The Intellectual World of Sixteenth-Century Florence: Humanists and Culture in the Age of Cosimo I 1108495478, 9781108495479

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The Intellectual World of Sixteenth-Century Florence Humanists and Culture in the Age of Cosimo I Ann E. Moyer

The Intellectual World of Sixteenth-Century Florence By the sixteenth century, Florence was famous across Europe for its achievements in the arts, letters, and humanist learning. Its intellectual life flourished anew at midcentury with Duke Cosimo and the leadership of the Accademia Fiorentina. In this study, Ann Moyer provides an overview of Florentine intellectual life and community in the late Renaissance. She shows how studies of language helped Florentines to develop their own story as a people distinct from ancient Greece or Rome, trace the rise of the city’s medieval government, and explore how the city evolved into a hospitable environment where the letters and the arts could prosper and excel. Florentine scholars also developed principles to define the study of living languages more generally. Their studies of Florentine art gave rise to art history, while those devoted to Florentine traditions and customs inspired broader questions about how to think about cultural change. Demonstrating how the intellectual activity around language, history, and art related and supported each other in the later Renaissance, Moyer’s book documents the origins of the modern narrative of the Renaissance itself. Ann E. Moyer is Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. A scholar of the intellectual and cultural history of Renaissance Europe, she serves as one of the executive editors of the Journal of the History of Ideas.

T World of Sixteenth-Century

    he Intellectual

Florence

Humanists and Culture in the Age of Cosimo I Ann E. Moyer University of Pennsylvania

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108495479 doi: 10.1017/9781108849937 © Cambridge University Press 2020 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2020 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data names: Moyer, Ann E., 1955- author. title: The intellectual world of sixteenth-century Florence : humanists and culture in the age of Cosimo I / Ann E. Moyer, University of Pennsylvania. description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, ny : Cambridge University Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. identifiers: lccn 2020012180 (print) | lccn 2020012181 (ebook) | isbn 9781108495479 (hardback) | isbn 9781108849937 (ebook) subjects: lcsh: Florence (Italy) – Intellectual life – 16th century. | Italian literature – 16th century – History and criticism. | Renaissance – Italy – Florence. classification: lcc DG738.17 .M69 2020 (print) | lcc DG738.17 (ebook) | ddc 945/.51107–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012180 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012181 isbn 978-1-108-49547-9 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of Illustrations

page vii

Preface

ix

1 Florence and Cosimo��������������������������� 1 The City����������������������������������� 4 The Citizens�������������������������������� 10 2 Who Were the Florentines? Etruscan Roots������������� Received Traditions��������������������������� Gelli and Giambullari on Florentine Origins������������� Supporters and Detractors�����������������������

29 30 42 55

3 Florentine Histories��������������������������� 71 Past Witnesses������������������������������� 72 Diaries and Private Records����������������������� 84 Histories of Recent Times����������������������� 88 Medieval Histories���������������������������� 102 History, Politics, Customs������������������������ 119 4 Language and Its Study������������������������ From Dante to Bembo and Beyond: The Century’s   First Decades������������������������������ The Florentine Language and Its Study: The Aramei������� Modern Language Practice�����������������������

123 126 136 153

5 Philological Approaches����������������������� Girolamo Mei on Verse and Prose������������������� Benedetto Varchi on Language��������������������� Vincenzio Borghini����������������������������

175 178 185 204 v

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6 Writing about the Arts������������������������� Vasari and the Lives, 1550������������������������ The Accademia del Disegno���������������������� Vasari’s Lives, Second or Giuntina Edition, 1568����������

234 239 252 261

7 Florentine Customs and Practices������������������ The Wedding of Francesco and Giovanna�������������� The Dispute: The Early History of Florence������������� The Discorsi: City and Diocese�������������������� Urban Culture: Money and Elites�������������������

277 280 287 306 323

8 Conclusions������������������������������� 342 Transitions��������������������������������� 343 Florentine Studies���������������������������� 346 Works Consulted

353

Index

378

Illustrations

1.1 Chimera. Etruscan, bronze, ca. 400 BCE. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. page 13 1.2 Arringatore (Aulus Metellus). Etruscan, bronze, 91 BCE. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. 14 3.1 Donizone presents his manuscript to Matilda of Tuscany. Domenico Mellini, Trattato … dell’origine, fatti, costumi, e lodi di Matelda, la gran contessa d’Italia (Florence: Giunti, 1589), 112. 110 4.1 Title Page. Marsilio Ficino, Sopra lo amore o ver’ convito di Platone (Florence: Néri Dorteláta, 1544). 143 4.2 Neri Dortelata da Firenze, A gli amatori della lingva Fiorentina. Marsilio Ficino, Sopra lo amore o ver’ convito di Platone (Florence: Néri Dorteláta, 1544). Sig. A iii verso. 145 6.1 Agostino Ciampelli. 1617. Benedetto Varchi speaks at the memorial service for Michelangelo. Florence: Casa Buonarroti. 260 7.1 Porta al Prato, Plan for entrance gate, wedding celebration of Francesco de’ Medici and Giovanna of Austria, December 1565. Florence, BNC Magl. II. S. 100, fol. 41v. 281 7.2 Alessandro Allori (attrib.) Drawing of a frame in the entrance at Porta al Prato. Florence, BNC Magl. II. S. 100, fol. 53r. 282 7.3 Decretum Desiderii. Viterbo, Museo Civico. 290 7.4 Decretum Desiderii. Nanni, Giovanni [Commentaria super opera diversorum auctorum de antiquitatibus loquentium]. [Rome, E. Silber, July 10–August 3, 1498]. Sig. E iii verso. 291 7.5 Giorgio Vasari. The Founding of Florence. 1565. Florence: Palazzo Vecchio. 292 vii

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7.6 Giorgio Vasari. The Defeat of Radagaiso. 1565. Florence: Palazzo Vecchio. 7.7 Vincenzio Borghini, notebook page of inscriptions. Florence, BNC II. X. 70, fol. 32v. 7.8 Inscription. Vincenzio Borghini, “Dell’origine di Firenze.” Discorsi (Florence: Giunti, 1584), 1.61. 7.9 Arms of Florentine families. Vincenzio Borghini, “Dell’arme delle famiglie fiorentine.” Discorsi (Florence: Giunti, 1584), 2.90.

293 312 313

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Preface

Would that God immortal give me eloquence worthy of the city of Florence, about which I am to speak, or at least equal to my will and my affection for it; for either, I think, would amply demonstrate the city’s magnificence and splendor.1

Leonardo Bruni’s readers have long echoed his words and his wish. Florence and its citizens had already achieved great things by the time he wrote his famous panegyric, and they went on to further greatness thereafter. Bruni himself, of course, did far more than simply sing the city’s praises; he too contributed to the growing list of Florentine accomplishments. He strove to master the language and letters of antiquity, and used them to write new works that both examined and celebrated his modern world. Bruni’s colleagues and successors shared these dual interests. They worked both to recover, revive, and reappropriate ancient models and ancient culture, and to create new works as well. These twinned goals maintained an immensely creative tension in Florence and beyond. The Florentines who read these words a century and a half later knew that the list of great achievements and their creators had continued to grow. By the middle decades of the sixteenth century, the city boasted an even greater number of notable buildings and celebrated works of art. People from across Italy and across Europe read the writings of “Vellem michi a Deo immortali datum esset ut vel Florentine urbi, de qua dicturus sum, parem eloquentiam prestare possem, vel certe meo erga illam studio meeque voluntati. Alterutrum enim, ut opinor, abunde esset ad illius magnificentiam nitoremque ostendendum.” Leonardo Bruni, Laudatio Florentine Urbis, ed. Stefano Ugo Baldassarri, Millennio medievale (Tavarnuzze [Florence]: SISMEL edizioni del Galluzzo, 2000).

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Florentine authors and sought to learn their language. The city had also established an increasingly sophisticated tradition of scholarship devoted to the ancient past. It is hardly surprising that Florentines with humanistic training and interests would also use the tools they developed for studying antiquity to examine their modern world and their own past. Indeed, they had long supported lectures and scholarship on Dante, a postclassical author whose esteem rivalled that accorded to many of the ancients. A consensus, even a commonplace, developed that some of these modern achievements in the arts, letters, and learning approached or even surpassed those of the Romans and Greeks. The crises of war caused some years of uncertainty and difficulty in the city; yet when the city regained its political stability under the leadership of Duke Cosimo, Florentines returned to arts, letters, and learning. They founded an academy with a regular schedule of public lectures and a distinguished publication program; soon they founded a second academy to promote the visual arts. The city’s learned citizens began to take a particular interest in the study of Florence’s own noted traditions and achievements, including its history, language, arts, and customs. Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Benedetto Varchi, Giorgio Vasari, Vincenzio Borghini, and more all wrote and published on regional history, language, and art. The members of the Accademia Fiorentina might compose poetry in the style of Petrarch, but they did not share his dour assessment of his own times. Petrarch had lamented his age, recalling Roman antiquity with longing and hoping to contribute to a return to greatness. The sixteenth-­ century Florentines who looked back two centuries to Petrarch’s world and beyond generally agreed that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had been simpler times in many ways, often bearing signs of rustic habits. Yet this was the era that had seen the first flowering of their language, and the first signs of its greatness in arts and letters; it was the age that had produced not only Petrarch himself but also Dante, Boccaccio, Giotto, and a host of others. Editors compared Giovanni Villani, Franco Sacchetti, or Ricordano Malispini to Ennius or Cato, and devoted themselves to studies of manuscript transmission just as they studied Cicero. They wrote biographies of medieval figures such as Matilda of Tuscany; they studied medieval land contracts to understand how relations between elite families and church powers had contributed to the rise of civic governments. Others devoted themselves to examining the language and speech practices of those around them in their own day, including the vocabularies of

Preface

artisans and tradespeople. Their predecessors, notably Angelo Poliziano, had left a legacy of classical scholarship; Florentines continued, with great success, the traditions of editing Greek and Latin texts and the study of classical languages. Increasingly, however, they also began to turn those tools to the study of the vernacular. At the same time, a number of men of letters assisted Giorgio Vasari in shaping a narrative of the rise of the visual arts that ran parallel to those of the city’s other achievements, including its language and letters. In lesser hands, such studies might have become or remained merely provincial and local. Yet Florentines wrote for a wider audience and with a broader point of view, setting their studies in the contexts of the peninsula and of Europe. When Giorgio Vasari first undertook his great project and then expanded it to a second edition, he strove to include artists not just from Florence but from across Italy. Benedetto Varchi and his colleagues observed that the interest in the Florentine language extended far beyond Florence; they also suggested that others might wish to consider similar studies of other language groups as well. A focus on the particularities of Florentine speech led them to draw careful distinctions between the studies of language and of literature, of living languages versus dead ones, and to propose methods for their study; they encouraged similar scholarship on other regions. So too, studies of Florence’s past by Vincenzio Borghini and others moved back and forth between local particularities and general patterns of urban development, custom, and political faction. In these ways and more, Florentine studies looked not only inward but outward as well. Despite these achievements, Florence in the middle decades of the sixteenth century is probably still more familiar to art historians than to others. The Florentine republic in the age of the priors enjoyed considerable attention from twentieth-century historians. Yet while the outlines of ducal politics and Tuscan administration have begun to take a clearer shape for modern scholars, those of the city’s intellectual and cultural life have lagged behind. Giorgio Vasari’s great project seemed to lack context, just as Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini seemed to lack successors in the city’s traditions of letters and scholarship. It would appear rather that mid-sixteenth-century Florentines pursued a set of interests that did not always match those of twentieth-century historians. Many of those interests developed as collaborative projects, a style that may further have kept their names out of view to those who looked back from a distance of several centuries. Further, these men of letters may

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have been to some degree victims of their own success; several of their arguments, particularly those about the study of language, seem simply to have been naturalized into their respective disciplines. The very acceptance of their foundational contributions thus left them unappreciated as individuals. Perhaps the greatest success of these Florentines was the shape they gave to the story of the Renaissance itself, a story so pervasive and for so long that it has often seemed to have had no point of origin at all. Vincenzio Borghini identified the era’s starting point with the first stirrings of civic governments at the outbreak of tensions between emperors and popes. When he used the term “rinascimento,” he referred to this transition in the eleventh century, the pivot point that turned society definitively, he commented later, from Roman to Italian. This new culture took shape in the age of the priors, the age that produced Giotto and Dante. It continued to flower through the age of Bruni up to that of Michelangelo and beyond, and had Florence at its heart. It is a narrative that lacks a clear conclusion; for to these Florentine men of letters who wrote its story, the new learning and the rebirth of the arts still made up the world in which they lived and wrote. Thus, it has remained a tale without a proper ending despite its persistence through the intervening years and centuries. The story of the Renaissance does not belong only to Burckhardt or Michelet, but to these Florentines who saw it all around them, for whom it really was the birth of their modern age. Not all sixteenth-century Florentine men of letters studied Florence. A full picture of Florentine intellectual life must include them too, although they do not appear here. Yet those who did shaped the intellectual life of their generation. They also left a legacy that would become deeply embedded in new traditions of scholarship that would develop across Europe examining culture and society more generally. The present study focuses on them, their writings, and their contributions not only to the study of Florence, but also to the studies of language, art, and culture. It has been a pleasure to spend so much time with their works. In so doing I have enjoyed the assistance and advice of too many friends and colleagues to name them all here. Thanks are due to the University of Pennsylvania, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. I am particularly grateful to the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, the Villa I Tatti; Joseph Connors fostered a welcoming and collegial scholarly community, and the librarians were incomparably

Preface

helpful. Many thanks as well to the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, the Archivio di Stato di Firenze, the Biblioteca Laurenziana, the Biblioteca Riccardiana, the Biblioteca Marucelliana, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Firestone Library of Princeton University, and most of all the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania and its superlative staff. Andrew Berns generously read and commented on a full draft, as did William Caferro; I am grateful for the very helpful comments of an anonymous reader for the Press who pointed out any number of errors and infelicities; those that remain are, alas, my own. I would like to dedicate the work to the memory of my father and to my mother, John and Elizabeth Moyer.

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city of Florence enjoyed a lively intellectual and artistic­ in the middle and later decades of the sixteenth century. The city’s literary academy, the Accademia Fiorentina, sponsored weekly public lectures on Petrarch and Dante as well as a series of lectures for members. They kept the study and composition of Florentine literature, old and new, at the center of attention for the city’s elites. Even their quarrels engaged readers and partisans both in the city and across the Italian peninsula. Florence’s longstanding and continuing achievements in the visual arts saw unprecedented support; they too came to enjoy a city-sponsored academy, the Accademia del Disegno. In addition, artists found themselves the subjects of a learned assessment of the history and rise of their fields with the publication of the Lives of the Artists by their colleague Giorgio Vasari. The classics professor Piero Vettori led a team of humanistically trained scholars in producing new and improved editions of Greek and Latin texts. The city produced a specialist in Florentine studies, Vincenzio Borghini, who helped plan public celebrations and artistic projects in addition to his research on the city’s past. The noted intellectual Benedetto Varchi returned to Florence; and the list of writers, poets, and men of letters in the city continued to grow in the years that followed. Florentines had long reputations for strong and divergent opinions, and the world of letters was no exception. Debates in person and in writing were regular features of its landscape. Yet Florentines also continued to share a range of common interests, and to translate those interests into a number of major collaborative projects in editorial work, publications, and scholarly research. One of the most notable and typically Florentine features of this community was the dominance of humanistic and literary concerns. In many other Italian cities, particularly in university towns,   community

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philosophy, law, and medicine all maintained high profiles among members of the learned community. In the cities of northern Europe, the local theologians and their debates about religious reform during these years pushed other topics to one side. Many Florentines cared deeply about religious issues, and Florentines contributed to advances in legal scholarship as well as philosophy. Nonetheless, letters remained at the heart of their interests and at the center of their public cultural life. One reason for the city’s particular focus on the humanities was the relocation of its university culture to Pisa. Thus, for the greater part of the year, both faculty and students, particularly in medicine and law, held their own lectures, disputations, and gatherings there. More important was the city’s own longstanding reputation as a center and home for humanistic scholarship and writing. When sixteenth-century Florentines wrote history, they could recall – and cite – Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, and others who had established standards and new traditions of modern historical writing. When they edited ancient texts they could look with pride to Angelo Poliziano’s principles of classical textual scholarship. Writers on art could build on the work of Leon Battista Alberti. In addition, many men of letters were not only scholars, but also authors. They composed letters and speeches, but especially they were writers of poetry. Their Latin verse added to the city’s great tradition. In particular, however, Florence had been the home or the heritage of the writers who had laid the foundations of modern vernacular literature, notably Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, and Giovanni Boccaccio. Sixteenth-century Florentines wrote most of their poetry, as well as their prose, in their own tongue. The world of letters was increasingly vernacular not just in Florence but across Italy. The ever-larger print industry broadened the readership of the modern language; the circles of academies and other societies that appeared in more and more cities produced streams of new poetry, mostly in vernacular and often idealizing the poetry of Petrarch. Although Florentines shared this feature with their Italian colleagues, given their unique relationship to the literary language their interests were particularly their own. The privileged situation of Florentines as the descendants of these literary giants might have led merely to localism or complacency. Instead, a number of Florentines engaged creatively with humanistic and literary issues. Some of that engagement was oral and face to face, and hence left no direct trace; most of the discussions and debates at the Accademia Fiorentina passed unrecorded, as did their

Florence and Cosimo

many conversations. Yet some exchanges were preserved in letters, and some of the lecturers edited and published their lectures. A number of publications, large and small, show clearly the signs of collaborative work, and of ongoing debate as well. The recurring nature of these exchanges compelled participants to consider which arguments persuaded their colleagues, and which needed refinement or more. Just as important, these Florentines engaged with one another not simply on a single topic or even in a single discipline, but on several, and often over many years. They discussed not only poetry but also the language in which it was written, its history as well as its modern practice. Their interests continued to expand and develop; an interest in the language of Boccaccio’s day might lead to curiosity about the customs and even the objects he described, including the era’s visual culture from the practical level of family crests to the achievements of Giotto. Pierfrancesco Giambullari shows this overlapping set of interests in his work. Although he is now best known for his theories about the origins of the Florentine language, he also studied contemporary language usage; in addition, he assisted Vasari in the first edition of his Lives of the Artists. So too, Benedetto Varchi was admired for his poetry, but also for writing history as well as philosophy. Girolamo Mei, the classical scholar now remembered for his study of ancient music theory, also edited Greek tragedies, wrote on the nature of Tuscan verse, and carried on a much-followed debate with Vincenzio Borghini over how to assess material and textual evidence for the city’s founding and location. Not only did they find their studies of one subject enriched by the others; they also noticed similarities from one subject to the next. As they examined the history of the vernacular language, for example, they could see points of change similar to the moments of transition they found in architecture and painting. Changes over time were clearly the province of historical scholarship, a field in which Florentines excelled. Yet it seemed that conventional history, with its focus on rulers and politics, did not offer an effective way to explain developments in practices such as language that changed not due to the actions of individual rulers or leaders, but through collective usage. Indeed, as Benedetto Varchi would note, most ancient historians had failed even to describe the customary practices of their own times sufficiently in their writings for later readers to identify them accurately. They certainly offered no tools to examine or explain how customs developed and changed.

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Thus Florentines worked during these decades, with increasing success, to turn the tools of humanist scholarship to the study of their modern language and then beyond, to the practices and the material products that made them distinctively Tuscan and Florentine. They began to take an interest in the writings, not always very humanistic or literary, of their fourteenth-century forebears, and the language in which they wrote. They studied the rise of communal governments and the factions of pope and emperor, Guelf and Ghibelline, which had given rise to Florence and its fellow city states, and looked back to the Carolingians and Ottonians who had shaped the power dynamics of the peninsula before them. The ages that Petrarch once had dismissed for failing so utterly to maintain the glory of antiquity, they began to appreciate as the eras that had given birth to their own culture. The study of language would remain their anchor for discussing and explaining the features of the past that fell outside the usual realm of historical study. These tools would continue to serve later generations of scholars in Florence and beyond who took an increasing interest in the study of groups of people, their language, and culture. They also bequeathed successfully a narrative about the rebirth of learning and the arts in Italy in general and in Florence in particular. These achievements, as well as the community that produced them, would hardly have seemed likely in the Florence of the 1520s and 1530s, as these scholars grew up, received their educations, and in some cases began their careers. During those years the city’s future seemed likely to be as unstable as its present. They agreed, when they reflected later on the history of their city, that the turning point was the government of Duke Cosimo. The return to order and civil life, along with the restoration of old institutions and the foundation of others after those years of uncertainty, added to the sense that this group of scholars marked a new generation in the city. In their writings they had reason to refer often to the events of the preceding decades, the political crises that had seemed likely at several points to derail the city’s traditions not only of politics, but also of scholarship, letters, and the arts. Their own story must therefore begin with a survey of those events and the steps that they, as well as Cosimo, took to rebuild the life of their city.

The City When Cosimo was appointed head of the Florentine Republic early in 1537, Florentines surely hoped for an end to the political instability that had been the city’s lot for some forty years. Florence’s external, foreign

The City

problems were perhaps the most obvious. Over the course of the Italian Wars, as the peninsula suffered from the invading troops and competing claims of the French, Spanish, and Germans as well as the shifting alliances among Italian states, Florence’s freedom to govern itself seemed to be slipping away. At the beginning of the wars in 1494 two years after the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici, anti-Medicean forces in the city repudiated Piero, the would-be heir to the familial role as political boss, over his negotiations with the French. Amid the warfare and instability across the peninsula, Florentines undertook to restructure the city’s government; those efforts were brought to an end when the city was besieged in 1512. At that point, the victorious Spanish brought back the exiled Medici to rebuild a government, an effort headed by Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, the younger brother of Piero. That process was complicated a year later when the cardinal was elected pope as Leo X, which took him from Florence to Rome. Leo continued to dominate the city through a representative. That was briefly his younger brother Giuliano, duke of Nemours, followed by Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, who died young, in 1519. Leo then put his cousin Giulio in charge (son of Giuliano, brother of Lorenzo, who had been killed in the Pazzi conspiracy). Giulio, both before and after his election as Clement VII in late 1523, left a delegate in charge, primarily Cardinal Silvio Passerini, who was not from Florence at all.1 The disorder that accompanied the Sack of Rome in 1527 offered Florentines an opportunity to remove their papal administrator and install a republican government. Yet two years later the city was besieged again by the troops of Charles V, allied with Clement; the city capitulated in the autumn of 1530. Not surprisingly, Charles and Clement favored Medici control dominated by Habsburg oversight; Alessandro, duke of Penne, the illegitimate son of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, was declared “duke of the Florentine Republic” in 1532. Alessandro in turn fell less than five years later, assassinated by his own cousin. An emergency team of advisors then appointed Cosimo, a more distant cousin, with a provisional title and limited powers. Within months he would face rebellion and invasion by exiles and their allies. It hardly seemed likely that he would go on to a successful rule of over thirty years, hand off his expanded title peacefully to his sons, and define Florence and Tuscany as its own state in practice, if not in name. Florence’s internal politics and administration had also been undergoing a series of continuous changes and developments during these years. 1

John M. Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200–1575 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 426–34.

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Florentines had always been known for their factions and parties, sets of alliances and interests that divided along multiple axes and that might wax or wane in strength. In the early decades of the century the Medici themselves formed one such axis. During their years of exile they had developed networks of power and influence across the Italian peninsula and beyond, though they had also alienated others. Those connections had served them well in 1512 and continued to do so with the family’s two papal administrations; the Medici papacies made Rome and its politics particularly important for Florence during these decades and those that followed.2 Another factional axis took shape from the political restructuring and reforms that began in the 1490s and the moral vision inspired by Savonarola. That group, or cluster of sympathizers, was often referred to as piagnoni after the bell at San Marco; their opponents acquired the label arrabbiati. There was yet another division over how broadly representative government should be; the ottimati believed that oligarchic control would bring more stability and sounder decisions than did those popolani who favored broader government traditionally identified with guilds. These internal factions all used and depended on the external powers and alliances that remained at war across the peninsula and beyond in order to further their goals; the constantly shifting political scene required attention and vigilance. Given the frequent recourse to exile as a way to punish those on the losing side, significant numbers of Florentines were living involuntarily in other cities for extended periods of time. They collected in a number of locations, especially Rome and Venice, and allied not only with fellow Florentines, but also with foreign powers.3 Others removed themselves voluntarily from the city. Given the frequent travel habits of the city’s elites, artists, and men of letters, such absences might or might not be understood as political in nature. Those Florentine men who had an active public life during these decades thus differed greatly from one another in their political visions for the city as well as their practical decisions for themselves.4 In addition, Nicholas Scott Baker, The Fruit of Liberty: Political Culture in the Florentine Renaissance, 1480–1550 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 49–97. 3 On the community in Venice, see Paolo Simoncelli, “The Turbulent Life of the Florentine Community in Venice,” Heresy, Culture, and Religion in Early Modern Italy: Contexts and Contestations, ed. Ronald K. Delph, Michelle Fontaine, and John Jeffries Martin (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2006), 113–33. 4 Baker, Fruit of Liberty. R. Burr Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy: the Florentine Patricians, 1530–1790 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986); Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965). 2

The City

the opinions of a given individual might well change over time as political events unfolded and the political landscape shifted. As Burr Litchfield, Nicholas Scott Baker, and others have argued, these men and their families were an important force for continuity and stability in the city. During these transitions and despite regime change, this group of Florentines retained solid roles in the administration of Florence and Tuscany; they served both to shape the development of its bureaucracy and to maintain it in the years that followed. Despite their many strenuous points of disagreement during these decades over their preferred shape and size for city government, they were generally united in a desire to maximize their city’s independence from foreign control. They also hoped to maintain a role for their families in its administration. Overall, these Florentines met both goals successfully. The events of 1530 reinforced for most of them the value of the city’s liberty; it also focused the core definition of that liberty as the freedom of the city from domination by foreign powers.5 Florentines were compelled after the siege to negotiate with the victorious Hapsburg and papal forces to form a government that they hoped would offer the greatest possibility for such independence while nonetheless meeting the approval of the forces that had just defeated them. A balìa of Florentines approved naming Alessandro de’ Medici the city’s leader as the best option. In February 1531 an imperial representative ratified that selection, naming him the leader of the republic that had been overthrown in 1527.6 Indeed, this government’s legitimacy rested upon the claims that the republican government of 1527 had resulted from violent usurpation of the legitimate government that had preceded it. The troops that had fought in its unsuccessful defense came in for particularly harsh punishment.7 Most members of the office-holding class were spared, but there was a large number of exiles. Yet such a solution would not work on its own; the governmental structures of 1512–1527 had not found strong support among Florentines, so their mere reinstatement would not strike deep roots or command much loyalty. Clement negotiated with a number of prominent Florentines, and in April 1532 a committee of twelve formulated a new government. It abolished the Signoria and established a larger body, the Two Hundred (Dugento), and a smaller one, the Forty-Eight (Quarantotto), also referred to as the Senate; these offices held a lifetime tenure. Four senators were chosen by lot to serve with Alessandro as his council for two-year terms as Baker, Fruit of Liberty, 140. Ibid., 142–50. 7 Ibid., 134–39. 5

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the city’s main executive body. Alessandro’s title as duke of the Republic was compared to the doge of Venice.8 Charles V’s recognition of this government helped to stabilize it. That support was strengthened when his (illegitimate) daughter Margarita married Alessandro in 1536. Clement VII, the senior Medici, retained practical influence in the city through a representative until his death in 1534. By that time, apparently on the recommendation of some of the ottimati, construction had begun on the Fortezza da Basso, the immense new fortress built into the city walls. The imperial troops already present in the city moved there in late 1535.9 Despite this papal and imperial support, Alessandro nonetheless found numerous Florentine detractors. They fell into several groups. Some of the exiles hoped for the opportunity to restore something like the republican government of 1527 of which they had been a part. Some ottimati both within and without the city, conversely, found Alessandro insufficiently patrician. They focused on his illegitimate birth and went so far as to attempt to meet with Charles V when he visited Naples in 1535, to ask that he be replaced by his cousin Ippolito. Ippolito did indeed support the exiles, but died in 1535. The French also welcomed such dissent in hopes of reasserting their own influence on the peninsula. Alessandro’s death came not at the hands of any faction but of his own cousin, whose precise motives and goals remained unclear. Lorenzino de’ Medici (known as Lorenzaccio) stabbed Alessandro and fled the city on the evening of January 6, 1537.10 Alessandro left no legitimate heir. The papal representative, Cardinal Innocenzo Cibo, hoped to benefit as guardian by promoting the succession of Alessandro’s five-year-old illegitimate son. The Quarantotto, however, identified the closest legitimate heir, following the 1532 constitution, as Cosimo. They approved him on the 9th, though with only the vague title of head (capo e primario) of the republic, and the next day circumscribed his powers closely. Charles’s representative confirmed Cosimo as capo in June after consultation with ottimati as well as exiles. A group of exiles took up arms, and in fact had already undertaken some Ibid., 152–53; Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200–1575, 461–64; Eric W. Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527–1800: A History of Florence and the Florentines in the Age of the Grand Dukes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 1–10. 9 Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200–1575, 464–65. 10 On Lorenzino, the event, and his own assassination eleven years later, see Stefano Dall’Aglio, The Duke’s Assassin: Exile and Death of Lorenzino de’ Medici, trans. Donald Weinstein (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015). 8

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military action earlier in the spring. Cosimo, with Florentine and imperial troops, defeated them decisively at Montemurlo in early August. The rebel leaders were executed, some publicly, or imprisoned. Filippo Strozzi would die in December in the Fortezza da Basso, probably by his own hand. Shortly after the victory, Charles granted Cosimo the title of duke.11 Cosimo had hoped to marry Alessandro’s widow Margarita. That hope was thwarted when Charles, after some consideration, instead had her marry the pope’s grandson, Ottavio Farnese, the duke of Parma. The marriage that Cosimo did contract to Eleonora di Toledo, daughter of the viceroy of Naples, was certainly far happier. After celebrating the wedding in 1539 they moved into the Palazzo Medici. By all accounts they were a devoted couple and produced eleven children before her premature death. She would be struck down by malaria in late 1562 outside Pisa, along with two children, Garzia and Cardinal Giovanni. Cosimo and Eleonora did not stay long in the Palazzo Medici. The widowed Margarita claimed and won her right to part of Alessandro’s property by the terms of her marriage contract, and that included their residence, the Palazzo Medici. Thus, Cosimo paid rent to live there.12 Still worse, her property was under the control of her father, Charles V, whose power over the city Cosimo was working to minimize. Therefore in 1540 they turned to the old city hall, now known as the Palazzo Vecchio, and moved into the rooms that had long served as the residences of the priors while they had served their terms.13 The renovations that accompanied this move, as well as those that followed, have been studied extensively by art historians. The work of Andrea Gáldy has been especially valuable in establishing the specifics of where family members resided and when, in showing the development of Cosimo’s collections, and in tracing the gradual shaping of the ducal court. Eleonora’s dowry money purchased in 1549 a permanent residence that more than compensated in grandeur, the Palazzo Pitti.14 The work On Strozzi’s life before his final years as well as Florentine politics in the first decades of the century, see Melissa Meriam Bullard, Filippo Strozzi and the Medici: Favor and Finance in Sixteenth-Century Florence and Rome (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980). On Cosimo’s transitions, see Domenico Zanrè, Cultural NonConformity  in Early Modern Florence (Aldershot; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2000), 7–32. 12 Andrea Gáldy, Cosimo I de’ Medici as Collector: Antiquities and Archaeology in Sixteenth-Century Florence (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2009), 4–5. 13 Gáldy, “Moving House–Moving Courts: How Palazzo Pitti Became the Main Medici Residence in Florence,” Medicea 4 (2009): 38–59. 14 Gáldy, Cosimo I de’ Medici as Collector, 10. 11

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needed to make it habitable went on for some time. In the intervening years, the family and growing court divided its time between residence in the Palazzo Vecchio and their various villas outside the city. Even after the move to the Pitti, the Medici retained the Palazzo Vecchio apartments for some time; Cosimo’s son and heir Francesco and his wife Giovanna of Austria lived there after their marriage in 1565. They also continued to make use of the Palazzo Medici. In his early years as duke, Cosimo faced a number of challenges both domestic and foreign. The first priority for Florentines in general was Florence’s liberty to govern and undertake actions in its own name, that is, the survival of the state itself. Representatives of both the emperor and the pope resided in the city, and imperial troops remained in the Fortezza. The Habsburg backing was not without advantage. It offered Cosimo and the city a level of security and a respite from the warfare and violence of previous decades, particularly from French military threats; yet the civilian and military presence were clear signs of the limits that both empire and papacy placed on the city’s independent action. Cosimo, increasingly able to negotiate from a position of strength, combined personal influence and more formal negotiations to remove them. Finally, in 1543 Charles, in need of troops elsewhere, accepted a payment from Cosimo to remove the soldiers at the Fortezza. At that point Cosimo was in practice independent, though he was obliged to operate within an imperial orbit. He would continue throughout his lifetime to keep papal and imperial interests in balance. French military concerns would effectively end when he annexed Siena in 1559, and family marriage alliances helped to smooth relations. In any case, European powers north of the Alps would find their attention engaged from midcentury onward with religious wars and succession problems of their own.

The Citizens So too, life within the city regained stability after Montemurlo. Many of the city’s administrative structures had continued to operate without significant interruption. Cosimo’s government also established new ones, and added administrative offices and oversight for the Tuscan dominio as well.15 Both within the city and in the larger region, Cosimo needed the continued goodwill of the office-holding patricians. Although their powers shifted from legislative toward administrative ones in comparison Jonathan Davies, Culture and Power: Tuscany and Its Universities 1537–1609 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009), 37–46.

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with the earlier decades of the sixteenth century, elite families still participated in the running of the city and the region and would continue to do so.16 Work began in 1561 on a new office building, the Palazzo degli Uffizi, which replaced a rundown neighborhood with modern and efficient work spaces for that government. Both Cosimo and these leading families needed trade and general prosperity to return and rebuild after the insecurities of previous years.17 Here success helped to breed more success. For many Florentines, the city’s political survival and the continued involvement of the elites in its magistracies and offices restored confidence and loyalty to their city and its leader. The city’s identity had been built on more than its textiles and banking; it had also been a center of the arts, learning, and letters. All had suffered from the years of instability and uncertainty. Payments to the Habsburgs as part of the settlement after 1530 drained the Florentine coffers that might have paid for new artistic commissions. War and threats of violence over a number of years had led to well-founded fears of looting, which offered incentives to preserve and even to hide existing works of art rather than to plan new ones. The community of humanists and learning suffered as well; the exiles included many men of letters. Many others who were not formally exiled simply left the city and sought appointments elsewhere. Rome provided career opportunities for educated men, just as for artists. The university was not functioning, so it served neither as an anchor for faculty nor as an attractive force for students. Thus, professors and students alike turned rather to the lively intellectual cultures of Padua and Bologna. Florence’s Giunti Press consolidated its operations in Venice in 1533 and left the city.18 Communities of Florentines, both formally exiled and otherwise, expanded particularly in Rome, in Venice, and in the university cities of Padua and Bologna. Even Lyon developed a significant Florentine presence. Florence had the potential to become something of a backwater, its talent lured elsewhere, a city no longer valued as a site of new creativity or scholarship. Cosimo worked, both directly and through his close advisors, to stem the losses and restore the city’s role as leader. He also benefited from the initiatives of Florentines themselves as they sought to rebuild, both literally and figuratively. Many who had left the city preferred to live in Florence and welcomed an opportunity to return. Those Baker, Fruit of Liberty, 232; Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy. Davies, Culture and Power, 46–50. 18 Brian Richardson, Print Culture in Renaissance Italy: The Editor and the Vernacular Text, 1470–1600 (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 127. 16 17

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who had remained there showed themselves eager to take advantage of new venues and institutions. Artists and architects worked on commission. Although Rome in particular would continue to serve as a major venue for artists to develop and execute major projects, artists would remain in Florence or return there if projects were offered. Cosimo’s own wedding festivities were an early example of bringing artists together on large public projects. Cosimo followed that event quickly with the move to the Palazzo Vecchio and the remodeling of the ducal apartments. Ducal commissions and projects continued at a rapid pace, including a new market, bridges, and more, including, of course, not only the ducal residence at the Pitti but the Medici villas as well. Yet the city had never relied on a single patronage source; as Leonardo Bruni had noted a century earlier in his praise of the city, the great number of affluent families and their own residences were a major part of its beauty and fame. Wealthy families began to produce a new wave of palazzo building, particularly as they sought to live near the Palazzo Pitti. Religious art and architecture were also traditional recipients of familial donations, and they too began to demonstrate the effects of greater stability and prosperity. They would receive particular attention in the later years of Cosimo’s administration with the efforts to remodel interiors in accordance with the recommendations of the Council of Trent. The wedding of Cosimo and Eleonora, with its processions, dramatic performances, and other entertainments, was also an early example of the growing importance of state spectacle. By the middle years of the century the size of state weddings, official visits, and similar occasions increased across Europe. While access to some portions of these events was restricted to elite visitors, the local population witnessed and participated in processions and public spectacles. Commemorative publications allowed planners in other locations to learn about and to study such events and plan future ones to match or exceed their showiness. Participating artists might thereby gain fame and future commissions even though the work itself was ephemeral. Cosimo would become adept at assembling teams of artists and humanists to plan and execute complex programs. By supporting a proposal in 1561 to establish an academy for artists that adapted the highly successful model of the city’s academy of letters, Cosimo would leave an institutional legacy that helped maintain the city’s well-established leadership in the visual arts both in organizing such official celebrations as well as in permanent art and architecture and the training and support of practicing artists that was the group’s central goal.

The Citizens

Distinguished collections of antiquities were increasingly essential possessions for leaders of significance and the regions they governed. Cosimo il Vecchio and Lorenzo de’ Medici had assembled collections of large sculptures as well as small objects, including coins, gems, and medals. Some of these holdings had suffered in the intervening years of exile and instability. Margarita’s entourage had removed many items from the Palazzo Medici when they departed, and Paul III had confiscated a number of Medici possessions and antiquities in Rome in 1538.19 Duke Cosimo began his own collection activities by 1538.20 He would display his holdings, over time, in several locations in both the Palazzo Vecchio and the Pitti, and build a reputation for his interest in antiquities. Some notable discoveries in the region brought publicity to the collection and especially to his Etruscan pieces. The first was the discovery of the bronze statue of the chimera, along with a number of smaller bronzes, near the walls of Arezzo in 1553. [Fig 1.1] The finds were brought to Florence

Fig 1.1  Chimera. Etruscan, bronze, ca. 400 BCE. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. Photo: Sailko [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)] Andrea Gáldy, “A Show of Independence: Collecting and Display of Etruscan Art at the Court of Cosimo I de’ Medici (1537–1574),” in Myth, Allegory, Emblem: the Many Lives of the Chimaera of Arezzo: Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Malibu, The J. Paul Getty Museum (December 4–5, 2009) (Rome: Aracne, 2012), 153–65, 153. 20 For the records of his collections beginning in 1538, see Cosimo I de’ Medici as Collector, 199–357. 19

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and a number of experts were asked to weigh in on the statue’s identity, including Pirro Ligorio. Benvenuto Cellini was involved in the cleaning and restoration of some of these discoveries. The chimera went on display in the Palazzo Vecchio, on the second floor near the Sala degli Elementi.21 [Fig 1.1] The other major Etruscan discovery was the Arringatore, a lifesize Etruscan bronze figure identified by its inscription as Aulus Metellus, found near Lake Trasimeno in 1566 and brought to Florence. [Fig 1.2] It was placed in one of Cosimo’s own rooms in the Palazzo Pitti.

Fig 1.2  Arringatore (Aulus Metellus). Etruscan, bronze, 91 BCE. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. Photo: corneliagraco (Wikimedia Commons) Gáldy, “Show of Independence”; see also Mario Iozzo, ed., The Chimaera of Arezzo (Florence: Polistampa, 2009).

