the second, Anagni, 8 Ides ofjune (April 20 and June 6, 1303), but the texts of the two bulls are almost the same. They are published in the Bibliotheque des Ecoks Francoises d'Athenes et de Rome, 2e ser., 4, Les Registres de Boniface VIII, t. in (Paris, 1921), cols. 737-738 and 779-782.

25 Denifle, op. cit., pp. 310-311. Denifle cites proceedings of the University as late as 1369.

26 Defloruit mox ab Innocenti morte res literaria in Romana academia, cum nondum illius res confirmatae essent, ut Theodoricus Niemius testatur. Raynaldus, op. cit., p. 148; Denifle, op. cit., p. 312.

1 Reg. Vat. 334, fols. cxxxxi and CLXXXIV.

2 I have rendered studia as ‘studies’ or ‘university’ as seemed appropriate.