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Cosimo had Giorgio Vasari design two rooms especially for the display of antiquities. The study or scrittoio in the Palazzo Vecchio dedicated to the muse Calliope received its collection in 1559. The Sala delle Nicchie in the Palazzo Pitti, inspired by the Belvedere at the Vatican, displayed objects on a larger scale.22 Other rooms also displayed items from the collection, notably the guardaroba in the Palazzo Vecchio. Papal gifts added to the collection of ancient Roman works, as did acquisitions made by other family members; a major purchase from Pius V also added considerably to the objects on display.23 By 1568 the major works merited their own list in Vasari’s Lives of the Artists. Institutions of learning were vital to the city. The reopening of Florence’s university in 1543 required initiative and commitment from Cosimo as well as his administrators. The Florentine Studio had been merged with that of Pisa since 1473; from that point onward most instruction took place in Pisa, though humanities professors had generally remained in Florence.24 The university had closed in 1526 due to an outbreak of plague.25 It had not reopened since; the republican government had not taken action, and neither had Alessandro. Scattered evidence shows that some professors offered instruction on their own, at least intermittently, during some of these years. Cosimo kept the university’s main location in Pisa and built it into his new administrative system. He put it under the oversight of a provveditore for general administration and an uditore dello studio for academic and student affairs. Cosimo appointed these administrators for an indefinite term; Lelio Torelli, the legal scholar and Cosimo’s first secretary, served as uditore from 1546 to 1576, and Filippo del Migliore as provveditore from 1543 to 1564.26 Its student university began appointing a rector from among its matriculated students for an annual term starting in 1544.27 At the same Gáldy, Cosimo I de’ Medici as Collector, 34, 61–108. Ibid., 38, 49. 24 Jonathan Davies, Florence and Its University during the Early Renaissance (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 1998). On Francesco Verino’s lectures in Florence, see Salvatore Lo Re, La crisi della libertà fiorentina: alle origini della formazione politica e intellettuale di Benedetto Varchi e Piero Vettori (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2006), 148; Richard Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi and Sixteenth-Century Florentine Humanism” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1976), 86–87. 25 Paul F. Grendler, The Universities of the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 70–82. 26 Davies, Culture and Power, 83–85; Grendler, Universities, 74–75. As Davies notes, the position of provveditore was not itself new at the studio. 27 Davies, Culture and Power, 101–4. 22

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time the university introduced its new botanical garden, along with Padua the first of their kind. By 1567 the university would grow to some forty-five faculty. Cosimo also established a fully funded student residence for forty students in 1545. Recruitment of quality faculty was a concern, and Cosimo oversaw the hires, a project that had begun well before the full reopening. A few professors had already been recruited individually. In 1538 he persuaded Piero Vettori, younger cousin of the noted Francesco Vettori who had helped organize the government after the siege, to return to teach Greek; he and Francesco Verino helped serve as early anchors. Administrators, especially del Migliore and Torelli, who was in charge of appointments, not only received recommendations for appointments but traveled to recruit professors from elsewhere.28 Literary and learned culture soon reasserted itself in the city. Florentines themselves took the initiative. A new sort of organization, the learned society or accademia, was appearing in Italian cities, and a number of Florentines decided to start one. When they turned to Cosimo he offered it strong support; it would become a center of the city’s learned culture and spawn several new academies in turn. This development began in November 1540, when a group of eleven friends met at the house of Giovanni Mazzuoli. They had been in communication with Benedetto Varchi, who was living in Padua. Varchi had informed them that he was participating in a new group there called the Accademia degli Infiammati, formed to engage in learned discussion and lectures in the vernacular.29 The Florentines decided to form a similar group and gave themselves the opposite title, the Umidi.30 Two weeks later they added a few more members, elected one among them as rector, and began to present lectures on Petrarch. Membership grew rapidly at these early meetings, and they became more organized; soon members were holding lectures on Thursdays and Ibid., 85. On the Infiammati, logic in the vernacular, and Varchi, see Marco Sgarbi, The Italian Mind: Vernacular Logic in Renaissance Italy (1540–1551) (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2014), On Varchi’s lectures in Padua, see Annalisa Andreoni, La via della dottrina: le lezioni accademiche di Benedetto Varchi (Pisa: ETS, 2012), 43–63. 30 Michel Plaisance, “Une première affirmation de la politique culturelle de Côme Ier: la transformation de l’Académie des ‘Humidi’ en Académie Florentine (1540–1542),” in Les écrivans et le pouvoir en Italie à l’époque de la Renaissance, ed. André Rochon (Paris: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1973), 361–438; Armand De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli and the Florentine Academy: The Rebellion against Latin (Florence: Olschki, 1976), 100–1; Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 68; Judith Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli (1503–1572): The Career of a Florentine Polymath 28 29

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Sundays. By mid-January 1541 they decided to reorganize with new statutes, agreeing as well that their lectures might treat any author, ancient or modern, but must be held in vernacular.31 They also discussed a new name for the group, and deputized a member to consult with Cosimo on the suggestion that they call themselves the Accademia Fiorentina; Cosimo approved. They ratified the new statutes, which they continued to revise, in mid-February, at which time they acquired some forty-two new members.32 Their organization included a consul, who decided on the lecturers and topics, and a poem to be read at the meeting. Censors, on the model of the Infiammati, would evaluate and edit the lecture and poems, along with any other poems submitted to be read aloud to the group. Cosimo provided meeting rooms; they clearly had outgrown private houses. On Thursdays they met at a university room for private lectures. The Sunday lectures were opened to the public, and were held in the Sala del Papa at Santa Maria Novella. The distinguished Francesco Verino, nearing the end of his life, gave the first one, on Canto 17 of the Purgatorio, on February 17, 1541 to a packed hall.33 In 1560 they would relocate the lectures to the Sala del Dugento in the Palazzo Vecchio.34 In the Accademia Fiorentina itself the number of injunctions issued to members to behave politely was surpassed regularly by the number of (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1983), 40–45; Richard S. Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi, the Accademia degli Infiammati, and the Origins of the Italian Academic Movement,” Renaissance Quarterly 29, no. 4 (1976): 599–634; Inge Werner, “The Heritage of the Umidi: Performative Poetry in the Early Accademia Fiorentina,” in The Reach of the Republic of Letters: Literary and Learned Societies in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Arjan van Dixhoorn and Susie Speakman Sutch (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2008), 2.257–84; Zanrè, Cultural Non-Conformity in Early Modern Florence, 33–48. There is a large literature on the rise of academies and their importance; see for example Simone Testa, Italian Academies and Their Networks, 1525–1700: from Local to Global (Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 31 Armand De Gaetano, “The Florentine Academy and the Advancement of Learning through the Vernacular: the Orti Oricellari and the Sacra Accademia,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 30 (1968): 19–52, 105. For a discussion of the main records of the Atti of the group, see Plaisance, “Un première affirmation,” 385–90. 32 Plaisance, “Un première affirmation,” 403, 411. 33 Ibid., 416; one of the records, F, described the crowd as “tanto concorso di popolo che fu cosa incredibile.” 34 Jacopo Rilli and Antonio Magliabechi, Notizie letterarie, ed istoriche intorno agli uomini illustri dell’Accademia fiorentina, Parte prima (Florence: P. Matini, 1700), xx. According to Rilli, this move was necessitated by the establishment of an order of nuns, the Monache della Concezione, at the wish of Eleonora, who were given the space at Santa Maria Novella.

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feuds and disagreements, beginning with the acceptance of the new statutes. One of the original members, Anton Francesco Grazzini (nicknamed Il Lasca, the roach fish), refused even to record the new statutes, composed angry poems about the group’s development, and remained for years a voice of protest at its rules and standards.35 In 1547 they purged a number of members for insufficient literary productivity and disruption at meetings. At times, members refused to lecture or refused to attend the lectures of others with whom they disagreed. Nonetheless, the group quickly established itself successfully in the life of the city. Public lectures in vernacular were a great success in Florence, with its Latinate university population mainly in Pisa and an educated populace happy to attend. The Infiammati in the university town of Padua, by contrast, fared less well. Varchi had begun vernacular lectures on Aristotle’s Ethics there in October 1540, but the German university students in attendance, unable to follow him, compelled him to revert to Latin.36 A year later Sperone Speroni, during his four-month term as principe, tried to restate those goals by requiring that all regular lectures be given in vernacular, but attendance floundered, and the group did not last long thereafter; records cease after May 1542. In February 1542, Cosimo elevated the consul of the Accademia Fiorentina to the status of the rector of the Florentine university, stating officially “that the authority, honor, privileges, grades, salary, and emoluments, and each and every thing that has followed and that pertains to the rector of the Florentine Studio, shall appertain and fully belong to the Magnificent Consul of said Accademia Fiorentina.”37 Their mission also received a clear, though broad definition: “interpreting, composing, and rendering every field of learning from every other language into our own.”38 Consuls received a silver cup for their service.39 By 1556 the stipends for the Accademia’s regular lecturers, 24 scudi, were recorded with the pay records for the university. From these records it is clear that Plaisance, “Un première affirmation,” 409–16; De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli, 102–6. On Grazzini, see also Zanrè, Cultural Non-Conformity in Early Modern Florence, 59–85. 36 Sgarbi, Italian Mind, 43–44; Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” 623. 37 “Che l’autorità, onore, privilegi, gradi, salario, e emolumenti, ed ogni, e tutto, che ha conseguito, e si appartiene al Rettore dello Studio di Firenze, da ora innanzi si appartenga, e sia pienamente del Magnifico Consolo della già detta Accademia Fiorentina.” Rilli and Magliabechi, Notizie letterarie, xxi. 38 “… i dotti loro exercizzi, interpretando, componendo, e da ogni altra Lingua, ogni bella Scienza in questa nostra riducendo.” Ibid., xxi. 39 De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli, 108. 35

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the burden of these lectures was considered significantly less than the services of a university professor; Piero Vettori received 300 scudi the same year for his professorship in Greek and moral philosophy.40 Giovan Battista Gelli held the Academy’s lectureship in Dante, and many years there was a second lectureship in Petrarch.41 This support seems to have contributed to the organization’s longevity. Most academies across Italy flourished for a few years and then dispersed; those like the Accademia Fiorentina that persisted generally enjoyed the support of the city or ruler to provide such structures of continuity. Cosimo also subsidized a press to produce textbooks as needed for university students, to publish lectures and translations by members of the Accademia Fiorentina, and more. Florence had never competed with Venice as a center for the print industry, but the Giunta family in particular had maintained a Florentine business along with their Venetian one for some time.42 Bernardo Giunta had left the city for Venice in 1533; his brother picked up the family business in 1537, though he produced few titles for some time.43 Anton Francesco Doni ran a press briefly in the city, from 1546 to 1547, but quarreled with his editor Ludovico Domenichi and did not stay.44 Lelio Torelli found a printer in Bologna, Lorenzo Torrentino (a native of Brabant originally named Laurens van den Bleeck), and proposed bringing him to Florence with a subsidy to serve as an official printer. The Giunti requested the position, but Cosimo preferred Torrentino; he would bring in a familiarity with the standards and practices of other locations, as well as high-quality editors and proofreaders.45 Accordingly, Torrentino came to Florence in 1547 with a twelveyear contract that gave him subsidies, privileges, and tax benefits. In Davies, Culture and Power, 228. On Dante lectures at the Accademia Fiorentina in general and Gelli’s lectures in particular, see Simon A. Gilson, Reading Dante in Renaissance Italy: Florence, Venice, and the “Divine Poet” (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 93–171. 42 Richardson, Print Culture, 28–47, 79–89. 43 Ibid., 27; William A. Pettas, The Giunti of Florence, Merchant Publishers of the Sixteenth Century (San Francisco: B. M. Rosenthal, 1980), 73–77. They rented their space from the Badia; see Robert Joseph Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives’” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1988), 63. 44 Richardson, Print Culture. 131–32, Pettas, Giunti of Florence, 77–78. 45 Torelli reported that when Cosimo was asked which he preferred, “Et quella rispose … che più li piacea queso m[esser] Lorenzo, che nel vero et di commodità di pratiche di fuori et di correttori et di lettere et di diligentia è più da piacere.” 40 41

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return he was to supply the city and region with books at a reasonable price and agree to a number of terms on staffing, imports, and sales.46 His production started out strong, reaching a high point of forty-one editions in 1551, but soon slowed, apparently due to a combination of factors: limited markets, high start-up costs, and more. He renewed his contract nonetheless in 1559 and remained at work until his death in 1563. At this point the press had more competition in the city. Giorgio Marescotti purchased most of the business from Torrentino’s heirs and found greater success. Marescotti and the Giunti each requested from Cosimo a monopoly similar to the old Torrentino contract; but Cosimo declined them both at this point, and left printing to the open market thereafter.47 The print industry in Florence remained small, and presses such as Giunti managed by keeping branches elsewhere, notably Venice. Nonetheless, the presence of Torrentino during its years of existence contributed to the new growth and confidence in the community of Florentine letters and learning. Bernardo Segni looked back on these years a decade later as he worked on his history of Florence, and saw in them the city’s great moment of recovery. He had seen city government as an insider whose responsibilities had included a diplomatic mission in 1541 to Ferdinand Habsburg, then king of Bohemia. Giovanni Battista Adriani, whose history of the city was published posthumously in 1583, came independently to a similar assessment.48 Cosimo, said Segni, enjoyed the praise of men of talent and skill, and had undertaken several tasks during these years. One was the revival of the university; he mentioned particularly the residence for poor students. Another was the Accademia Fiorentina. Here, perhaps because he had just mentioned the university at Pisa, he emphasized its role in education. Not only was it valuable for the youth of Florence; it ASF. FondoMediceo del Principato 381, ff. 157–158v; see Antonio Ricci, “Lorenzo Torrentino and the Cultural Programme of Cosimo I de’ Medici, in The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 103–19, at 104–5. 46 For a discussion of the press, including a useful summary of previous literature, see Ricci, “Lorenzo Torrentino, ” ed. Eisenbichler. 47 Tim Carter, “Music-Printing in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Florence: Giorgio Marescotti, Cristofano Marescotti and Zanobi Pignoni,” Early Music History 9 (1990): 27–72; Richardson, Print Culture, 127–39. 48 Giovanni Battista Adriani, Istoria de’ suoi tempi (Florence: Giunti, 1583), 1.290– 92. Segni’s history remained unfinished at his death and was unknown to his contemporaries.

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reflected the esteem in which the Florentine language was held across Europe: Likewise, in the city he promoted the foundation of an Academy in which the youth of Florence could educate themselves in the Tuscan language, which flourished and was favored not only in Italy, but in France and in other regions …49

Segni also singled out three individuals for their particular contributions, one at the university and the others in the Accademia Fiorentina: Piero Vettori, Benedetto Varchi, and Giovan Battista Gelli. All men of letters, each responded differently to the years of tumult but came together to shape the city’s intellectual culture. Segni praised Vettori, a man who excelled in humane letters, for his appointment as professor of Greek. Vettori (1499–1585) was a member of an eminent family; his elder cousin, Francesco, had been prominent in the city’s political life and had served on the transitional balia of October 1530. Piero studied classics with Andrea Dazzi, who had himself been a student of Angelo Poliziano, and identified himself strongly with Poliziano’s tradition of textual scholarship; he worked with other scholars as well, at both Pisa and Florence, including Francesco Cattani da Diacceto.50 In 1530 he left the city, moving to family holdings south of the city at San Casciano.51 There he devoted himself both to classical scholarship and to farming, including the study of ancient texts on related topics. He returned to Florence in early 1538 after some hesitation, but remained his whole career, lecturing into his eighties.52 He was elected consul of the Accademia Fiorentina in 1542. Many of his former students would contribute to his very long list of editorial projects over those decades. Vettori’s numerous publications were well known and widely respected. He was a voluminous correspondent; he also took on public tasks that called for classical skills. When Cosimo had the Mercato Nuovo

“Nella Città fu altresì autore di farvi un’ Accademia, nella quale s’esercitavano assai i giovani Fiorentini nella lingua Toscana, che fioriva, ed era favorita non pure in Italia, ma ancora in la Francia ed in altri confine …” Bernardo Segni, Storie fiorentine, 3 vols. (Milan: Società tipografica de’ Classici italiani, 1805), 2.271. 50 Raphaèle Mouren, “Un professeur de grec et ses élèves: Piero Vettori (1499–1585),” Lettere italiane 59, no. 4 (2007): 474–506, 474–76. 51 Lo Re, Crisi della libertà fiorentina, 147. 52 Francesco Niccolai, Pier Vettori (1499–1585) (Florence: Seeber, 1912), 14. 49

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constructed in 1548, Vettori prepared at his request ten versions of a Latin inscription for him to choose from.53 Segni had continued his praise of the achievements of the Accademia Fiorentina and the Florentine language. The prestige of the language increased still further, as a language both of literature and of science and philosophy, and benefited from the work of both Varchi and Gelli: Because then they translated sciences from Greek, and by speaking about matters serious and scientific with great eloquence of speech, acquired a great intellectual reputation; therefore Benedetto da Monte Varchi, who devoted himself to the language, was given a stipend by him, and also Giovambattista Gelli, extremely intelligent though a hosier, gained both assistance and fame.54

Giovan Batista Gelli (1498–1563) was indeed a calzaiuolo (hosier), and continued to practice the same trade throughout his life.55 Although he minimized his social standing at times by emphasizing his work with his hands, calzaiuoli were members of the Arte della Seta, one of the city’s great guilds.56 From 1543 he rented a shop on the Piazza della Signoria, which kept him close to city politics and administration.57 Gelli’s father had apparently not supported the education his son desired, but he nonetheless had managed to study grammar with Francini da Monte Varchi, who worked as a proofreader for Filippo Giunta. Filippo del Migliore had been a fellow student. He had also studied with Francesco Verino.58 In later years he also remembered fondly his time as a youth listening to his elders in gatherings at the Orti Oricellari, the gardens of the Rucellai family. He seems to have survived the city’s years of instability relatively unscathed. Ibid., 15. “… perché allora si tradussono dal Greco scienze, e col parlar di cose gravi e scientifiche con molta eloquenza di dire, s’acquistò per molti gran fama d’ingegno, perciò ancora Benedetto da Monte Varchi, che faceva di tal lingua molta professione, fu provvisionato da lui, ed a Giovambattista Gelli, benché Calzolajo, acutissimo d’ingegno fu data riputazione ed ajuto.” Segni, Storie fiorentine, 1805, 2.271. 55 For biographical information on Gelli, see De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli, 9–35; A. Piscini, “Gelli, Giovan Battista,” DBI, 53.12–18. 56 De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli, 14; Carole Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, and Fine Clothing (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 32–36, 44–45. 57 De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli, 14. 58 Ibid., 24–25. 53

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Gelli wrote poetry, drama, and dialogues, some vernacular translations, and numerous lectures over the course of his life, many published initially by Torrentino; some found readerships all across Europe translated into other vernaculars, mainly French and English. His linguistic skills merited sufficient respect that Simone Porzio, lecturer in philosophy at the Studio Pisano, asked Gelli to translate his Modo di orare cristianamente for publication.59 Gelli was an early member of the Accademia degli Umidi and remained a leader in the Accademia Fiorentina; he held its lectureship in Dante at the right up to the end of his life.60 It was he who wrote, at official request, to Benedetto Varchi to ask him to return to Florence.61 Varchi (1503–1565) was the son of a notary, from a family that retained property and interest in their ancestral home of Montevarchi despite their longstanding presence in Florence.62 Varchi studied law in Pisa 1521–1523 and also began the study of Greek with Donato Giannotti.63 At that point he matriculated into the guild of notaries, though he avoided practicing the trade. Several times he expressed a disinterest in political activity, a claim generally supported by his actions; he traveled frequently throughout his twenties for reasons having little to do with the political events of the city. During the 1530s he studied with Piero Vettori and Francesco Verino, and assisted Vettori with his Cicero edition.64 Late in 1536, the Cicero project completed, Varchi traveled to Padua to meet the language scholar Pietro Bembo, returned, and was planning to leave the city again when Alessandro was killed. He did indeed leave soon thereafter for Bologna. Simone Porzio, Modo di orare christianamente con la espositione del Pater Noster, trans. Giovan Batista Gelli (Florence: Torrentino, 1551); Biblioteca Marucelliana A.CXI. 4, Gelli GB, Sue notizie di mano del Canonico Salvino Salvini, Fol. 4 verso. 60 On Gelli’s lectures, see Federica Pich, “Dante and Petrarch in Giovan Battista Gelli’s Lectures at the Florentine Academy,” in Remembering the Middle Ages in Early Modern Italy, ed. Lorenzo Pericolo and Jessica N. Richardson (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015), 169–91. 61 De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli, 22, 24–25. 62 On Varchi’s life, see esp. Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” diss.; Benedetto Varchi, 1503–1565: atti del convegno, Firenze, 16–17 dicembre 2003, ed. Vanni Bramanti (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2007). 63 Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” diss., 52–54. 64 Ibid., 86, 112. On Varchi, Vettori, and urban politics during these years, see Salvatore Lo Re, Politica e cultura nella Firenze cosimiana: studi su Benedetto Varchi (Manziana (Roma): Vecchiarelli, 2008); Crisi della libertà fiorentina. 59

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That spring he acceded to a request by Piero Strozzi to ride with a group of exiles in an early expedition against San Sepolcro, which ended in failure. Varchi gave up on politics and accepted work as a tutor, mainly in Venice. Yet that position kept him connected with the exiles; his pupil was Ruberto di Filippo Strozzi, younger brother of Piero; their father Filippo was in charge of the exile forces. Varchi soon found himself supervising the younger sons as well as Ruberto, and Piero tried without success to help release their father, imprisoned after the defeat of the exiles at Montemurlo. Varchi moved them to Padua, and they parted company.65 His association with the Strozzi and his participation in the San Sepolcro attack were sufficient to earn him exile. Varchi continued as part of Padua’s intellectual community, participating in the early meetings of the Infiammati. Thanks to its university, Padua’s intellectual scene was one of the most intense in Europe, and the academy attracted those directly involved with the university as well as other men of letters in Padua and Venice.66 His reputation grew both as a poet and as a scholar, particularly for his lectures and studies of Aristotle. Throughout these years he maintained an active correspondence with his friends and colleagues in Florence. In 1541 he moved with his charges (now Carlo Strozzi) to Bologna and Ferrara, following law professor Andrea Alciato. After a visit from Luca Martini and correspondence with Vettori, a plan took shape to bring Varchi back to Florence. Varchi wrote to Vettori that it would be an ideal place for him to continue his work on Aristotle, and stated he had just written to Cosimo and to Francesco Campana.67 After discussions that also included Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Gelli was deputized to write to Varchi and invite him to return at Cosimo’s request in early 1543.68 Before Varchi left he was already offering scholarly advice to the city; Filippo del Migliore consulted with him in Bologna about his own efforts to hire away some Bologna professors.69 He arrived in Florence Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” diss., 151–54. Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” article; Sgarbi, Italian Mind, 40–42. 67 Benedetto Varchi, Lettere, 1535–1565, ed. Vanni Bramanti (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2008), 130–31. 68 Prose fiorentine raccolte dallo smarrito academico della crusca, 4 vols. (Florence: Tartini e Franchi, 1734), 4.1, 58–63. 69 Luigi Alberto Ferrai, Cosimo de’ Medici, duca di Firenze (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1882), 329–30. Samuels corrects the date of this letter to 1543; Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” diss., 282. For more on Varchi’s illness, during which time he was visited by Martini 65

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near the beginning of March. Varchi received a stipend of 7 scudi a month, for which he was expected to participate in the Accademia Fiorentina and lecture there.70 In 1546 Cosimo asked him to compose a history of the city that would focus on the years 1527–1530; by the end of his life his stipend had increased accordingly to fifteen.71 His return was much celebrated, and while he made enemies as well as friends in the Accademia Fiorentina and beyond, both contemporary and later assessments rated his return a major asset to the city’s circles of letters and learning. As these examples show, Florentine literary and scholarly circles reached across the peninsula, especially to the urban centers that stretched from Venice to Rome. They were at the same time very local and personal; these men shared with their colleagues a set of teachers, friends, and career networks. Not only did these networks contribute to a common range of interests; they also led to a high degree of collaboration. Florentine scholars worked together regularly on any number of large projects, many of them for publications whose title pages fail to display the number of hands and minds that were responsible for their production. In many cases, only the fortuitous survival of correspondence from times when one or another of the contributors was outside the city shows the degree to which these scholars worked together without attribution. Not all such projects or even issues would center on the Accademia Fiorentina. Although most men of letters were members, not all joined the group; Vincenzio Borghini would be perhaps the most prominent scholar to acknowledge that he had no time for meetings and lectures, but he was not alone. Editorial projects or scholarly publications that involved Latin or Greek also fell outside the Accademia’s purview, and Latin remained the language of the universities. University-related scholarship in philosophy, law, and more all saw innovation during these decades. Piero Vettori in particular developed a very large network of Latin and Greek scholars who contributed to an important publication program in editing and Gelli, see Luca Martini, Bologna, letter to Pier Franceso Riccio, Florence, February 19, 1543, ASF, Fondo Mediceo del Principato. Vol. 1170, Insert: 3, fol. 162. 70 On Varchi’s lectures throughout his career, see Andreoni, Via della dottrina. 71 Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” diss., 283; ASF, Fondo Med. del Principato, Vol. 221 Fol. 27, letter from Medici, Tommaso di Iacopo de’ Firenze, to Antella, Filippo di Giovanni dell’, October 29, 1566. See also Silvano Razzi, “Vita di B. Varchi,” in Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 3 vols. (Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 1857), 10.

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ancient texts, nearly all of which remained distinct from the goals of the Accademia Fiorentina. Yet the ongoing pattern of weekly private and public meetings and lectures throughout the calendar of the academic year gave the city a unique center and energy. The group’s main interests were hardly unique to Florence; the great Florentine writers found audiences, admirers, and imitators across Italy, and some form of literary Florentine set the stylistic standard for modern vernacular authors. Yet they received an unmatched level of attention and debate in the city. As native speakers, Florentines continued to claim a particular advantage at the level of textual and linguistic scholarship as well.72 The Accademia’s expressed interest in supporting the translation of other texts into the vernacular brought the attention of members still further to language-related issues. This generation of scholars brought together during the decades of Cosimo’s regime devoted themselves especially to studies related to Florence. The city’s features were not one but many, interlinked and diverse. Rather than limiting their scholarly horizons, their particular devotion to Florentine studies offered them a central focus for examining the interconnectedness of artistic and literary achievement, politics and family relationships, language and custom. These features of the city interested not only Florentines but others as well; thus, they wrote not only for one another but also for a broader audience of readers who also found these topics significant. Both individually and collectively, their sustained attention to the region led to advances in knowledge about Florence, Tuscany, and especially its inhabitants. It also raised a host of methodological issues about how best to go about such studies. Florentines needed to decide how to define a modern language; how to understand and describe changes in social practices over time; how to explain changes and progress in the arts. For the most part, they used the tools that had been developed and honed by the humanist movement particularly for the study of the ancient past. Yet in nearly all cases, they needed to adapt and repurpose these tools for

On Dante at the Accademia Fiorentina, see Mary Alexander Watt, “The Reception of Dante in the Time of Cosimo I,” in Eisenbichler, The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, 121–34.

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the study of their own more recent past. Little wonder that they saw false starts, incomplete experiments, and heated debates along the way. One of the earliest debates to divide members of the Accademia involved the early history of the city, an issue that would also recur some thirty years later. When Gelli and his friend Pierfrancesco Giambullari argued that the earliest Florentines, the Etruscans, had spoken a language related to Aramaic, they set off debates of at least two kinds. One was how to study the past when no textual evidence remained for a given region or era; the other was how to examine the history of a language. In both cases they needed to turn their historical skills to new ends. The most productive ways to study the language’s history came not from their efforts but from the circle of Piero Vettori. Gelli and Giambullari and their friends, conversely, would find greater success in the study of contemporary language practice. An important principle on which they could agree was the importance of distinguishing between the study of letters and literature, on the one hand, and language on the other. Florentines could also agree that they were leaders in the visual arts. As Giorgio Vasari worked on his monumental publication the Lives of the Artists, he enlisted the assistance of a number of men of letters. It became clear that the rebirth of monumental architecture, sculpture, and painting had many points in common with the history of their language. In particular, the age of Dante was also the age of Giotto. It was also the era that gave their city government its distinctive shape, and established the city’s leading families. Their city’s rise to greatness may have occurred during years that seemed both simpler and rougher than their own. Nonetheless, those years merited study as well as celebration, just as did Rome’s early days. That celebration included genuinely festive moments, most prominently the events that marked the wedding of Cosimo’s son and heir Francesco to Giovanna of Austria. It also included more somber ones such as the memorial service for Michelangelo, the first major event sponsored by the new Accademia del Disegno. For this generation of scholars, Florentine studies made up sets of overlapping projects of scholarship and reflection. Some took a particular interest in the literary production of great writers, others in the language that might be used to express arguments and ideas from the quotidian to the philosophical. Some sought to examine the city as a place filled with buildings and art that were the envy of the world. Humanist culture had always lived with

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a productive tension between ancient and modern, between the recovery of the past and the creation of new works. In Cosimo’s Florence, that tension continued but with some additional features. Florentines came increasingly to understand their own past as the era that ended the ancient world but that also gave birth to their own, a world with achievements as great as those of antiquity. Behind the public presentations of Florence’s heritage and achievements lay scholarship that was both solid and innovative in examining those developments. These Florentines shaped their city’s lasting image as a center for rebirth in learning and the arts as they discovered effective ways to describe, define, and analyze that rebirth.

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Who Were the Florentines? Etruscan Roots

T

  he

new Accademia Fiorentina soon found itself divided by a about the early history of the city and its language. Giovan Battista Gelli and Pierfrancesco Giambullari, two of the group’s core members, published books in which they promoted Florence’s Etruscan roots rather than its Roman past. They had begun their studies some years earlier, and their collaborative work would continue throughout their lives. Gelli and especially Giambullari cared particularly about the region’s linguistic past. The first inhabitants, they asserted, had spoken not Latin but Etruscan, a language entirely different from either Greek or Latin; indeed, it had arisen from Aramaic. Pierfrancesco Giambullari (1495–1555) came from an old Florentine family. His father, Bernardo, had been a poet in the circle of Lorenzo de’ Medici. According to his friend Cosimo Bartoli, they had been sufficiently close that when young Pierfrancesco showed a talent for scholarship, Lorenzo’s son Giuliano provided for his education.1 He became a cleric, and remained close to the Medici; Leo X provided him with substantial benefices, and he served as secretary to Alfonsina Orsini, Piero de’ Medici’s widow. In 1527 he became a collegial canon at San Lorenzo, and in 1552 he was named curator of the book collection there, known eventually as the   debate

1

Bartoli, “Oratione di Cosimo Bartoli, gentil’huomo, et Accademico Fiorentino, recitata publicamente nella Accademia Fiorentina, nelle Essequie di Messer Pierfrancesco Giambullari, …” in Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Historia dell’Europa, ed. Cosimo Bartoli (Venice: Francesco Senese, 1566), fol. 161r–166v, at 163r. On Giambullari, see also F. Pignati, “Giambullari, Pierfrancesco,” DBI, 54.308–12. For an earlier discussion of these issues, see Ann E. Moyer, “Noah on the Janiculum, Dardanus in Fiesole: Medieval Legends and Historical Writing in Sixteenth-century Florence,” I Tatti Studies 19.2 (2016): 335-57.

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Laurenziana.2 He and his friend Giovan Batista Gelli were early members of the Umidi and stayed staunch members of the Accademia Fiorentina. Giambullari lectured there and held numerous offices and special positions in it throughout his lifetime. Of the two friends, Giambullari had considerably more language training than did Gelli, including Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic (referred to as Chaldean). At some point during the 1530s, the two became convinced that a proper understanding of their modern language could come only from an acknowledgment that its earliest origins had been Etruscan and not Roman. Those interests led them in turn to the earliest history of the region. Some found their arguments intriguing. Others found them absurd. Yet those who would contradict them quickly ran up against problems both of evidence and of method. Perhaps most obvious was the enigma of the Etruscan language itself. It was attested only in inscriptions that resisted interpretation. Next was the textual record about the Etruscans that did survive. The sources were Latin (plus a few in Greek); they generally focused on the Romans themselves, and as such they treated only a limited range of topics about Etruscans. Finally, while the Etruscans had left other traces on the landscape such as ruins, artifacts, place names, and perhaps more, their sixteenth-century descendants lacked any sure means with which to interpret them. Thus, they needed to find the tools that would allow them to disentangle these competing types of evidence about the past: Latin records, whether documentary or textual; myths and legends; ruins and other archeological finds, including inscriptions; and linguistic evidence of all kinds. These concerns reached beyond the early world of ancient Tuscany and led to questions about how this complicated past affected and intersected with the Florentine present. Florentines who were already interested in their language, art, and way of life were driven to find better ways of thinking and writing about how their world had developed and changed over time. Thus, even though the debate itself had cooled by the end of the decade, this controversy over Etruscan origins raised broader issues that would occupy many Florentine men of letters for a generation and more.

Received Traditions Florentines were hardly exceptional in developing an interest in ancient origins. Most Italian cities enjoyed a fairly long recorded history that reached back at least to ancient Roman times. Many could claim a notable Domenico Moreni, Continuazione delle Memorie istoriche dell’Ambrosiana Imperial Basilica di S. Lorenzo di Firenze dalla erezione della chiesa presente a tutto il regno mediceo (Florence: F. Daddi, 1816), 1. 263–64.

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Roman as a native son, and could point to a set of classical ruins, or at least some found coins and inscriptions, within or near their walls. As disorderly as late antiquity and the early Middle Ages may have been on the peninsula, these years had been preceded by many more of ancient literacy, historical writing, and record keeping, and such record keeping had not disappeared entirely even in the early Middle Ages. The leaders of medieval communal governments extolled their city’s ancient heritage. By the sixteenth century, these medieval claims had themselves become venerable traditions. Most Italians engaged in the study of their pasts thus faced both the benefit and the complication of a thicker and more continuous set of possible sources and data than in many other parts of the continent. The narrative might be complicated further by the presence in an ancient region of more than one group of people; Florence itself was a Roman city founded in an Etruscan region. Sixteenth-century Florentines were better equipped to explore their past than many other Europeans. Admittedly, their city was relatively thin in Roman ruins, but its few significant remains received considerable attention. Most believed that the baptistery had originally been built as a temple to Mars, and common memory still recalled the ancient statue of Mars near the Ponte Vecchio that had washed away in the flood of 1333. Aqueduct fragments of various sorts survived here and there. Mundane excavations, especially within the area of the city’s first walls, could turn up surprising relics from the past, including old foundations, mosaic floors, and even unexpected bones. There were enough inscriptions and sculptural fragments to form the basis of local collections. Many cities could also boast of at least one medieval chronicler who had described the city’s origins. Here Florence did far better than most. Giovanni Villani (ca. 1275–1348) produced a chronicle that stood out from the pack in both liveliness and substance. Villani, a businessman and banker by profession, had focused especially on those events that took place during his lifetime, but had also written at some length about the city’s foundation and ancient history. Thus, he had already undertaken the task of identifying earlier sources and assembling a coherent narrative for Florence’s early years. Villani was esteemed for his balanced assessments of recent historical events, his clear prose, the detailed information he offered on the city, and for his careful treatment of the historical sources at his disposal. After Villani succumbed to the Black Death, his brother and then his brother’s son (Matteo and Filippo) continued the chronicle up to 1364. Giovanni Villani’s Chronicle offered Florentines a continuous narrative with events that could be verified against other accounts. Its first

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printed edition appeared in 1537, the beginning of a significant editorial tradition.3 Ancient sources on Florence, on the other hand, were far less substantial. Although Renaissance Florentines began to identify relevant Roman works that had not been available to Villani or his fourteenth-century contemporaries, these sources did not lead to much progress in knowledge about the city’s Roman years. For while it was clear that the city had been founded in the Roman era, ancient Florence simply had not been a place of much prominence. References to it in ancient sources were, accordingly, decidedly few and far between. Some of them consisted only of a name as part of a long list of places; other passages were no more than a minor aside that may have referred to Florence, but may in fact simply have been some other place that once had possessed a similar name. Even Sallust, whose history of the Catiline Revolt recounted a number of important events in the region, mentioned not Florence but Fiesole, the Etruscan city on the nearby hill.4 Therefore the humanists’ new libraries of ancient texts did not immediately offer an obvious improvement in the level of knowledge about Florence’s ancient past and early years. These newer scholars cast doubt on some of the more apparently legendary events and people that appeared in Villani and elsewhere by asking about verisimilitude and about corroboration (or the lack thereof ) in other sources. Yet there was not much new material for them to add. Bartolomeo Cerretani complained repeatedly about these source problems when he composed his own history of Florence in the early sixteenth century. The ancient sources were lacking, he lamented; there were numerous disagreements about early events in Florentine history; and therefore he needed to rely on the Florentine authors.5 Unresolved source issues, then, were among the questions that kept sixteenth-century Florentines returning to the topic of their city’s origins and the significance of its earliest history. A range of contemporary concerns also motivated them. For those who would be tasked over the years with helping organize processions or other functions in which the representatives of various cities were typically arranged in the supposed order Giovanni Villani, Croniche (Venice: Bartholomeo Zanetti Casterzagense, 1537). Torrentino issued it in two volumes, 1554; Giunti reissued it several times thereafter. 4 Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, 24, 27, 30, 43, 59, 60. 5 Bartolomeo Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, ed. Giuliana Berti (Florence: Olschki, 1994), 29. 3

Received Traditions

of each city’s foundation, the earlier its origin the better.6 Others continued to advance the claim that the circumstances of a city’s foundation left, by some means or other, a permanent stamp on the nature of the city and its citizens, such that the foundation provided a guide to understanding essential features in the modern city. So Leonardo Bruni had claimed in his Laudatio Florentine Urbis; he had asserted that Florence had long aspired to the imitation of republican Rome because it had been founded during that era, and modern Florence still defended republican virtue.7 Whatever else they believed about their city’s origins, most Florentines agreed that Florence had been a Roman town, and that it had been founded in the first century before the Common Era in a region long dominated by Etruscans, very near the older Etruscan city of Fiesole. Renaissance authors thus had two narratives to assemble and to connect, those of Roman and of Etruscan history. Each of those histories included a series of events, actors, and dates thanks to various Latin authors, whose ranks had expanded over time due to the efforts of humanist scholars. While the Roman and the Etruscan narratives overlapped one other, each had its own body of sources; thus, for most Renaissance authors they tended to remain two separate stories that were told in parallel. Neither set of sources contained many references specifically to Fiesole, and there were even fewer to Florence. They found more information when they turned, like Cerretani, to the Florentine sources. Villani and his medieval predecessors had filled the narrative gaps with characters and events drawn either from local legend or from earlier written sources variously interpreted. They also included an additional layer of back story. This part of the story connected the era covered by Roman historians, with their minimal references to either Florence or Fiesole, to the universal events of biblical history, specifically to the repopulation of the world after the Great Flood. Villani managed to work in Homeric epic as well. According to his account, Nimrod the giant, the first king, had ruled over the rest of Noah’s descendants and caused the tower of Babel to be built in their capital, Babylon in Chaldea. Noah’s sons divided the world into three regions, one for each of them; Robert Williams, “The Sala Grande in the Palazzo Vecchio and the precedence controversy between Florence and Ferrara,” in Vasari’s Florence: Artists and Literati at the Medicean Court, ed. Philip Joshua Jacks (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 163–81. 7 Bruni, Laudatio Florentine urbis, 15–20. 6

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Europe fell to Japheth. Noah and his son Janus, born after the flood, traveled to Italy, where Noah died, and Janus remained. Later, Attalus (also known as Attalante) also departed Babylon following the confusion caused by the tower of Babel, and arrived in Italy. Villani offers alternate accounts for Attalante’s genealogy collated from different but unspecified sources; he favors the one that portrays him as a descendant of Japheth. Attalante and Electra founded Fiesole as their residence, in a spot identified by their astrologers as the best and healthiest site in Europe. As the first city founded in this part of the world, it was called Fia sola, that is, the first one.8 Their son Dardanus then founded Troy. Villani continues his narrative through the Trojan War with a brief digression to list Priam the younger, Antenor, and Priam the third as founders of Venice and Padua; he narrates the kingdom of the Gauls or Franks as far as Charlemagne. Villani then shifts from this narrative to a Roman one. It begins with Aeneas, Romulus and Remus and runs quickly up the death of Lucretia, before skipping again to the Catiline war that resulted, for him, in the founding of Florence itself. As he told the story, Fiesole had rebelled during that war and was defeated, in fighting that included Julius Caesar. A praetor named Florinus, with his family and a few others, was left in the valley at the site of a villa and a regional market that had been taken over by the Romans; some surviving Fiesolans surprised them at night and killed them. Caesar returned, defeated Fiesole completely, and founded a city on the site of the villa, naming it to commemorate the praetor. At this point (Book 2, 1–3), Villani digresses to mention some of the main buildings they had constructed in the new city of Florence, before moving on to the events of later antiquity. This narrative implies a distant kinship between the Fiesolans and the Roman Florentines that went back to Attalante and Electra, who had figured in the first part of Villani’s story.9 The mixing of these two peoples in Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, edizione critica, ed. Giuseppe Porta, 3 vols. (Parma: U. Guanda, 1990–1991), 1.7, 11–13. On Villani and other Florentine chroniclers, see Louis Green, Chronicle into History: an Essay on the Interpretation of History in Florentine Fourteenth-Century Chronicles (London: Cambridge University Press, 1972). 9 Roman sources offer inconsistent support for this presentation of the origins of Dardanus. Aeneid 7. 209 supports a (non-specific) Tuscan origin; 7. 240 suggests Latium. For a discussion of the various sources and anciently ascribed birthplaces of Dardanus, see Nicolai Rubinstein, “The Beginnings of Political Thought in Florence: A Study in Mediaeval Historiography,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 198–227, at 208–9. 8

Received Traditions

the region, a topic to which he would return when describing Florence’s Carolingian re-foundation, also suggested that the two cities shared a single history. Yet Villani, like Dante, portrayed this mix as a cause of the city’s constant factionalism and strife that had become so prominent in his own times. Such stories had begun to appear in written sources after the developing commune of Florence had overcome Fiesole in the twelfth century.10 One example is the anonymous thirteenth-century Chronica de origine civitatis that survives in several variations; Villani used it as a source, and it remained available to later Renaissance historians of the city.11 This era’s great political powers, the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy, had each taken pains to emphasize the Romanness of their own identities. It comes as no surprise, then, that medieval Florentine historical writings followed suit; they too developed an image of Florence as a little Rome. Villani asserted, in fact, that “little Rome” had been one of the city’s first unofficial names.12 Humanist historians continued to find that image appealing in the fifteenth century. When Leonardo Bruni began his history of the city in 1416, he had a broader range of classical sources available for the history of both Romans and Etruscans.13 He brought to those sources a more nuanced reading as well. Bruni found in his classical sources no corroboration whatever for these popular stories of the region’s earliest history. Accordingly, he warned his readers in his preface that in his work he would be “rejecting some commonly held but mythical beliefs.”14 And so he did. Book 1 begins bluntly with the Roman facts about the official, political foundation of the city: “The founders of Florence were Romans sent by Lucius Sulla to Faesulae.”15 Ibid. Ibid., 205–7. Two versions can be found in Edoardo Alvisi, Il libro delle origini di Fiesole e di Firenze, pubblicato su due testi del secolo XIII (Parma: Ferrari e Pellegrini, 1895). 12 Villani, Nuova cronica, 2.1, 62. 13 On Bruni and historical writing, see Gary Ianziti, Writing History in Renaissance Italy: Leonardo Bruni and the Uses of the Past (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012). 14 “… placuit exemplo quorundam rerum scriptorum primordio atque origine urbis vulgaribus fabulosisque opinionibus rejectis quam verissimam puto notitiam tradere, ut omnia in sequentibus clariora reddantur.” Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People, ed. James Hankins, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 1. 4–7. 15 “Florentiam urbem Romani condidere a Lucio Sylla Faesulas deducti.” Ibid., 1. 8–9. 10 11

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Bruni banished Attalante and Florinus from the narrative. Gone too were Noah and his sons. He kept the basic tale of Etruscans versus Romans, and in fact elevated the Etruscans to a prominent place in the whole.16 But he replaced the specifics with a narrative assembled from Livy, Plutarch, Vergil, Horace, Pliny, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, sources he named in one of his letters.17 The Etruscans in Bruni’s History were originally Lydians from Maeonia, who came to Italy for reasons unspecified. They removed the Pelasgians who had been inhabiting the region before them, and named the region “Tyrrhenia” after their king Tyrrhus.18 Most of Book 1 presents a sweeping view of Roman history and Roman decline; Bruni takes his narrative quickly to the age of Frederick II. His story picks up depth, detail, and a genuinely Florentine focus with Book 2 and the thirteenth century. To amend this narrative, new information would be required. That information was produced at the end of the fifteenth century by Angelo Poliziano. He discovered a new Roman source that included a reference not just to the city, but to its foundation. In the private library of the Medici, he had found a work he referred to as the Liber coloniarum that he attributed to Sextus Julius Frontinus (ca. 40–103). It mentioned Florence as having been founded under the second triumvirate, by Augustus, Marc Antony, and Marcus Lepidus, in 43 BCE.19 This precision gained wide credence; by the early years of the sixteenth century many scholars accepted the source and the date, mentioned it in their writings, and centered their narratives accordingly. For those who cared, as Bruni had, this dating weakened the ability to claim that the city’s foundation during the Roman republic had left a republican stamp on its nature. On the other hand, it restored the association with the Caesars and Rome. But while the source offered a date, it hardly offered much depth or detail. Sixteenth century Florentines interested in early local history confronted this assemblage of histories, sources, and traditions. Villani and Giovanni Cipriani, Il mito etrusco nel Rinascimento fiorentino, Studi e documenti: Biblioteca di storia toscana moderna e contemporanea: Biblioteca di storia toscana moderna e contemporanea (Florence: Olschki, 1980), 5–11. 17 Bruni, History of the Florentine People, 1.487 n. 11. 18 Ibid., 1.18–19. 19 Nicolai Rubinstein, “Il Poliziano e la questione delle origini di Firenze,” in Il Poliziano e il suo tempo; atti del IV Convegno internazionale di studi sul Rinascimento, Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi, 23–26 settembre 1954 (Florence: Sansoni, 1957), 101–10. The Liber coloniarum or liber regionum is now assumed to date from the fourth century. 16

Received Traditions

his medieval predecessors presented a range of events and actors. Some of them could be corroborated or corrected by means of the tools for historical research developed by the humanists Bruni, Poliziano, and their colleagues. Others were unattested in the body of ancient Roman sources that the humanists continued to assemble; many also seemed to fail the tests of verisimilitude to which humanist authors put them. The new humanist historians defined the task of historical writing as explaining the public actions of the past. Therefore, they tended to focus on the past of Florence as a political unit; the ongoing population of the region was not the center of the story, but rather its context. Yet while these historians might reject undocumented claims and offer a more thoughtful analysis of Roman history, they had little new information about Florence, and still less in the way of new narratives, to replace the old. Their story might be more verifiably correct, but it was just as certainly even thinner. It is hardly surprising, then, that in the sixteenth century, many Florentines remained interested in the older stories about the ancient past, despite the previous century of criticism. Not only did they hold popular appeal, but they had neither been replaced with others nor even completely disproved. Pierfrancesco Giambullari and Giovan Battista Gelli would throw the whole subject open again for re-examination some forty years after the discoveries of Poliziano. They were not interested in disputing his findings; they were less concerned with the details or dates of the foundation of Florence as a political unit than with the earliest portions of the narrative, and with the Etruscan rather than the Roman side of the story. This effort refocused attention onto the people of the region and the languages they spoke. Because the Etruscans had left no surviving written texts, the means of studying them were oblique out of necessity. Beyond the written sources left by the conquering Romans were the ruins and artifacts they had left behind, the places they had named, and the linguistic traces they left among their successors. Yet unlike the Latin texts that had received thoughtful humanistic analysis, these types of unwritten evidence lacked interpretive tools. How to use them to build convincing arguments was not immediately clear. At some point during the 1530s, Giambullari and Gelli became convinced that a proper understanding of their modern language could come only from an understanding of its past, and that past was not Roman and connected to the Latin language, but rather Etruscan. They hoped in particular to seek new answers as guided by the writings of Giovanni

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Nanni, better known as Annius of Viterbo.20 Annius’s writings are now notorious for their fraudulent composition. His major work, generally known as the Antiquitates (1498), consists of texts attributed to several ancient authors that Annius claimed to have translated into Latin from ancient Greek but which he actually composed himself. They were accompanied by commentaries, which he did acknowledge as his own. Annius also made, or caused to be made, a number of stone inscriptions which were then “discovered” with much fanfare in the 1490s, when he was at work on his book.21 In its combination of texts plus commentary, the Antiquitates recounted the world’s early history in the generations after the biblical flood. Noah and his family, a race of giants, had repopulated the earth. Annius explained that because these early figures were central to the history of many regions, they appeared not only in the Bible but also in the histories and mythologies that developed among many different peoples, though they were known by names particular to that region and its traditions. Noah himself had also been known as Janus; thus, classical references to Janus could be compared and harmonized with the biblical stories of Noah. Other figures known as heroes or divinities in various Giovanni Nanni, Commentaria super opera diversorum auctorum de antiquitatibus loquentium (Rome: Eucharius Silber, 1498), numerous reprintings. On Annius and his forgeries, see Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); Philip Joshua Jacks, The Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity: the Origins of Rome in Renaissance Thought (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 162–74; C. R. Ligota, “Annius of Viterbo and Historical Method,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 50 (1987): 44–56; Gigliola Bonucci Caporali, ed., Annio da Viterbo: documenti e ricerche (Rome: Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche, 1981); Walter E. Stephens, “The Etruscans and the Ancient Theology in Annius of Viterbo,” in Umanesimo a Roma nel Quattrocento: atti del Convegno su umanesimo a Roma nel Quattrocento, New York, 1–4 dicembre 1981, ed. Paolo Brezzi and Maristella de Panizza Lorch (Rome: Istituto di studi romani, 1984), 309–22; Giants in Those Days: Folklore, Ancient History, and Nationalism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989). For an effort to investigate anew the connections suggested by Giambullari, see S. J. Bastomsky, “Noah, Italy, and the Sea-Peoples,” The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser. 67, no. 2/3 (1976–1977): 146–53. 21 Amanda L. Collins, “Renaissance Epigraphy and Its Legitimating Potential: Annius of Viterbo, Etruscan Inscriptions, and the Origins of Civilization,” in The Afterlife of Inscriptions, ed. Alison Cooley (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2000), 57–76; Roberto Weiss, “An Unknown Epigraphic Tract by Annius of Viterbo,” in Italian Studies Presented to E. R. Vincent, ed. C.P. Brand, K. Foster, and U. Limentani (Cambridge: Heffer, 1962), 101–20. 20

Received Traditions

regional cultures, such as Isis and Hercules, also fit into the multiple human generations described in Annius’s narratives. Annius’s home town, Viterbo, became in his text the center from which had radiated the re-establishment of human culture, and especially of the learning that was associated with classical antiquity in Annius’s own day. These very early people had been the ancestors of the area’s ancient population, the Etruscans. Thus, the Etruscans, not the Greeks, were the ancient sources of knowledge and culture. Annius may have invented his documents, but the similarities to Villani’s story show clearly that he did not invent the tradition of an Italian connection with the biblical Flood and Noah, nor the identification of these biblical figures with classical divinities and heroes. Neither was Villani alone among his antecedents; on the contrary, he was in good company. Many medieval authors had integrated the Flood into regional historical accounts, and a number of these accounts had brought Noah himself to Italy as well. The Florentine Chronica included some components of the story; the author mentions the tower of Babel and the division of the world into three parts among Noah’s sons. Europe’s first king and queen were Athalans and Alletra, as they were for Villani, and their advisor was Apollo; it was he who chose the spot for Fiesole.22 Florentine readers of Annius would have found his narrative consistent not only with Villani, but also with other early narratives. Noah seems to have contributed to the medieval efforts to identify Florence with Rome, for he also figured in some of the era’s Roman chronicles. The Noah story had appeared already in the Graphia aurea urbis Romae, a compiled text closely linked to the better known Mirabilia urbis Romae and assembled in the twelfth century. Its first section, often referred to as Historia Romana a Noe usque ad Romulum, was probably written by a Petrus Diaconus at Montecassino23 In this narrative, after his descendants build the Tower of Babel, Noah sails with his sons to Italy Alvisi, Il libro delle origini di Fiesole e di Firenze, text 1, lines 1–64. In this redaction, Florus and Metellus, sent to Fiesole in the Catiline wars, were consuls, “consules Romanorum,” lines 305–6. 23 H. Bloch, “Der Autor der ‘Graphia aureae urbis Romae’,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 40 (1984): 55–175; Jacks, Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity, 64; Eva Matthews Sanford, “The Study of Ancient History in the Middle Ages,” Journal of the History of Ideas 5, no. 1 (1944): 21–43, at 35; Arturo Graf, Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginazioni del medioevo, con un’appendice sulla leggenda di Gog e Magog (Turin: Ermanno Loesche, 1915), 43–51, 63–71. 22

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and up the Tiber (just as he did in Annius’s account), founds a city, and dies. His son Janus, along with Janus son of Japheth and a local named Camese, founds the city Janiculum. Then Nimrod arrives, who is equated with Saturn, and founds another city. So too does Hercules, along with several others; these various cities are later united into Rome. The otherwise unattested Hescodius is cited as an authority; Villani also referred to him for this section of his own history.24 The circulation and readership of the Graphia aurea are uncertain. Few manuscripts survive. But it is hardly the story’s only source; it was repeated with varying levels of detail in the writings of a number of later authors, in many cases with wide circulation: Godfrey of Viterbo (twelfth century), Martinus Polonus (or Martin of Troppau, d. 1279), Galvano Fiamma (ca. 1344), Giovanni Cavallini de Cerronibus (1340s). A number of additional texts made use of their writings in turn. Jacobus de Voragine had also identified Noah with Janus, and made him founder of Genoa.25 Piacenza’s foundations could be traced back to Janus’s grandson Eridanus, according to Giovanni de’ Musi at the end of the fourteenth century.26 Annius’s treatment differed especially from these precedents in the scale of his narrative. Earlier versions of the Noah story had served mainly as a relatively brief introduction to the work’s main narrative. Annius, by contrast, devoted the better part of his large book to these years. His use of the Latin text-and-commentary format gave the work an appearance of traditional scholarly respectability. He included features designed to convince a wide range of readers. To do so he took advantage of a whole range of trends and tendencies that had not been available to the medieval authors but were current with the scholarship of the late fifteenth century. The claims to have discovered ancient texts and inscriptions appealed to those who were humanistically inclined, even as the ongoing discoveries of genuine ancient sources by his contemporaries helped make his own claims plausible. Flavius Josephus, already in print before Annius, had Villani, Nuova cronica, 1.5, 0. C. J. Verduin has suggested that Hescodius or Escodius, widely attested in texts that make use of this Noah narrative, may be a corruption of Hestiæus in the Latin version of Josephus. Verduin, “Looking for Jonitus,” www.leidenuniv.nl/fsw/verduin/jonitus/jonitus.htm#VI3. 25 Stephens, Giants in Those Days, 109; Jacks, Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity, 62; Eric W. Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 61–62, 74, 101; Bloch, “Der Autor der ‘Graphia aureae urbis Romae,’” 60. 26 Cochrane, Historians and Historiography, 101. 24

Received Traditions

discussed Berosus; his works provided Annius with one of his principal “authors,” along with data and, perhaps most importantly, the interest in downplaying the Greeks. Other ancient authors such as Diodorus Siculus provided additional context and background. Annius’s use of a wide range of source types, along with his efforts to compare, assess, and integrate them, suggested to many readers ways of approaching and interpreting the remains of the past. He relied less on historians than on antiquarians, geographers, and poets, and harmonized ancient narratives with biblical ones. He integrated manuscript textual sources with other materials such as place names, linguistic evidence, and inscriptions, though in fact his forged inscriptions were sufficiently textlike that they were less difficult to manage than the real ones that were beginning to engage his colleagues.27 The work’s geographic specificity and regional detail, especially for central Italy, were also important to many readers. Both Giambullari and Gelli would follow his lead. Many of the sources Annius used were also available to his readers. To Annius they had provided material; to his readers, they offered precedents that gave his narratives context and plausibility. Marin Sanudo, writing in the 1480s about the same time as Annius, found such stories plausible; he referred to the founding of Verona by Noah’s son Shem. Giambullari consulted at least some of these manuscripts.28 Some of his narrative and figures, such as Isis and Hermes, sounded familiar to those interested in prisca theologia, ancient religious teachings based on divine inspiration that echoed biblical revelation. Thus his writings had attracted the attention of some notable scholars in Florence and elsewhere, among them Giles of Viterbo, who were interested in this field developed by Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola.29 Nonetheless, Annius’s anti-Greek sensibility caused him to remove from the story the familiar Greek figures

Ligota, “Annius of Viterbo and Historical Method,” 46, 52–54. References to the locations of specific manuscripts of these texts appear only occasionally; Cavallini states that he used a copy of the Graphia aurea at Santa Maria Nuova (Santa Francesca Romagna). Giovanni Cavallini, Polistoria 6.20, in Marc Laureys, “An Edition and Study of Giovanni Cavallini’s Polistoria de virtutibus et dotibus Romanorum” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1992), 448; see Jacks, Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity, 64, 291 n. 249. Giambullari states that he used a brief “Cronichetta latina” of Florence in the Medici collection; Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Origine della lingva fiorentina altrimenti Il Gello (Florence: Torrentino, 1549), 163. 29 Cipriani, Il mito etrusco nel Rinascimento fiorentino, 53–55. 27

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promoted by Ficino or Pico,30 though their writings had been the source of many of the Egyptian references in the Antiquitates.31 Nonetheless, they were not universally accepted. Giorgio Merula rejected connections between Noah and Milan.32 And decades earlier, Bruni had not even bothered to dignify the medieval Florentine stories with a refutation. Fascination with the Etruscans had been building for some time. By the middle of the fifteenth century, Italians, especially those living in former Etruscan regions, had begun to take an interest in Etruscan artifacts for their aesthetic value. Leon Battista Alberti had praised the Etruscans both as painters and as architects.33 Lorenzo de’ Medici’s efforts at collecting antiquities had included Etruscan vases and other artifacts. Giovanni de’ Medici, the future Leo X, participated in excavations in Arezzo in 1492, the same year that Annius staged some of his own archeological discoveries.34 Annius’s new sources claimed to present the earliest Etruscans from their own point of view. It was not immediately obvious to many readers that the new narratives had points in common with those Roman accounts, or with the medieval ones, only because Annius had used them in composing the supposed ancient sources themselves.35

Gelli and Giambullari on Florentine Origins Gelli took Annius’s book as the basis for his own effort at rewriting the early history of Florence. He completed this work by early 1544 and dedicated it to Cosimo.36 Apparently it was published at about that time, since Stephens, “The Etruscans and the Ancient Theology in Annius of Viterbo,” 309–22. Stephens, Giants in Those Days, 105. 32 Cochrane, Historians and Historiography, 81, 114–15. 33 Cipriani, Il mito etrusco nel Rinascimento fiorentino, 16–17; Leon Battista Alberti, Della pittura (Florence: Sansoni, 1950), 78; L’architettura: De re aedificatoria (Milan: Il Polifilo, 1966), 2.6.3, 455–57. 34 Cipriani, Il mito etrusco nel Rinascimento fiorentino, 28–32, 48. 35 Early attacks on Annius include: Pietro Crinito, De honesta disciplina (Florence: Filippo Giunti, 1504); Sebastian Münster, on whom Giambullari relied for his Hebrew and Chaldean references, was a supporter of Annius; see Don Cameron Allen, The Legend of Noah: Renaissance Rationalism in Art, Science, and Letters (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949), 116–17. On positive as well as negative responses to Annius, see Jacks, Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity, 69–74; Grafton, Forgers and Critics; “Traditions of Invention and Inventions of Tradition in Renaissance Italy: Annius of Viterbo,” in Defenders of the Text: the Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 76–103. 36 Alessandro d’Alessandro, “Giambattista Gelli, Dell’origine di Firenze, introduzione, testo inedito e note,” Atti dell’Accademia Toscana di scienze e lettere 44 (1979): 30 31

Gelli and Giambullari on Florentine Origins

there are a few sixteenth-century references to it as a printed book, but no published copies or detailed citations have survived. The preservation of a single manuscript copy has allowed nonetheless for a modern edition. The work begins with an allusion to Poliziano’s discoveries and conclusions on the founding of Florence; it would seem that they had established a new consensus. Further discoveries of previously lost authors, however, have shown that the city is much older than previously had been believed. Gelli proposes to present to the busy Cosimo this new information, accompanied by explanations as to why the relevant sources and the information they contain have remained so long unknown. He proposes, too, to identify his authorities clearly. In a classicizing invocation of authorial humility, he suggests that his social standing might not carry such authority on its own; there are some who claim that people who work with their hands, as he does, are ignorant. He plans to proceed simply and without artifice, “intending solely to write the genuine, naked truth itself on these matters.”37 Gelli’s main historical claim is that the city is older than the date given by Poliziano’s sources. For support he turns first to physical evidence: Florence’s baptistery. It was a common belief in Florence that its octagonal baptistery, whose facade included Roman columns and other classical elements, had been built originally as a Roman temple to Mars; Villani had discussed its construction as the best of the buildings erected by the city’s founders.38 Gelli does not challenge this belief; rather, he points out some elements of the building that imply that an older settlement had preceded it. Its columns and capitals do not match; clearly, they were taken from the ruins of older buildings, so there must have been buildings in Florence long before its construction. Further, one can see that the building was constructed for a street level much lower than that of the present. That also suggests great age, since floods would have deposited sediments over the years, gradually raising the level of the streets. 60–122, at 63. For a discussion of the work, see “Il mito dell’origine “aramea” di Firenze in un trattatello di Giambattista Gelli,” Archivio storico italiano 138, no. 505. disp. 3 (1980): 339–89. Michele Barbi argues from the manuscript evidence that the earliest composition date was 1542. Michele Barbi, Il Trattatello sull’origine di Firenze (Florence: Per nozze Gigliotti Michelagnoli, 1894, 13. On the work’s rapid disappearance, see Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 218; Cipriani, Il mito etrusco nel Rinascimento fiorentino, 83–87; Barbi, Il Trattatello sull’origine di Firenze, 6. 37 “… intendendo solamente a scrivere la propria nuda stessa verità delle cose …” d’Alessandro, “Giambattista Gelli, Dell’origine di Firenze,” 72. 38 Villani, Nuova cronica, 2.4, 68.

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Gelli then turns to ancient ruins in the city’s environs that earlier historians had remarked upon. Bruni had observed the remains of aqueducts. He had suggested that they showed how anxious the first Florentines had been to imitate Rome, since aqueducts were needed in Rome but not in Florence, which has plenty of spring water.39 Gelli asserts that these ruins are older than Bruni had thought. The aqueducts had been built at a time when the area was still swampy and therefore aqueducts really had been necessary, an era that he intends to describe later in the treatise. Records of these early times are lacking, he continues, because their construction all took place before the Greek and Latin languages existed, and those are the languages in which our surviving records were kept. The first inhabitants of Italy after the flood had not spoken Greek or Latin but Aramaic, either the language of Adam or a form that developed from it. Hebrew and Etruscan both developed from the common linguistic ancestor, Aramaic. The new narrative of Florence’s early years that Gelli offers comes straight from Annius. After the Flood, Noah (also known as Janus) and his family had repopulated Armenia, then set out to do likewise for the rest of the world. They built a small boat and while on the Mediterranean split up the world’s regions among Noah’s sons: Asia to Shem, Africa to Ham, and Europe to Japheth. When they reached land at the Tiber they moved north and founded Vetulonia, modern Viterbo. After a number of adventures, Noah taught them agriculture and other arts, then built the twelve Etruscan cities. Fiesole was the eleventh; at that time, the Arno valley, home of the future Florence, was still flooded and swampy.40 Hence the early need for the aqueducts. Several generations and further adventures later, the region suffered internal troubles, and Hercules came to set things right again. He pacified the region, then cut the pass for the Arno at Golfolina that allowed the valley to drain and become habitable.41 To mark his successful efforts he left his sign, the victorious lion, as emblem, and named the river Victorious Lion in Aramaic, that is, Arno. Hercules then built a city there, taking people both from Fiesole and Arignano. The lion, or marzocco, was familiar to Gelli’s readers as a medieval symbol for the Florentine republic. Gelli uses several devices to make his argument convincing. First, of course, are textual authorities. The support for this new account of Bruni, History of the Florentine People, 1.5, 12–13. d’Alessandro, “Giambattista Gelli, Dell’origine di Firenze,” 101–3. 41 Ibid., 117–18. 39

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Florentine history, he asserts, is the collection of sources discovered by Annius; they had not been integrated previously into histories of Florence. Gelli refers to them individually (Berosus in particular), as well as to Annius’s commentaries, throughout his treatise. He employs some the genuine sources Annius had also cited to give his own work some consistency with known ancient texts, such as the Bible, Josephus, and Pliny’s Natural History. Gelli also refers to some medieval and modern scholars whose works were available in print, such as Saxo Grammaticus,42 Johann Reuchlin,43 and Giovanni Boccaccio,44 and offers a few references to Dante as well. Next is the improvement to scholarship brought about by the rise of print. Neither Bruni nor Poggio Bracciolini had made any mention of the events Gelli discusses because they had not had access to the many sources that have recently become available thanks to printing.45 According to Gelli, one can now see more texts in far less time, and for far less money; scholars no longer needed to depend on wealthy patrons to procure expensive manuscripts as they once did. Further, he asserts, one apparent difficulty – the fact that the events described by Annius lack corroboration in a sufficient number of ancient sources – is actually consistent with their authenticity. Not only had the events in Annius taken place long before the composition of the sources previously known, but they even predated some of the cyclical losses of knowledge over time noted by Aristotle and others. Further, they had occurred before the very advent of Greek or Latin as languages, so it is hardly surprising that neither Greek nor Latin sources had mentioned them. He also resorts, like Annius, to a “Graecia mendax” argument; the lying Greeks had deliberately minimized references to the Etruscans in their own writings, so as to claim credit for their achievements. Gelli also follows Annius in his use of non-textual evidence, though for Gelli such evidence is secondary to the textual record. Most obvious, perhaps, is his discussion of architecture and archeology in the case of Florence’s baptistery, which he uses as evidence for the city’s extreme age; his briefer and more general reference to aqueducts serves a similar end. Saxo Grammaticus, Danorum Historiae libri XVI … (Basel: J. Oporinus, 1534). Johannes Reuchlin, De verbo mirifico (Basel: J. Amerbach, 1494). 44 Giovanni Boccaccio, Geneologie deorum gentilium (Venice: Vindelinus de Spira, 1472), and numerous subsequent additions by the mid-sixteenth century. 45 d’Alessandro, “Giambattista Gelli, Dell’origine di Firenze,” 80. 42

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He cites other evidence for age as well. They include the discovery of old watercourses for the Mugnone near the Strozzi houses and Santa Maria degli Ughi, as well as tombs uncovered in the construction of the Fortezza da Basso.46 Elsewhere, Gelli discusses the discovery of some gigantic bones in Florence near the church of San Michele delle Trombe in order to justify the claim that Noah and his clan had been giants.47 Gelli uses place names and their derivation to link the narratives to specifics that have persisted up to the present. He repeats, for example, the claim that Rome’s Janiculum hill was named for Janus/Noah and commemorated his presence. The derivations of place names lead him to a discussion of linguistic evidence more generally. He begins with the general observation that some languages bear similarities to others, languages change over time, and at times a language disappears completely from a region and is replaced by another. He asserts several times that Hebrew and modern Tuscan share a number of words; they also share some traits that Latin lacks. In neither language do nouns decline, for example.48 Gelli knew no Hebrew himself and depended on Giambullari for his examples, which Giambullari would repeat in greater detail in his own works. The linguistic connection is the goal toward which Gelli has directed his little work. Villani had suggested that the Arno valley had been the point of origin of epic events such as the foundation of Troy. What Florence gained in Gelli’s treatise was a past, a people, and an identity that were all distinct from both Romans and Greeks. The language of the Florentines, not their political state, was at the center of his narrative, though the political and linguistic developments remained closely connected. He concluded without discussing the implications of that claim. Giambullari took up the matter in his own, longer work, which quickly followed Gelli’s into print. Il Gello was published in 1546 and again, in a slightly revised version, in 1549.49 It combined his arguments about origins with a more general discussion of the language that he would continue to develop in his later writings (see Chapter 4). Giambullari made it clear from On the antiquities found when constructing the Fortezza, see ASF Carte Strozziane Ser. 1.95, fols. 18, 22. 47 d’Alessandro, “Giambattista Gelli, Dell’origine di Firenze,” 75–76, 110. 48 Ibid., 120. Other scholars made similar claims for other languages, for example German: Wolfgang Lazius, De gentium aliquot migrationibus … libri XII (Basel: Oporinus, 1557); Allen, Legend of Noah, 117–18. 49 Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Il Gello (Florence: Doni, 1546); Origine della lingua fiorentina. 46

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the outset that its focus was the origin of the Florentine language. He was even more direct in the second edition, amending the title: Origine della lingua fiorentina altrimenti Il Gello. Florentine, he argued, had its origins in Etruscan and has changed over time with the influence of other languages. Il Gello is a dialogue, but the author’s own voice begins the work. There are those who have asserted, he begins, that the Florentine language can be described as a corruption of Latin; this assault upon the language requires a defense.50 This work will show, he continues, that in fact most Florentine words have come not from Latin but from Etruscan, a language and people with a longer history than that of the Romans. This connection has remained unknown because an understanding of it requires knowledge of the surviving languages that are closest to it, Hebrew and Chaldean.51 Giambullari sets the dialogue in the cloisters of San Lorenzo. The interlocutors are Gelli, Giambullari (here Pierfrancesco), Carlo Lenzoni, and a foreign friend named Messer Curzio, who may be based on Benedetto Varchi.52 Giambullari acknowledges Gelli’s previous writings on the subject by giving him the lead role in the dialogue. The scene is set just after Curzio and Gelli had been at the baptistery, discussing the antiquity of that building as well as the city; the subject had expanded to include the origins of Etruria itself. Therefore, they have come to raise the matter with Pierfrancesco and Lenzoni, and the group repairs to the garden. They discuss sources on the biblical flood; when one asks about the many names assigned to Noah, the interlocutors question the authority of Annius: For it is believed by many that the Berosus in our hands today is entirely a fiction of Annius; what do you say about the work of the real Berosus? Gello said, “I do not want to pass judgment or render a definite opinion about so uncertain a thing; it is possible, since up to now it has not been found in his language, or at least in that of the Armenians, because Annius says he had had a copy from a Fra Giorgio the Armenian. But as you like, I am happy, in order to give the matter greater clarity, not to make more use of him to prove what you have requested, but rather of medals, tombs, words, and of some approved Greek and Latin authors.”53 Origine della lingua fiorentina, 6. Ibid., 7–8. 52 Lo Re, Politica e cultura, 295–319, at 319. 53 “Per ilche si crede per molti che Beroso che oggi è tra mano, sia piu tosto finzione dello Annio; che opera del vero Beroso; voi chene dite? Io non voglio disse il Gello, 50 51

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Giambullari thus lays out his main argument as well as the main impediment to his case. He wants to show that modern Tuscan should not be defined as a corruption of Latin, because Latin was not its origin; rather, it had descended instead from ancient Etruscan, which was itself related not to Latin but to Aramaic. To make this point he must build a persuasive argument about the early histories of these groups of people. Yet his primary supporting evidence, Annius’s Antiquitates, has come under attack. Therefore, he pledges to use sources other than Annius to convince his interlocutors and through them, his readers. Even after the publication of the first edition of Il Gello, Giambullari continued to search for that support. In the second edition’s dedication to Duke Cosimo, he claims that he has added more information thanks to the advice and assistance of his friends. The criticism of Annius by his fellow Florentines had clearly continued as well, for Giambullari alludes to them as malicious attacks made by self-important enemies.54 Annius and Berosus nonetheless make frequent appearances in Il Gello, along with the sections of Josephus on which Annius had relied; they are aided by the third-century author Gaius Julius Solinus, whose Polyhistor had been available in multiple printed editions since the 1470s.55 Giambullari strives to convince his readers that Annius’s narratives about Noah, the flood, and Etruria were historically accurate, and that ancient and biblical sources could be reconciled so that they could all serve as evidence. Thus like Gelli, Annius, and their medieval predecessors who had brought Saturn and Janus into the picture, Giambullari assumes a euhemerist reading of the classical traditions that will correspond with a historical reading of biblical ones; he tries to assign actual dates to the lives of these figures and to order them chronologically.56 He sopra una cosa tanto incerta far giudicio ne dar sentenzia diffinitiva: essendo egli pur’ possibile, che se bene sino qui, non si è ritrovato nella sua lingua, ò in quella almeno degli Armeni; poi che da un fra Giorgio Armeno dice l’Annio di averlo avvuto. Ma sia come si voglia, io son contento per farvene maggiore chiarezza non servirmi di lui altrimenti, à provare cio che voi chiedete: Ma de le Medaglie, de’ Sepolcri, de’Nomi, & di qualche autore approvato Greco & Latino.” Giambullari, Origine della lingua fiorentina, 24–25. 54 “… senza tenere altrimenti conto de’ maligni, ma freddi morsi, di chi non pregia se non se stesso …” Ibid., 3–4. 55 Caius Julius Solinus, Rerum memorabilium collectanee (Rome: Johannes Schurener, de Bopardia, 1474), and multiple subsequent editions. 56 See, for example, the chronology developed with the aid of Sebastian Münster: Giambullari, Origine della lingua fiorentina, 61.

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even observes that some people have claimed to have found the grave of Noah/Janus on the Janiculum.57 Giambullari constructs three overlapping arguments, each of which relies on somewhat different types of evidence. First, he wants to convince his readers that the ancient Etruscans who settled the region were the descendants of Noah, as described by Annius. Second, he wants to show that the ancient Etruscan language had been related to Hebrew by way of ancient Aramaic, and that therefore the growing number of Etruscan inscriptions might be deciphered and read, at least to some degree. Third, he wants to show that modern spoken Tuscan is not merely debased Latin; in fact, it had originated from different languages altogether, in particular from ancient Etruscan. Thus, he intertwines his discussion of the Noachic origins of the Etruscan people with passages on language and language history. For Hebrew and Aramaic he relies especially on the authority of Sebastian Münster, whose textbooks and dictionaries of those languages were widely accessible to readers across Europe. Giambullari cites Münster frequently by name not only for linguistic information about Hebrew and Aramaic, but also for background information, such as the lunar calendar. It is the interlocutor Gelli who actually asserts that the language spoken by Noah was Aramaic, a language that resembles the Hebrew, Chaldean, and Etruscan that developed from it. Attention then turns to Etruscan, and Curzio asks about the great number of modern words that, he has heard, have come from Etruscan.58 There is also a request to discuss the kings in Italy from Janus to Hercules. Giambullari relies mainly upon Annius, despite his earlier assertions that he would avoid doing so, but also cites the recent scholarship of Joannes Lucidus59 and he includes Villani as well; like Villani, he names Fiesole’s founding family as Atlas, Electra, and their son Dardanus.60 This dual narrative of people and language also gives occasion for explanations of the names of some ancient peoples. He begins with the Umbrians, descended from the ancient Gauls, in a passage “Ma che Iano sia veramente esso Noe, lo manifesta ancora il suo sepolcro, trovato (dicono) à Roma, nel monte Ianicolo, non è molti anni. Perche in quello, oltra la testa con due visi, & oltra la Nave; si vedeva intagliato una vite, con molti grappoli d’uve per conservare quanto piu si poteva, la memoria di tanto dono.” Ibid., 32. 58 Ibid., 53. 59 Johannes Lucidus, Opusculum de emendationibus temporum ab orbe … (Venice: Giunti, 1537); Giambullari, Origine della lingua fiorentina (1549), 54. 60 Origine della lingua fiorentina, 67–70. 57

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that exemplifies his method of comparing the languages. It also invokes yet another authority, the biblical scholar and translator Santi Pagnini: And Pliny in [Book] 3 states that the Umbrians were considered the most ancient people of Italia, as those whom the Greeks called Umbri for having proceeded from the “Imbri,” that is, from the rains and inundations of the flood. But whether they are children of the ancient Galli, or proceeded from the rains, it all the same. Oh, why? added M. Curzio. And Gello: Because these Galli are not the French but are those same fathers who saved themselves from the Flood. According to Annius, they have the ancient name Galli in Etruscan, Aramaic, and Hebrew. But you, Giambullari, what do you say about it? I say, I responded, that Gal, as can be seen in Santi Pagnini, means the sea wave because of its motion, and Galim in the plural, the waves; so it says in Isaiah 48, “and your justice che galim,” that is, like the waves of the sea. And our language says “stare o andare à galla,” to stay atop the waves. Galea is the name of a type of ship that stays almost hidden among the waves. Thus one can infer, said Gello, that the ancient Galli were those inundated by the flood, that is Noah and his sons, who saved themselves “à galla” upon the waves in their Ark. And the Umbri were their children, and so Solinus calls them. Pliny confirms it likewise, saying that the Umbri are the most ancient people of Italia, because they were truly its first inhabitants after the flood.61 61

“Anchora che nel 3. dica Plinio. Gli Umbri essere tenuti antichissima gente di Italia, come quelli che da’ Greci sono chiamati Umbri; per essere avanzati à gli Imbri; cioè alla piogge & inondazione del diluvio. Ma ò siano figliuoli degli antichi Galli, ò siano gli avanzati alle piogge, tutto torno. Oh perche? Soggiunse M. Curzio. Et il Gello. Perche que Galli, non sono i Francesi, ma sono quegli stessi padri che si salvarono da’l diluvio. Decendo l’Annio che i Galli sono cosi chiamati con antichissima voce Etrusca, Aramea, & Hebrea. Ma voi Giambullari che ne dite? Dico, qli risposi io, ghe GAL, come vedere si può in Santi Pagnino, significa l’onda marina, per lo aggiramento del moto suo * GALIM nel plurale, l’onde; dicendosi nel 48 di esaia, & la giustizia tua CHE GALIM, cioé come l’onde marine. Et di qui dice la nostra lingua, stare, ò andare à galla, il matenersi sopra a l’onde: et chiama Galea quella specie di nave, che stâ quasi ascosta tra l’onde. Puossi dunque inferire dise il Gello, che i Galli antichi fossero gli inondati, cioè Noè co figliuoli, che si salvarono à galla super l’onde, nella Arca del diluvio, Et che gli Umbri fosser i figliuol di costoro, poi che cosi gl chiama Solino. Il che medesimamente conferma Plinio, dicendo che gli Umbri sono la piu antica gente di Italia, Perche e’ furono veramente i primi abitanti di quella, dopo il diluvio.” Ibid., 55–56.

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Pierfrancesco continues by noting similarities of various kinds between Etruscan on the one hand, and Hebrew and Chaldean on the other. The fact that Etruscan was written right to left like Hebrew and Chaldean, he argues, attests to their close relationship; the Greeks and then the Latins learned to write from the Etruscans and developed their alphabets following the Etruscan model. He notes a number of recent finds of Etruscan inscriptions reported by Raffaele Maffei (Volterrano) and others to support his claim about Etruscan. Pierfrancesco acknowledges that all of these languages changed over time, becoming separate and distinct, and that the kinds of changes they underwent can be analyzed and compared; Hebrew and Chaldean were once the same, and still are very similar. As an example, he identifies Hebrew for “water” as maim, in Chaldean moim, and today in Volterra wells of salty water are referred to as “moie.”62 His explanation of how the words “Etruria” and “Etruscan” are related also demonstrates his approach to describing linguistic change. While r and s are not the same letter, he notes, the ancients often changed one for the other. So in Latin Valerius, Furius, decor, honor were once Valesius, Fusius, decos, honos. So for Etursia to have become Eturria is not surprising, nor the transposition of letters into Etruria. Not only Villani but also Roman and Greek writers have erred when they tried to explain place names from the region, he continues. They assumed, wrongly, that these place names were based in Latin or Greek words, whereas in fact, Tuscan place names came from Etruscan. He returns later to this point, noting that Villani’s etymology for Fiesole – “fia sola” – was not only incorrect, but was based erroneously on the assumption that its name came from Latin. Villani had simply reproduced the errors of his time; he should not be blamed, but neither should he be followed in this instance. Nor could Pliny’s claim that it came from “Fluentia” be taken seriously.63 The actual etymologies of these names might still be subject to speculation rather than certain knowledge, but the answers should be sought in Etruscan, not in Latin or even Greek. Giambullari also lists a number of grammatical similarities Aramaic (and Hebrew) have with modern Tuscan; for ease of comparison, he says, he will take most of his examples from Hebrew. For example: nouns decline in neither language; they lack comparative forms of adjectives Ibid., 92. Ibid., 124–25, 145–57.

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(except for a few in Tuscan), and even the superlative may be formed in practice by other means than altering the adjective itself; they lack gerund and supine.64 He presents an extensive list of Tuscan words with Aramaic roots; they begin with Ambasciata, Imbasciatore & ambasceria, from bascer, to announce,65 and proceed alphabetically. These similarities have not been noticed before, he says, because the recent composers of Aramaic and Hebrew dictionaries have been northern Europeans who had no knowledge of Tuscan. Nonetheless, despite all this discussion of ancient languages, these similarities are not the largest point of Giambullari’s dialogue. He does not believe that origins of Tuscan offer a single, simple key to its modern identity and nature. These similarities, important and interesting though they are, are insufficient to understand the modern Tuscan language. The language has continued to accumulate so many influences over time, he argues, that it is best understood as a composite: For it is a composite of various languages, and not just one. Thus (to speak of Florentine) it is composed of ancient Etruscan, of Greek, of Latin, of German, of French, and others similar to these, fabricated of necessity, enriched by convenience, and introduced by use, over a very long stretch of time …66

Giambullari offers examples of words introduced into the language from the contacts of Tuscans with each of these groups of people, right up through the Middle Ages. German words came in from the Goths or the time of the Goths, and also from later merchants and soldiers. French words were introduced via connections with the house of Anjou. The interlocutors agree that Tuscan certainly should not be considered a corruption of Latin, as others have claimed. Rather, it is a mix. Thus, Giambullari’s interest in Tuscan does not end with its origins, but continues up to the present. Giambullari turns to discuss the development of poetry. Here too, he moves from ancient origins to medieval developments. To support his Ibid., 110–16. Ibid., 117. 66 “Perche ella è un componimento di varie lingue, & non una sola. Con cio sia (per ragionare de la Fiorentina) che ella è composta, di Etrusco antico, di Greco, di Latino, di Todesco di Franzese, & di qualcuna altra simile à queste; fabricata dalla necessità, arricchita dal commodo, & introdotta dall’uso, per lunghissimo spazio di tempo …” Ibid., 109. 64 65

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arguments about the similarities between Tuscan and Hebrew poetic traditions he refers to Agostino Steuco, who had written in his proem to the Psalms that Hebrew verse, in its consideration of rhyme and number but not classical metrics, is not like Greek or Latin but rather like Tuscan.67 Then he turns to weigh in on a distinctly different scholarly debate about the rise of postclassical traditions. He hopes to show that the Tuscan poetic tradition was at least as old as Provencal poetry, and owed relatively little to Provencal in general. As examples of early influential poets Carlo mentions Agatone Drusi, whose poetry had recently received attention at the Sienese Accademia degli Intronati.68 Here Giambullari reveals some of the literary, as well as linguistic, consequences of his argument. He is building, though often by inference, a case that Tuscan poetry developed independently and should be evaluated according to its own standards. The language picked up some influences from both Latin and Provencal, but the poetic tradition was native to the language, not borrowed from either one. Giambullari would return to questions about the relationship between language and literature in his later writings. After a discussion of regional place names, Pierfrancesco also notes the scarcity of ancient sources on Florence and raises the question of travel narratives or similar accounts; one might have hoped to find a reference to the city in such sources. One reason these cannot be found for Florence, he argues, is the simple fact that Florence was not a port town, with people arriving constantly from other places. Such people have often written about the places they visit, but those sorts of records would not include Florence. Further, he continues, ancient Greek travelers would have found the ancient city unattractive due to the difference in language. He also suggests that an argument from silence does not make much of a case. If only written records can be used to prove that a city existed, then one might claim that because there are no extant Etruscan writings, then perhaps no Etruscan city ever existed; yet such a claim would be absurd. Not only are Etruscan texts lost, but many Roman ones have been lost as well; and besides, Roman authors may simply not have written about topics or places that were not of interest to them and that they did not appreciate.69 Giambullari accepts the Liber coloniarum discovered by Poliziano and its dating of the foundation of the city itself; the issue for him is what Ibid., 130; Agostino Steucho, Enarratio in Psalmos (Lyon: Gryphius, 1548). Giambullari, Origine della lingua fiorentina, 132–40. 69 Ibid., 160–61. 67

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preceded that era. There had been something on the site before that period, he suggests, but not much. Here he echoes Villani in claiming that there had been perhaps a villetta or little fortification. Thus, it is hardly surprising that there was no Roman mention of it until it began to serve as a location for settling military veterans, as in the Liber coloniarum. Giambullari concludes the work by examining some of the now-standard evidence for the Roman city of Florence: the baptistery; the passage in Pliny; and the equally well-known legend, recounted by Villani among others, that Charlemagne had refounded the city after an era of desolation. According to an anonymous Latin Cronichetta in the Medici library, Florence’s temple to Mars was built the same year as the death of the poet Horace, he notes. He relates the transition of the building from temple to baptistery in some detail, noting various changes and additions over time. Originally it had lacked its full roof, the pocket extension behind the altar, and its black and white facing. He discusses and dates the mosaics, and notes the use of architectural fragments that Gelli had remarked upon in his own treatise. Then he turns to the passage in Pliny that names the city’s inhabitants “Fluentini” (Historia Naturalis 3.5.8). Some cited it as evidence to claim that “Fluentia” was the city’s original name, which changed only later to “Florentia”; he had mentioned it earlier in the dialogue. He presents the manuscript evidence, arguing that the oldest extant manuscript, given to Leo X and kept in Florence, clearly shows “Florentia.” But why search in books, he continues, when Roman stones themselves show the same thing? Inscriptions found on the region’s statuary consistently denote a resident as “Florentinus.”70 Finally, he rejects the popular claim that Attila had destroyed the city and Charlemagne had rebuilt it.71 Attila had been confused with Totila the Ostrogothic king; Attila had never been to Florence. Nor had Totila destroyed the city, or it would have been mentioned by Procopius. Further, Regino of Prüm’s Carolingian-era chronicle has Charlemagne in Florence in 786 at Christmas time, which shows that the city was functioning then. Charlemagne may have helped adorn the city but he did not rebuild it, as it was not in need of rebuilding. The dialogue ends in support of these modern scholarly findings. Giambullari and Gelli have both constructed works in which language, not the political unit of the city, is at the center of the story. Yet, as Ibid., 167–68. Rubinstein, “Beginnings of Political Thought,” 215–16.

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these last sections of Il Gello show, they saw the two as closely connected. Giambullari argues that linguistic change arose due to the contacts with other peoples and their languages. But while “Florentine history” might still refer to the political history that had engaged Bruni and his colleagues, it could also mean the history of the Florentine language and the people who spoke it.

Supporters and Detractors Some Florentines supported the theories of Gelli and Giambullari about the Florentine language and the earliest Florentines, including a biblical scholar. The city’s Dominicans produced two Bible translators and scholars of Hebrew. One was Santi Pagnini (ca. 1470–1536), a former student and supporter of Savonarola. He had a distinguished career among the region’s Dominicans, at San Marco and elsewhere. After the death of Leo X he and a number of other reformers had moved to Lyon. There he published his Latin Bible, a scholarly landmark in its return to Hebrew and Greek originals.72 Pagnini had been the source of some of Giambullari’s Hebrew examples, though he was no longer alive at the time Giambullari and Gelli were writing.73 The other was Santi Marmochino (d. 1548).74 Marmochino, a native of San Casciano, was affiliated with Santa Maria Novella. In 1538 he published a translation of the Bible into Florentine, with a revised edition eight years later.75 He had plans to publish a number of other works as well; in the dedication of his Bible he offered a long list of them. They ranged from collections of sermons to works on geography, grammars of Latin and Greek, a theological summa, various moralizing texts, and chronicles both of the world and of Florence. Biblia: habes in hoc libro prudens lector vtriusque Instrumenti nouam translationem, ed. and trans. Sante Pagnini (Lyon: Francisci Turchi, & Dominici Berticinium Lucensium, & Iacobi de Giuntis, 1528). 73 On Pagnini, see Arjo Vanderjagt, “Ad fontes!” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: the History of Its Interpretation, ed. Magne Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 154–89, at 179, 180. On the date of his death, often given erroneously as 1541, see Edgar Wind, “Sante Pagnini and Michelangelo: A Study in the Succession of Savonarola,” Gazette des beaux-arts 26 (1947 as of 1944): 211–46, at 243. 74 On Marmochino, see L. Saracco, “Marmochino, Santi,” DBI. 75 La Bibia nvovamente tradotta dalla Hebraica verita in lingua thoscana, ed. and trans. Santi Marmochino (Venice: Giunti, 1538); La Bibbia tradotta in lingua Toscana, di lingua Hebrea, ed. and trans. Santi Marmochino (Venice: Giunti, 1546). 72

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He also noted his plans to publish a book on the origins of languages, in which he promised to discuss ancient Etruscan.76 That is probably a reference to his “Dialogo in defentione della lingua toschana”; it survives in a single undated Florentine manuscript.77 Marmochino acquired a reputation for expertise in matters Etruscan, and was known as a person to consult when new Etruscan inscriptions were found. He was active at least until 1547.78 The reference to his “Dialogue” in the 1538 Bible suggests that it was at least in the planning stages at that time. In its text he refers both to the Bible translation and the Accademia Fiorentina, so it seems to have been finished between that time and the publication of his revised translation in 1546; thus, it dates from about the same time as the first edition of Il Gello. The work supports Giambullari’s arguments and describes some of the ongoing debates it generated. Marmochino alludes to those debates in his dedication to Duke Cosimo and again in the introductory section of the work itself. The central issue was the relationship between modern Florentine and Latin. This problem could be resolved, asserts Marmochino, by understanding that Florentine did not derive from Latin but from Etruscan, which had come from Hebrew in turn. Thus he confirms that the main disagreement was the nature of the modern language. According to Marmochino, the members of Accademia Fiorentina were being attacked by a group of “Latini.” The latter asserted that Tuscan derived from Latin, which had been “Dell’origine delle lingue, dove sono molte cose della lingua Ethrusca antica.” Bibia, unpag. Ded. 77 Florence, BNC Magl. Classe 28.20. See Antonio Francesco Gori, Storia antiquaria etrusca: del principio e de’ progressi fatti finora nello studio sopra l’antichità etrusche scritte e figurate … : colla difesa dell’alfabeto degli antichi Toscani (Florence: n.p., 1749), xxxvi–xxxix. 78 For example, when Giovanni Francesco Lottini sent a copy of an inscription to Pier Francesco Riccio, one of Cosimo’s secretaries, he recommended consulting both Marmochino and classics professor Piero Vettori: “io rimando alla S. V. lo epitaffio con la littera del Buonamici; quello che si dica non so, nè credo saperlo. S. Ex. ha havuto molto piacer di vederlo et mi disse che io scrivessi a V. S. che ella lo facessi vedere a un certo frate chiamato il Marmochino del ordine di Santa Maria Novella et che non sta infra i frati et fa professione di intendere la lingua etrusca. V. S. lo debbi cognioscer perchè è quello che scrive anche storie et è da San Casciano. Se messer Pier Vettori fusse costì V. S. poterebbe veder se ne intendesse nulla o ci sapessi dir nulla, che invero S. Ex ne harà piacer grande […] V. S. alla quale bascio le mani preghandola che mentre che ella mostra lo epitaffio al Signor Piero che mi raccomandi a lui […] Giovanni Francesco Lottini, letter to Pier Francesco Riccio, October 12, 1547, ASF, Archivio Mediceo del Principato Part. 8, fol. 359. 76

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despoiled by “women, children, slaves, foreigners, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Lombards, French people, and other Ultramontanes.”79 He intends to show that the language had actually developed from Hebrew; thus, since Florentine and Latin are different languages, one cannot damage, or have damaged, the other. He hopes, he continues, to pacify the dissent with the proofs in this dialogue. The work has only two interlocutors: himself and a member of the Academy, “Santi” and “Accademico.” The latter’s role in the body of the dialogue is mainly to prompt the former into presenting information; the two remain in agreement, and the arguments presented echo those of Gelli and Giambullari. Marmochino identifies Etruscan as the third major ancient language on the Italian peninsula, the other two being Latin and Greek. Ancient Romans had recognized it as a language of significance. When they took Viterbo (formerly known as Etruria), he asserts, they made a formal agreement that the Etruscan residents were not required to switch to Latin. There were also colonies of Greek traders north of the Tiber, in Etruscan regions. Marmochino echoes Annius’s characterization of Greek dishonesty in claiming that while the Etruscans borrowed words from Greek as from Latin, they had no desire to mix with the Greeks themselves because their dishonorable lying had already been observed by the Romans. Marmochino acknowledges that not all modern scholars have agreed as to whether the earliest form of the language should be defined as Aramaic or Hebrew. He believes it was Hebrew and cites the Bible itself as evidence, in particular the first chapters of Genesis. The language was brought to Italy by Noah Janus, as recounted by Berosus. It is the most worthy of all languages and has more dignity than any other. God created the world in it, then took it away at the Tower of Babel; it will be restored in Paradise. It can also be seen as the most natural language in that unlike Greek and Latin, nouns do not decline through various cases. Later he clarifies this point by explaining a noun signifies a substance, which according to Aristotle is invariable.80 The body of the dialogue goes point by point through fourteen similarities between Hebrew and Tuscan. Most use modern Tuscan as the comparison. The first point, which constitutes the largest single part of the dialogue, recalls Marmochino’s own research into Etruscan “… donne, fanciulli, servi, e strani, Ostrigoti, Vusigoti, Longobardi Franzesi e altri oltramontani.” Marmochino, “Dialogo,” fol. 1r, 2r. 80 Marmochino, “Dialogo,” 3 r–v, 32r. 79

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antiquities. Both languages are written right to left, as opposed to Latin and Greek. In this regard Etruscan and Hebrew move in the same direction as the Empyrean sphere, whereas Greek and Latin move in the direction of the planets. The former thus moves in the same direction as God toward creation, appropriate for God’s word communicated to created beings in the Bible; Latin and Greek move as from the created beings toward God. These various languages, then, represent in their written forms the dual routes of communication between human and divine. In order to resolve any potential doubts about whether the letters being discussed are genuinely Etruscan, Marmochino describes fourteen Etruscan discoveries that included inscriptions. Some are single objects or small finds, such as two tablets found at Volterra or a statue discovered in his home town of San Casciano. Others finds are much larger, notably the Annian discovery of four tombs near Viterbo. Here Marmochino reproduces the full texts of the inscriptions found at the site along with Annius’s translations. Another is the discovery of the Iguvine Tables (later recognized as Umbrian, not Etruscan); he describes his being called in as an expert to interpret them. The diversity and large number of finds over time, in a number of Tuscan locations, attests to their validity; so too do the opinions of experts, those of Annius and himself but also of others. The linguistic similarities he identifies between Hebrew and Tuscan resemble those made by Giambullari, though many particular examples are different. They suggest some commonality of effort. Marmochino, then, agreed with Giambullari: both biblical scholarship and the study of local antiquities supported the arguments that Tuscan merited study as its own language in its own terms. Some contemporary Jewish scholars also found plausible the claims about Noah as well as the Etruscan language. In his 1573 work The Light of the Eyes, Azariah de’ Rossi repeated Annius’s assertion that Noah/ Janus had founded Arezzo. He referred to Il Gello and repeated some of Giambullari’s lexical comparisons between Tuscan and Hebrew;81 he alluded to his own use of these etymologies in other settings as well. Further, he referred to a now-lost work by David Provenzali that listed some 2,000 Hebrew words adopted into Greek as well as Italian.82 Earlier Azariah ben Moses dei Rossi and Joanna Weinberg, The Light of the Eyes (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 676–77. 82 Ibid., 677. 81

Supporters and Detractors

in the century Leone Ebreo, author of Dialoghi d’amore, had described Noah as also named Janus and often depicted with two faces83 Duke Cosimo had taken an interest in their scholarship from its early stages.84 Gelli and Giambullari kept him informed of their findings. Surviving exchanges point to their ongoing communications. Gelli observes in an undated letter to Cosimo that “every day things are discovered that give credence to the truth of the opinion on the origins of about which we have written Your Excellency.”85 He was forwarding Cosimo a report by Giambullari (now missing from the letter) on the origin of the word “marzocco,” the seated lion that was the emblem of Florence’s popolo. The term was unique to the region, they argued; it was used only by Florence and its dependencies, they argued. Its persistence shows the city’s ancient connection with Hercules Libius.86 Cosimo, in Pisa, had his representatives convey his interest back to them.87 The example did in fact appear in Il Gello.88 Indeed, Cosimo’s public support had predated by several years the composition and circulation of these works. This celebration of Etruscan heritage had been incorporated into the festivities that marked his wedding with Eleonora di Toledo in 1539.89 Giambullari had been involved in the planning. He then published an account of the celebrations in a small Leon Ebreo, Dialoghi d’amore, ed. Santino Caramella (Bari: Laterza, 1929), 248; composed ca. 1501–1502, f.p. Rome, 1535. 84 Cipriani, Il mito etrusco nel Rinascimento fiorentino, 78–112. 85 “E’si scuopron tutto il giorno cose le quali fanno fede che quella opinione che noi abbiamo scritta a V. Ecc.ia della origine di Firenze, sia vera.” BNCF, Autogr. Pal. II. n. 72, in Barbi, Il Trattatello sull’origine di Firenze, 6–7. 86 Michel Plaisance, “Culture et politique a Florence de 1542 a 1551: Lasca et les ‘Humidi’ aux prises avec l’Académie Florentine,” in Les écrivans et le pouvoir en Italie à l’époque de la Renaissance, ed. André Rochon (Paris: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1974), 149–242, at 178. 87 ASF, Mediceo del Principato 1171, fol. 20, letter from Marzio di Girolamo Marzi Medici to Pier Francesco Riccio, February 12, 1544: “… Sarà con questa una lettera del Gello dentrovi una del Giambullari per difinitione del nome Marzoccho. S. Ecc. tia m’ha comandato la mandi a V. S. R. perchè lei la facci scrivere in quell’operetta del Gello, et a lui dirà che S. Ecc.tia l’ha havuta chara et quanto habbi commesso …” 88 Giambullari, Origine della lingua fiorentina, 156–57. 89 Andrew C. Minor and Bonner Mitchell, eds., A Renaissance Entertainment: Festivities for the Marriage of Cosimo I, Duke of Florence, in 1539: An Edition of the Music, Poetry, Comedy, and Descriptive Account, with Commentary (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1968); Alois Maria Nagler, Theatre Festivals of the Medici, 1539–1637 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964). 83

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book, an early example of the volumes that began to proliferate in these years describing and commemorating official celebrations of all sorts.90 The initial ceremony was held in Naples, where Eleonora’s father, Don Pedro de Toledo, was viceroy; Cosimo sent proxies.91 The Tuscan public events, in June and July of 1539, began as soon as her ship landed in Livorno, where she was met by the archbishop of Pisa; Cosimo met her in Pisa, and their progress to Florence was marked by receptions in towns along their way. The bride and groom made a triumphal entrance into the city at the Porta al Prato, which featured a triumphal arch designed by Tribolo (Niccolò Pericoli), who did much of the decoration for the wedding. They stopped at the Duomo, then Piazza San Marco, with Tribolo’s new equestrian statue of Cosimo’s father Giovanni delle Bande Nere, and then went on to the Medici Palace. There guests enjoyed a banquet and allegorical Trionfo in the courtyard of the Palazzo Medici, followed by dancing. Three days later they reassembled to watch the performance of a comedy with intermezzi.92 The Palazzo’s entrance was ornamented with a gate featuring a number of imprese. Its courtyard held paintings of various Medici and Charles V as well as coats of arms, and many more mottoes. It was in this space that the ideas of Gelli and Giambullari found expression, beginning with the figure of Hercules in customary attire that was placed over the main stairway.93 They continued into the Trionfo itself. The performance began with Apollo, who invoked the muses one by one. They introduced the goddess Flora in turn, who was joined by the spirits of the Tuscan rivers. After their song, personified Tuscan cities appeared; they too offered their blessings upon the wedding. With their songs and costumes these figures presented to the wedding guests a vision of Tuscan history inspired by Gelli and Giambullari. Fiesole was introduced as a city built by Japheth, son of Noah.94 Volterra appeared in an elaborate costume that included a cap featuring a boat, on which appeared the two-headed figure of Janus. Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Apparato et feste nelle noze dello illustrissimo signor Duca di Firenze, et della Duchessa sua consorte: con le sue stanze, madriali, comedia, & intermedii, in quelle recitati (Florence: Guinti, 1539), rpt. Venice: Antonelli, 1854. 91 The proxies were Luigi Ridolfi and Jacopo dei Medici. Minor and Mitchell, Renaissance Entertainment, 17. 92 Nagler, Theatre Festivals, 5. 93 Giambullari, Apparato et feste nelle noze, 11. 94 “L’antica Fiesole è, che edificata /Fu da Iapeto del gran Noè figlio.” Giambullari, Apparate et feste nelle noze, 45; Minor and Mitchell, Renaissance Entertainment, 169. 90

Supporters and Detractors

Janus was announced as that city’s founder.95 Then Arezzo appeared, and Apollo’s introduction also mentioned the origins of that city; it had been named for Aretia, the wife of Noah/Janus, and founded by them both.96 This colorful group sang and danced to the honor of the wedding couple and the entertainment of the circle of special guests. The Trionfo thus featured a display of the very newest scholarship, though it could also be appreciated by those familiar with Villani. Gelli had presented his linguistic theories in other venues as well. In August 1541 he lectured in the Accademia Fiorentina on Paradiso 26 and the question of the language of Adam. Gelli argued that it was Chaldean; he made use of arguments similar to those he would develop more fully in his longer treatise.97 They also figured in a celebratory poem on the occasion of Cosimo’s official receipt of the title of duke in 1542: “Egloga per il felicissimo giorno 9 di gennaio nel quale lo Eccellentissimo Signor Cosimo fu fatto Duca di Firenze.” Here he emphasized the peaceful spread of modern Florentine in contrast to the violence used by the Romans in the spread of Latin. In December, Cosimo Bartoli referred to the theories about Chaldeans as the first inhabitants of Italy in one of his own lectures at the Accademia.98 Nonetheless, despite Marmochino’s claims that the members of the Accademia Fiorentina were of like mind on the subject; and despite Cosimo’s initial interest, these theories aroused more dissent and controversy than support in the city. Some opponents focused mainly on Annius’s publications; others attacked the ideas of Gelli and Giambullari more directly. Non-Florentines weighed in along with local scholars. Antonio Agustín (1517–1586) had visited Florence in 1541 to consult the manuscript there of the Digest of the Justinian Code, accompanied by collaborator Jean Matal.99 There they met fellow legal scholar Lelio Torelli (1489–1576), with whom they maintained a correspondence for several years. Agustín went on to publish his Emendationes on the Justinian Code Giambullari, Apparato et feste nelle noze, 52; Minor and Mitchell, Renaissance Entertainment, 186. 96 Giambullari, Apparato et feste nelle noze, 54. 97 D’Alessandro, “Il mito dell’origine ‘aramea’ di Firenze in un trattatello di Giambattista Gelli,” at 356–58. 98 Ibid., 356–64. 99 Lelio Torelli, Antonio Agustin, and Jean Matal, Correspondance de Lelio Torelli avec Antonio Agustin et Jean Matal (1542–1553), ed. Jean-Louis Ferrary (Como: Edizioni New Press, 1992), 13. 95

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(1543); ten years later Torelli (with his son Francesco) would publish, with Torrentino, the first edition of the Pandects. Agustín was also developing a long-term interest in antiquarian scholarship, which led to a number of publications that were influential for many years. Agustín and Matal knew Giambullari and his interests, and offered collegial assistance as he had no doubt enjoyed in Florence. In letters from Rome of May 1545, Matal asked both Torelli and Ansovino de’ Medici to inform Giambullari that Angelo Colodi had a manuscript of Frontinus’s De limitibus; while incomplete, it was nonetheless fuller than the copy in the Medici library at San Lorenzo.100 But he seems not to have shared Giambullari’s interest in things Etruscan, and was certainly among the critics of Annius and any arguments built on Annian evidence. Agustín referred to Annius in his work on medals and related antiquities, published posthumously as Dialoghi, and in a pirated version as Discorso.101 At one point he condemns a whole series of fabrications, beginning with inscriptions by Ciriaco of Ancona and continuing with the books of Berosus, of Metasthenes, and of Annius of Viterbo.102 Elsewhere he dismisses Annius’s suggestion that places with names beginning with T were founded by Tubal, and those beginning with N were founded by Noah.103 Thus Agustín alluded to the Florentine theories, though his main target was Annius’s writings themselves. He devoted his last dialogue to the subject of fraudulent medals and inscriptions. Annius figures prominently; Agustín says he was told by Latino Latini of Viterbo that Annius had made and then deliberately hidden one of his inscriptions at a site where excavations had been planned. He then brought one of his texts that claimed this was the site of an ancient temple, so that he could oversee the “discovery” and subsequent excavation, and interpret the findings.104 Annius belongs with Ciriaco of Ancona and other forgers and dissimulators, he argues. He interprets the efforts to promote the histories of Italian places with these forged antiquities as affronts to Spain, since it implies that their regions have no artifacts of similar antiquity. Ibid., 159–61, 247–49. Antonio Agostini, Dialoghi intorno alle medaglie inscrittioni et altre antichita. Tradotti di lingua spagnuola da D.O. Sada & dal medesimo accresciuti con annotationi (Rome: Stampatori Camerali, 1592). Pirate edition: Il discorso del S. Don Antonio Agostini sopra le medaglie et altre anticaglie ([Rome]: [n.p.], 1592). 102 Agostini, Dialoghi, 174. 103 Ibid., 224. 104 Ibid., 290–91. 100 101

Supporters and Detractors

More equivocal was the position of Guillaume Postel. Postel had developed his own ideas about the early Hebrew language earlier than had Gelli and Giambullari.105 He published his work on the Etruscans in Florence, with Torrentino’s press, and dedicated it to Cosimo.106 A few years later he dedicated a work to Gelli, Le prime nove dell’altro mondo.107 Giambullari seems to have been familiar with Postel’s De originibus seu de Hebraicæ linguæ & gentis antiquitate as well as his Linguarum duodecim characteribus differentium alphabetum.108 Postel too built his arguments upon the work of Annius. Yet both his philosophical approach and his larger goals were very different. A Christian cabalist, Postel believed in the importance of Adamic language in the transmission of divine truths. He followed Platonic interpretive principles in linking various fields of knowledge, revelation, and allegory. And he hoped to use this information about language in his efforts to promote religious unity and understanding.109 He did not share the interest of Gelli and Giambullari in modern Florentine. Thus, despite the number of points they had in common, the members of the Accademia Fiorentina did not identify with Postel, nor did he maintain much of a dialogue with them. Florentines themselves were more direct in their criticisms of Gelli and Giambullari. The issue divided the two men and their supporters from other members of the Accademia Fiorentina, who referred to them as “Aramei,” presumably in opposition to the “Latini” described by Marmochino. Elections to offices in the Academy were contested several times during these years; one party or another dominated the lectures. As Alfonso de’ Pazzi observed in a poem of 1545, “the Etruscans and the Varchists” were at war.110 Works of satire began to appear; in 1547 Girolamo Guillaume Postel, De originibus seu de Hebraicae linguae et gentis antiquitate … (Paris: Dionysius Lecuier, 1538). 106 Guillaume Postel, De Etruriae regionis quae prima in orbe Europaeo habitata est, originibus, institutis, religione & moribus, & imprimis de aurei saeculi doctrina et uita praestantissima quae in diuinationis sacrae usu posita est (Florence: Torrentino, 1551). 107 Guillaume Postel, Le prime nove del altro mondo: cioe, l’admirabile historia … intitulata La Vergine Venetiana (Venice: Appresso del auttore, 1559). 108 Guillaume Postel, Lingvarvm duodecim characteribvs differentivm alphabetvm, introdovctio (Paris: Dionysius Lesenier, 1538). 109 On Postel’s relationship to Gelli and Giambullari, see Paolo Simoncelli, La lingua di Adamo: Guillaume Postel tra accademici e fuoriusciti fiorentini (Florence: Olschki, 1984), esp. 44–45, 62–65. 110 Lo Re, Politica e cultura, 238. On the poetic responses of Lasca and Alfonso de’ Pazzi, see also De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli, 43–45. 105

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Amelonghi composed a carnivalesque epic, La Gigantea, on a battle between the gods and giants. According to Annius, Noah and his successors had been giants, and Amelonghi takes the giants’ names and history from Il Gello. He attacks in his dedication those pedantic scholars who are overly concerned with the minutiae of the modern language.111 Anton Francesco Grazzini, who was expelled from the Academy for a number of years, composed his own Guerra dei mostri, War of the Monsters, in 1548, in which Giambullari is caricatured as one of the monsters.112 He continued to lampoon them in other works, such as his “Lamento dell’Accademia degli Umidi.”113 Later, in 1578, Vincenzio Borghini reflected on these past events, declaring in a letter to Baccio Valori that the arguments had made him laugh.114 He continued in a second letter that Gelli’s book, tellingly, had disappeared completely: In reviewing and confirming some of my writings of a few years ago – I had written well about the shakiness of the position of these Aramei on the origin of Florence. I concluded that in the end that I would make people, or more quickly, time the judge, which is generally a real proof of the goodness of things; when they are easily lost, it is a sign that there was not much good there. Now since this book was so quickly lost, I turn out to have been a good prophet: those things were all silliness, and were recognized as such.115

Zanrè, Cultural Non-Conformity in Early Modern Florence, 87–100; Plaisance, “Culture et politique,” 194–97. 112 Zanrè, Cultural Non-Conformity in Early Modern Florence, 68–69; Plaisance, “Culture et politique,” 198–99. 113 Antonfrancesco Grazzini, “Lamento dell’Accademia degli Umidi,” in Anton Francesco Grazzini, Le rime burlesche edite e inedite (Florence 1882), 342ff; Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 215n. 114 “Il Gello scrisse già un trattatello dell’origine di Firenze, il quale vidi allora, e me ne risi, perché era tutto pien di baie Aramee …” Borghini, letter to Baccio Valori January 19, 1578; Barbi, Il Trattatello sull’origine di Firenze, 6. 115 “Nel riveder e fermare certi miei scritti di parecchi anni fa, avendo destramente discorso sopra la poca fermezza dell’opinione di questi Aramei dell’origine di Firenze, conchiusi finalmente, ch’io ne facea giudice il popolo o più presto il tempo, che suole esser vera pruova della bontà delle cose, che quando si lasciano agevolmente perdere, è segno, che vi era poco di buono. Or poiché questo libro si è cosí presto smarrito io sarò stato buon profeta che ell’eran tutte baie, e che per tali sarebbero cognosciute.” Borghini, letter to Valori, in ibid., 6. 111

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Valori had responded that the so-called fabric of their argument had rather been more of a spider’s web. Indeed, though the opinions of the Aramei may have seemed in the 1540s to be well established, they dispersed remarkably quickly. Giambullari turned to other subjects, both the writing of medieval history and the study of modern language. When Cosimo Bartoli gave Giambullari’s funeral oration to the Accademia Fiorentina in 1555, he praised these latter efforts but did not discuss Il Gello or its theories. Nor, despite his friendship, had he supported these positions beyond his early reference to their existence.116 The festivities at the next Medici wedding, that of Francesco to Giovanna of Austria in 1565, included no such references to Noah. Janus appeared in one setting, on a float in one of the parades on the theme of “the genealogy of the gods,” but as the simpler two-headed figure, not as the founder of Volterra with a biblical alter ego.117 Yet the arguments of Gelli and Giambullari – as well as Marmochino – cannot be dismissed so easily, as Borghini was able to do from a distance of decades. Their importance can be measured especially in the scholarship they inspired in the effort, eventually successful, to refute them. Indeed, that scholarship had included some by Borghini himself. In many ways, their work set the stage for Florentine studies for the next several decades. One result was to broaden historical scholarship; Florentine scholars sought increasingly both to study a broader range of topics about the past, and to enlist a wider range of sources of information. In rejecting a “Orazione di M. Cosimo Bartoli sopra la morte di Carlo Lenzoni Recitata nella Accademia Fiorentina,” in Carlo Lenzoni, In difesa della lingua Fiorentina, et di Dante con le regole da far bella et numerosa la prosa, ed. Pier Francesco Giambullari and Cosimo Bartoli (Florence: Torrentino, 1556), 205 ff; Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 218–19. 117 See Chapter 7. Contemporary descriptions include: Baccio Baldini, La mascherata della genealogia degl’iddei, Florence, 1565, ed. Jacopo Zucchi (New York: Garland, 1976); Domenico Mellini, Apparato per le nozze di Francesco I de’ Medici con Giovanna d’Austria (Livorno: G. Meucci, 1870); Descrizione dell’entrata della sereniss. reina Giouanna d’Austria: et dell’apparato, fatto in Firenze nella venuta … (Florence: Giunti, 1566). For a discussion of the various celebrations, see Nagler, Theatre Festivals, 13–35; see also Giovanna Gaeta Bertelà and Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, eds., Feste e apparati medicei da Cosimo I a Cosimo II Mostra di disegni e incisioni, Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi. Cataloghi, 31: Cataloghi (Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi) (Florence: Olschki, 1969). Minor and Mitchell, Renaissance Entertainment, 169. 116

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claim that modern Tuscans were the descendants of ancient Chaldeans, Florentines nonetheless began to consider seriously how to think about groups of people and their pasts, particularly Florentines, and not just the political units of which they were composed. If their claims about language change seemed flimsy, their detractors needed to find ways to build arguments of their own that had greater substance. The reliance of Gelli, Giambullari, and their colleagues on Annius of Viterbo is evident, and to many modern readers it has proved the greatest barrier to serious consideration of their work, as it did for Borghini. Annius’s work came under attack almost at once; yet nonetheless it also found strong advocates all across Europe throughout the first half of the century, and in some places much longer. Modern scholars have often resorted to extra-rational factors to account for that advocacy. Yet in the context of the abundant medieval sources that placed Noah in Italy, the core of Annius’s narrative seems less unexpected and its acceptance by some less irrational. Those medieval sources that Bruni and his colleagues rejected included nearly all the references available to Florence and Tuscany in very early times; neither Roman nor Greek sources offered alternative information. Annius’s sources seemed to corroborate these earlier accounts. Thus his publication did much more than bring “Berosus” into the repertoire of useable historical sources; it also had the effect of re-introducing Malispini, Villani, the anonymous Cronichetta, and other texts that Bruni and his colleagues had rejected as dubious. Biblical scholarship also seemed to suggest that there was linguistic evidence that connected these ancient peoples into a coherent past. Annius’s work also held appeal for insight it seemed to offer in how one might use the broader range of evidence for studying the past that had begun to engage these scholars. That breadth was not restricted to those texts and artifacts he invented himself.118 He suggested that comparative mythology might have a place in studies of the past. He relied upon material culture of whatever sort was available: inscriptions, coins, ruins large and small, the discovery of statuary and other artifacts. The Florentines followed him into this expanded realm of research in which every sort relic from the past, including the immaterial traces of ancient words in modern languages, might be brought to bear. Indeed, since unlike histories, these were not the works of a single author who might have chosen to dissemble, they might bear more reliable witness. Ligota, “Annius of Viterbo and Historical Method.”

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With that greater breadth would come a new set of methodological problems. One was the basic test of plausibility or verisimilitude. The addition of more information about the past helped produce a fuller context against which new data might be tested. In the case of the Galli, for example, Giambullari worked to show that evidence ranging from ancient names for peoples to lines from the Bible to modern names for ships all pointed in similar directions. Yet it quickly became clear that not everyone shared a similar sense or standard of plausibility. To many, the Noachic narrative seemed fantastic. Yet such a story, one that Bruni had dismissed as myth or that could cause Grazzini to take up his pen in satire, was apparently credible to Giambullari or Marmochino. To Bruni, in order for a past event to be plausible it had to be consistent with a body of established Latin and Greek sources. Just which sources – and which kinds of sources – might be added to that body would require justification and consensus. Closely related were the issues of how to interpret non-textual sources. Giambullari raised the problem of construing too much from textual silence; it was certainly absurd to suggest that if no texts could be found that mentioned Florence at a given point in time, it therefore did not exist at that time. But the discovery of artifacts both with and without apparent textual corroboration each presented problems. How should one understand the significance of the aqueducts in the countryside? When ancient ruins were discovered, how did one decide if they belonged to the “Villa Camarte” of Villani and others and hence proved its existence, or if they suggested instead that the site had been something quite different and this evidence showed that the villa was only a legend? If Gelli’s detractors wished to disprove his case, they needed to develop more consistent ways of interpreting these new kinds of evidence. To identify and establish such norms would be a vital next step in the efforts to study the past of Florence or of other regions. Giambullari and Gelli tended to test for verisimilitude based on the specific case of Florence. An important task of antiquarian scholarship would be to expand such a local knowledge base so that scholars could work in a more comparative way. Borghini would try to identify a common course of development for Roman colonial cities in general, for example. That offered a more substantial way to evaluate what was plausible or “verosimile” in interpreting new findings or making sense of fragmentary Florentine evidence. In Florence, unlike Rome, no ancient texts mentioned any particular buildings or other structures that could be compared with surviving ruins; thus Florentine scholars felt this problem especially acutely.

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Inscriptions combined the specificity and detail of written sources with the direct communication of artifacts. Agustín noted that even though the actual inscription was carved by an artisan rather than an author, the artisan did so under supervision and approval, so that it spoke directly from the past. Manuscripts, conversely, had been recopied through the ages, so almost all extant copies were many years and many hands removed from their authors: time has consumed the parchment or wax on which their words were written or formed. But the stones, and bronze tablets, and the medals of silver and other metals are still in existence, and those very ones, not copies of other copies but rather the very originals of their words.119

Yet this apparently solid evidence was too often tainted with forgery. Agustín knew that Annius had been in good company. He discussed cases of ancient stones to which modern inscriptions had been added; so too he criticized those authors and publishers of collections of medals and inscriptions who had filled out their books with examples of their own invention, for which real exemplars never would be found. Among the perpetrators of such deceptions he included Paolo Manuzio, who published a work on Latin orthography that included both false and true examples.120 The continuing and improving study of artifacts hardly ended the production of forged objects, but did improve the ability of scholars to detect them; then again, it might also improve the skills of new forgers.121 New finds with Florentine relevance would be subject to continued scrutiny and debate. Even as Florentines worked to construct genuinely coherent contexts, Annian threads were not always easy to remove because to some, at least, they seemed part of the fabric. When Borghini wrote his comments about Gelli to Valori, more than thirty years after the publication of Il “& le carte pecore, o le cere, dove le loro parole furono scritte o formate, il tempo l’hà consumate, ma le pietre, e tavole di rame, & le medaglie d’argento & di altro metallo sono ancora in essere, & quell’istesse, & non sono essempi d’altri essempi, anzi gli stessi originali delle loro parole.” Agostini, Dialoghi, 245. 120 Aldo Manuzio, Orthographiae ratio ab Aldo Manutio Paulli F. collecta ex libris antiquis grammaticis etymologia Graeca consuetudine, nummis ueteribus tabulis aereis lapidibus … (Venice: Manuzio, 1561). 121 On forgeries and their detection, those of Annius and of others, see Grafton, Forgers and Critics; Paul Baines, “‘Our Annius’: Antiquaries and Fraud in the Eighteenth Century,” British Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies 20, no. 1 (1997): 33–51. 119

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Gello, Borghini was at work on several writing projects that he undertook to defend his own presentation of the Florentine past at the wedding of Cosimo’s son and heir, Francesco (see Chapter 7). Those attacks too would rely on writings and inscriptions published by Annius, this time about postclassical Tuscany. Their refutation had the happy effect of producing innovative research on the medieval city and region on topics that ranged from the minting of money to the origin of family crests. Nonetheless, for Gelli, Giambullari, and many of their colleagues in the Accademia Fiorentina, the heart of their interest was the Florentine language. Those who wished to refute their arguments would need to build more successful and convincing tools for studying language and its history. Even as Giambullari criticized the etymologies of his predecessors, such as “fia sola,” his own choices seemed arbitrary to many readers. Although he may have inspired further study of place names, the more general concern was how to think about the development of language and the connections between languages. At issue was not simply whether modern Florentine had really descended from Etruscan, but also how to make sense of connections like those that Giambullari had noted between volgare and French or Provencal. Florentines agreed that languages changed over time, and that many alternate forms of the same word existed contemporaneously among, and sometimes within, modern dialects; yet they lacked a consensus on plausible descriptions of such changes. Some Florentines found it reasonable to argue that “Fluentini” could change to “Florentini” over the course of a few centuries; others did not. Increasing numbers of Florentines, including Gelli and Giambullari themselves, turned to the task of describing and defining such patterns and changes. They could draw on a well-established and highly valued tradition of humanistic textual criticism developed in the previous century for the study of ancient languages, from Bruni to Poliziano and beyond. These tools would turn out to be equally effective in studying modern languages. The mingling of Egyptian figures such as Isis and Osiris with biblical ones and the various gods and heroes of Greek and Roman pantheons, recalls another Florentine legacy, that of Platonic thought. Annius had drawn from this tradition both for some of his inspiration and his audience. According to Annius, some of the secret knowledge transmitted to humankind by figures such as Isis might be as mundane as the baking of bread; but he left room for readers to infer much more. Yet Florentine scholars did not follow that path. To Gelli or Giambullari, figures such

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as Hermes or Osiris were historical figures, credited with importance but not with prophetic powers; they transmitted learning and culture, but not hidden knowledge or secret wisdom.122 So too, Marmochino might have developed his arguments about Hebrew and the Creation in the direction of Cabala or of emanationism, but he did not. There is no discussion of divine truths in names, hidden or manifest; he limits himself to noting that there are two paths to understanding God, one that proceeds from God’s biblical word and the other from His created beings. The etymologies of these scholars might seem far-fetched but they supposedly stem from historical events rather than revealing universal truth. The approach of their contemporary Guillaume Postel stands in strong contrast; Postel remained largely outside this circle of scholarship and debate. Florentine scholarship on Florence remained distinct from religious or contemplative thought. The “Aramei” had sought in their studies of Etruscan not only an ancient heritage for their modern language, but also an independence from Latin norms. Those interests would continue in the decades that followed. Gelli and Giambullari would turn, like their colleagues, to the study of Florentine that could be documented in text and speech. These studies would prove more effective in defining and distinguishing a Florentine identity, even as they would offer general tools for studying peoples and languages. Modern scholars have sometimes assumed that Gelli and Giambullari were Platonists. See for example Cesare Vasoli, “Considerazioni sull’Accademia Fiorentina,” Revue des Etudes italiennes 25, no. 1–3 (1979): 41–73; “Considerazioni sull’Accademia fiorentina,” in La Nascita della Toscana: Dal convegno di studi per il IV centenario della morte di Cosimo I de’ Medici (Florence: Olschki, 1980), 73–104.

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I

      nterest

in the Florentine past was not confined to a search for the origins. Nor, in the middle decades of the sixteenth century, was it limited to a few scholars. Men of letters with high profiles were known to be at work on histories of the era, from Benedetto Varchi with his Medicean stipend to Jacopo Nardi writing in exile. The writings of earlier historians remained in demand, including Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, and Niccolò Machiavelli; Francesco Guicciardini’s history, after many delays, finally appeared as well. Even out of towners, notably Paolo Giovio, came to Florence to publish their works. Florentines were avid consumers of historical writings as readers and collectors. A surprisingly large number were also producers. History writing in Florence was a well-established and respected literary practice. To record and reflect on the events of the times had been seen as a worthy occupation for learned leisure since the age of Villani. Florentines had long kept diaries that focused especially on public events; the practice was already notable by the tumultuous years of the 1490s. Some authors edited and published them as histories of their time; others allowed them to circulate in manuscript. Still others remained private and unfinished. Florentines also maintained a lively interest in their more distant past. Medieval chronicles and their authors began to receive increasingly serious attention both for their content and for their language and style. Editors in Florence and beyond celebrated Villani, Malispini, and others as authors worthy of attention similar to that given to classical authors. Like ancient works of art, they asserted, these texts deserved thoughtful restoration and display. A number of Florentines wrote new works of medieval history. In an era in which the city was working to extricate itself from the control of the Holy Roman Emperor and the papacy, both       city’s

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readers and writers naturally wanted to know more about such conflicts in centuries gone by. This large number of writers led to sharpened attention to documentable accuracy in writing new works and criticizing those of others. References to city records, to correspondence, and other documentary evidence, often with extensive quotations, became ever more important in their writings. Some devoted more attention to causal explanations. Historical writing traditionally focused on politics and public events; traditional explanations tended to focus on individual leaders and their decisions, often in terms of political context and moral character. Florentine writers of history increasingly explored broader considerations, such as customary practices, especially in explaining distant eras. Some moved beyond a focus on the individual actor to consider the behavior of groups. Like Machiavelli a generation earlier, they sought to understand the behavior of factions, parties, and other social bodies. Some were drawn to the study of the past mainly out of interest in Florence’s great literary traditions and its vernacular authors in particular. That contributed not only to a growing interest in the history of medieval Florence, but also to overlapping projects that might combine manuscript and textual scholarship of those earlier eras, historical analysis, and linguistic studies. In sum, the Florentine interest in history was more diffuse than defined. The city’s major authors found an audience that was engaged, opinionated, and perhaps engaged in writing projects of their own.

Past Witnesses By the middle years of the sixteenth century, Florentines had many reasons to care about their past and a number of ways to learn about it. Families were the most direct links to the past for many Florentines; the interests of kinship were incentives for many who were not otherwise particularly involved in writing or reading history. Those whose families had any social standing took pride in their ancestry. Status itself had many intangible qualities, to be sure, but it had any number of tangible ones as well. Men expected to hold roles in public life consistent with their present standing and that of their predecessors. When the Great Council had been formed in 1494 as part of the reforms following the expulsion of the Medici, its membership had included those whose names had been drawn from the borse for service in the three main boards of the old regime (signoria, buonuomini, and gonfalonieri)

Past Witnesses

whether or not those individuals had actually been allowed to receive the office; it also included those whose fathers or grandfathers had had their names drawn.1 They numbered about 1,500 in a Florentine population of 50–60,000.2 This principle echoed the practice from earlier in the century: men whose names or those of their fathers or grandfathers had been drawn for these offices in the past received preferred treatment in advancing to the scrutiny for consideration for such posts in the future.3 These political factors overlapped with private concerns. Family status weighed alongside financial considerations in arranging marriages. Long-term family residence in Florence was valuable; even more valuable was a roster of ancestors who had distinguished themselves in public service. Thus, Florentines had long had reason to keep track of the political participation of past family members. Prioristi, or lists of past priors often accompanied by summaries of important events, identified these office-holders and their families year by year. The short terms of many offices, those of priors in particular, resulted in lengthy lists of interest to large numbers of descendants. Not surprisingly, prioristi survive in numerous copies in libraries and archives throughout the city. Families continued to make and retain new copies and extracts long after the office of prior itself had ceased to exist.4 The government of 1532 ended the priors and put in place the Magistrato Supremo, which consisted of the Senate of forty-eight (the Quarantotto) along with a Council of 200. The naming of individuals to these bodies came increasingly under ducal control, but among the criteria remained a family history of eligibility.5 Elite Florentines began to use the term “noble.” The Order of Santo Stefano, established in 1561 across Tuscany, restricted its membership to nobility; its regulations accepted as “noble” those with notable family histories.6 Such practices tended to stabilize the numbers and names of leading families but did not stop the disappearance of old families or the rise of new ones. New arrivals could become citizens and new men might pass through the scrutinies to qualify for service; nonetheless, the ability to identify a qualifying ancestor was an Felix Gilbert, “Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Oricellari: A Study of the Origin of Modern Political Thought,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 12 (1949): 101–31, at 17. Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200–1575, 381–90. 2 Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy, 16. 3 Ibid., 15. 4 See for example, the collection in ASF Manoscritti 222–70. 5 Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy, 25. 6 Ibid., 33; Davies, Culture and Power, 33–37. 1

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advantage. So by midcentury, even a Florentine driven by little more than an interest in advancement for himself or his family had reason to maintain an interest in the city’s past and past governance. Family records were important, but any number of families had lost records over the years due to fires, exiles, or other calamities; they needed to rely on external sources. In any case, official or public records, lists, and documents helped ensure that claims were authentic and would be recognized as such by others. An interest in political organization might also drive an interest in Florentine history. Heated debates had circulated in the decades before the Medici dukes about the best ways to govern the city. Florentines discussed not only ideal forms but also the nature of past governmental organization and how those past practices were relevant to present conditions. The frequency of regime change through 1537 meant that the advocates of one or another position might have held a reasonable hope for its consideration; indeed, a number of Florentines, from Filippo Nerli to Francesco Guicciardini, were called to serve on such committees.7 Among this generation of Florentines, Felix Gilbert identified two principal approaches. One assumed that the circumstances of a city’s foundation left an indelible stamp upon its nature; for them, effective governmental reform meant taking it back to the principles in effect in its earliest times. The other argued that no single system always worked best at all times or all places; leaders needed to evaluate the situation at any given time.8 Despite their important differences, each approach called for an understanding of the particulars of the local past. Many Florentines who lived during the Italian wars recognized that these were times of great significance, witnessing events that merited recording for posterity. Accordingly, they kept diaries or memoirs, reminiscent of the ricordanze books of their forebears. Some also added introductions that narrated earlier Florentine history, as had earlier authors of chronicles. Both Felix Gilbert and Eric Cochrane identified several such works.9 More recently, Emanuele Cutinelli-Rèndina, Jean-Jacques

Michele Lupo Gentile, Studi sulla storiografia fiorentina alla corte di Cosimo I de’ Medici (Pisa: Tipografia Successori Fratelli Nistri, 1905), 67. 8 Gilbert, “Bernardo Rucellai,” 98. 9 For references to a number of unpublished or partially published diaries, see Cochrane, Historians and Historiography, 538 n. 30. In addition to those that follow may be added: ASF, Manoscritti 117, anon., “Diario istorico di quello, ch’e’ seguito nella Città di Firenze cominciando l’anno 1435 a tutto il’1522.” A number of these authors are discussed by Jean Jacques Marchand, “Componenti formali del discorso 7

Past Witnesses

Marchand, and Matteo Melero-Morettini examined over eighty private historical writings from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.10 They have argued convincingly that such works should be understood as a well-established genre of political thought and reflection. Bernardo Rucellai composed one of the few such works in Latin, an account of the French invasion, De Bello Italico Commentarius. Like many of these works, it was published only much later (London, 1724).11 Piero Parenti’s historical diary covers the years 1476 through 1502.12 The apothecary Luca Landucci kept a diary from 1460 to 1512. He began with modest goals but recorded the memorable events of the Italian wars. Giovanni Cambi narrated the events he experienced from 1480 until his death in 1535, which he prefaced with an introduction that began with the third-century martyrdom of San Miniato. For the years previous to his own experience he relied mainly on a priorista.13 Another anonymous diary now at the Archivio di Stato relates the years 1435–1522.14 Tribaldo de’ Rossi left ricordanze for the years 1487–1499;15 Tommaso Ginori, through 1498;16 Francesco Gaddi left yet another.17 Alamanno and Neri Rinuccini continued until 1508 a diary begun by their father, Filippo di Cino.18



10



11



12



13



14 15



16



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politico nella storiografia toscana minore del primo Cinquecento,” in Storiografia repubblicana fiorentina: 1494–1570, ed. Jean Jacques Marchand and Jean-Claude Zancarini (Florence: F. Cesati, 2003), 175–85. Emanuele Cutinelli Rèndina, Jean Jacques Marchand, and Matteo Melera-Morettini, Dalla storia alla politica nella Toscana del Rinascimento, Studi e saggi (Rome: Salerno, 2005). On Rucellai and historical writing, see Heather Stein, “Historical Writing and Community among the Orti Oricellari” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2015). Piero di Marco Parenti, Storia Fiorentina, ed. Andrea Matucci, 2 vols. (Florence: Olschki, 1994–2005). Giovanni Cambi, “Istorie fiorentine,” in Delizie degli eruditi toscani, ed. Ildefonso di San Luigi (Florence: Cambiagi, 1786). ASF, Manoscritti 117. Tribaldo de’ Rossi, “Ricordanze,” in Delizie degli eruditi toscani, ed. Ildefonso di San Luigi (Florence: Cambiagi, 1786), 236–303. Tommaso Ginori, in Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte Savonarolas, ed. Joseph Schnitzer (Munich: Lentner, 1902–1904), 85–104; Parenti, Storia fiorentina. On Francesco Gaddi see Vanni Arrighi, “Gaddi, Francesco,” DBI. Francesco Gaddi, Per nozze Bumiller Stiller (Inventario de’ mobili di F. di Angelo Gaddi 1496), ed. Carlo Bologna (Florence: n.p., 1883). Filippo di Cino Rinuccini, Alamanno Rinuccini, and Neri Rinuccini, Ricordi storici di Filippo di Cino Rinuccini dal 1282 al 1460: colla continuazione di Alamanno e Neri, suoi figli, fino al 1506 …, ed. Giuseppe Aiazzi (Florence: Piatti, 1840).

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Biagio Buonaccorsi, a notary in the chancery with Machiavelli and husband of Ficino’s niece, assembled a narrative of the events of 1498–1512.19 He dedicated the work to his friend Marco Bellaccio, and acknowledged the difficulty in organizing the events and their large cast of characters. He concentrated entirely on political events. So too Francesco Guicciardini wrote his first history of Florence during these years, 1508–1510. Bartolomeo Cerretani, whose family had risen to prominence during the fifteenth century and who voiced support in his works not only for Savonarola but for Martin Luther, left hundreds of pages of historical and political writings: a dialogue on politics, Dialogo della mutatione di Firenze; a substantial set of Ricordi; and a Storia fiorentina.20 He too carried his historical narrative in the latter as far as 1512, and he added a prefatory section that begins with the city’s earliest days. This first part of his history, based on a number of earlier Florentine sources whom he names, emphasizes the development of the city’s forms of government as well as the factional strife that still characterized the debates and political issues of his day. The historical writings of both Machiavelli and Guicciardini made something of a bridge between this generation of authors and those of the ducal era. So too Francesco Vettori composed a historical summary of the years 1511–1527.21 Machiavelli wrote during the years of Medici control between 1512 and 1527. When he died that year after a brief illness, all his political and historical writings except the Art of War (Florence, 1521) still remained in manuscript. Surviving copies suggest that the incomplete works circulated during his lifetime within a limited circle. The Prince seems to have been well known among Florentines during his Biagio Buonaccorsi, Diario de’ successi piu importanti seguiti in Italia & particolarmente in Fiorenza dall’anno 1498 in sino all’anno 1512, ed. Niccolò Valori (Florence: Giunti, 1568); Diario dall’anno 1498 all’anno 1512 e altri scritti, ed. Enrico Niccolini (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1999). See also Emanuele Cutinelli-Rèndina, “Osservazioni sulla storiografia di Biagio Buonaccorsi,” in Storiografia repubblicana fiorentina: 1494–1570, ed. Jean Jacques Marchand and Jean-Claude Zancarini (Florence: F. Cesati, 2003), 343–53; Denis Fachard, Biagio Buonaccorsi: sa vie, son temps, son oeuvre (Bologna: M. Boni, 1976). 20 Bartolomeo Cerretani, Dialogo della mutatione di Firenze, ed. Raul Mordenti (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1990); Ricordi, ed. Giuliana Berti (Florence: Olschki, 1993); Storia fiorentina. On Cerretani, see Carlo Varotti, “Spazi cittadini, politica, storia: Bartolomeo Cerretani,” in Storiografia repubblicana fiorentina, ed. JeanJacques Marchard and Jean-Claude Zancarini (Florence: F. Cesati, 2003), 153–73. 21 Francesco Vettori, Scritti storici e politici, ed. Enrico Niccolini (Bari: Laterza, 1972). 19

Past Witnesses

later years.22 His works were soon prepared for the press, beginning with the Discourses in 1531, followed by the Florentine Histories and the Prince the next year.23 By midcentury, the Discourses had gone through some ten editions; the Florentine Histories had seen seven. At least eight editions of collected works came out thereafter, until the Index of 1559 disrupted the production of new printings and editions.24 Guicciardini’s History of Italy was first published in 1561. The Florentines of the era of Cosimo I thus encountered a wide assortment of older, recent, and current historical writings. Some had a high public profile; Machiavelli had composed his history at the request of the Florentine university with the approval of the future Clement VII, to whom he dedicated the work. Others were apparently private, expected perhaps to circulate mainly among friends and family. An intent to publish or even to circulate can be very difficult to determine for many manuscripts. Modern editions have given many of them a wider readership than they enjoyed during the mid-sixteenth century. Landucci’s diary, now well known, is attested primarily from its incomplete autograph at the Biblioteca Comunale in Siena; its nineteenth-century editor, Iodoco Del Badia, also used an early seventeenth-century copy at the Marucelliana in Florence. Del Badia found only one sixteenth-century reference to it: an extract copied by Borghini.25 Cerretani’s history is attested only in its autograph copy before the seventeenth century. It remained in the family until 1673, when it was given to Luigi Strozzi; from there it passed, like

On circulation of the Prince in manuscript, see Brian Richardson, Printing, Writers, and Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). The exile Giambattista Busini recalled many years later that by late in his own life, Machiavelli was greatly disliked by his fellow Florentines who felt that The Prince offered to the Medici a plan for taking over the city, which certainly suggests that this work was well known in Florence. Giovanni Battista Busini, Lettere … a Benedetto Varchi sugli avvenimenti dell’assedio di Firenze, ed. Gaetano Milanesi (Florence: Le Monnier, 1822), 84, 211. 23 On Machiavelli’s early readership across Europe, see Sydney Anglo, Machiavelli: The First Century; Studies in Enthusiasm, Hostility, and Irrelevance (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). For a critical evaluation of the Florentine Histories, including criticism by sixteenth-century readers, see Cochrane, Historians and Historiography, 265–70. 24 Adolph Gerber, Niccolò Machiavelli, die Handschriften, Ausgaben und Übersetzungen seiner Werke im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, 3 vols. (Gotha: F.A. Perthes, 1912). 25 Luca Landucci, Diario fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516: continuato da un anonimo fino al 1542, ed. Jodoco Del Badia (Florence: Sansoni, 1985), vii–viii. 22

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many others, to the Magliabechiana, and then to the National Library.26 Thus, it too probably found few sixteenth-century readers. Buonaccorsi’s work, on the other hand, survives in some twenty-one manuscript copies, and was published in Florence by Giunti in 1568. Nonetheless, these earlier sixteenth-century authors had access to multiple sources for a given event and produced a similar diversity for those who followed in turn. Cerretani introduced his work by noting that he could not resolve all such issues of disagreement. He gave an example from Bruni’s history: whether the city had been destroyed by either Attila or Totila, and whether Charlemagne, some 400 years later, had refounded it in whole or in part.27 Giambullari would return to this issue in Il Gello, and so would Girolamo Mei in his dispute with Vincenzio Borghini. Florentine authors and readers expected that they would need to pick their way through competing versions of their past. Cerretani listed the earlier authors whom he had consulted. Latin authors included Pliny, Livy, Tacitus, Frontinus, Ptolemy, and Sallust. Among the Florentines he named Ricordano Malispini, Giovanni and Matteo Villani, Melchiorre [Marchionne] da Coppo Stefani, Matteo Palmieri, Archbishop Antonino, Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, Bartolomeo Scala, and several anonymous texts.28 Some authors on the vernacular list had in fact composed their works in Latin; most sixteenth-century readers of Bruni and Poggio nonetheless knew them in translation. Cerretani did not distinguish between humanist histories and medieval chronicles, nor did subsequent sixteenth-century writers and editors; indeed, some editors simply called the terms synonymous. These earlier writers, along with Cerretani and his contemporaries, continued to find readers throughout the sixteenth century. Writers of history turned to them when they needed to summarize or refer to events from earlier eras. New editions of earlier authors continued to find buyers; Machiavelli’s works were reissued, and interest remained high in Guicciardini and others despite publication delays.29 Florentines also celebrated some medieval works as classics, notably Villani’s chronicle.

Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, xv–xvi. Ibid., 27. 28 Ibid., 29, 31, 34. 29 For a discussion of historical writings from Villani to Guicciardini with excerpts from their writings, see Anna Maria Cabrini, Un’idea di Firenze: da Villani a Guicciardini, Humanistica (Rome: Bulzoni, 2001). 26 27

Past Witnesses

Leonardo Bruni’s work is perhaps the Florentine history most familiar to modern readers. It remained in high regard, as can be seen not only in the subsequent authors who cited it but also in its manuscript production and its rapid move into print. James Hankins identified some sixty-one manuscripts, complete or partial, and another eighteen of the Florentine translation made by Donato Acciaiuoli. They were produced at various times and places, and are now scattered across Europe.30 The Latin original was published in 1476. The next edition was much slower to appear: Strasburg, 1610.31 Acciaiuoli’s translation appeared in print the same year and by the same press as the first Latin edition; another edition came out in 1492, and it was published a third time in 1561.32 Poggio’s history, written to serve as a continuation of that of Bruni, followed it into print with the same press and in the same year, in both Latin and a translation made by his son; the latter was also reprinted in 1492. It was re-issued in 1598. Some surviving copies of Bruni’s history bear the marks of extensive attention from sixteenth-century Florentine scholars. The 1476 vernacular copy owned by Cosimo Bartoli, for example, contains abundant annotations and his own elaborate, handmade index.33 Bruni’s other historical writings, especially the history of the Gothic wars and the history of his own times, continued to see new editions throughout the century. Like the 1561 edition of the Florentine History, these were mainly vernacular translations; nonetheless, Machiavelli’s more recent works outsold them. Some works on Cerretani’s list remained in manuscript. Scala had died during Cerretani’s lifetime (1497) with his history unfinished; Cerretani would likely have known the work through the author himself. It was published in 1677.34 Some of Antoninus’s works were published James Hankins, Repertorium Brunianum: A Critical Guide to the Writings of Leonardo Bruni (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1997). 31 Leonardo Bruni, Historiae Florentinae populi (Venice: Jacobus Rubeus, 1476); Historiarum Florentinarum libri XII (Strassburg: Zetzner, 1610). 32 Leonardo Bruni, Historia del popolo Fiorentino, trans. Donato Acciaiuoli (Venice: Iacopo de Rossi 1476); Le historie Fiorentine, trans. Donato Acciaiuoli (Florence: Bartholommeo di Libri, 1492); La historia uniuersale de suoi tempi, trans. Donato Acciaiuoli (Venice: Francesco Sansovino, 1561). Sansovino revised the translation; Richardson, Print Culture, 151. 33 Florence, BNC Banco Rari Inc. P. 2. 4. Bruni, Historia fiorentina, trans. Acciaiuoli, Venice 1476, with notes by Cosimo Bartoli. 34 Bartolomeo Scala, Historiae Florentinorum libri quinque (Leiden: Petrus vander Aa, 1723); De historia Florentinorum, ed. Jacobaeus Oliger (Rome: Tinassii, 1677). 30

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in the late fifteenth century, others not. Palmieri’s history of the war with Pisa remained in manuscript until 1723. Stefani’s work was not published until 1776, though apparently it enjoyed a few more manuscript copies than some of the others on the list.35 Some subsequent scholars referred to them, but they were not seen by more casual readers. Villani’s chronicle, by contrast, was well known and became even better read over the course of the sixteenth century. It is a long work; the modern edition, with the continuations by Matteo and Filippo, fills five volumes.36 Still, a great many manuscript copies were available. Giuseppe Porta identified 109 surviving copies, plus an additional 12 that included the chronicles of Filippo and/or Matteo alone.37 Nearly all were Florentine or Tuscan. Some 39 of these were products of the fourteenth century, 54 of the fifteenth, and another 15 somewhere in between. Ten were produced in the sixteenth century; the remainder are of mixed age. Florentines in the sixteenth century thus possessed over a hundred manuscript copies of Villani’s chronicle, in addition to copies in print circulation and any manuscripts lost since that time. Only a few indicate their copyists or owners. Not surprisingly, some were scholars. Fifteenth-century owners included Giannozzo Manetti and Antonio Benivieni (d. 1505). In the sixteenth century, Vincenzio Borghini owned both a manuscript copy and one of the Giunti 1559 editions, to which he added marginal notes. So too, Benedetto Varchi stated in his History that he had both manuscript and print copies.38 Another owner was Bernardo Davanzati, a leading figure in both the Accademia Fiorentina and the Alterati, translator of Tacitus, and author of works on topics from currency to viticulture. The founder of the Accademia degli Umidi, Giovanni Mazzuoli (known as “lo Stradino”), owned a partial copy. The Paduan scholar Sperone Speroni passed his to Jacopo Contarini; Agnolo

Marchiònne di Coppo Stefani, Istoria fiorentina, Delizie degli eruditi toscani, Vols. 7–17; (Florence: Cambiagi, 1776); Cronaca Fiorentina, ed. Niccolò Rodolico, Rerum Italicarum scriptores (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1903). On the manuscript tradition, see Ibid., viii–xxvii. 36 Villani, Nuova cronica. 37 Giuseppe Porta, “Censimento dei manoscritti delle cronache di Giovanni, Matteo e Filippo Villani I,” Studi di Filologia Italiana 34 (1976): 61–129; “Censimento dei manoscritti delle cronache di Giovanni, Matteo e Filippo Villani II,” Studi di Filologia Italiana 37 (1979): 93–117. 38 Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina, ed.Lelio Arbib (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2003), 2.58. 35

Past Witnesses

Guicciardini used it in preparing an edition he never completed, as did Baccio Valori for the edition he published in 1587.39 The Ricci family kept a copy from the fourteenth century until the seventeenth.40 Giuliano de’ Ricci used it to edit Matteo and Filippo Villani’s chronicles (1577). Many of the known fifteenth and sixteenth-century owners are not now recognized as scholars. Indeed, throughout the Renaissance, most copies seem to have been in the hands of prominent families. Given the expense of producing such a lengthy work, its possession by the wealthy is hardly surprising; yet so many existed that a copy of Villani seems to have been a common feature in a significant Florentine household. Known fifteenth-century owners include Bese Ardinghelli, Viviano Viviani, Paolo della Casa,41 Neri di Gino Capponi, and his son Gino di Neri Capponi. Known sixteenth-century owners include Francesco di Bernardo Banchi, Matteo Dandi degli Albizi, Pier Maria di Franco di Giovanni Pucci, Antonio di Francesco Gondi (who passed his copy to his son Lorenzo), Girolamino di Girolamo di Raffaello Villani, and Bindo Altoviti, the Florentine banker in Rome who had his portrait painted by Raphael. Most copies, even incomplete ones, stand on their own as independent volumes. Those bound with others are mainly fragments or excerpts. The accompanying texts are usually vernacular historical texts about Florence or Florentines. They include Bruni’s first Punic War and his lives of Dante and Petrarch;42 Goro Dati’s history of Florence;43 Sanzanome’s Gesta florentinorum;44 Poggio’s history of Florence translated by his son;45 and speeches by Bruni, Manetti, Francesco Filelfo, and others.46 Many of these partial copies are clearly personal collections of excerpts, made for the use of the individuals and families involved and thus reminiscent Richardson, Print Culture, 175–76. Florence, BNC Palatino E. B. 10. 3; Porta, “Censimento I,” 117–18; Richardson, Print Culture, 176. 41 Son of the Giovanni della Casa who figures in Gene A. Brucker, Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). 42 Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana LXXXIX inf. 58; Porta, “Censimento I,” 72–73; Florence, BNC II. ii. 124; Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 1030. 43 Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana C.VIII; Florence, BNC II. iv. 279; Florence, BNC Palatino Capponiano 72; Florence, BNC Palatino Panciatichiano 90; Florence, BNC Palatino Panciatichiano 158. 44 Florence, BNC II. ii. 124. 45 Florence, BNC II. 128; Porta, “Censimento I,” 91–92. 46 Florence, BNC Magl. XXV. 345. 39

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of the excerpted prioristi. Some also include lists of names made from the text, of office-holders or other sorts of urban and family-related data. Some include illustrations; they range from depictions of the events to family crests and similar signs of genealogical interest. A few are impressive visual products.47 Most copyists of complete versions remain unknown; many of those who can be identified were not professional scribes. Further, some of the scribe-made copies were done privately for the scribe’s own family members. Their efforts serve as a reminder of the degree to which literary skills – in this case, interest and ability in the accurate copying of a text – and social and economic prominence were linked in the city. The Gondi and Ricci copies show that a given manuscript might be handed down by generation within the same family for many years, though others seem to have appeared on the market for sale. In general then, while some owners were scholars, most were not; most manuscripts seem to have been for some time in the households of prominent Florentine families. By the time printed editions appeared, the manuscripts were beginning to move into scholarly book collections. The Laurenziana Library included six copies in its early holdings; their bindings identify them as the first volumes of Pluteus LXII.48 The collector and bibliophile Carlo di Tommaso Strozzi (1587–1670) bought up many as they came onto the market in the seventeenth century; from there they came eventually to the National Library. Florentines continued to consult Villani on any number of matters. When Cerretani’s descendant Agnolo sought information on the family’s history in 1580, he found little in the family papers due to house fires that had destroyed records over the years. What he had, he said, he found in Villani and Bruni.49 Florentines also turned to Villani for colorful tales, whether lurid, legendary, or simply anecdotal – the expulsion of the Duke of Athens, the virtue of the good wife Gualdrada – some of which served as the subject matter for civic art. Details of guild and trade activities could be found there, precedents claimed by disputants could be corroborated or rejected by the evidence in its pages, and past decisions and dealings Perhaps the most noted is Vatican City, BAV Chigiano L. VIII 296. See Chiara Frugoni, Il Villani illustrato: Firenze e l’Italia medievale nelle 253 immagini del ms. Chigiano L VIII 296 della Biblioteca vaticana (Florence: Le Lettere, 2005). 48 Porta, “Censimento I,” mss. 10–15. Borghini’s copy: LXII. 5.71–2. 49 Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, vii. 47

Past Witnesses

with foreign states and leaders might be recalled. Marchionne and other earlier works offered valuable support or contrast. Most other medieval authors were known as well. Nonetheless, the case of Dino Compagni’s chronicle from the age of Dante illustrates the complications and accidents that kept some from the hands of interested would-be readers.50 Dino left his work unfinished at his death. Apparently, his heirs simply kept the original copy with other family papers. That copy does not survive, and the time of its loss is unknown. Two copies are known to have existed in the sixteenth century; all other surviving manuscripts are much later copies of them. The older one was produced during the second half of the fifteenth century.51 It was bound with Domenico Buoninsegni’s history of Florence (ca. 1445) and Bruni’s lives of Dante and Petrarch. Its ownership is known only from the seventeenth century onward, when it formed part of the collection of Filippo Pandolfini (1575– 1655). Eventually it passed to the Pucci family, who sold it in England in the early nineteenth century; it became part of the collection of Lord Ashburnham. From there it returned to Florence as part of the Fondo Ashburniano acquired by the Laurenziana Library, where it remains. The other copy, which contained the same texts, was made from it by Noferi Busini in 1514.52 Busini was a Florentine merchant, not a man of letters.53 His motivation for making the copy is unknown. He gave it to Giovanni Mazzuoli, the poet better known as lo Stradino, who as noted above, also owned a partial copy of Villani. Mazzuoli was a founder of the Umidi, the precursor of the Accademia Fiorentina, that began to meet in November 1540 at his residence. His library consisted primarily of literature, especially chivalric literature. It was also famous, as was Mazzuoli himself, for colorful disorganization. Members of the Its manuscript fortuna was established in 1879 by Isidoro Del Lungo and amplified recently by Davide Cappi: Dino Compagni, La cronica delle cose occorrenti ne’ tempi suoi; e La canzone morale del pregio, ed. Isidoro Del Lungo, Quinta impressione riv. e corr. (Florence: Successori Le Monnier, 1908); Davide Cappi, Del Lungo editore di Dino Compagni, vol. 1, Fonti per la storia dell’Italia medievale (Rome: Nella sede dell’Istituto Palazzo Borromini, 1995); Dino Compagni, Cronica, edizione critica, ed. Davide Cappi (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medioevo, 2000). 51 Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana Ashburnhamiano 443. 52 Florence, BNC, Magl. II. VII, 39. 53 On Busini and his contacts with Filippo Strozzi as well as Battista della Palla in efforts to purchase art and antiquities for the French crown, see Caroline Elam, “Art in the Service of Liberty: Battista della Palla, Art Agent for Francis I,” I Tatti Studies 5 (1993): 33–109, passim. 50

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Accademia Fiorentina would surely have had an interest in Compagni’s chronicle, but they seem not to have known either that the text existed or that he possessed a copy. Mazzuoli’s library was dispersed at his death in 1549. The manuscript’s location is unknown until it came into the possession of Carlo di Tommaso Strozzi and passed eventually to the National Library. Only Paolo Mini mentioned it in his Difesa della città di Firenze e dei Fiorentini (Lyon, 1577), so he knew it existed, but did not discuss it. It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that earlier scholars had no knowledge of the work. The case of Compagni’s chronicle exemplifies the laments of sixteenth-century scholars who praised the advent of print for both preservation and access and lamented lost manuscripts. The single copy survived generations, but in households in which it held value as a family artifact. It was neither read nor shared, save to the unknown person who made the older of the two surviving copies. Busini cared enough about it to make a copy, but he was not a scholar. Although he managed to get it into the hands of a member of the Accademia Fiorentina, Mazzuoli happened to be careless; he simply misplaced it, unread, so that this single contact was insufficient to bring it into wider circulation. It remained just out of reach, another example of the potential discoveries still hidden in their libraries.

Diaries and Private Records Despite such failures, Florentines continued to read historical sources and also to produce new ones. Diary-keeping was a well-established tradition, as was the conversion of some to histories. Such projects tended to have a fixed beginning but no clear ending; unless some event seemed so momentous that it provided a dramatic climax or stopping point, the author might work on such a project intermittently for a decade or more, and leave it unfinished at his death. It can therefore be difficult to determine what expectations the author might have had for readership or publication. Nonetheless, whether ultimately finished or not, such works occupied their fair share of both writing tables and bookshelves across the city. The authors of surviving works varied in their social standing, and the depth of political analysis varies by their degree of political involvement. Some are anonymous. In the early nineteenth century Domenico Moreni assembled a catalog of sources for Florentine history; he identified a number of such diaries and histories from the middle and later sixteenth century. Sixteenth-century authors also appreciated the value of diaries as sources.

Diaries and Private Records

Benedetto Varchi consulted a number of them in writing his own history of the city, as identified by Michele Lupo Gentile.54 Some of these diaries have been published in modern editions. Others remain in manuscript. Francesco d’Abramo, a canon at San Frediano, kept a diary of public events from the first decades of the century.55 Giuliano Ughi della Cavallina, a Franciscan, kept one from 1501 to 1546.56 The tailor Bastiano Arditi began his late in life, covering the years 1574–1579; among his many opinions were negative remarks about Bianca Capello.57 The Istoria Fiorentina of Migliore di Lorenzo Cresci (b. 1494, grandson of the poet and friend of Marsilio Ficino) covered 1525–1546.58 Enrico Coppi edited a diary for the years 1537–1555 by a Florentine known only as “Marucelli,” who disliked both the Medici and the foreigners in Italy and seems to have been Savonarolist in his religious inclinations.59 Agostino Lapini, a priest at the Duomo, maintained one that emphasized ecclesiastical issues throughout his life, ending in 1596. He prefaced it with a summary of Florentine history that began, like that of Giovanni Cambi, with San Miniato.60 The memorie of Francesco di Andrea Buonsignori covered the years 1530–1565, continuing a work begun by his uncle Buonsignore di Francesco Buonsignori, who died as vicar to the archbishop of Pisa in 1529.61 An anonymous diary now at the University of Pennsylvania begins with the assassination of Alessandro and runs through 1555.62 Michele Lupo Gentile, Sulle fonti della storia fiorentina di Benedetto Varchi (Sarzana: E. Costa, 1906), 61–75. From Varchi’s notes, Lupo Gentile identified a fragmentary work by Baccio Carnesecchi; a diary 1529–1531 by one “L. Mar.”, probably Lorenzo Martelli; and one by Michele Ruberti. Some others are still extant: Anon. diary, 1524–1530, Florence, BNC Magl. XXV.570, copy Magl. XXV.555. Lupo Gentile, Studi, 99–100. 55 Domenico Moreni, ed., Bibliografia storico-ragionata della Toscana, 2 vols. (Bologna: Ferni, 1967), 1. 396. 56 Giuliano Ughi della Cavallina, “Cronica di Firenze, ed. Francesco Frediani,” Archivio storico italiano, ser. 1, vol. 7, no. Appendix (1849): 97–274. 57 Bastiano Arditi, Diario di Firenze e di altre parti della cristianità (1574–1579) (Florence: Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, 1970). 58 Moreni, Bibliografia storico-ragionata della Toscana, 1. 306; Migliore Cresci, Storia italiana, ed. Ugo Giuseppe Oxilia (Turin: Ditta G Paravia, 1905). 59 Enrico Coppi, Cronaca fiorentina, 1537–1555 (Florence: Olschki, 2000). 60 Moreni, Bibliografia storico-ragionata della Toscana, 1.507; Agostino Lapini, Diario fiorentino di Agostino Lapini dal 252 al 1596, ed.Odoardo Corazzini (Florence: Sansoni, 1900). 61 Francesco di Andrea Buonsignori, Memorie: 1530–1565, ed. Sandro Bertelli and Gustavo Bertoli (Florence: Libreria Chiari, 2000). 62 Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania. Penn. MS. Codex 564. 54

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These diaries report similar types of events: political matters; visits by prominent leaders or their representatives; prominent births, deaths, and marriages, both Florentine and foreign; major storms, fires, earthquakes, or other natural events; notable festivals and other public occasions. They offer greater attention to European topics than earlier diaries. All are composed in vernacular. Some authors had particular interests. Lapini emphasized church-related topics and offered more detail than the others on the construction of buildings, the unveiling of public works of art, and the deaths of cultural figures such as Michelangelo and Piero Vettori. Arditi reported regularly on the arrival of diplomatic letters from abroad, reports from Livorno, or other foreign events, as news of them arrived in the city; Marucelli, on the other hand, tended only to refer more generally to the arrival of “news” (nuova). Arditi noted the arrival of letters or reports, but did not cite or quote from them. Neither the authors nor modern editors have been consistent in labelling such works “diaries” or “chronicles.”63 Some of the Buonaccorsi manuscripts had called it a diary, others a “history of his times”; the sixteenth-century Giunti published it as a diary.64 Jacopo Pitti left an unfinished work he called a history, surviving solely in its autograph copy.65 He suggested that diaries and annals were similar to histories but less polished: “like fields, though less cultivated, full nonetheless of many noble fruits.”66 Bernardo Segni also left his history of the city unfinished, though in good shape through its coverage of 1555, when he died in 1558. It was apparently unknown until its accidental discovery by family members some years later, and it remained unpublished until the eighteenth century.67 Its polish suggests it was a history intended for others to read, rather than a diary as such.68 For a discussion of Venetian examples, see Christiane Neerfeld, Historia per forma di diaria: la cronachistica veneziana contemporanea a cavallo tra il Quattro e il Cinquecento, Memorie, Classe di scienze morali, lettere ed arti (Venice: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 2006). 64 Buonaccorsi, Diario dall’anno 1498 all’anno 1512 e altri scritti, 71. It was also called Storia Fiorentina dei suoi tempi, cioè dall’anno 1498 sino all’anno 1512. 65 Jacopo Pitti, Istoria Fiorentina, ed. Adriana Mauriello (Naples: Liguori, 2007). 66 “Né solamente hanno eglino lodato le istorie, ma li annali e li diari ancora, come campi, quantunche meno coltivati, ripieni però di molti nobili frutti.” Ibid., 189. 67 Segni, Storie fiorentine. 68 For a discussion of some of Segni’s political views, see Silvia Genzano, “La notion de ‘principat civile’ dans l’oeuvre de Bernado Segni,” in Storiografia repubblicana fiorentina, 355–67. 63

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Giuliano de’ Ricci undertook several history-related projects. He edited Matteo and Filippo Villani’s chronicles for publication, and participated in the attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, to edit the writings of his maternal grandfather Machiavelli after they had been placed on the Index.69 He also composed a lengthy work he called ricordanze that various catalogers and editors labelled “memorie,” “diario,” or “Cronaca.”70 Ricci stated in one entry that he hoped to use these writings as raw materials for a genuine history of the times; shortly before his death in 1606, however, he left a marginal note that in fact he had never been able to do so. It begins in 1568; its brief preface commences with the naming of Alessandro as duke, his assassination, and the replacement by Cosimo. Ricci also assembled two prioristi, and includes additional lists in the preface. He names the members of the Council of Forty-Eight created by Clement VII, additions made by Alessandro two years later, and the new council named by Cosimo, including in many cases subsequent positions they held and when they died. Throughout the work he took care to name officers, to note the passage of particular laws, and identify diplomatic correspondence and similar contemporary documents, so that either he himself or a subsequent scholar could easily identify and confirm them. Writing about historical events, then, was widespread at midcentury. Florentines were well aware that the tradition was already some 200 years old. In these works they demonstrated their high expectations for those that would eventually see publication. They included accurate reporting of major events in the city and across Europe and the Mediterranean, including the process of decision-making, and attention to detail, even the time of the arrival of news or rumors. They referred to specific diplomatic correspondence and legislation, and recorded the career trajectories of officials both in Florence and elsewhere. They discussed the motivation of individual actors as well as the larger goals of the states they led. Indeed, the skills involved for the historian in such assessments resembled those used by the actors themselves, and contributed to similar networks of information. Such authors required access to city records; so to the extent that they planned or hoped to turn their diaries into histories, they clearly expected to receive such access. Later readers would use their writings for information just as they themselves consulted previous texts. Giuliano de’ Ricci, Cronaca (1532–1606), ed. Giuliana Sapori (Milan: Ricciardi, 1972), Prefazione, ibid., vii–viii. 70 Ibid., 169. 69

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Factual inaccuracies or interpretive anomalies had the potential, therefore, to spread to future authors; and the discovery of such inaccuracies would damage their own reputations. Thus in letters and in print, readers were quick to criticize or to praise the historians in their midst, especially because so many of them tried their hands at it themselves.

Histories of Recent Times Several writers at midcentury composed histories of recent events that were clearly intended from the outset for publication. Like previous historians and diarists, these authors saw these projects as long-term undertakings. Thus they continued to work and edit over many years, and several died with their great work unfinished. During the authors’ lifetimes, the readers of these works in process were those who read and copied drafts in the possession of the author or of others who had already made such a copy. In some cases, literary executors or other interested parties were successful in getting these works into print within a few years, but in many cases, readers for the next century and more still had access to these works only in manuscript form. Benedetto Varchi was the best known and most innovative of these historians. His unfinished Florentine History was published only in the eighteenth century, though numerous copies and excerpts made by readers show that it was sought out in manuscript.71 Filippo Nerli, who entitled his own work “Commentaries,” managed to complete it, but not publish it. Only the history written by Jacopo Nardi, the Florentine exile, managed to get into print within two decades of his death, with editions in both Lyon and Florence in the 1580s. The greatest such publishing event of these years was Guicciardini’s History of Italy, which treated Florentine history in its peninsular context. Posthumous by over twenty years, it enjoyed multiple editions from 1561 onward. Paolo Giovio might be added to this list as well. Though he was not a Florentine and wrote his history in Latin, he was resident in Florence during his last years, and published the two-volume History of his Times there (1550–1552). Florentines tended to agree on a shared outline of principal historical events. They included the outbreak of the Wars of Italy in 1494, the death of Savonarola and the governmental restructuring of 1498, and the return of the Medici in 1512. The years 1527–1530 featured the fall of the Medici-controlled government after the Sack of Rome, the formation of Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina (Cologne: P. Martello, 1721).

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the republican government, the siege of 1529, and the naming of Duke Alessandro. The next turning point was Alessandro’s assassination in January 1537 and his replacement by Cosimo, followed by the defeat of the Florentine exiles at Montemurlo in late July. The years that followed were relatively crisis-free by comparison. Main topics included the efforts to expand Tuscan control over regions such as Piombino and Siena, and Cosimo’s receipt of the papal title of grand duke. Assessments of those events, however, generally fell to the next generation of historians. The midcentury historians also agreed on the basic narratives of these events themselves; accounts of Alessandro’s death, for example, included the same basic incidents and even details in similar order. In their letters, forewords, and the bodies of their works, these historians also discussed similar criteria for writing and evaluating historical works. First was the accurate reporting of facts. All professed consistently and often their commitment to factual accuracy, and inaccuracy was the first criticism they would direct against one another. Erroneous reporting was bad enough; suggestions that the other author had knowingly misrepresented the facts drew the sharpest words. When Varchi read and took notes on Giovio’s history, he listed one event after the next, and eventually marked an “f ” next to those he found to be false; he did the same with other authors. But when he wrote his tendentious attack on Giovio’s work, a text he left unpublished, Varchi’s strongest criticisms were instances in which he could suggest that Giovio had not simply erred, but had bent or altered his story to suit his patrons.72 In the critical opinions these writers offered to one another in letters, claims abound that the historian in question had lied and not merely been misinformed. They also shared a principal focus on individual actors. The decisions and actions that shaped the major events of these years were undertaken by individuals and small groups of people. This focus on individual historical actors, their characters, and motivations was, of course, an important feature of the ancient historians so valued by these sixteenth-century writers. For both ancients and moderns, the individual was an appropriate focus for explaining the political action that was the historian’s principal subject. Authors might pause in their narrative where appropriate to insert a character sketch, a family history, or some other information relevant to that actor’s motivation. They appealed to fairly conventional standards of personal behavior and often came to similar conclusions. There was a Benedetto Varchi, Errori del Giovio nelle Storie, ed. Franco Minonzio (Manziana (Rome): Vecchiarelli, 2010).

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general consensus, for example, that Duke Alessandro’s habitual adultery was a character flaw that contributed to larger problems of leadership, as well as a practical weakness that led to his own demise. They agreed that leaders motivated by personal or familial gain rather than the good of their state often made decisions that were bad for that state, and that such persons and actions could be referred to as corrupt. Tyrannical rule, with its disrespect for law and persons, was a bad thing as well, even for those who favored a prince over a republic. A Europe-wide vision was essential to explaining these events. No major political event from 1494 onward could be understood entirely in domestic terms. Nonetheless, their works did not all share the same level of focus. Nardi and Nerli both kept the city at the heart of the narrative, and only provided as much information on larger Italian and European events as was necessary to follow the local situation. To Guicciardini or Giovio, Florence was simply not at the center of many actions and decisions that affected it; the emergence of the larger European and Mediterranean stage of political action was part of their point. The amount and type of context they found necessary also varied according to their goals as authors. For those who held firmly to the traditional role of history as magistra vitae,73 a guide to life for the private reader as praised by Cicero, context needed to be sufficient for the reader to draw useful conclusions for personal conduct. Giambattista Busini told Varchi that he believed strongly in the value of history as a guide to life, and to that end emphasized the value of carefully composed speeches that presented issues clearly for the reader’s consideration. The letters he sent to Varchi with reminiscences of events for Varchi’s history included character sketches for similar reasons. Pitti, conversely, declared history to be especially useful for those who governed.74 Others, such as Segni, Nardi, and Nerli, sought to derive more general principles of social and political behavior from the study of history. They did not share a common political philosophy. Nardi was both a committed republican and a committed anti-Medicean. Giovio and Guicciardini each worked for many years for various Medici but disagreed on Florentine independence. Nerli felt that Florentines were only at peace under the control of a single leader, though he did not find it a particularly positive feature about his fellow Florentines. Thus their Cicero, De Oratore, 2, 36. Pitti, Istoria Fiorentina, 189.

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evaluations of broad issues, such as whether Medici rule after 1530 was a good thing or a bad one, might differ strongly, let alone their judgments on more specific matters. Nonetheless, they agreed that their paramount task was to undertake the entire process, from collection of facts to evaluation and judgment, with reasoned impartiality. They acknowledged that this impartiality was difficult to attain, especially for the history of recent events; they referred frequently to “passion” and the need to avoid it in historical writing, for it affected all other features of the work. Segni asserted that those Florentines who had previously written about the events of 1527–1530 had been impassioned and in disagreement about the government of the city, and that this passion had affected their narratives.75 Busini told Varchi that he had written down his own memories of events willingly and sent them to Varchi for his history because he trusted Varchi to write truly, “and without any passion or adulation,” an impartiality he felt that others had been unable to achieve. Bruni, Poggio, and Cristoforo Landino had all omitted treatment of some internal events from their histories because to do so would have required critical discussion of the Medici, he continued, which they had been unwilling to undertake; Machiavelli, republican though he was, had praised the Medici because the Medici pope was still alive and he might still hope to benefit from him.76 Nardi praised Varchi for the same detached neutrality: “If I were to choose today someone … to write without passion, and who had the other qualities required to such a task, truly I would know of no one to choose but you.”77 Contributing to Varchi’s objectivity was the fact that he had not been a participant in most of the events he described, a point Varchi himself noted in his introduction. Such differences of judgment can be seen in the descriptions Nardi and Nerli offered of Lorenzino, Alessandro’s cousin and assassin. The exile Nardi described Lorenzino in mainly positive terms; Alessandro loved him not just due to family ties but also “for the gifts of nature and qualities found in him,” and for his easy nature. He had accompanied Alessandro on his evening outings, but unwillingly. After the death of Clement VII, Segni, Storie fiorentine, 2. Busini, Lettere … a Benedetto Varchi sugli avvenimenti dell’assedio di Firenze, 211–12. 77 “Se io avessi ad eleggere oggi uno … che fusse per scrivere senza passione, e avesse appresso le altre qualità, che si richieggono a tale impresa, io veramente non saprei pigliare altra che voi …” Alfredo Pieralli, ed., La vita e le opere Di Iacopo Nardi (Florence: Civelli, 1901), 182. 75

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Lorenzino developed his plan, knowing that even those Florentines whom the duke favored were unhappy; he expected that by “lifting from their backs the heavy yoke of servitude,” Florence would return to liberty.78 To Nerli, on the other hand, Lorenzino was “by nature melancholic, pale of face, very clever, well-spoken, of serious demeanor,” nicknamed “the Philosopher.” Nerli lost no time in condemning Lorenzino as a traitor since he had personally received favor from Alessandro and called into question repeatedly and at length the claim that his goal was the liberation of Florentines. Lorenzino had left Alessandro’s body locked in a bedroom of his own house and fled overnight to Bologna. By keeping the deed secret as he did, argued Nerli, he had offered Florentines no opportunity to rise up; as a liberator of his people he compared very badly with the biblical Judith.79 Each author may well have written true things about Lorenzino, and they narrated the same facts about the death of Alessandro. Yet the features they selected in portraying Lorenzino differed sufficiently that such instances, as they accumulated through a long text, might earn for a writer the charge that partisanship had affected their narrations. Both Guicciardini and Giovio remained at the edges of this circle of writers, and not simply because their histories had a broader focus than Florence itself. Giovio, a native of Como, had long worked for Clement VII as physician as well as man of letters, and had composed much of his history in Rome. Eventually it was published by Torrentino and dedicated to Cosimo; after the publication of the first volume in 1550 he arrived in Florence as Cosimo’s guest and remained there, save for visits to Pisa, until his unexpected death in December 1552.80 He completed the rest of the histories as well as his Elogia in the city, and dealt with the complications attendant on publication of his writings. He consulted with Varchi, who composed dedicatory poetry for the histories and who restricted his own negative assessments to his private manuscripts. He also saw Vettori, Segni, Gelli, and Bartoli; Gelli translated his life of Alfonso d’Este, and Bartoli that of Leo X.81

Jacopo Nardi, Istorie della città di Firenze, 2 vols. (Florence: Successori Le Monnier, 1888), 2.319. 79 Filippo de’ Nerli, Commentari de’ fatti civili occorsi dentro la città di Firenze dall’anno 1215 al 1537 (Augsburg, 1728), 239–46. 80 T. C. Price Zimmermann, Paolo Giovio the Historian and the Crisis of SixteenthCentury Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). 81 Ibid., 245–46. 78

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At one point those complications rose to a level that required Cosimo’s attention and defense. Giovio had sent to Charles V for approval and potential correction the book that described Charles’s expedition to Tunis. Court officials decided it showed Charles poorly and favored the French; they requested that Cosimo either force Giovio to correct the “errors,” or withdraw his support and prevent further printing. Behind the scenes, Cosimo reached a compromise, seen in his letter to the imperial ambassador, Bernardo de’ Medici (bishop of Forlì). The main body of the letter discusses the matter; Cosimo also appended a section in cipher. There he invites suggestions for any necessary emendations to the section on Tunis and offers to continue to allow Charles to see chapters in advance of publication. To that Cosimo then further added a postscript in his own hand; he says Giovio had told him that in fact he had forwarded the chapter specifically to invite such suggestions for revision.82 In the body of the letter Cosimo stated clearly his own goals and policies in the support of scholarship: We have afforded Giovio the convenience of printing his histories here in Florence, to give this universal boon to the living and to posterity, and we lay no charge upon him unless it be to write without passion or partisanship, and we are confident that in so doing he cannot fail to satisfy His Majesty, whose actions have ever been beneficent and just.83

Charles’s staff offered to provide a body of sources; Giovio agreed to use the sources in revising the chapter, and the matter was dropped. For his part, Charles V expressed skepticism on receipt of the letter that Cosimo actually intended to exert any control over Giovio’s work.84

Ibid., 239–40. “Ho data la commodità al Iovio di far stampare le historie sua in Fiorenza per far questo bene universale ai vivi et a’ posteri, et con esso non fo altra opera se non che le scriva senza alcuna passione et affetto, et so che, faccendo questo, non può se non satisfare a Sua Mayestà, sendo le imprese sua state sempre giustissime et sante.” Cosimo I, letter to Bernardo dei Medici, bishop of Forlì, imperial ambassador, November 18, 1550. In Cosimo I Medici, Grand-Duke of Tuscany, Lettere, trans. Giorgio Spini, with preface by Antonio Panella (Florence: Vallecchi, 1940).), 116–18. Translation in Zimmermann, Paolo Giovio, 239–40. 84 Paolo Giovio, 240. 82 83

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T. C. Price Zimmermann’s extensive work on Giovio has included an examination of his connections with Guicciardini.85 Differences of both politics and temperament seem to have kept their collegial relationship from becoming a friendship, but they discussed historical issues at several points over a number of years; indeed, for Giovio, Guicciardini was not only a fellow writer but a political actor who appeared in his history, an interview subject as well as a colleague. Guicciardini, for his part, took notes on manuscript versions of a number of sections of Giovio’s history as well as his Life of Leo X, and used them in his own work. Guicciardini died in 1540, before the lectures or the feuds of the Accademia Fiorentina could set the tone of the city’s literary world. He was part of the generation of political leaders that included Nardi and Nerli, instrumental during the great events of the 1520s. His public role continued thereafter, including helping to select Cosimo after the assassination of Alessandro. Despite their political differences, he and Nardi remained friends, and Nardi is traditionally credited with urging Guicciardini to compose a history rather than a memoir.86 In 1538 he retired to private life and the writing of history, earlier than Nardi or Nerli. He too had kept a diary, but that became a mere point of departure for a highly complex and sophisticated work, long acknowledged as one of the major historical achievements of his generation.87 Felix Gilbert and other modern historians have documented and discussed the work itself.88 Gilbert in particular has traced Guicciardini’s connections with the writings of Machiavelli and their points of agreement and of disagreement. While the contingency of fortuitous events looms large in the work, Guicciardini also analyzed individual motivations with care and insight. His many years of public service gave him access to Florentine city records; at one point he brought the archives of the Board of Ten with its diplomatic correspondence to his own house.89 His complex T. C. Price Zimmermann, “Francesco Guicciardini and Paolo Giovio,” Annali d’italianistica 2 (1984): 34–52. 86 Vincent Luciani, Francesco Guicciardini e la fortuna dell’opera sua, ed. Paolo Guicciardini (Florence: Olschki, 1949), 56; Luciani cites the biography of Remigio Fiorentino in Francesco Guicciardini, Historia d’Italia, ed. Thomaso Porcacchi and Remigio Nannini (Venice: Evangelista Baba, 1640), prefazione. 87 Cochrane, Historians and Historiography, 297. 88 Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini; Cochrane, Historians and Historiography, 295–305. 89 Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, 297. 85

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understanding of the workings of other European powers reveals his long experience in government. A few readers had access to parts, at least, of Guicciardini’s History between his death and its publication in 1561. Roberto Pucci had seen it in manuscript right away; Donato Giannotti and Niccolò Ridolfi received it book by book; Giovio, Gelli, Nerli, and Varchi saw at least parts of it.90 Some members of the Guicciardini family had moved to the Low Countries (Anvers), and they, as well as the Florentine heirs, were increasingly pressured to publish from anxious would-be readers. Lelio Torelli suggested in 1550, after seeing the text, that the heirs were delaying out of reluctance to alienate those leaders still living whom Guicciardini portrayed in a less than flattering light. Guicciardini’s nephew Agnolo, who had control of the manuscript in Florence, claimed that he hesitated to bring it out while Paul IV was still alive.91 Out of fear that his relatives in northern Europe would publish first, he finally began editing the manuscript himself. He deemed sixteen books sufficiently complete to publish, and then turned the work over to Vincenzio Borghini and the ducal secretary Bartolomeo Concini. They edited it for style and toned down a number of anti-papal and anti-clerical remarks that might have attracted not only papal wrath but the censure of the Index. Torrentino brought out two editions at once in 1561, one folio, the other in a more portable octavo. The outpouring of editions and apparatus over the following decades testifies to the work’s popularity and interest. Brian Richardson has described its “snowball-like accumulation of editorial matter.”92 One year after the initial publication, two Venetian editions appeared; Sansovino added a brief biography to its version, while Bonelli had Remigio Nannini add an index, marginal indicators, and summaries to the other. Bevilaqua copied it in three additional printings. Sansovino hoped to bring out the last four books that Agnolo had originally withheld as insufficiently polished; Giolito won them instead (1564). They followed up with another edition of all twenty books, and made it into Roberto Ridolfi, “Fortuna della Storia d’Italia prima della stampa,” in Studi guicciardiniani (Florence: Olschki, 1978), 183–96. See also Donato Giannotti, Opere politiche e letterarie, ed. F. L. Polidori, 2 vols. (Florence: Le Monnier, 1850). Letter 23 (vol. 2.422) says he read it in manuscript: “io la lessi tutta quanta l’anno 46 in Bagnaia col cardinale Ridolfi.” Luciani, Francesco Guicciardini, 402 n. 38. 91 Ridolfi, “Documenti sulle prime stampe della Storia d’Italia,”ed. Roberto Ridolfi, Studi guicciardiniani (Florence: Olschki, 1978), 197–223. 92 Richardson, Print Culture, 150–51, 174–75. 90

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a historical reference volume of sorts by including annotations, multiple indexes, comparisons with other authors, and a biography. Manilio Plantedio published a condensed version in Rome in 1572, and Sansovino brought out another in 1580.93 In many ways, then, Guicciardini seems to have produced a history that his readers and editors considered to be definitive. Remigio Nannini even used the work as the basis for his own set of Considerationi civili (1582) after the general manner of Machiavelli’s Discourses. Yet some detractors even managed to find their way into print, for example Giovanni Battista Leoni, who attacked Guicciardini as a partisan and liar for his negative portrayal of the Venetians.94 And new works on recent Florentine history continued to appear, some covering at least part of the same time period, each with unique focuses and concerns. Filippo Nerli had completed his work some time before 1553; Segni began his own history in that year and reported early in the work that Nerli’s was already finished.95 Nerli was among the historical writers who took a particular interest in the behavior of groups, not just individuals, as causes of historical change. He agreed with Nardi, as well as his old friend Machiavelli, that one of the significant features driving Florentine history was the city’s chronic and long-term problems with factions and divisions. He began his work with the conquest of Fiesole in 1215 and the unification of the two power centers into one, then moved quickly to the origins of the divisions between Guelfs and Ghibellines. That played into divisions within the city’s major social groups. Like Nardi, he noted that each attempt at a resolution simply produced a new set of winners who acted with insolence and pride, and losers who plotted to turn the tables; like Segni, Varchi, and others, he uses the term “sect” (setta) for the factional groups in the city. By the end of Book One he already observes that “it was decreed by the heavens that this city of ours would never rest or find peace except under the government of a single prince, as finally has happened.”96 Book Two ends with similar reflections on the peaceful period under the control

Luciani, Francesco Guicciardini, 21–23. Giovanni Battista Leoni, Considerationi … i sopra l’historia d’Italia di Messer Francesco Guicciardini (Venice: Gioliti, 1583). 95 Lupo Gentile, Studi, 26, 62, 69. 96 “…perchè era disposto da’ cieli, che questa nostra città non dovesse mai posare, nè quietarsi, se non sotto il governo d’un solo Principe, come finalmente ha fatto …” Nerli, Commentari, 37. 93

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of Cosimo il Vecchio, who kept the groups quiet. Those exiled upon Cosimo’s return to the city, however, continued to plot and to negotiate with the other peninsular powers. He repeats his assessment at the end of Book Eight (1529), and again at the end of Book Eleven and the death of Clement VII (1534); that is, the continued dissatisfactions of these groups contributed to the city’s ongoing instability. He concludes by stating that Cosimo’s victory and the defeat of the exiles at Montemurlo finally put an end to the ancient and modern discords of the citizens, and thus ended his own need as author to record them. Jacopo Nardi shared with Guicciardini a distinguished lineage and a respected career in public life through the 1520s; indeed, the other historians who wrote about those years had extensive praise for his conduct. From the events of 1529–1530 that brought Alessandro into power until his death in 1563, Nardi remained in exile and a committed republican, spending many years in Venice.97 He was a leader among the exile community and in the Florentine communities of the cities in which he lived; in Venice he was actively involved in print and publishing, and was known for his translation of Livy.98 Given his absence from the city, Nardi had no way to consult Florentine archival records. On the other hand, he was able to use whatever records and papers other exiles had brought with them, and could speak personally with them for their memories; he also had his own memories, papers, and experience as a former member of the Florentine government. Not surprisingly, his history includes more detail than most about the exiles. As a man of letters in Venice, he had easy access to related published works already in circulation. Thus, rather than treating events across Europe he refers the reader to the writings of specialists, suggesting specific authors such as Philippe de Commines on France. Nardi was especially interested in the social and factional divisions in the city. His main narrative began with the events of 1494, but he preceded it with a discussion of two events in which factional dominance had figured prominently: the Ciompi revolt of 1378 and the control of the fifteenth-century city by the Medici. He began the work as a whole, in fact, with a blunt description of the city’s social divisions: “The city of Florence On Nardi in Venice, see Paolo Simoncelli, “Su Jacopo Nardi, i Giunti e la “Nazione fiorentina” di Venezia,” in Studi in onore di Arnaldo d’Addario, ed. Luigi Borgia et al. (Lecce: Conte, 1995). 98 Richardson, Print Culture, esp. 127. 97

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(like almost every city) had three types of inhabitants, that is, the nobility, the popolo grasso, and the popolo minuto.”99 The nobles, whom some analysts subdivided still further, were long hostile to republican governments, and the popolo minuto or plebeians had not been involved in government except the single moment of the Ciompi revolt. That group too might be subdivided between those who owned property and those who did not. It is the middle group, states Nardi, that has been best suited to republican government. Vernacular usage is confusingly equivocal, he adds, for “popolo Fiorentino” also refers to the whole aggregate of three groups, or as the “Florentine people.” Most of Nardi’s history follows individual actors through the major public events of these years; yet throughout the work, the opinions, behaviors, and tendencies of these large social groups come in for description and analysis as well. Nardi worked on his project for many years. Varchi and Nardi had maintained a long communication about their respective projects, and Nardi sent Varchi information; earlier, when both were living in exile, they had spoken in person.100 Nardi’s colleagues expected the work to be out in print soon after the author’s death in 1563. Instead, its path to publication, traced by Vanni Bramanti, was some two decades long.101 After Nardi’s death, the printer Tommaso Giunta acknowledged the existence of a will from 1559 that had named him and his brother as executors; it had requested that his writings be burned, after the model of many ancient writers. Giunta claimed, however, that by the end of his life Nardi had felt differently and so the text was spared.102 Donato Giannotti seems to have begun revising the manuscript for the press not long thereafter; he reported to Varchi that he found it more a commentary than a history. The Giunti press in Venice soon had the manuscript. Duke Cosimo wrote Tommaso Giunta in the summer of 1565 requesting a copy, promising not

“Aveva la città di Firenze (come quasi tutte l’altre città) il popolo suo di tre generazioni di abitatori, ciò è la nobiltà, il popolo grasso, e il popolo minuto.” Jacopo Nardi, Istorie della città di Firenze, ed. Lelio Arbib, 2 vols. (Florence: A spese della Società editrice delle Storie del Nardi e del Varchi, 1838–1841), 1.1. 100 For the letters from Nardi to Varchi in the 1540s and 1550s, see Lo Re, Crisi della libertà fiorentina, 212–57. 101 Vanni Bramanti, “Sulle “Istorie della città di Fiorenza” di Jacopo Nardi: tra autore e copista (Francesco Giuntini),” Rinascimento 37 sec. ser. (1997): 321–40. 102 Lucie de los Santos, “La Vita di Giacomini e le Istorie di Jacopo Nardi: genèse de deuz projets historiographiques post res perditas,” in Storiografia repubblicana fiorentina, 311–23 at 317. 99

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to slow their publication nor allow anyone else to publish it in Florence. Varchi worked with this copy before his own death in December that year, and other Florentines used it as well. Remigio Nannini stated in his edition of Guicciardini of 1567 that Nardi’s book was forthcoming; but perhaps due to the death of Tommaso Giunta in 1566, it did not appear until 1582, from Giuntini in Lyon. The Florentine edition followed soon after, in 1584, complete with claims, as with many second editions, to correcting the numerous errors of the first. The most significant challenge to Guicciardini’s leadership in modern history probably came from Benedetto Varchi. When Varchi first returned to Florence in 1543, he was expected to lecture at the Accademia Fiorentina. Only later, at the end of 1546, did Cosimo ask him to undertake the task of writing a history of the city. The request came by way of Giovanni Girolamo de’ Rossi, bishop of Pavia.103 At this point the charge was to treat the years 1527–1532, from the expulsion of the Medici after the Sack of Rome until the establishment of Alessandro. Varchi was promised all necessary resources, including access to documents, and an increase in his stipend. Although Varchi noted later that he had been reluctant to accept the task, he began with energy and discipline, and produced drafts of the first books on a reasonable schedule. Yet the more he worked the more the project expanded. Varchi decided that the narrative needed a broader contextual background, and devoted nearly all of Book Nine to a digression. It begins by discussing city’s origins and the various debates about its early history. Then he surveys and describes the physical city, including the various walls as they were built and expanded over time, the location of gates, and the city’s various sections; then he resumes the narrative. By Book Twelve, Varchi had reached the rise of Alessandro, the end of the original project. Yet he continued, adding three more books to cover the years of Alessandro’s regime, his death, the selection of Cosimo, and the first issues with exiles. Like so many of his fellow historians, he left the work unfinished at his death; it breaks off in spring of 1537, before Montemurlo, with some sketches for the following year. As the work progressed, Cosimo asked Varchi to read sections of the work. Silvano Razzi records Cosimo’s approval in his life of Varchi: “and he so liked the history that he had him write, that when he used to read it to him he would stand with marvelous attention to listen, saying often, Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” diss., 349; Varchi, Storia fiorentina 1857, 1.40–41.

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‘miracoli, Varchi, miracoli’.”104 Yet as the project’s length increased it was subject to interruption for the sake of other tasks. As a result, the longer he worked, the slower the overall progress. Varchi was asked to translate Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy in 1549 in a sort of competition with Cosimo Bartoli and Ludovico Domenichi, owing to a request Charles V made to Cosimo.105 Then Eleonora asked him to translate Seneca’s De beneficiis.106 He produced an edition of Bembo’s Prose (1549). Varchi also became involved in literary disputes; he remained involved with the Accademia Fiorentina, and began the Ercolano on language, which he also left unfinished. He had planned to retire to Montevarchi to write when he was struck by his final illness during the celebration of the wedding of Francesco de’ Medici and Giovanna of Austria. Varchi’s research tools included all the techniques used by his contemporaries and immediate predecessors, thoroughly applied and meticulously recorded. Many of his working notebooks survive at the National Library in Florence.107 He read all the narrative accounts available, took careful notes, and verified or rejected the facts he recorded. He consulted private letter collections. He had full access to Florentine archives, a number of whose volumes he took home to use. Indeed, he kept some of them so long that early in 1550 the archivist, Jacopo Polverini, complained that Filippo Nerli was trying to use them for his own work and was unable to do so. Varchi had kept them some three years, and his excuse when he sent apologies (and eventually returned them) was the Boethius translation.108 He also interviewed many witnesses to any number of events and meetings, and had exiles send him interviews as well. The resulting history includes many extended quotations from these documents, as well as statements about his interviews. Varchi’s version of the assassination of Alessandro contains the information also presented by Nardi and Nerli, but includes more as well. He discusses at “… e tanto si compiaceva della storia, la quale gli faceva scrivere, che quando gliele leggeva stava con maravigliosa attenzione a udirlo, spesse volte dicendo, miracoli, Varchi, miracoli.” Storia fiorentina, 1857, 15. 105 Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli. Anicius Manlius Boethius, Boezio Seuerino Della consolazione della filosofia. Tradotto … Da Benedetto Varchi (Florence: Torrentino, 1551). 106 Razzi, in Varchi, Storia fiorentina 1857, 11; Lucius Annæus Seneca, De Benifizii, trans. Benedetto Varchi (Florence: Torrentino, 1554). 107 For a description of the manuscripts, see Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” diss., 405–6. 108 Ibid., 355–56. The records in question were the provisioni for 1526–1530. 104

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length Lorenzino’s highly eccentric personality, based both on written and oral evidence. He spoke with both Lorenzino and his accomplice Scoronconcolo, and includes the colorful detail one might expect from an interview with an assassin and his assistant. Varchi also placed a premium on political neutrality. Although he had in fact ridden with the exiles in an early phase of their revolt against Cosimo, he made no claims to being a war hero; quite the contrary, he emphasized that he had never been more than a minor player in the city’s political life. Others acknowledged that about him as well. Jacopo Nardi praised both his skill as a writer and his separation from the relevant events: If I had to choose someone today … who would write without passion, and would possess the other qualities needed for this task, truly I would not know anyone to select but you, because I know no one else who could be found so capable, I know of no one would be such a skilled writer as you; because you have always entered the theater as a spectator and not as an actor in the dramas of this crazy world.109

This trait set him apart from Guicciardini, whose active political life and strongly held opinions and principles left his work open to charges from many readers that those positions had colored his work.110 In his introduction he described Livy and Plutarch, who had stood outside the events they described and discussed. Yet unlike some of the diarists from the artisanal ranks of Florentine society, Varchi was very much a part of the learned circles that included professors, bureaucrats, and political leaders. He had access to high levels of information, including official documents and personal contacts, as well as the education and sophistication to understand and analyze political complexities. “… se io avessi ad eleggere oggi uno … che fusse per scrivere senza passione, e avesse appresso le altre qualita, che si richieggono a tale impresa, io veramente non saprei pigliare altra che voi, perche niuno altro conosco; che quando pure lo trovassi atto, (che non so chi) dovesse essere cosi intero scrittore come voi; conciosia che sempre siate intervenuto nel teatro come spettatore e non come attore delle fabule di questo pazzo mondo.” in Pieralli, La vita e le opere Di Iacopo Nardi, 182. Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” diss., 352–53. 110 Critics of Guicciardini’s objectivity included Busini. Luciani, Francesco Guicciardini, 60. 109

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Historical writing remained an esteemed feature of Florentine intellectual life. After Varchi’s death, as the publication delays matched and then exceeded those of Guicciardini, Nerli and many others, Giovanni Battista Adriani took on the task of writing the next generation of history in the city. His work also met a very high standard, and would be followed by the writings of Scipione Ammirato and others. Contemporary histories and their authors thus retained throughout the century the high profile in Florentine learned culture that they had already reached by the generation of Machiavelli.

Medieval Histories Florentines also took an active interest in the more distant past. In some cases, this interest revealed itself in editorial projects that brought major textual sources to a broader audience. In others, they undertook new studies of medieval subjects. To do so meant confronting sources that were inadequate or difficult to work with. It also raised questions about how to understand and present to readers the differences of customs and practices that motivated the historical actors. When Varchi inserted his early history of the city into Book Nine, he introduced the topic by raising the need as well as the difficulty of apprehending past traditions and habits. Ancient historians as well as modern have failed to recognize the importance of the task: … it seems to be not only useful but necessary to make in this place a tangent, as our forebears used to say, that is, a digression; not only to describe diligently the site of Florence with a good part of the contado and its district, but also the authority, income and expenses, customs, and dress of the Florentines of those times; without the knowledge of these details it is impossible to understand many of the things to say about them or many of the things that were said. And if it might seem to some that the things I discuss that today are for the most part very well known or so small that they do not merit being mentioned, it should be remembered that our intent is not to write only for Florentines, nor only for those who are alive now. For those things that no one mentions at all, because they are so well known that everyone thinks they will always be known and so no glory accrues to the person who describes them – those things become with time more unknown than anything else, as can be seen about the plants,

Medieval Histories the coins, and the dress of the Greeks and Romans. And nothing is so small in a great republic that someone will not enjoy it, that it would not count for something.111

Varchi turned to Villani’s narrative of the founding of the city, reviewing the literature and the range of opinions up to his own day. The city’s earliest history was still a matter of some debate as he composed this section in 1563, and he worked through the evidence thoughtfully, though it was far from his usual time period.112 In other cases he felt on firmer ground in correcting or corroborating Villani. Tribolo had recently checked the dimensions and locations of numerous city landmarks, and Benvenuto della Volpaia had recently constructed a wooden model of the city for Clement VII that had taken six months to complete. That gave Varchi a trustworthy point of reference for city walls and early buildings, one that corrected Villani on a number of points.113 He proffered statistics on churches, housing construction, gardens, and more from the fifteenth-century chronicle of Benedetto Dei, comparing them with figures from 1529, and also including figures from that time on population, city income and expenses. He discussed the nearby countryside, currency, costume (male), and briefly, diet and even character traits. Varchi then resumed his main narrative. “Mi pare non meno utile che necessario, di dover fare in questo luogo una, come dicevano gli antichi nostri, incidenza, cioè digressione; e non solo descrivere diligentemente il sito di Firenze con buona parte del contado e distretto suo; ma ancora la potenza, l’entrate, le spese, i costumi e gi abiti in quei tempi de’ Fiorentini, senza la cognizione delle quali particolarità è del tutto impossibilie che molte di quelle cose che dette si sono, e moltissime di quelle che a dire s’hanno, intendere si possano. E se a chi che sia paresse, che io quelle cose narrassi, le quali oggidì sono alla maggior parte notissime o tanto piccole, che non meritino, che di loro si favelli, ricordisi l’intendimento nostro non essere di voler scrivere solamente a Fiorentini nè a quegli soli, che al presente vivono; per non dir nulla, che le cose notissime, mentrechè niuno, pensando, che debbiano essere notissime sempre, e perchè non arrecano gloria a chi le descrive, non ne fa menzione alcuna, divengono col tempo più incognite di tutte l’altre, come si vede nell’erbe nelle monete e negli abiti così de’ Greci come de Romani; e niuna cosa è tanto piccola in una repubblica grande, della quale, solo che possa ad alcuna cosa o giovare o dilettare, non si debbia conto tenere.”  Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina (Milan: Società Tipografica de’ Classici Italiani, 1803), vol. 3–4, 56. 112 Baccio Valori wrote to Piero Vettori stating that Varchi was due to read this section for Cosimo and still had questions; he hoped Vettori could offer some assistance. Baccio Valori, letter to Piero Vettori, October 9, 1563, London, BL, Add. MS. 10278, fol. 131. 113 Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2.57–58. 111

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Other writers devoted entire works to the postclassical past. Pierfrancesco Giambullari composed much of his ambitious History of Europe about 1547, soon after he had published his arguments about the origins of the Florentine language.114 It is especially notable as an early effort to treat Europe as a single unit with a single, coherent history.115 Yet it covers only the years 887–947; for in fact, it is another in the long line of unfinished historical writings. The original plan, according to Giambullari’s friend and colleague Cosimo Bartoli, who edited the manuscript for publication, was 800–1200.116 Gelli referred at one point to Giambullari’s work on a history of the years 1000 to 1300, as if a further extension had been planned.117 On the other hand, a nineteenth-century scholar suggested that Giambullari may have planned to carry the narrative only to the era of Otto I and hence was only a decade or so away from his original goal.118 In his eulogy for Giambullari, Bartoli describes the work as a history of Europe “around the year 900.”119 Like many of his contemporaries whose projects expanded as they wrote, Giambullari may well have amended his plans over time. Giambullari’s introductory remarks in Book One offer some sense of goals and periodization. The renewals of the age of Charlemagne and his descendants are so well known, he observes, that they hardly need repeating. Yet very little is known from the rein of Arnolfo, the penultimate German Carolingian, onward. He hopes to bring to light a unique set of Giambullari, Historia dell’Europa. For a study of the work, see Francesco Vitali, Pierfrancesco Giambullari e la prima Storia d’Europa dell’età moderna (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2011). 115 The main precedents would have been the writings of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (1405–1464, Pius II) and Paolo Giovio: Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Pii II Pontificis maximi historia rerum ubique gestarum (Venice: Johan. de Colonia et Johan. Munthen, 1477), to which Europam was frequently added; Paolo Giovio, Historiarum sui temporis tomus primus (-secundus) (Florence: Torrentino, 1550– 1552). Giovio was more interested in establishing the worldwide importance of the events under his purview than he was in developing a fully European historical narrative as such. 116 Bartoli, dedication to Duke Cosimo, Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Istoria dell’Europa (Palermo: Giuseppe Assenzio, 1818), 6. 117 Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 242–43; Gelli made the reference in a lecture to the Accademia Fiorentina in 1558 on Dante, while discussing Dante’s references to Guelfs and Ghibellines. See also Giuseppe Kirner, Sulla “Storia dell’Europa” di P. F. Giambullari (Pisa: n.p., 1889), 10. 118 Kirner, Sulla “Storia dell’Europa,” 10–11. 119 Bartoli, in Giambullari, Historia dell’Europa, 166 r–v. 114

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events that had previously been hidden and unknown in his own day.120 He sets up this narrative with a quick summary of the Roman Emperors and imperial decline, caused both by Constantine’s abandonment of the city of Rome for Constantinople and the barbarian invasions. Leo III (795–816) revived the Roman Empire in the West and some amount of valor returned. Local notables here included Boniface, count of Tuscany, who helped drive the Moors from Corsica, thus earning from Giambullari comparisons to Scipio and Hannibal. Giambullari and his colleagues emphasized the great number of sources he consulted.121 Varchi received similar praise; unlike Varchi’s sources, however, most of those Giambullari used were historical narratives, some medieval and others of more recent composition. His main source was Liutprand of Cremona, whose text covers the same years and events. Liutprand, who had served both in the Italian court in Pavia and that of Otto I, had been both a scholar and a participant in the events he narrated. His text had been edited and published, twice, in the first decades of the sixteenth century.122 And in fact, nearly all of Giambullari’s sources were available in printed editions. The presses of Paris, Lyon, Strasburg, and elsewhere had begun printing the major medieval chronicles by the century’s early decades. Giambullari had access to this newly available body of information thanks to the book market and the growing collection of the future Laurenziana Library, of which he was the custodian in these years before the construction of its reading room. Many of his sources were regional histories that dealt with a single land exclusively. They varied widely in quality. When different sources described the same event, Giambullari attempted to correlate them. Sometimes he followed the one that held for him the most verisimilitude; at other times he simply noted discrepancies among the sources and left readers to draw their own conclusions. For some regions, he could resort to good recent scholarship that had already evaluated earlier sources; Giambullari noted with gratitude Polydore Vergil’s Anglicae historicae (1534) for England, and cited Beatus Rhenanus (notably Rerum Germanicarum Libri Tres, 1531) often and with great respect. Only once Kirner, Sulla “Storia dell’Europa’” 8–9. For a discussion of Giambullari’s sources, see ibid., 18–35. 122 Liutprandus Cremonsis, Rerum gestarum per Europam ipsius praesertim temporibus libri sex (Paris: Jehan Petit, 1514); Rerum ab Europae imperatoribus ac regibus gestarum libri 6 (Basel: Apud Io. Hervagium, 1532). 120 121

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did he refer to his Gello: in his survey of Italy, he noted that in his previous work he had already shown the region’s very early origins.123 The information in the History about the movement of peoples would have been relevant to his arguments about the postclassical development of the language, but Giambullari never lived long enough to bring those issues together in a new project. Giambullari weighed and compared these sources and organized them into a coherent narrative. This unified narrative allowed the reader to set local events into a broad context to assess their significance, to trace their roles in the larger trends of European history, and to evaluate sources comparatively. Although Liutprand’s work served as the narrative foundation, Giambullari did not merely repeat its contents. Liutprand had centered his story on Italy; Giambullari used, instead, the German Carolingian regions that became the heart of the Holy Roman Empire, moving outwards to other European regions. He began with a general description of Europe; as each new region entered the narrative he introduced it with its own geographic description. Each of the seven books begins with events in Germany, returning to that region as needed, and then moves from one region to the next as events require. Book Two, for example, treats Germany; France; Germany; Italy; Bulgaria; Greece; Moravia; Italy; Spain; Germany; Saxony; England; and ends again with Germany. The main narrative is political. Yet Giambullari also includes broader issues of customary practices. An understanding of customs was necessary to explaining the decisions and actions of the main figures, especially because the customs of regions so distant in both time and space might differ significantly from the expectations of his readers. Giambullari worked to collect and introduce this information systematically, typically in his regional introductions. They follow a similar format. Geographic boundaries begin the description, then the group or groups of people who inhabit the area, their origins, and when they arrived there. He gives the names of principal cities and bishoprics. Then he turns to the land, its fertility, and the types of crops, followed by information about the region’s religion, language, and way of life. The Bohemians, for example, were originally a subgroup of Vandals; they inhabit a portion of “old Germany” just north of the Danube, surrounded by Moravia, Silesia, Thuringia, and so on. Their land is large, with rich farmland and abundant animals, though without olive oil. They Giambullari, Historia dell’Europa, 16r.

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drink beer or imported wine; the people are bold, astute, and insatiable.124 When he turns to Russia, he explains that its plains go on for hundreds of miles, that the lakes have an unbelievable abundance of fish, and the land lacks nothing “except the two principal liquids, that is, wine, in place of which they make mead, and olive oil, which does not grow there and is not imported from elsewhere.”125 Russia has multiple religions: Latin and Greek Christians, Jews, and Armenians. Scandinavians were accustomed to raiding and piracy. Frisians were fierce, lovers of liberty who would neither be dominated nor dominate others, willing to kill those who put on airs.126 Many points remain unexplained in these summary presentations. Giambullari has placed his descriptions of custom next to those on geography and climate, though without specifying any causal connection. Verb tenses are blurred and inconsistent in many cases; it is not always apparent whether his description relates to modern residents, their earliest ancestors, or timeless constants. It is clear nonetheless that Giambullari has worked to assemble a reasonably standard set of features about each region; that these topics are distinct from a politically centered historical narrative; and that nonetheless these are factors essential for historical understanding. It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from an unfinished work. Nonetheless, Giambullari’s history indicates an interest, first, in building a more complete historical picture across both time and space, allowing regional events to be viewed and evaluated in a common and comparative chronological framework. Continuities as well as discontinuities could now be traced from one era about which relatively more was already known, notably the Carolingians, through years previously unfamiliar, to the next better-known era. Further, the work suggests a point of origin for a historical narrative that is genuinely European and postclassical; it locates that fundamental transformation in the heritage of the Carolingians. Many of Giambullari’s Florentine colleagues recognized these innovations. Bartoli remarked in his eulogy that the History of Europe alone would be sufficient to keep alive Giambullari’s name and memory for years to come. A number of other Florentines shared Giambullari’s interest in the history of imperial politics but worked on the much smaller scale of Ibid., 104r. “Ed in somma e’non manca a questo paese, se non I duoi liquori principali, cioè, il vino, in luogo del quale fanno il medone, e l’olio della uliva, che non vi nasce, e di altronde non vi si porta.” Ibid., 114r. 126 Ibid., 108r. 124 125

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biography. Bartoli himself wrote a life of the twelfth-century emperor Frederick Barbarossa (c. 1123–1190), published in 1559, a project that Bryce suggests may have been related to Giambullari’s history127 A Latin version, to which he alludes in the original dedication to Duke Cosimo, survives only in manuscript. In the dedication he recalls Duke Cosimo’s personal interest in history and historical writings, offering Cicero’s famous lines about history as life’s teacher; clearly, then, he expects his readers to accept biography as a form of historical writing. He also assumes medieval rulers, like ancient or modern ones, might serve as instructive examples to sixteenth-century readers. Most of Bartoli’s sources were histories or chronicles. Like Giambullari, he used a number of recently published sources from northern Europe: Otto of Freising on Barbarossa, his continuator Rahewin, and Albert Krantz’s recent history.128 He also used Biondo Flavio and Marcantonio Sabellico, the Milanese chronicle of Donato Bossi (Milan, 1492), and other sources, including Villani. At some points he evaluates or criticizes his sources explicitly; at others he simply follows one or another without particular comment. He likened the sources to a set of dismembered limbs, which he had assembled into a body. Bartoli, like his friend Giambullari, took an especial interest in the particularities of customs and practices, including the language of the sources themselves. Their Latin differed considerably from modern classicizing standards; Bartoli seems concerned that readers might not take seriously the information contained in such rough packages. He commented that while the Latin of four or five hundred years earlier was indeed less than ideal, the authors had written what they knew as best they could; if they had chosen not to write rather than to write badly, readers would know nothing at all about their time. Some of the era’s traditions required explanation. Indeed, he argued that conflicting customary expectations at the time had played a role in some of the events he described. He attributed the complications over Frederick’s coronation, for example, to differences in how the Germans versus the papal court understood the significance of imperial coronations, a topic that no doubt brought modern comparisons to mind for some of his readers. Cosimo Bartoli, La vita di Federigo Barbarossa (Florence: Torrentino, 1559). See Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 241–52. 128 Otto of Freising and Rahewin, Rerum ab origine mundi ad ipsius usque tempora gestarum libri octo (Strassburg: Matthias Schurer, 1515); Albert Krantz, Hystoria … von den alten hussen zu Behemen in Keiser Sigmunds zeiten (Strassburg: Johann Grüninger, 1523). 127

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Literary scholarship helped inspire other choices of biographical subjects. Matilda of Tuscany, the eleventh-century countess known especially for her role as negotiator in the Investiture Controversy, received two published biographies by sixteenth-century Florentines. One was written by Silvano Razzi (whose life of Varchi was published eventually with his history) and the other by Domenico Mellini. Matilda’s political importance, especially to Tuscans, might have been sufficient to have earned her this attention, but Dante provided additional inspiration. Dante had presented a character in the Purgatorio (28) named Matelda, resident of the earthly Paradise. Dante scholars often identified her with Matilda of Tuscany, thereby making the countess a subject of particular interest to those interested in letters as well as politics. Indeed, both Razzi and Mellini took the Dante passage as a starting point. Each of them also noted a problem with a standard source, Villani. Villani’s references to Matilda had been full of errors; thus the record was much in need of correction. Razzi’s work came out in 1587, though he notes in the preface that he had written it several years earlier. He begins with the need to correct the record as commonly seen in Dante commentators; too many have perpetuated the errors of Villani and others. He turns instead to Sigonio’s History of the Kingdom of Italy (5–7), as well as Biondo Flavio; as he gets further into the issues of papal politics he uses Platina’s Lives of the Popes as well. Florence appears occasionally in the narrative, as in the case of the council held there in 1055 as well as Henry III’s confrontation with Matilda’s mother Beatrice. Mellini too used Sigonio, though often to disagree. He consulted a number of additional sources; particularly important were local histories from Tuscany, Lombardy, and Romagna that were coming into print. He had the opportunity, he noted, to use a family tree assembled and printed in Verona (1588) by Benedetto Luchino of Mantua, whose chronicle of her life would appear in 1592; she had been buried at the local monastery that had received particular support among her many ecclesiastical foundations, San Benedetto in Poliron.129 He also used the life of Matilda written just after her death by Donizone, a monk at Sant’ Apollonio of Canossa, whose work survived in at least eleven surviving medieval copies.130 He attempted to track to and verify physical records of her presence, notably her place of burial, and other inscriptions relevant to her life and works. Domenico Mellini, Trattato … dell’origine, fatti, costumi, e lodi di Matelda, la gran contessa d’Italia (Florence: Giunti, 1589), 10. 130 Ibid., 34. 129

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Here he took issue with Vincenzio Borghini, whose Discorsi had been published not long before, on the interpretation of various monumental inscriptions. The end of his volume includes a portrait of Matilda reproduced from one of the Donizone manuscripts. [Fig. 3.1]

Fig 3.1  Donizone presents his manuscript to Matilda of Tuscany. Domenico Mellini, Trattato … dell’origine, fatti, costumi, e lodi di Matelda, la gran contessa d’Italia (Florence: Giunti, 1589), 112. Photo retrieved from Google Books. https://books.google .com/books?id=gSM8AAAAcAAJ

Medieval Histories

The relevance of medieval historical studies to Dante scholarship, and indeed to the great writers of the trecento in general, gave the whole subject an additional appeal distinct from that of modern history. Dante had filled his writings with references to Florentine people, places, and events not only of his time, but of his own historical past as well. Lecturers on Dante in particular might wish to focus on these figures or on other place-specific references. Boccaccio too used a variety of local settings, and made many references to the details of everyday life. Readers of Boccaccio needed to understand not only Boccaccio’s own narratives and references, but the dialogue of his characters. In addition, their vocabulary sometimes needed explanation for sixteenth-century readers. The editors of fourteenth-century texts needed resources for the apparatus their readers sought. These literary factors added to the appeal of writings from and about the era of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. It extended to include the era’s chronicles, praised by both editors and readers for language as well as content. Villani ranked first among them; interest in his chronicle extended throughout the peninsula and beyond. Pietro Bembo was especially influential in bringing Villani to the attention of non-Florentines; when he turned to matters of usage in Book Three of his Prose della volgar lingua (1525), the only text he cited more often than Villani’s Nuova cronaca was the Decameron.131 Villani quickly rose to great prominence as an example of fourteenth-century prose. When Francesco Sansovino produced his edition of the Decameron, he cited Villani as a source for word usage in correcting some readings.132 The first edition of the Nuova cronaca appeared in Venice in 1537; the text began to attract the attention of ever more scholarly editors throughout the century. These editors, and in some cases the publisher as well, included forewords or dedications that discuss not only the value of the work, but also the quality of the manuscripts used and the editorial principles followed, a treatment usually accorded only to significant literary works. Criticism of previous editions quickly became a standard topic of such introductions as well, especially since the early ones did not always live up the claims made by their editors. These editors thus took the tools that humanists had developed in the study of classical texts, and turned them increasingly to medieval authors. Richardson, Print Culture, 137. Ibid., 111.

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The first editorial team combined an interest in textual scholarship in general and Boccaccio in particular. The main editor, Giacomo Fasolo, consulted with the Florentine scholar Antonio Brucioli. Brucioli was an exile, a confirmed anti-Medicean republican who would have known Machiavelli and other literary and political figures from his youthful days at the Orti Oricellari; he was in fact exiled twice, the second time permanently in 1529. He wrote a number of works but was especially noted as a translator, especially his vernacular Bible (using Santi Pagnini’s Latin Bible); he would go on to produce vernacular translations of Aristotle, Cicero, and Pliny. Brucioli was editing the Decameron at the time, and he recommended similar standards for Villani: careful attention to the original orthography, with no modernization. Fasolo agreed: Do not wonder if some of the vocabulary found in it is uncommon in our time, and those words that are in use are written differently than they are at present; for this is a very ancient writer, and he spoke, and used the orthography and style of writing according to the language of his time, both verbs and nouns. Even though those things are different from what is used now, we nonetheless did not want to touch them; and were very much persuaded and restrained by the judgment of excellent men, and especially by that of Mr. Antonio Brucioli, who has seen this work, that the reader should see the language of those days, and consider how much languages change over the ages, and not presume, as audacious and presumptuous, to try and force the matters of other writers according to our own sensibility. So we are presenting them as far as possible according to the copy that is the oldest, and the most correct of any we have in the perfection and manner that the writer composed it.133 “… ne ti maraviglerai se alcuno vocabulo in essa trovassi non solito a nostri tempi, & quegli che sono in uso, altrimenti scritti di quello che al presente, si fa, per esser questo scrittore antiquissimo, & secondo la lingua de sui tempi havere parlato, & usata la sua orthographia, & modo di scrivere, tanto i verbi quanto i nomi, lequali cose, ben che siano varie da quello che si usa, non habbiamo voluto però toccare, & massime astretto, & persuaso dal giudicio de huomini eccellenti, & precipue dal Eccellentiss. M. Antonio Bruccioli, qual ha vista quest’opera a suo parere, & questo anchora per che il lettore vegga il parlare di que tempi, & consideri quanto si vadino mutando di secolo in secolo le lingue, & anchora per non parere come molti audace & prosuntuoso a volere ridurre le cose delli altri scrittori secondo il nostro sentimento, et cosi le apresentiamo, per quanto è possibile secondo la copia ch’è antichissima, & piu coretta di niuna altra habbiamo havuta a quella perfettione, & modo che esso Scrittore la ha composta.” Villani, Croniche, 3.

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The manuscript they used was in fact not very correct; it was one of a cluster of examples that contained only books one to ten of the twelve, and the edition included only those books without taking notice of the deficit.134 Thus whatever contemporaries might think of its editorial quality, it was clearly incomplete, lacking not only the final two books of Giovanni’s chronicle but also the continuations made by Matteo and Filippo. Torrentino in Florence decided to build upon this Zanetti edition with two volumes that came out in 1554 using their experienced editor, Ludovico Domenichi. Over the course of his career, Domenichi polished up many of the modern texts he edited, but he claimed to have left that of the Villani brothers as clean as he was able. His sentiments echoed those of Fasolo: And because these books were in large part incorrect owing to ignorant scribes, I went to work comparing them with ancient examples and taking the advice of men of judgment, reducing them to the best state possible, without in any way altering the sense of the author.135

After comparing the edition with the surviving manuscript of Giovanni’s chronicle used for this edition, Brian Richardson suggests that Domenichi did not quite live up to these standards; he altered some words arbitrarily and edited some passages to soften Villani’s criticisms of Venice.136 The market thus remained open for more thoughtful editorial work, and the editions continued, each criticizing the limitations of predecessors and touting the scholarly value of their own efforts. The Giunti press lost no time in bringing out a new version of all twelve of Giovanni Villani’s books (1559), published in Venice because Torrentino still had the privilege on the work in Florence.137 The editor was Remigio

F. P. Luiso, “Le edizioni della “Cronica” di Giovanni Villani,” Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano 49 (1933): 279–315. 135 “Et perche questi libri per colpa degli scrittori idioti erano in gran parte scorretti, io mi sono ingegnato, conferendogli con essemplari antichi, & piglando il parere d’huomini giudiciosi, ridurgli nel migliore stato che s’è potuto, senza punto alterare i sensi dell’Autore.” Matteo Villani, La prima [-seconda] parte della cronica universale de suoi tempi, 2 vols. (Florence: Torrentino, 1554), fol. iii verso. 136 Richardson, Print Culture, 138; the ms is Florence, BNC Palatino 1081. See also Luiso, “Le edizioni della ‘Cronica’.” 137 Giovanni Villani and Remigio Nannini, La prima [-seconda] parte delle Historie vniversali de svoi tempi di Giouan Villani cittadino fiorentino, nuouamente ristampata con tauole e postille in margine delle cose notabili, 2 vols. (Venice: Ad instantia de Giunti di Fiorenza, 1559); Richardson, Print Culture, 137–39. 134

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Nannini, a Florentine Dominican who was by this time resident at Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. He would go on to a number of editorial projects, including vernacular versions of Petrarch, Ovid, the gospels and epistles; Guicciardini (the full version of 1567), which he then used as the basis for his own set of historical Considerazioni; and a number of others.138 Nannini suggested in his dedication to Duke Cosimo that earlier Venetian editors had filled their publication with errors especially because they were unfamiliar with the text’s old and rough Tuscan vocabulary. He has examined ancient texts, he states, so as to present “the true and natural propriety of Florentine speech”; further, in consultation with other learned Florentines, he has added an apparatus of marginalia and tables. In fact, Nannini’s edition mainly cleaned up the worst offenses of the 1537 edition and added the promised marginal explanations of words and other references. Yet in his remarks to readers, Nannini shows the high standing Villani had attained among Florentines. He presents Villani not as a mere medieval chronicler, but as a historian; he even gave the work the impressive title, “universal histories of his times,” Historie vniversali de svoi tempi.139 He likened the work as a whole to an ancient medal or statue, and his editorial work, along with the marginalia, to the frames and pedestals modern collectors and conservators construct to display and protect their treasures. He even managed a comparison to the recently discovered Chimera of Arezzo: I have seen, dear readers, that those who delight in ancient medals are accustomed to put them inside particular ornaments or frames, which besides preserving the medals, give them considerable elegance and charm. And they make them of gold, of ebony, of ivory, of boxwood, or of other materials according to the means of the person who owns them. I have seen the same done for ancient statues, torsos of statues, heads, figures of animals, and similarly made things, for which they make bases of porphyry, serpentine, peragonite, white marble, and of other stones or metals, as we have seen done in the palazzo of our illustrious prince, in addition to many others that very ancient bronze statue that nearly everyone calls the Chimera. And because I too take On Nannini, see Claudia Tomei, “Nannini, Remigio,” DBI. Vespasiano da Bisticci had referred to the work this way in the fifteenth century. Luiso, “Le edizioni della ‘Cronica’,” 282.

138 139

Medieval Histories great delight in ancient things, for which I have not neglected to make such ornaments as I have able according to my own means, when this lovely antiquity – the Histories of our Giovanni Villani – came into my hands, I collected it no less happily than I would have (if I had found them) a medal of an Ottonian emperor, of a Catiline, of a Cato, or other rare object.140

Villani’s tales about the origins of the city may be a bit fabulous, he acknowledges; so are tales of any city’s origins, such as those of Rome or Athens. But on the events of his own times he is an absolutely reliable historian. Thus Nannini has been especially careful to make no changes. His remarks echo those of previous editors: As to the orthography and the manner of speaking I wanted to change nothing at all except a few commas, so one can see how great is the difference between modern writers and ancient ones, and also because I know that even the smallest thing is apt to spoil that antiquity and age that one desires in a lovely antique medal.141

Giunti followed up in 1562 with Matteo’s chronicle, edited by Dionisio Atanagi. Atanagi consulted in turn with Vincenzio Borghini, who wrote to Filippo Giunta to discuss editorial principles and to express his trust

“Io ho veduto Cortesi Lettori, che coloro, che si dilettano di medaglie antiche, sogliono ordinariamente far loro intorno certi ornamenti, ò cerchi, i quali oltre alla conservatione delle dette medaglie, danno loro ancora molto garbo, e vaghezza. E chi gli fa d’oro, che d’Ebano, chi d’avorio, chi di busso, e chi d’altre materie, secondo la possibilità di colui, che le possiede. Questo medesimo ho veduto far anche alla statue antiche, a torsi di statue, a teste d’huomini, a figure d’animali & a cosi fatte cose, alle quali si fanno base di Porfidi, di Serpentini, di paragoni, di marmi bianchi, e d’altre pietre, o metalli, come habbiamo veduto essersi fatto nel palazzo dell’Illustriss. Prencipe nostro, oltre a molte altre a quella statua antichissima di bronzo, che quasi da tutti è domandata Chimera. E perche ancor io mi son molto dilettato di cose antiche, alle quali non ho mancato di fare quegli ornamenti che io ho potuto secondo la possibilita mia, però essendomi venuta alle mani questa bellissima anticaglia dell’Historie del nostro Giovan Villani, la raccolsi non men volentieri, che io mi havessi raccolto (s’io l’havessi trovata) una medaglia d’un’Ottone Imp. d’un Catilina, d’un Catone Uticense ò altre cosi fatte, le quali son rare.” Giovanni Villani, La prima parte delle historie universali, sig. *3 r. 141 “Circa l’ortografia, e circa il modo del dire non ho voluto mutar cosa alcuna, se non di qualche coma, si perche si veda, quanta differenza sia tra gli scrittori moderni e gli antichi, si ancora perche io sò ch’ogni minima cosa è atta a guastare quell’antichità, e vecchiezza, che si desidera in una bella medaglia antica.” Ibid. [sig. *3 r–v]. 140

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in Atanagi’s work. In 1577 they brought out another version in Florence of Matteo’s chronicle and that of Filippo.142 The printers offered a lengthy description of the works consulted. The previous edition, they began, had used the best manuscript available at the time, from Ludovico Castelvetro, but it had been clearly imperfect, missing a great deal of material. They themselves had found that Giuliano de’ Ricci had a family copy that was much more complete. It was the basis of the present edition. Their dedication to Duke Cosimo emphasizes the errors and losses chronic to manuscript preservation and transmission, and by contrast, the advantages of print in helping assure that texts are much more easily and correctly preserved. Borghini had still been less than fully satisfied with Nannini’s edition, and planned to undertake one of his own. It was among the many projects left unfinished at his death in 1580. Borghini was drawn to Villani for a number of reasons: his writing style, close to the spoken language of his day; his close observation and description of the minutiae of Florentine life and customs; even the great many manuscript copies over a century and more were of interest. Not only could Borghini study them to develop principles of manuscript editing suited to the vernacular, but he could also examine changes in the vernacular itself. Often he did so by looking at different texts written at different points in time; but in the case of Villani, he could also study the same text copied at different times, as he could with the era’s more literary works. Borghini assembled a set of Annotations on Villani organized like the castigationes of classical authors, reminiscent of the publication of his friend and colleague Piero Vettori for Cicero. It analyzed and corrected the text and its variations.143 The improved Giunti version of Giovanni Villani finally appeared thanks to Baccio Valori in 1587. He was working on this project at about the same time he was composing the catalogue for the Laurenziana, which contained numerous Villani manuscripts. After severely criticizing the previous versions he noted especially the interest in studying Florentine vernacular and the assistance of the Accademia degli Alterati. Now, he Matteo Villani and Filippo Villani, Della historia di Matteo Villani (Florence: Giunti, 1577); reissued 1596. 143 Vincenzio Borghini, Annotazioni sopra Giovanni Villani, ed. Riccardo Drusi, Scrittori italiani e testi antichi pubblicati dall’Accademia della Crusca (Florence: Accademia della Crusca, 2001). 142

Medieval Histories

could state with pride, the language is studied “like Latin and Greek, and of these, especially Roman and Athenian.”144 Florentine interest in publishing diaries and chronicles extended to other works as well. In 1568 the Giunti published Biagio Buonaccorsi’s diary for the years 1498–1512. In their dedication to Francesco de’ Medici, they observe that they have been intent on making available those authors who have written about the past, especially Florence’s past; having brought out several early works, they would like to turn to more recent ones. They added Niccolò Valori’s life of Lorenzo de’ Medici at the beginning of the volume, and an index at the end; and as usual, they emphasized their faithfulness to the manuscript tradition. The reference to early works included, no doubt, a project already well underway that would come out early the next year, February 1569 (1568 s.f.): the chronicle of Ricordano Malispini. The work was believed to date from the later thirteenth century, and to be one of the sources used by Dante in composing the Commedia, thus making it one of the earliest extended examples of Florentine prose. Although the debate about its actual dating still continues intermittently, it is now generally held to be a fraudulent composition of the later fourteenth century that made use of Villani, though perhaps with some thirteenth-century sources as well.145 It was “…ch’ella si studia ormai come la Latina, e la Greca, e di queste già la Romana, e l’Ateniese partitamente.” Giovanni Villani, Storia (Florence: Giunti, 1587), dedication, unpag. 145 See John C. Barnes, “Un problema in via di chiusura: La ‘Cronica’ malispiniana,” Studi e proglemi di critica textuale 27 (1983): 15–32; Charles Davis, “The Malispini Question,” Studi medievali 10, no. ser. 3 (1970): 215–54; Maria De Matteis, “Ancora su Malispini, Villani, e Dante: Per un riesame dei rapporti tra cultura storica e profezia erica nell’Alighieri,” Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio muratoriano 82 (1970): 329–90; “Malispini da Villani o Villani da Malispini? Una ipotesi sui rapport tra Ricordano Malispini, il ‘compendiatore,’ e Giovanni Villani,” Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio muratoriano 84 (1973): 145–221; Thomas Maissen, “Attila, Totila e Carlo Magno fra Dante, Villani, Boccaccio e Malispini. Per la genesi di due leggende erudite,” Archivio storico italiano 152, no. 3, alt. no. 561 (1994): 561–639; Raffaello Morghen, “Note malispiniane,” Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio muratoriano 40 (1920): 105–26; “Dante, il Villani, e Ricordano Malispini,” Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio muratoriano 41 (1921): 171–94; “Ancora sulla questione malispiniana,” Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio muratoriano 46 (1931): 41–92; Giuseppe Porta, “Le varianti redazionali come strumento di verifica dell’autenticità dei testi: Villani e Malispini,” in Convegno della società italiana di filologia romanza. Università di Messina, 19–22 Dic. 1991, ed. S. Guida and F. Latella (Messina: Sicania, 1994). 144

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re-issued thirty years later. By the time of its publication it was already being consulted as a source for early Florentine history. Cosimo Bartoli cited it for the history of the Giambullari family in his funeral oration for Pierfrancesco in 1555.146 Vincenzio Borghini consulted it frequently both for its content and the author’s use of the vernacular, though on occasion he expressed doubts about the work’s reliability.147 Malispini’s text received respectful treatment much like that accorded Villani. Filippo and Jacopo Giunta, in their dedication to Duke Cosimo, emphasized the fragility of manuscript transmission in contrast to the great value of the cultural heritage. Even if a text survives in several manuscript copies, it may remain unknown because interested scholars are unaware of them. If owned and recopied by amateurs and not scholars, they may be amended incorrectly; such errors are especially common once the language has changed sufficiently that copyists fail to recognize some of the words. Malispini’s work is valuable, they continue, both for the history it contains and the language it uses. They invite the reader to discover the work’s pure, simple language, free of artifice and displaying an almost natural beauty, worthy of study just as early Latin authors such as Varro, Cato, or Plautus. The editorial project itself, they suggest, might be compared to some of the most noted accomplishments of recent classical scholarship in Florence: Lelio Torelli’s publication of the Pandects of Justinian, and Piero Vettori’s Castigationes of Cicero. At the end they enjoin the reader to share this love of the past: Take it now with that reverence and affection that sends you into churches searching on crooked gravestones for ancient inscriptions, old manners of dress, and various family crests, and under ruins, among the ashes for the fragments of ancient statues; that is the love owed to centuries past.148 Cosimo Bartoli, “Oratione … recitata publicamente nelle essequie di Messer P. F. Giambullari,” in Lenzoni, Difesa. 147 Vincenzio Borghini, Storia della nobiltà fiorentina: discorsi inediti o rari, ed. John Robert Woodhouse (Pisa: Marlin, 1974), 5. 148 “Prendetelo adesso con quella riverenza, & affezione, che vi fa per li sacri tempi sopra le sepolture inclinati ricerare l’antiche insegne, il gia disusato vestire, e le molto diverse armi, e sotto le rovine fra le ceneri i fragmenti delle antichissime statue, tanto e l’amore dovuto al secolo andato.” Ricordano Malespini, Historia antica … dall’edificazione de Fiorenza per insino all’anno M.CCLXXXI (Florence: Giunti, 1568), sig. **. 146

History, Politics, Customs

Given how fond Florentines were of comparing their city to ancient Athens or Rome, it is not surprising that they were able to see parallels between their medieval past and the early days of ancient cultures.

History, Politics, Customs Florentines maintained a strong and active interest in the history of their city and region. The roles of past family members in public service had an impact on their lives. Analysis of past politics helped inform modern action. Although Florentines were hardly alone in caring about their past, they were especially strong in demonstrating that interest in many parts of life. Debates about historical issues and methods would find a wide following and maintained a high profile. Public art on historical themes would receive comment and debate not only in terms of the visual composition, but also the historical program. They bought books and collected manuscripts, and many of them kept diaries that they saw, potentially at least, as histories of their times. The major writers of history knew one another, read one another’s work, and might assist one another with questions or problems encountered along the way. They were also quick to offer praise or criticism; their first criterion, not surprisingly, was a commitment to factual accuracy. That helped drive an ever-increasing interest in documentation of all kinds, an interest that would carry over into other information types as well. The citing and quoting of evidence served not only as a service to subsequent writers, but as a signal of achievement and authority. Guicciardini inscribed a leaf on his manuscript with a passage of Cicero; it was not “historia magistra vitae,” but rather, the passage from De Oratore (2.15) that emphasized the historian’s commitment to telling the complete truth.149 These Florentine authors did not write long texts on theories, methods, or models in historical writing; rather, they restricted their remarks to brief passages or longer digressions within a work of history. Nonetheless, they weighed carefully their arguments about causes as well as evidence. Several paid particular attention to the importance of social groups. This interest arose naturally from the city’s traditional organization, which included a number of such groups: magnates and plebeians; guilds; Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, 272–74.

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families; parties; factions. Many bore venerable labels: popolo grasso and minuto, Guelfs and Ghibellines, ottimati, piagnoni, arrabbiati. Ancient Rome had also had its social groups; to distinguish Florentine patterns from ancient ones also added precision to their writing. Machiavelli seems to have inspired some of this interest. Nardi and Nerli had known Machiavelli personally and referred to him in their writings. Some authors, such as Domenichi and Bartoli, composed works in the style of Machiavelli’s Discourses, in which they sought to present and generalize various kinds of political issues and problems based on historical accounts as found in the writings of noted historians. Nerli built a case in his history that faction-ridden populations like Florentines could maintain stability only with an autocratic ruler such as Cosimo, without claiming that such a state was ideal. Others focused on different principles of leadership, citizenship, and political action as practiced by different social groups. To Nardi, a republican government, which he favored in general, required a mercantile population; he was especially interested in their interactions with those at both higher and lower social levels. These writers sought, then, not simply to understand Florentine events more fully, but to use information about the past behavior of Florentines to understand political behavior more generally. Historical writing offered them a way to extract and examine general principles of public action of all sorts. In other cases, explanations of past public actions called for precise analysis of an individual actor. The explanation for Lorenzino’s murder of Duke Alessandro lay within Lorenzino himself. That focus led for some to see biographies as a form of history writing. Varchi included discussions of Lorenzino’s family and upbringing, his temperament as witnessed by others as well as by Varchi himself, and his past behavior; he weighed what one might consider purely personal issues against the claims made by many, Lorenzino among them, that he had acted out of political principle in opposing a tyrant, as a new Brutus. For others, great figures of the more distant past, whether an emperor or Matilda of Tuscany, captured their attention. This form of historical writing would find its greatest local example in the writings of Giorgio Vasari. To write the history of earlier eras quickly raised issues of sources as well as the contextual knowledge needed to understand and interpret events. Giambullari had no ninth-century documentary sources at his disposal. He relied instead on historical narratives that had been composed

History, Politics, Customs

many years, generally centuries, earlier. At times it was apparent that these authors’ standards for authenticating events were inadequate; comparison with contemporary narratives from other regions was an essential first step to correcting them. In some cases, the superiority of one source over another was clear; in others, he had to decide which had the greater verisimilitude. Subsequent authors with new sources might build and improve on such work. Giambullari also considered custom to be an essential part of historical understanding and tried to produce standard types of description. He had assumed that these sections would be of particular interest to many readers; in the table of contents, he singled out discussions of customs (costumi) for particular notice. Varchi agreed on the importance of such topics, even as he lamented the difficulty of acquiring the necessary knowledge. Indeed, the more history that Florentines wrote, the more collateral information and context came to seem necessary to many. Diarists began to acknowledge that it was not always possible to evaluate immediately the significance of what they recorded. Giuliano de’ Ricci noted in his diary in July 1573, four years before his edition of Matteo and Filippo Villani was published, that some might think it not worthwhile to put pen to paper for such small matters as he was recording, but that what seems today of little consequence might be useful in the future.150 Just as later events might prove a current judgment to have been incorrect, so details that seem trivial now might prove important later. As Varchi noted, those ancient authors who focused so carefully only on major issues often left out information that seemed obvious and extraneous to them, but not to later readers. Thus, in order to meet the goals of classical history – explaining why historical actors had behaved as they did – many historians found they needed to present material about the past that had not itself been included in classical historical writing. Authors of chronicles often had provided such information, but not organized in a way that sixteenth-century writers favored in works more formal than diaries. Historical writing on these subjects, from dress to diet to customs, increased over time, though often in works with general titles like “discourses” that arose from the lack of clear status as a genre. By the middle decades of the sixteenth century, then, studies of the Florentine past were broadening in number, range, and approach. Ricci, Cronaca (1532–1606), 55.

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Historical studies were an avenue for analyzing any number of aspects of society: politics, language, group behavior, custom, artistic achievement. Histories of language were especially closely connected, because the study of the text’s language was essential to its interpretation. Histories of locations and traditions followed close behind. The study of the events of Florence’s past would remain closely interconnected with studies of its language and customs.

4

Language and Its Study

R

  enaissance

humanists cared about language as bearers both of

  ­meaning and of beauty. Not only was language a tool for expres-

sion, but it was also a common subject about which to write and debate. When they wrote about language, they generally wrote about a classical language, and most often about Latin. Latin was a venerated language of learning and antiquity, and hence a worthy subject. Ancient authors had themselves produced a trove of writings about Latin: grammar handbooks, books on how to write and speak well, critical assessments of the writings of past authors. So too, Greek writers had turned their attention to such matters, often in works that had served as the models for Roman authors. They had developed the terminology that Latin scholars would adopt as well, from the parts of speech to rhetorical devices. This ancient scholarship continued to serve as guides and exemplars for later Europeans who wanted to study Latin and Greek and to write about them. The study of modern languages brought new complications, especially so for Florentines. By the sixteenth century their own tongue had a long and distinguished roster of literary masters who were admired, written about, and imitated across the peninsula. Lectures on Dante were a tradition nearly as old as the Commedia itself. Countless letterati strove to write poetry in the style of Petrarch. As these venerated literary figures receded ever further into the past, the study of their works raised questions that evaded easy answers. Much modern scholarly ink has been spilled on the so-called language debate, the questione della lingua, in sixteenth-century Italy, over how to set literary standards for the language; the topic continued to resonate through Italian history, historiography, and well into the modern era. Yet sixteenth-century Florentines did not see themselves engaged in a single debate as they investigated Florentine language and 123

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literature. Rather, their language-related concerns appeared on several different scholarly agendas, because language concerns overlapped with so many other issues. Some related mainly to things Florentine, while others engaged colleagues across Italy. Little wonder, then, that even in the later decades of the century there was no single consensus on such basic issues as how to evaluate literature, how to define a modern language, how to analyze changes in a language over time, or how to describe a language in terms larger or smaller than rules and parts of speech. No matter what else drove their interests in vernacular, Florentines became increasingly involved in the study not just of literary language but especially of everyday language and speech. Here the ancients and the study of Latin offered less assistance. Although the speech of everyday ancient Romans had not sounded quite like a Ciceronian oration, the nature of the difference had not been a subject of great interest to Roman scholars; nor had ancient Romans attempted to study or to make a systematic record of the everyday language as spoken in Rome or elsewhere. Renaissance scholars thus lacked not only data about ancient society and spoken languages; they also lacked models for their own scholarship. Yet Florentines could see that Dante, Petrarch, and their contemporaries had forged a literary language out of the everyday language around them, such that the two were closely related. Although they had no direct records of that everyday language, Boccaccio’s characters seemed to speak it, and Villani, Malispini and others seemed to write more or less as they spoke. As these Florentines strove to articulate vernacular literary standards and to distinguish them from those used for Latin, they realized that they needed to understand more about the language, both literary and spoken, of the fourteenth century and earlier, when their modern traditions had begun. Further, they needed to be able to show how modern Florentine resembled and differed not only from the Florentine of earlier eras but also from the speech of other regions, both distant and within Tuscany. Some of the first efforts to describe large language changes, particularly those that resulted in the formation of vernacular Florentine, were associated with the “Aramei.” During the 1540s and 1550s, a single circle of friends and colleagues produced most of the writings on language in Florence: Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Giovan Battista Gelli, Cosimo Bartoli, and Carlo Lenzoni. Another colleague, Giovanni Norchiati, left a major unfinished project with his premature death. Lenzoni and Giambullari would also leave uncompleted works in the 1550s. The

Language and Its Study

debates about Etruscan origins forced all participants to hone their subsequent arguments about languages and language change. The studies of language in Florence that continued in the second half of the century would prove to be less controversial and ultimately more productive. Yet that later scholarship would owe a great deal to the work this group produced during these years. All of these men had been early members of the Umidi, and became stalwarts of the Accademia Fiorentina. Both within and without the Accademia, they were in constant contact not just with one another, but also with those Florentines who wrote on language in the decades that followed, notably Benedetto Varchi, Girolamo Mei, and Vincenzio Borghini. Some of their writings suggest they were familiar with Mei’s writings and ideas already in the 1540s, and Mei would long remain a supporter of some of Giambullari’s arguments. They participated in the negotiations to bring Benedetto Varchi back to Florence, though that relationship underwent considerable strain thereafter. Reactions to their writings divided the Accademia, though all seem to have patched things up sufficiently to continue as colleagues. Florentines in the 1540s and 1550s might decide to write on language-related matters for a number of reasons. Some of their works were clearly addressed primarily at the ongoing, peninsula-wide debates about literary standards; that is, they can be seen as interventions in the questione della lingua. Closely related to this set of Italy-wide debates were the efforts at producing better editions of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and other major writers such as Villani. Men of letters across Italy might choose to weigh in on the merits and limitations of such new editions. Florentines had an additional interest in these authors. Not only were Petrarch and Boccaccio in particular held up as standards of excellence across Italy in poetry and prose, but all were also invaluable locally as witnesses in various ways to the language use and linguistic practices of their city in the fourteenth century. Perhaps most significant was their development of principles for studying the modern language. They used the grammatical terminology of classical languages, particularly Latin, but they also faced clear differences. They came to agree on a fundamental distinction between living languages and dead ones. They also agreed that living languages had their basis in speech, not writing. Further, because language is natural to humans, language is a product of nature; a language follows rules that can be studied like other natural phenomena.

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Thus Florentine studies of spoken language were not simply responses to issues about literary standards. Indeed, the authors were often careful to state that they were examining only the spoken language, and addressing questions of how it should be studied, while remaining silent about how this language might relate to modern literary norms across the peninsula. They sought to situate their language not only in the context of other vernacular speech in Italy, but also in the context of its own past, its origins and development, and its relationship to ancient languages. On occasion they urged that similar studies be undertaken of the spoken language of other Italian regions. At every turn, the scholars confronted issues about the definitions of terms, the validity of comparisons, and the identity of the very objects of their scholarship. Their tools, based in ancient grammatical study, strained at the task of taking the measure of their modern tongue; initially, indeed, the term “grammar” itself meant Latin grammar and did not apply to modern languages. Several complained of the difficulty in studying a living, changing language. It is hardly surprising that they took a number of different approaches, or that at times they might seem to be arguing past rather than with each other. Their work inspired later scholars to further historical studies of language; their most lasting contributions probably lay in their careful attention to recording the language practices of their own day.

From Dante to Bembo and Beyond: The Century’s First Decades Comparative approaches to Latin and vernacular were as old as Dante. Classical Latin itself was stable and unchanging. Its grammatical rules had long been codified and fixed in books of grammar that had been the backbone of education ever since they had been written. Modern language, by contrast, was variable; it changed from one era or one region to the next. In his De vulgari eloquentia, Dante had raised a number of the questions and concerns that would remain at issue for the next two centuries and more. He observed that just as other aspects of human behavior are variable, spoken language changes over time. Dante declined to speculate on how the three divisions of one of Europe’s main languages – the group now called Romance languages – had come to be, or how they had related to each other since the era of the tower of Babel. Nonetheless, he argued that of the many vernaculars on the Italian peninsula, a best version might be identified and labeled Italian, that is, a version based on

From Dante to Bembo and Beyond

the best features of all and as practiced at courts where people of various regions interacted. It had both the literary virtue of tending toward the best, and the practical one of being understood by a wide range of the potential reading audience. Dante had left his little work unfinished and appears not to have put it into circulation. Although Villani and a few other fourteenth-century authors referred to it, few seem actually to have seen it. By the fifteenth century it was entirely unknown. Fifteenth-century humanists were interested especially in Latin and stylistic elegance, but a number of them offered opinions on the relationships between literary and ordinary language as well as ancient eloquence versus modern.1 Some, for example Lorenzo Valla, suggested that there had been a significant linguistic disjunction in antiquity between Ciceronian Latin style and the everyday language of craftspeople and other laborers, and that modern vernaculars had developed naturally from the latter.2 Nonetheless, as writing in vernacular continued to expand over time, writers expected to find stylistic guidance for it as they found for Latin, no matter what the state of theory. The literate public purchased copies of Cicero not only to read but also to use as a guide to imitate in their own Latin writing; so too they wanted stylistic models for volgare, in order to be assured of writing it well. The rapid rise of the print industry added urgency as well as substantial financial concerns. Publishers wanted to print books written using language and styles that were acceptable (and of course comprehensible) to readers. Authors and critics sought standards for assessing quality; readers wanted to be confident in their purchases. These issues were keenly felt across the peninsula, but had a particular shape and resonance in Florence. Because so many influential early Italian authors had written in versions of Florentine – notably the “three crowns” of volgare, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio – vernacular literary production on the Italian peninsula had developed with a heavy Florentine influence. Yet new writers might be natives of nearly anywhere. Nor was the printing industry centered in Florence; Florence was merely a secondary and Eugenio Refini, “‘By Imitating Our Nurses’: Latin and Vernacular in the Renaissance,” in Routledge History of the Renaissance, ed. William Caferro (London: Routledge, 2017), 46–61. 2 Mirko Tavoni, Latino, grammatica, volgare. Storia di una questione umanistica (Padua: Antenore, 1984). 1

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regional publishing city, and looked to Venice as the center of the book business. Thus, writers and publishers alike faced issues of production and increasingly of evaluation in a rapidly expanding industry, and one that employed a literary language that varied to a greater or lesser degree from their own daily speech. Accordingly, many participants in the debates about vernacular came from outside Florence; yet whatever standard they proposed or however much their positions differed from one another, these writers generally assumed that literary Florentine as it already existed would figure significantly in the result.3 The first published grammatical rules of the vernacular emerged from just this set of issues. The Regole grammaticali della volgar lingua of Giovan Francesco Fortunio (Ancona 1516, Milan 1517, Venice 1518), used the works of the Florentine trecento authors as the basis for its rules and its standards of quality, though the author himself was a native of Ancona where it was first published.4 These books generally took as their model Latin grammars and the formal study of the Latin language. Grammar as a discipline included not only the rules governing the parts of speech and their relationship in an utterance (the modern use of the term), but also the essentials of good composition and style.5 It employed technical terminology that reflected its Greek origins. Despite occasional early experiments with grammar books of vernacular languages,6 the very term “grammar” continued to refer exclusively to Latin or Greek throughout the fifteenth century, as it had for Dante. Fortunio had addressed that issue by calling his topic “grammatical rules,” and “rules” came to be a preferred label for such vernacular texts. Richardson, Print Culture, 64–78. Paolo Trovato, Il primo Cinquecento, Storia della lingua italiana (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1994), 90–96. 5 On Renaissance grammars and the norms of grammatical terminology and description, see W. Keith Percival, Studies in Renaissance Grammar (Aldershot; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004). See also “Renaissance Linguistics: The Old and the New,” in Studies in the History of Western Linguistics, ed. Theodora Bynon and Frank Robert Palmer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 56–68. 6 Tavoni, Latino, grammatica, volgare; “The Fifteenth-Century Controversy on the Language Spoken by the Ancient Romans: an Inquiry into Italian Humanist Concepts of ‘Latin’, ‘Grammar’, and ‘Vernacular’,” Historiographia linguistica 9, no. 3 (1982): 237–64. The grammar of Alberti, for example, did not circulate. Leon Battista Alberti, La prima grammatica della lingua volgare; la grammatichetta Vaticana Cod. Vat. Reg. Lat. 1370, ed. Cecil Grayson (Bologna, 1964). 3

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From Dante to Bembo and Beyond

Although Latin grammar texts from late antiquity remained in use through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, several significant new ones appeared in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Renaissance Latin grammar books described standards for the written language. They were not based on spoken Latin, for good and sufficient reasons. Not only were there no living native speakers of classical Latin to whom the author might turn for models, but the spoken Latin of modern university and clerical communities had long been full of the barbarisms the humanists had sought to reform; of necessity it remained so, at least to some degree. Early grammatical guides to volgare followed this model; they served as handbooks for proper writing. Their appearance thus speaks to the seriousness with which modern scholars, critics, and authors were taking the vernacular as a language of literature. Fortunio’s rule book seems designed to assist non-Tuscan speakers of volgare with the basics of these developing standards so as to improve their writing. Though the goal was literary, it was also practical; the author aimed to impart a particular skill to readers. From the end of the fifteenth century onward, the practical need for vernacular language instruction in general expanded rapidly, and included speaking as well as writing. Increasing numbers of Europeans needed to communicate at a day-to-day level with speakers of other linguistic groups, both within Europe and around the world. Practical books of grammatical rules, including many intended to teach a language to non-native speakers, proliferated during these years.7 Grammatical treatises thus varied widely in their audiences, goals, and scholarly level throughout the sixteenth century. Yet the interests of many authors went beyond the merely practical. Those who examined vernacular grammar as a scholarly project – Benedetto Varchi, for example – needed to address some theoretical issues that practical grammarians might leave unstated. To write serious scholarship, they had to begin by defining their terms. That meant articulating which features identify and distinguish a modern language and whether the definition rested in written language, as it did for Latin, in spoken practice because the language was modern, or (somehow) For a brief survey of practical grammars, see John Howland Rowe, “Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Grammars,” in Studies in the History of Linguistics: Traditions and Paradigms, ed. Dell Hymes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), 361–79. On a practical handbook for Giovanna of Austria, see Ilaria Bonomi, “Una grammatichetta italiana per Giovanna d’Austria sposa di Francesco di’ Medici (1565),” Acme 40, no. 2 (1987): 51–73.

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both. They needed to consider how a given language related to other vernacular languages near it geographically, and how to set boundaries between them. They also had to establish how the standards of good composition in a given modern language, in verse or prose, related to the literary standards that already existed for classical languages. Many of the most important writings on volgare from this era, therefore, were not in fact books of grammatical rules, but dialogues or treatises that took up any of a number of issues about the nature and identity of the modern language. Several authors in the first decades of the century, primarily non-Florentines, began to address the subject by drafting works that they discussed with friends and colleagues, circulated locally in manuscript, and finally began to publish in the 1520s. They also composed literary works to employ and exhibit the standards they discussed. The texts produced during these years, both theoretical and literary, set the tone for much of the debate that followed.8 The Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo published in 1525 his Prose della volgar lingua, perhaps the single most influential work on the subject for many years. In it he argued that on the model of Latin, in which the works of the best authors served for many as the standards of excellence, volgare should take the writings of Petrarch and Boccaccio as literary standards for poetry and prose. He also presented a basic historical narrative of the language that quickly became a standard, whether to adopt or, for some, to attack. Vernacular letters in Italy, he asserted, had arisen in the thirteenth century in close relationship with Provencal poetry, risen to a peak in the fourteenth century, and subsequently declined in quality such that they stood in need of the modern reforms he advocated. In Bembo’s historical narrative, the formation of the language and its literary achievements were closely intertwined. The reasons lay not only 8

There are many surveys of the questione della lingua. See for example Robert Anderson Hall, The Italian questione della lingua: an Interpretative Essay (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1942); Maurizio Vitale, La questione della lingua (Palermo: Palumbo, 1978); Bruno Migliorini, The Italian Language, ed. T. Gwynfor Griffith (London; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1966), 214–27; Vittorio Formentin, “Dal volgare toscano all’italiano,” in Storia della letteratura italiana vol. 4. Il primo Cinquecento, ed. Enrico Malato (Rome: Salerno, 1995), 177–250, at 188–207; Trovato, Il primo Cinquecento. For a survey of scholarship on linguistic study in the Renaissance see Mirko Tavoni, “‘Linguistica’ italiana del Quattro e Cinquecento. Rassegna di studi 1979–1989,” Bollettino di Italianistica 4 (1986): 1–28.

From Dante to Bembo and Beyond

in his goals – the production of a peninsula-wide literary standard based on the model of classical Latin – but also in the sources available. Textual witnesses of Italian vernaculars before the age of the court poets of Frederick II are extremely sparse, due especially to the strong preference across the peninsula for writing in Latin during these centuries. Most now extant were discovered after the sixteenth century and hence were unknown to Bembo, his colleagues, or his immediate successors. Their library of sources dwindled rapidly as they looked backwards chronologically from the age of Dante to Brunetto Latini and beyond, with nothing at all before about 1200. They had no examples of vernacular usage from the era of the Carolingians, the Ottonians, or any other era in which their language underwent its key transitions and developments. New discoveries of early texts, or new manuscripts of early works already known, enjoyed considerable interest. Their oldest examples were mainly poetry; the earliest references in Bembo’s historical summary at the beginning of Book Two of the Prose are to thirteenth-century poets, some known only by reputation. These men of letters could see that even though the study of modern languages was similar in many ways to the study of classical languages that were at the heart of grammatical study and humanistic learning, there were also some important differences. Perhaps the most important was the fixed stability of ancient languages as opposed to the constant changes seen in modern ones. For the first time, they began to distinguish between dead and living languages. The Sienese scholar Claudio Tolomei had first used the concept in his Cesano, published in 1555 but written in the 1520s.9 The earliest known uses of the terms in print date to 1540. Alessandro Citolini, a native of Serravalle (near Treviso) used the terms in his Lettera in difesa della lingua volgare, published in Venice in December of that year. Citolini had been able to access Tolomei’s work in manuscript.10 The Florentine exile Jacopo Nardi also used the term in his address to readers at the beginning of his translation of the first ten

Claudio Tolomei, Il Cesano de la lingua Toscana, ed.Ornella Castellani Pollidori (Florence: Accademia della Crusca, 1996). 10 R. Glynn Faithfull, “The Concept of ‘Living Language’ in Cinquecento Vernacular Philology,” The Modern Language Review 48, no. 3 (1953): 278–92, esp. 281–82; Brian Richardson, “Renaissance Linguistics in Italy,” in Concise History of the Language Sciences: from the Sumerians to the Cognitivists, ed. E. F. K. Koerner and R. E. Asher (New York: Pergamon, 1995), 153. 9

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books of Livy (Venice, 1540). There he notes that he has tried to conserve good usage as well as include newer innovations, which Greek and Latin authors in ancient times had done as well: Our forebears did so, and so did the Greeks and Latins with their languages, according to the novelty of things and the changes in habits of speech, when they were called living languages. We call those living which are still spoken in their own region and country, as ours is now and others in various parts of the world. In them new words are born every day, along with the new things that correspond with those words; as soon as they are accepted in common usage, they are no longer foreign and barbarous in those languages. That does not happen in dead languages which are not spoken generally any longer in any place.11

Assessing literary quality meant finding ways to establish points of stability amid the linguistic change. Gian Giorgio Trissino, a native of Vicenza, promoted orthographic reforms in order to represent more closely in written form the sounds of the spoken language in his Epistola de le lettere nuovamente aggiunte (1524). These proposals attracted considerable attention but never advanced to general implementation. In Il Castellano of 1529 he favored a standard literary language based on courts and other arenas of broadly mixed usage, removing features that were particular to single regions. A number of other writers also favored courtbased standards of various types, among them Castiglione. Trissino added another element to the scholarly community: Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia. Trissino discovered a manuscript of the treatise in 1513.12 He shared it with other colleagues, including Bembo well before the publication of his Prose, and brought out a translation of the work in “… come fecero i nostri antichi, & cosi i Greci, & i Latini le lingue loro, secondo la novità delle cose, & secondo che variava l’uso del parlare, mentre che furono vive dette lingue, vive chiamamo noi quelle, lequali anchora nello loro propria siede, & patria si parlano: come hora è la nostra, & l’altre tante, in diverse parti del mondo: nelle quali ogni di nascono nuovi nomi, secondo che nascono nuove cose i quali nomi, tosto ch’ei sono accettati dal comune uso, non sono punto piu in quelle lingue forestieri, & barbari. La qual cosa non avviene nelle lingue morte, che non si parlano popolarmente piu in luogo alcuno.” “A gli lettori,” (unpag), Titus Livy, Le Deche delle historie romane di Tito Liuio padouano, tradotte nuouamente nella lingua toscana, ed. Jacopo Nardi (Venice: Eredi di Luca Antonio Giunta, 1540). 12 Now Milan, Biblioteca Trivulaziana, 1088. See Carlo Pulsoni, “Per la fortuna del De vulgari eloquentia nel primo cinquecento: Bembo e Barbieri,” Aevum 71, no. 3 (1997): 631–50. 11

From Dante to Bembo and Beyond

1529.13 Trissino’s writings on language had also circulated in manuscript before their publication and provoked a number of responses. He brought the whole package to Florence; both Gelli and Varchi later recalled him presenting and discussing Dante’s text at the Orti Oricellari, though their memories were imprecise.14 Among the responses was the Machiavellian Discorso intorno alla nostra lingua, a work that circulated solely in manuscript, and whose authenticity has been the subject of significant modern debate.15 Many Florentines, whether or not they had been present at these initial conversations, continued to maintain for many years that De vulgari eloquentia was not genuine. They argued in particular that the ideal (courtly) standard described and advocated in it was not consistent with Dante’s own practice. Thus, while they often felt obliged to mention it in their own work, they did not feel compelled by its authority. The debate over the authenticity of De vulgari eloquentia was not the only formative event of these years. The 1527 Giunti edition of the Decameron was important in the early careers of a number of the Florentine scholars who were active at midcentury, especially as members of the Accademia Fiorentina: Bardo Segni, Antonio degli Alberti, Piero Vettori, and Francesco Guidetti. They used a manuscript now at the Laurenziana (XLII, 1) to improve upon the earlier Venice editions of 1522 and 1516.16 That same year, Bardo Segni also edited a collection of early Tuscan poems published by Giunti.17 Bernardo Giunta inserted into this volume a preface to readers in which he touched on a number of issues that would Dante Alighieri, De la volgare eloquenzia. Giovanni di Boccaccio da Certaldo, ne la vita di Dante (Vicenza: Tolomeo Gianicolo, 1529). On editions and reception, see Gilson, Reading Dante in Renaissance Italy: Florence, Venice, and the “Divine Poet,” 69–85. 14 Sergio Bertelli, “Egemonia linguistica come egemonia culturale e politica nella Firenze cosiminana,” Bibliothèque d’humanisme Et Renaissance, 38, no. 2 (1976): 249–83, at 252–53; Benedetto Varchi and Silvano Razzi, Lezzioni … lette da lui publicamente nell’Accademia fiorentina (Florence: Giunti, 1590), 644; Gelli, in Pierfrancesco Giambullari and Giovan Batista Gelli, De la lingua che si parla & scriue in Firenze: et uno dialogo di Giouan Batista Gelli sopra la difficultà dello ordinare detta lingua (Florence: Torrentino, 1551), 11, 27. 15 See Formentin, “Dal volgare toscano all’italiano,” 202–7; see also Tavoni, “‘Linguistica’ italiana del Quattro e Cinquecento,” 4. 16 On the edition, see Bertelli, “Egemonia linguistica,” at 254–55; Richardson, Print Culture, 86–89. On the distinction between this Bardo Segni and Bernardo Segni, see Domenico De Robertis, ed., Sonetti e canzoni di diversi antichi autori toscani (Florence: Le Lettere, 1977), vol. 1, Introduzione e indici, 23–27. 17 Sonetti e canzoni di diversi antichi autori toscani in dieci libri raccolte (Florence: Giunti, 1527); Richardson, Print Culture, 86–89. 13

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receive increasing attention in the decades to follow. He noted that on the one hand, the collection reveals the literary grace that these early writers might display; on the other, it exemplifies how one by one, the poets gradually improved Florentine style from its early roughness until it reached a culmination in Petrarch. Giunta compared the editorial efforts involved in this task to the cleaning and restoration undertaken at Rome (before the recent unfortunate events of the Sack) to rescue newly discovered ancient statues from the injuries of time; they were polished and repaired, and thus brought back to light.18 Brian Richardson has examined Segni’s editorial practice in this project, and concluded that Segni combined the careful reading of manuscript sources with conjectural emendation and occasional regularization. The latter practices would meet with increasing criticism in the years that followed, as Florentine scholars would continue to revisit these issues and editorial standards. Through the first decades of the sixteenth century, then, writings about volgare had developed several main nodes of interest and debate across the Italian peninsula. No single forum or even single issue managed to control or completely dominate the agenda in the years that followed, nor did any single Italian region dominate the discussion. One cluster of interest would center on the publication of new editions of major authors, and in particular Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. These editorial projects were significant undertakings; their initial selections of editor, publisher, manuscripts, their general editorial principles, and more all became the subject of letters and conversation. Once published, the volumes met an avid audience of critical readers quick to praise or blame. They attracted critical apparatus and inspired related research. Florentines in particular might take such projects as points of departure for new manuscript scholarship or for examining the connections between modern spoken language and past literary language. Literary criticism would become another such forum, whether related to new works or to earlier writers. Discussion and interpretation frequently involved language-related topics: the meaning of a troublesome passage in Dante, verb usage in Petrarch, or more complex issues. In many cases the scholar presented these opinions and findings in person by lecturing at an academy. Some of the more notable lectures circulated in manuscript or publication. A number of letter collections containing 18

Bernardo di Giunta, “A’gli suoi nobilissimi gioveni amatori de le toscane rime,” Sonetti e canzoni 1527, unpag.

From Dante to Bembo and Beyond

such issues made it into print as well. Studies of the spoken language also began to appear, a subject in which Florentines would take a strong interest by the century’s middle decades. These were formative years in the history of language and linguistic study; a number of twentieth-century linguistic scholars noted the era’s important developments in the systematic study of language.19 Within Florence, studies of the vernacular continued to develop with some distinct features and issues. The Florentine language was at the center of Florence’s world of letters; a subject with broader appeal in the city itself could scarcely be found. From its earliest days as the Accademia degli Umidi, the Accademia Fiorentina conducted its lectures and meetings in vernacular Florentine. Its lectures treated mainly the writings of volgare authors; members wrote their poetry in volgare as well. The Latin lectures and texts of university learning were out of town, in Pisa. Yet the prestige that Florentine had gained as the basis of vernacular literary language across Italy had come at a price for the locals themselves. By advocating a formalized Florentine as a literary standard, Bembo’s position separated the ability to write and to judge the quality On histories of linguistics versus the “questione della lingua,” see Mirko Tavoni, “Renaissance Linguistics,” in Italian Studies in Linguistic Historiography: Proceedings of the Conference In ricordo di Antonino Pagliaro …, ed. Tullio De Mauro and Lia Formigiari (Münster: Nodus, 1996), 149–66; on the value of externalist as well as internalist studies of the questione see “Storia della lingua e storia della coscienza linguistica: appunti medievali e rinascimentali,” Studi di grammatica italiana 18 (1999): 205–31. On phonetics, see Herbert J. Izzo, “Phonetics in 16th-Century Italy,” in The History of Linguistics in Italy, ed. Paolo Ramat, Hans- J. Niederehe, and Konrad Koerner, Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science III: Studies in the History of the Language Sciences (SHL): 33 (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1986), 121–45. For a survey of the subject, see Richardson, “Renaissance Linguistics in Italy,” 152–56. A tendency to summarize the questione della lingua as a quarrel between two opposing camps of Bembists and anti-Bembists has also deflected attention from sixteenth-century scholarship that was not defined by such categories. Twentieth-century narratives of the history of linguistics tended to focus on the rise of transformational grammar, from Port Royal to Noam Chomsky, such that the contributions of these Renaissance scholars have not always been recognized. See Noam Chomsky, Cartesian Linguistics: a Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1966). On the historiographic issues see esp. Herbert J. Izzo, “Transformationalist History of Linguistics and the Renaissance,” Forum Linguisticum 1 (1977): 51–59; as an example, see W. Keith Percival, “Deep and Surface Structure Concepts in Renaissance and Mediaeval Syntactic Theory,” in History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics, ed. Herman Parret, Foundations of Communication (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976), 238–53.

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of writing from the abilities of a native speaker. Adding to the disjuncture between speaking and writing were the ongoing changes in spoken Florentine, notably its regional pronunciation features such as the “gorgia toscana.”20 A number of non-Florentine authors remarked in print that they had been unhappily surprised upon visiting the city to find the spoken language harsh and very different from the smooth and beautiful literary language they knew. Florentines faced the uncomfortable prospect, absurd to many of them, that non-native speakers could adjudicate standards for literary Florentine. Worse, they might even judge the writing of a native Florentine as deficient, and assert, following no less an authority than Bembo, that non-native speakers might have a literary advantage over them. Florentine presses remained more regional and less international in their reach than those of Venice, so they may have found the commercial concerns of publishing standards somewhat less urgent than printers in other cities. On the other hand, many Florentine authors chose to publish outside of Florence, in Venice or with a particular press in northern Europe. Presses in these other cities also produced editions of earlier Florentine authors such as Dante or Petrarch, not necessarily edited by Florentines. Thus the question of whether, or to what degree, being a native speaker benefited a writer or scholar would be a question often on their minds.

The Florentine Language and Its Study: The Aramei Vernacular language and literature were thus well-established topics of discussion and debate across the peninsula by the time the circle of friends often referred to now as the Aramei turned their attention to language studies. Giovan Battista Gelli, Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Giovanni Norchiati, Cosimo Bartoli, and Carlo Lenzoni collaborated on several of their projects, and they often cited one another. Despite the early interest Gelli and Giambullari took in Etruria, more of this group’s writings and projects treated the modern spoken language than the languages of the past; the nickname serves more as a convenient modern shorthand than an accurate representation of their work. In particular, they shared an interest in the accurate observation and recording of spoken language, Tavoni, “Storia della lingua e storia della coscienza linguistica,” 221. The gorgia, a phonetic feature of Tuscan pronunciations, affects unvoiced consonants k, t, and p.

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not only its words and phrases but its sounds as well; they undertook a number of novel projects to that end. Some of the earliest work came from Giovanni Norchiati. Like Giambullari, he was a canon at San Lorenzo. He was one of the Umidi’s earliest members; he had joined the group at its second meeting on November 14, 1540, when they took their name, and hosted the meeting on December 25 when Giambullari and Cosimo Bartoli joined. Bartoli and Norchiati were elected to the committee charged with giving some shape to the new academy, and they began organizing lectures on Thursdays and Sundays. Gelli joined shortly thereafter, along with a dozen others.21 Norchiati’s initial suggestions suggested a wide range of possibilities for the group’s activities. He proposed, for example, to offer lectures on Euclid, suggesting an interest in using the vernacular as the language for teaching and writing in fields that normally employed Latin.22 A year earlier, in the autumn of 1539, Norchiati had published a small treatise on Tuscan diphthongs dedicated to his friend and colleague Giambullari. Most of the work’s contents are, as one might expect, committed to working systematically through the various combinations of vowels that can be contained in a single syllable in order to identify those particular to spoken Tuscan. The subject itself had arisen from discussions of classical languages, and of course from the ancient Greek grammarians who had coined the term. Earlier generations of humanists had worked to recover classical Latin diphthongs after their medieval loss, an effort that had focused especially on spelling and orthography. An accurate treatment of the issue for modern Tuscan or Florentine, however, required attention to speech as well as to writing. In his Trattato de dipthongi toscani, Norchiati introduces the subject with the standard Greek terminology, though he shifts to vernacular equivalents whenever possible. Although most of the discussion is technical, he digresses at times on more general topics, emphasizing especially the importance of careful observation of actual language practice. One example is the introduction, where he argues against those who have asserted that language study is based on written models, that vernacular writers should follow the model of Latin and imitate the best authors, and that thus the best authority on Tuscan may well be an author from elsewhere who has devoted study and care to imitation of the best Tuscan authors. Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 41. Ibid., 177; Plaisance, “Un première affirmation,” at 405–6.

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Norchiati argues, rather, that language study is based on the study of the spoken language, and thus native speakers are the best judges of usage.23 In the study of this modern language, ancient tools and models are useful but only to a point, and the present subject is an example. Tuscan vowels differ from those of ancient Greek or Latin, he observes. A syllable in those ancient languages might contain either one or two vowel sounds; that is, their vowels could be classed as either monophthongs or diphthongs. Tuscan, however, can have up to four vowel sounds in a single syllable. Thus the modern scholar who does not listen to the language and approaches it as one might approach Greek or Latin, may well miss this feature. Experience is essential: I will respond that experience is the true teacher of all things, and many times something seems impossible to someone who does not know it; but if these people would just come to Tuscany they would hear with their own ears with what facility, sweetness, and clearness are pronounced here the said diphthong syllables – and not just those of two vowels but of three or four, which is the largest, as I will demonstrate fully below.24

He notes other particularities of local pronunciation. There are a few instances where Tuscans write one vowel and say another: for example, they write “mio padre, mia madre” but in fact say the last vowel of “mio” or “mia” as e in both cases; this happens only in particular monosyllabic situations. So too, when a word finishes with a vowel and the next one starts, Tuscans do not throw away the initial vowel as often as some foreigners assume. Norchiati offers as evidence his own experience as a native speaker and witness to local oral practice. He also uses written evidence, in particular the poetry of Dante. References to Dante served several uses at once for Norchiati and his colleagues. His very name lent substance and significance to the subject. Yet his language was sufficiently different from the modern that a Giovanni Norchiati, Trattato de dihpthongi toscani (Venice: Giovanni Antonio Nicolini da Sabbio ad instantia di Melchiorre Sessa, 1539), unpag., first page. 24 “A’ questi responderò che la sperienza è vera maestra di tutte le cose, et molte volte una cosa pare impossibile à chi non la sà, ma venghino questi tali in Toscana, et udiranno con gli proprii orecchi con quanta facilità, dolceza, et chiareza in prosa, et in versi da noi siano pronuntiate le dette sillabe disone, et non solo le disone, ma le trisone, et le quadrisone, ilche è maggior cosa, come di sotto pienamente si dimostrerà.” Ibid., sig. B ii verso. 23

The Florentine Language and Its Study

number of contemporaries, notably Bembo, questioned his value as a model for modern writing. The use of Dante made it clear that Norchiati was not following Bembo. It also helped deflect potential concerns that Norchiati might be prescriptive, telling people how they should speak, a concern alluded to by a number of writers; no one would expect modern Florentines to speak like Dante. On the other hand, it was generally accepted that Dante had employed the natural shape and cadences of the language of his day. Thus, his texts could be cited as evidence for historical usage. In this case, Norchiati could use Dante’s poetry, considered to have been correct both in its accurate representation of language and in its use of meter and rhyme, to show whether a given cluster of sounds really had been considered one syllable or two at the time. Norchiati returns to Dante several times throughout the brief work. He used the Commedia not only as a source of evidence but also as a text that challenged the understanding of the readers of his day even as it engaged their interest. Norchiati suggests that a knowledge of the patterns of spoken Florentine can help resolve current problems in reading and interpreting Dante. Non-Tuscans, observes Norchiati, have found Dante difficult to understand and as a consequence, often do not read him at all. The point is especially relevant here because according to Norchiati, Giambullari, to whom he dedicated this little treatise, was at work on a Dante commentary. Giambullari would not live to complete that project, but these studies would have been the basis for his lectures on Dante at the Accademia Fiorentina. This interest predated the formation of the Accademia itself, and was contemporary with the studies that led to Il Gello. Norchiati had also begun a larger study of the contemporary language of crafts and trades. It involved querying native speakers and assembling glossaries that not only defined the words but identified the social groups who used them. He refers to it in a letter written to Varchi in Padua (January 22, 1541); at the time the Umidi were just taking shape as a group. The letter begins as a response to a table of words in Boccaccio that Varchi had sent earlier, and which Norchiati was returning. Apparently Varchi had been conferring with Norchiati by having him check on the vocabulary of the Decameron. Varchi had found the words on the list in one or another copy of Boccaccio; it was not clear to Varchi whether these represented genuine words that were archaic or little-used, or scribal errors. Varchi asked Norchiati to try and confirm them with the evidence of modern usage. Norchiati was combining this task with his own ongoing research into the vocabulary of crafts and craftsmanship. He refers to an earlier

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exchange when he had sent other word lists and comments to Varchi; Varchi had suggested that they had contained some words that were not really Florentine. He had complained, for example, about Norchiati’s approval of the verb “grillare.” Varchi had argued that it was Latin and not Tuscan, and that furthermore, though he was a native Florentine he had never heard the word. Norchiati refers to his own research, as well as to other queries he had pursued particularly for Varchi, in order to make his case that the spoken language is fuller than what is preserved in writing. In the course of his studies, he said, he had heard a great many new words, many of which were only attested orally. He found no written examples of their usage at all, though they certainly existed as part of the language used in the city. In some cases usage was restricted to a very small range, while others could also be found in other regions as well. He observes that the total vocabulary of the Florentine language would appear to be larger than the total vocabulary of any single speaker: I say that you should not marvel at all if there are some verbs or nouns that you do not know, because even if one is born and raised in this city, one does not therefore know everything, which I prove with myself. Though I was born in Poggibonsi, I came to live in Florence as a small boy, where I was raised and have lived about forty years continuously, and in searching for these words, I have learned in the past eight months hundreds of words that I did not know. I would have thought they were not heard any longer, and yet I found them nonetheless, and I find such words to be in common use here in the city. But because they are used rarely and I never encountered them, I did not know them. Some words besides, that I knew, and had heard from many people, used by women and children, are new to many. It is not a major thing that something is new to you; it may be new to you, and you have never heard it, and yet not be new to our language. Nor for this reason should I omit it; I want to notate it all and write as completely as I can. It does not bother me if “grillare” is also Latin, which I know well, since Ovid used it. It is still ours, and is not a phantom in Florence that we never use, but it has a different meaning than Latin. We say “la pentola grilla” when it boils very slowly, “il tegame grilla,” when it is at a low boil; if Florence is in Tuscany it follows that this word is Tuscan, because it is very common in Florence. And after your letter I asked many people and found it

The Florentine Language and Its Study attested in all of them. I cannot offer an example because until now it has not been written by any person I know of. There are very many words of which I cannot provide an example because they have never been written, such as those of the crafts, and of the countryside; but of these we must be satisfied, and put them into the rule of modern usage. Accordingly, I undertake to walk around as faithfully as I can, always consulting the opinions of many people.25

Norchiati took a great interest in those words and phrases that were attested only in the spoken language and only by subsets of Florentines or Tuscans. He was working to compile a vocabulary of trades, to which he had alluded rather obliquely in his letter; it required extensive work at what would later be referred to as field studies or interviews. His colleagues anticipated its publication; Anton Francesco Doni mentioned it in his Libreria as a work in progress, with the title Vocabolario de’ vocaboli spettanti tutti i mestieri, anche quelli più meccanici (Dictionary of words

Letter from Giovanni Norchiati to Benedetto Varchi, January 23, 1540 (s.f.): “dico che voi non vi maraviglate punto se alquante verbi, o nomi ci sono, che voi non gli sapete perche ancora che uno sia nato, et allevato in questa città, non sa egli però ogni cosa, et questo lo provo in me, il quale benche nascessi in Poggibonsi, pure venni piccolo fanciullo ad habitare in Firenze, dove sono allevato, et stato circa quaranta anni continui, et nel cercare di questi vocaboli ne ho imparato da 8 mesi in quà parecchie centinaia, che non gli sapevo, harei giurato non gli havere mai piu sentiti, et non dimeno ho trovato, et riscontro tali vocaboli essere communi, et usarsi qui nella città, ma perche si usano di rado, et io non vi havevo atteso: non li sapevo, alcuni vocaboli ancora, ch’io sapevo, et havevo uditoli da molti, e da donne, et da fanciulli usati, a molti sono stati nuovi, in modo, che non e gran’fatto, che anco a voi ce ne sia qualcuno nuovo, ma per esser’ nuovo a’ voi, et non lo havere voi piu’ sentito, non e’ egli pero’ nuovo alla lingua nostra; ne per questo lo debbo io tralasciare, il quale desidero notarla tutta, et scriverla piu intera, che posso; non mi da noia se l’grillare e’ ancora latino, che so’ molto bene, dove Ovidio lo mette; egli e’ ancora nostro, che non e’ fantesca a’ Firenze, che’ non lo usi, benche in altro significato che il latino; et diciamo la pentola grilla, quando bolle lentissimamente, il tegame grilla, quando al poco fuoco bolle; se Firenze e’ in Toscana, bisogna, che questo vocabolo sia toscano, perche si usa frequentissimo in Firenze. E dopo la vostra lettera ne ho dimandate molte persone persone, e trovolo notissimo in tutte, non ne posso dare essempio perche fino a qui non e’ stato scritto da persona, ch’io sappia; molti, et moltissimi vocaboli ci saranno, dequali non potio adducere essempio per non esser stati mai piu’ notati: come sono quelli delle arti, et del contado: ma’ di questi ci doviamo contentare, starne alla regola dell’uso moderno, secondo il quale io mi ingegnero’ caminare piu fidelissime che io potio, consigliandomi sempre col parere de piu’ persone.” Prose fiorentine, Part IV, vols. 1–2, 108–10.

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pertaining to all trades, including the most mechanical), and offered a sympathetic description of the project: This noble spirit went among all professions of crafts, and through each shop; and he wrote all the names of all the practices, and the names of all the instruments used to practice that art … He wanted further to draw all the instruments with their name below, and say what they were used for and what they were made of, wood or iron or something else.26

Norchiati estimated that his list had grown to twenty-five hundred entries, perhaps more, and he wanted to get it alphabetized. Yet he died shortly after he wrote this letter on January 30, 1541; his plans were not realized, and the manuscripts of his collected word lists seem to have been lost.27 Some of his lexical entries would appear later in Varchi’s Ercolano.28 During these same years other members of this circle worked on a project that aimed to record and preserve spoken language pronunciation. In 1544 a Florentine editor and publisher issued two works under the pseudonym “Neri Dortelata.”29 The title pages featured a Janus-like Noah that recalls their engagement with the writings of Annius of Viterbo. [Fig. 4.1] Both works feature very curious orthography: prominent accent marks appear on all multi-syllable words, and the spelling is at times idiosyncratic. One of the volumes was a lecture by Giambullari on the location and shape of Dante’s Inferno.30 The other was an edition of Marsilio Antonio Francesco Doni, La libraria del Doni: nella quale sono scritti tutti gl’autori vulgari; La seconda libraria (Venice: Giolito, 1550–1551), 23r–24v: “Andava questo nobile spirito per tutte le professioni dell’arti, & per ciascuna bottega; & scriveva tutti i nomi de gl’essercitii, & i nomi de gli stromenti, che s’adoprano a far quell’arte … Voleva di poi far disegnare tutti gli stromenti con il nome sotto, & dire a quel che servivano & che di materia fossero; di legno, o di ferro, o d’altro.” 27 Moreni, Continuazione delle Memorie istoriche dell’Ambrosiana Imperial Basilica di S. Lorenzo di Firenze, 2.151. 28 For a discussion of another anonymous, unfinished Florentine word list of the period, see Ilio Calabresi, “Un vocabulario cinquecentesco della lingua parlata in un codice della Magliabechiana,” in La Crusca nella tradizione letteraria e linguistica italiana. Atti del Congresso internazionale per il IV centenario dell’Accademia della Crusca, Firenze 29 settembre – 2 ottobre 1983, ed. Ilio Calabresi (Florence: Accademia della Crusca, 1985), 13–22. See also Florence, BNC Magl. VIII. 38, fols. 112r–161v. anon., “Dichiaratione di voce toschane e lor significati.” 29 An anagram for “ordinalettera.” See Ilaria Bonomi, “Giambullari e Varchi,” in La Crusca nella tradizione letteraria e linguistica italiana, 65–79, at 67; Guido Gatti, “Quest’è quel goffo e quel malvagio Neri?” Lingua nostra 41 (1980): 19–20. 30 Pierfrancesco Giambullari and Cosimo Bartoli, eds., De’l sito, fórma, & misúre, déllo Inférno di Dante (Florence: Néri Dorteláta, 1544). 26

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Fig 4.1  Title Page. Marsilio Ficino, Sopra lo amore o ver’ convito di Platone (Florence: Néri Dorteláta, 1544). Photo: produced by ProQuest as part of Early European Books. www.proguest.com.

Ficino’s commentary on the Symposium translated into Florentine by Ficino himself and edited by Dortelata.31 These idiosyncratic publications might well be taken for just another point of engagement in the battles over volgare orthography on the model Marsilio Ficino, Sopra lo amore o ver’ convito di Platone (Florence: Néri Dorteláta, 1544).

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of Trissino, as some modern scholars have suggested. Neri Dortelata explains otherwise in an essay introductory to the Ficino edition, entitled “Osservazioni per la pronúnzia Fiorentina.” [Fig. 4.2] Having noted the great interest of many persons in Italy and beyond in speaking (as well as writing) proper Tuscan, Dortelata says he has decided to offer a service. As a Florentine and a careful observer, he has undertaken to represent with precision all of the various sounds of Florentine speech, and has edited the text accordingly. He notes that he has not actually added any letters to the alphabet but simply modified some as needed. Dortelata compares the role of Florentine among the Italians to that of Athenian in ancient Greece. Unlike Florentine, however, Greek and Latin each won their roles as dominant languages through military conquest. The stated goal of his project was simple: through reading this text aloud with careful attention to the signs and the sounds for which they stand, anyone could learn correct Tuscan speech and pronunciation. The undertaking itself, however, had clearly required careful work on the part of Dortelata, and very creative use of existing print technologies. He explains how a number of Latin letters normally represented more than one sound in Florentine, and so he had used different typefaces to distinguish them. Open and closed ‘e,’ for example, employ the cancelleresco and cursive forms of the letter, respectively. Not only vowels but consonants have received careful definitions, so that voiced and unvoiced ‘s’ and ‘z’ are distinguished, every silent ‘h’ is eliminated, and double consonants follow clear rules. The accent marks represent an additional feature of pronunciation. Acute syllables (rising inflection, with stress) are marked but not grave (stable pitch and unstressed); there is no need to mark the latter (that is, the unaccented syllables). Dortelata also identifies a third category of inflection in which the voice goes from high to low, used in certain exclamations (mainly poetic ones) and some other settings; he assigns the circumflex to those. Dortelata writes that he does not intend his notation system to serve as a general orthographic standard; that is, he denies repeatedly that he expects his notation to become an everyday norm. Given the fiendish difficulties of typesetting and proofreading represented by the enterprise, this is perhaps not unexpected; nor is the fact that only these two works using the system appeared in print. Rather, Dortelata hopes they will serve as examples to record Florentine pronunciation, and as educational tools to those who wish to learn it. Here he clearly differs from Trissino,

The Florentine Language and Its Study

Fig 4.2  Neri Dortelata da Firenze, A gli amatori della lingva Fiorentina. Marsilio Ficino, Sopra lo amore o ver’ convito di Platone (Florence: Néri Dorteláta, 1544). Sig. A iii verso. Photo: produced by ProQuest as part of Early European Books. www.proquest.com.

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who sought both to promote a standard without obvious regional preference, and to reform general orthography. Dortelata urges the citizens of other Tuscan cities to do likewise with their own speech. Once such guides to pronunciation are available, a reader might make an informed decision either to take the best elements of each as seemed appropriate, or to learn one or another with precision.32 Dortelata also observes that this system fails to notate some elements essential to speech, notably its cadence. He claims, however, that someone has undertaken this task of defining and discussing the metrics of vernacular prose, following in the footsteps of Cicero.33 Indeed, Carlo Lenzoni was at work on such a project; it would be published posthumously as the last section of a three-part dialogue in praise of Dante and the Florentine language.34 There has not been complete agreement on the identity of Neri Dortelata. Giambullari was once the main candidate, and some early catalogers of these volumes have listed him as the author.35 Others have pointed to Cosimo Bartoli (who also appears in some library catalogs), though Judith Bryce expressed doubts quite convincingly in her study of Bartoli.36 A comparison with the Lenzoni text suggests Lenzoni as the author, or perhaps a collaboration between Bartoli and Lenzoni. The remark on metrics refers quite plainly to Lenzoni’s unfinished dialogue, discussed below, whose original version had been intended for publication just four years later. In addition, the Dortelata volumes use the same system of accents that Lenzoni developed from Cicero and Quintilian and would use in the later dialogue. Further, the interest in a precise pronunciation guide resembles Lenzoni’s attention in the dialogue to describing vowels, consonants, and syllables. These efforts at recording the sounds of modern speech, ambitious and innovative though they were, drew criticism from some fellow Academics. Varchi attacked them twice, though he did not criticize the approach itself but rather their particular execution. His first remarks came soon after the publication of the two volumes, in a lecture Varchi Ibid., sig. A iii r–v. Ibid., no sig. [Bx] r–v. 34 Lenzoni, Difesa. 35 Giambullari, suggested as author by Piero Fiorelli, seems unlikely because Dortelata described Latin as the mother of Florentine. Piero Fiorelli, “Pierfrancesco Giambullari e la riforma dell’alfabeto,” Studi di filologia Italiana 14 (1956): 177–210. 36 Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 215–19. 32

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gave at the Accademia Fiorentina in 1545. Varchi was discussing the pronunciation of s, and declared that the person who published under the name of Neri Dortelata simply knew nothing about the Florentine language or its pronunciation. The second appeared in the Ercolano, where he repeated similar complaints.37 These pseudonymous publications took shape at the same time that Gelli and Giambullari were composing their studies of the origins of the Florentine language and the city. Both were certainly engaged at the time with these issues of contemporary language; Giambullari seems to have begun his grammatical study of Florentine in the 1540s. Further, the Gello contributes to some debates that were apparently ongoing in the Accademia Fiorentina about the relationship between the language’s history and the development of its literary tradition. One was the relationship between literary standards for classical Latin and modern vernacular; he wanted to rebut claims that the modern language should be understood as a corrupt form of Latin.38 The other was whether modern norms of poetry, using rhyme and accent, employed features that were intrinsic to the language itself or were imposed artificially. These issues required approaches that were both historical and comparative. Yet he had few models to draw on, so he had to develop his tools and methods as he went along. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that those methods drew both attention and criticism. Giambullari needed a body of evidence from each language he wished to compare. He also needed terminology to describe the workings of each language common to them all, so that he could establish points of comparison. Further, he needed ways to account for the changes over time, so that languages spoken at different points in time could be seen as related. Some of these tools were already available, notably the terminology. He used the standard terms for parts of speech, syntax, and usage that had developed for the study of Latin and Greek. So too he had the Latin alphabet to represent similar sounds across languages, though he also assumes his readers either knew or could learn the representations of sounds in Greek and Hebrew alphabets. For accepted grammatical authorities, some of the languages were better represented than others. Latin grammar had no shortage of authorities; Bonomi, “Giambullari e Varchi,” 67. Claudio Marazzini, Storia e coscienza della lingua in Italia dall’umanesimo al romanticismo (Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1989), 26–29.

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so too Greek, when he needed to call upon it. Sebastian Münster had published grammar books to which Giambullari could refer in order to discuss the forms and structures of Hebrew and Aramaic.39 Yet Florentine was a problem; although no one questioned the applicability of classical grammatical terminology to Florentine usage, there was no published grammatical authority, so Giambullari had to refer instead simply to modern usage as it was commonly understood. He had no shortage of literary references in multiple languages. Giambullari assumed that writing practices had developed and spread together with the language, so they could help identify related ones. Each of the four ancient languages in question – Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Etruscan – used a unique alphabet but shared some features that divided them into two groups, such as the direction of writing. Hebrew and Chaldean were written right to left, and so was Etruscan, visible from the format of surviving inscriptions even if they could not be deciphered. This distinction suggested to Giambullari that there had been two separate traditions in the development of early writing, and Etruscan belonged with Hebrew and Chaldean. The big problem, of course, was Etruscan. The only examples were inscriptions; the language itself was unknown. Accordingly, Giambullari builds his arguments using a cumbersome format: he presents that which was known, and then infers the unknown element from them. His known information includes languages that he argues are related: the ancient known languages Hebrew and Chaldean, and the modern Florentine. The unknown, ancient Etruscan, falls between them. Thus he presents a series of similarities that he hopes, taken together, will seem to the reader unlikely to exist by chance; they imply that the middle unknown term, Etruscan, is related to Hebrew and Chaldean on the one hand, and to modern Florentine on the other. He contrasts that implied chronology with Latin and Greek. He proceeds feature by feature to show how Hebrew and Chaldean share it and Florentine is similar as well, whereas Greek and Latin differ from them. It was certainly important to Giambullari to show that ancient Etruscan was related to Hebrew and Chaldean; but it was equally important to him to disrupt the link between Latin and modern Tuscan. Throughout the text he reminds his readers that it is incorrect to Sebastian Münster, Institutiones grammaticae in Hebraeam linguam (Basel: Froben, 1524); Isagoge elementalis perquamsuccincta in Hebraicam linguam (Basel: Froben, 1535).

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claim that Florentine is a corruption of Latin. Rather it is a mix or a composite of Etruscan with Latin.40 In this rather cumbersome manner Giambullari attempts to show that Hebrew (or Chaldean) and Tuscan all use a number of similar grammatical forms and constructions that are not shared with Greek and Latin. He takes most of his examples from Münster’s works and the Bible, presented in Latin letters for his readers. Münster, he suggests, can serve as an objective and impartial source of evidence because, as a northern European, he had no knowledge of Florentine. In one example, he wishes to demonstrate similarities in formation of comparative and superlative adjectives. For Florentine, he notes the addition of “più” in cases such as “bello, più bello, il più bello”; repetition could serve as an intensifier. Latin, however, would add suffixes: -ior and –issimus. He then takes a line from Genesis 7 and argues: “They do not have the superlative, but express it by replicating the positive twice, as in Genesis 7, where we read: ‘ve ha maim gaberu meod meod al Arez,’ that is, and the waters flooded over the earth greatly greatly.”41 Florentines use a similar pattern, saying “Va ratto ratto, cioè rattissimo, Io era piccol piccol, cioè piccolissimo.” Florentine usage thus looks more like Hebrew than like Latin. Giambullari does not discuss his methods or principles of comparison. He does not attempt to rank in significance the various features of a language or the similarities between languages that he observes; nor does he pursue issues of variant forms that might exist in a given language. For example, he acknowledges, though briefly, that modern volgare has several ways of forming comparatives and superlatives (one of which is very similar to Latin). Then he simply asserts that the form of interest, the doubling or repetition of a positive, is unique to Florentine; it is also a form found in Hebrew. Gelli, who acknowledged Giambullari as his authority in matters Hebraic, had ended his own argument at this point. Giambullari himself pushes onward in Il Gello. As he does so, it becomes evident that his main interest is not so much this comparison but Florentine vernacular itself. He surveys the history of the Florentine language from antiquity to the present. In the process he builds his case “un mescuglio si bene; & un componimento di Etrusca & Latina insieme.” Giambullari, Origine della lingua fiorentina, 123. 41 “Essi non hanno superlativo, ma esprimonlo con replicare due volte il positivo, come nel Genesi al 7. dove si legge, ue ha maim gaberu meod meod al Arez, cioè, Et le acque inondarono molto molto sopra la terra.” Ibid., 112. 40

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that the language must be understood as a mix of many languages over a long period of time. Long ago it had become a mix of Etruscan and Latin; modern Florentine is a more complex mix that has added Greek, German, and French. He proceeds to treat each element in order. Most of his evidence here is lexical. In each case he offers a list of words brought into the language from these various sources just as he had for Etruscan/ Hebrew/Aramaic, though he does not offer the additional grammatical comparisons that he had presented in the first instance. The Florentine language as it developed over time took its shape, he argues, due to substantial contact with other people who spoke different languages; the main causes were the movements of large numbers of persons in the region at several key points in history. Giambullari notes the historical era and the conditions under which the given group appeared in Florentine regions. Where useful, he supports the case for such contact between peoples with evidence from textual sources. Pelasgi and other Greek peoples had settled in some areas of Tuscany according to both Vergil and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Their presence is not attested in Villani; but while Villani was very accurate for his own times, argues Giambullari, he had relied on hearsay and often poor sources for his remarks about antiquity. Thus he was not a reliable source on ancient Tuscany. Their presence accounts for some Greek words in the language. The addition of Latin words could of course be dated to the era of the conquest of Etruria and its subsequent administration by the Romans; the Romans had used Latin in the various regions they conquered, and the length of the era could account for the large number of such words. Later, German words had come first from the Goths, whom Giambullari identifies as a German people, and then from the later Germans from Henry I until their expulsion. Giambullari has, of course, no sources from these centuries; he takes the living language as a repository of these past influences. Then came French thanks to the Angevins. Here the issues change; not only is the era more recent, it marks the beginning of modern literary traditions. Bembo had stated that Tuscan verse had developed on the model of Provencal, particularly its use of rhyme, which was itself a major point of distinction between ancient and modern poetry. He had produced lists of words of Provencal origin.42 Giambullari disagrees, arguing that

Pietro Bembo, Prose e rime, ed. Carlo Dionisotti (Turin: UTET, 1960), book 1, 89–105.

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Tuscan poetry developed organically with the language itself; it was not a mere copy of Provencal practice. First, he suggests that unlike Florentine, Provencal really had been a corrupt form of Latin. That had given it a distinctly different ancestry and development. Further, he continues, Provencal verse was not the only point of origin for rhyme. Rhyme could be found in some Latin verse itself: in the oldest sequence of the dead, in Leonine verse, and in an inscription located in the tribune of St. Peter’s in Rome. There are classical references (and terms) that attest to its use. Thus the use of rhyme in both traditions does not necessarily suggest that Tuscan received this practice from Provencal. Finally, he returned to the example of Hebrew; he suggests, though he acknowledges that he cannot prove it, that ancient Hebrew poetic styles and Tuscan verse styles have close resemblances. Giambullari’s argument would suggest that the examples of early Tuscan poetry that were their only witnesses to the early language were indeed reasonably good guides to linguistic practice. It would also suggest that Provencal poetry did not have historical precedence over that of Tuscany; it did not develop earlier than volgare, and could not have been its inspiration. Giambullari adds historical evidence in order to claim that the court poets of Frederick II in Sicily were at least as old as the Provencal poets. For additional support he cites recent scholarship that the Pisan Piero Orsilago had presented some years earlier at the Accademia degli Intronati of Siena. Orsilago had discovered sonnets composed by Agatone Drusi that the author had exchanged with Cino da Pistoia. In one, Drusi referred to family members who had preceded him as authors; that reference would suggest that poetry in volgare had begun still earlier, in the second half of the twelfth century. After a substantial discussion of early poets, Giambullari finally returns to his list of Tuscan words with French or Provencal origins. Thus, Giambullari accepts Bembo’s claim about Provencal vocabulary in Florentine and even the presentation of such word lists, but has given the list a very different context and meaning. The interlocutors in Il Gello then turn to a final discussion of regional place names and to ongoing debates about the early history of Florence. Giambullari seems to suggest that knowledge of the language’s development can serve as evidence in turn to clarify some of these disputes. Traditional etymologies for Tuscan place names are invalid, he observes, because they are based on Latin. In fact, the places had originally been Etruscan and therefore had Etruscan names. He surveys a number of such place names, spending the most time with Florence. Various

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symbols of the city such as the marzocco and the lily could be associated with elements of the city’s ancient past, as suggested by these Etruscanbased names, evidence that also seemed to reinforce the assertion. Here he follows the pattern he established earlier of comparing these place names and other local references to Hebrew or Chaldean words, often syllable by syllable, to suggest possible origins and meanings. He admits that these suggestions do not constitute proofs; rather, they are “veri simile.”43 Languages change over time and vary from one region to the next. Giambullari nonetheless does not take the next step that his successors would, to suggest that these changes were systematic and regular in nature across large numbers of similar words. He notices some particular types of changes and variations – that r and s varied in a number of ancient Latin words, for example – but does not note any consistent types of change over time. He does not undertake a methodical comparison of grammatical structures. Nor does he distinguish between the presence of some borrowed words on the one hand, versus the more substantial impact of one language upon another in grammar, syntax, or other more fundamental features on the other. Each and every type of similarity, each example, seems to carry a comparable weight for him.44 Part of the difficulty, he notes frequently, is a shortage of evidence about the spoken language not just for years, but for centuries. Even the history of “Florence” as a place name is difficult to trace because so few written sources from antiquity – or indeed, before the Carolingians – include any reference to Florence at all. And only fragmentary records survive from the era of the earliest manifestations of volgare in Florence or Tuscany. Many of Giambullari’s readers remained unconvinced by his limited evidentiary base that skipped lightly among the languages Hebrew, Aramaic, and Etruscan, to modern Hebrew grammars, to biblical citations, and to modern Florentine usage. Even Giambullari had to admit that he could not prove much of his case but could only suggest it; he could assert only verisimilitude. Still, he said, there was too much evidence for it all simply to be dismissed “as if a dream.” Some found it plausible, at least initially, especially given that some of his examples were Giambullari, Origine della lingua fiorentina, 159–60. On the common contemporary sense that vocabulary was the main identifying feature of a language, see Robert A. Hall, Jr, “Synchronic Aspects of Renaissance Linguistics,” Italica 16, no. 1 (1939): 1–11, at 2.

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matters that lacked a full consensus in the city, such as the city’s original name. Giambullari and Gelli questioned whether it really was the Latin “Florentia”; in fact, even among those who thought the original name had been Latin, there was some disagreement as to whether its earliest form had been “Florentia” or “Fluentia.” Benedetto Varchi, for his part, rejected the claim that the city’s name had Etruscan origins. He also rejected the form “Fluentia,” yet identified some well-known supporters of that theory. One was Sempronio Tantalo of Pisa;45 another was Cristoforo Longolio, who always referred to the city’s citizens (admittedly, he noted, with some affectation) as “populus Fluentinus.”46 Thus, Giambullari’s study exploited some points of controversy as it also exposed some of the weaknesses of methodology and sources for the historical or comparative study of language. Phonological scholarship was only in its early stages, though greater attention across the peninsula would follow the publication of the treatise of Sienese scholar Claudio Tolomei, the Cesano, in 1555.47 The dearth of textual examples of volgare prior to the age of Frederick II would be slower to remedy. Thus the debates he inspired did not see immediate resolution.

Modern Language Practice Written critiques and defenses of Giambullari’s arguments circulated in manuscript among interested parties. Ludovico Dolce wrote to Varchi from Venice, complaining that his own critique of Il Gello had gotten back to Giambullari. Paolo Crivello had shown him a copy of the new first edition of the book, which Crivello had liked, and asked Dolce’s opinion. Dolce had offered a negative reaction in a letter he now claimed had been intended solely for the recipient. Crivello had nonetheless forwarded it to others until Giambullari had managed to get a copy. Dolce said he now feared that the entire Accademia Fiorentina was sharpening its pens against him.48 Indeed, Carlo Lenzoni composed the first version Varchi, Storia fiorentina 1857, book 9, vol. 3, 43. Ibid., book 9, vol. 3, 45. 47 Claudio Tolomei, Il Cesano (Venice: Giolito, 1555), 66, 67; Cesano 1996, 45–46; see Robert Anderson Hall, “Linguistic Theory in the Italian Renaissance,” Language 12, no. 2 (1936): 96–107, at 105–6. 48 Lucovico Dolce to Benedetto Varchi, May 26, 1546; in Lettere a Benedetto Varchi, 1530–1563, ed. Vanni Bramanti (Manziana (Roma): Vecchiarelli, 2012), letter 125, 251–53. See Florence, BNC Autografi Palatini 1, fol. 84. 45

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of his dialogues In difesa della lingua fiorentina e di Dante (1556) in explicit response to Dolce’s letter. The original version approved by the Accademia’s censors in February 1548 said as much in its title, “la difensione di Dante et altro di Carlo Lenzoni a M. Lodovico Dolce in Risposta di una sua lettera.”49 Yet Dolce needed to worry only about a faction of Academicians, for many of them agreed with him. The matter led to feuding within the Accademia that disrupted its normal activities. Piero Orsilago complained to Varchi in 1549 that as the group’s consul he was determined to meet his pledge to Cosimo to assemble a collection of lecturers. Yet he had to contend with the interference of the Aramei, who, he claimed, would neither agree to lecture themselves nor to allow others to do so.50 When the detractors sought not merely to dismiss these arguments as silly but to refute them convincingly and to do better themselves, however, the task they faced was not so simple; they faced the same incomplete evidence and undeveloped tools. For their part, Gelli, Giambullari, Lenzoni, Cosimo Bartoli, and their friends were finding that their ongoing studies of modern language brought more productive results. From the age of Dante forward, the evidence was far more abundant, and the linguistic change from that era to their own was smaller and less daunting to describe. Most of them left projects uncompleted or scarcely begun at their death, so it is difficult to know just how much attention they would have turned to fourteenth-century Florentine. The works that made it to press show them engaged especially with living language practice, particularly spoken language. By 1550, the Accademia Fiorentina itself decided that that a grammar of Florentine was overdue, and that it was a task that merited their oversight. They announced that they had discussed the matter and reached an agreement on the value of the task. They defined it as an effort to present the rules of spoken Florentine: “il far le regole del parlar toschano, et fiorentino,”51 and established a five-person committee consisting of Giambullari, Varchi, Lenzoni, Gelli, and Francesco Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 221. Piero Orsilao to Benedetto Varchi, December 28, 1549. In Bramanti, Lettere a Benedetto Varchi, 1530–1563, letter 141, 272–73. See Florence, BNC Autografi Palatini 2, fol. 69. 51 Plaisance, “Culture et politique,” 226. 49 50

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Torelli. All five were well known for their interest in writing and working with language and language-related issues, but they hardly represented a unified point of view. A year later, a new committee was named for the ongoing project: Giambullari, Varchi, Lionardo Tanci, Francesco Guidetti, and Francesco d’Ambra.52 The replacement members were needed because Lenzoni had died during the past year, Torelli had become a consul, and Gelli had refused reappointment. Varchi moved the project forward by delivering public lectures on grammatical topics, primarily verb tenses, at the Accademia during December 1551 and January 1552.53 Nonetheless, the requested collaborative publication did not appear. Giambullari responded to the impasse by publishing a book of grammatical rules on which he had already been working for some time, De la lingua che si parla & scriue in Firenze (Torrentino, 1551). He seems to have begun it shortly after completing the first version of Il Gello in 1546, a project that would have benefited greatly from a book of Tuscan or Florentine grammar. The work’s modern editor, Ilaria Bonomi, compared the printed text with the two surviving preparatory manuscripts and suggested that Cosimo Bartoli had been involved in the work’s later stages.54 That seems especially plausible given their subsequent collaboration in the posthumous publication of Lenzoni’s final writings. Gelli also contributed to the volume; he added a dialogue in which he explained why he had felt unable to continue with the project.55 The two long-term friends differed in some fundamental ways about how to analyze a language. Gelli reserved the label “grammar” for ancient language; he argued that one cannot write a grammar of a living language, Guidetti, a well-known man of letters in his day, had also been part of the Orti Oricellari gatherings; he had also participated with Vettori and others in the 1527 Giunti Decameron edition; see S. Jossa, “Guidetti, Francesco,”DBI. For biographical information on Tanci, see Domenico Maria Manni, Le veglie piacevoli ovvero notizie de’ piu bizzarri e giocondi uomini toscani, 2 ed., vol. 5 (Florence: Gaspero Ricci, 1815), 62–63. On D’Ambra, whose works included a “Storia dei suoi tempi” that has not survived, see V. Lettere, “Francesco D’Ambra,”DBI; Emilio De Benedetti, La vita e le opere di Francesco D’Ambra (Florence: Rassegna Nazionale, 1899). 53 Plaisance, “Culture et politique,” 227. 54 Ilaria Bonomi, “Notizie bio-bibliografia,” in Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Regole della lingua fiorentina; edizione critica, ed. Ilaria Bonomi (Florence: Presso l’Accademia, 1986), xxiii–xxv. 55 On Gelli’s linguistic writings, see De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli; Enzo N. Girardi, Letteratura italiana. I minori, vol. 2 (Milan: Marzorati, 1961). 52

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but only a dead one. Yet he was willing to publish the dialogue in the same volume with Giambullari’s set of grammatical rules for the modern language, and even dedicated his dialogue to Giambullari. The difference of opinion seems not to have harmed their friendship. Yet the result was a curious publication, a grammatical text preceded by a dialogue that asserted the futility of such a grammar. Giambullari opened with a brief dedication to Francesco de’ Medici and an equally brief foreword to readers. Then followed Gelli’s dialogue, entitled Ragionamento infra M. Cosimo Bartoli e Giovan Batista Gelli sopra le difficultà del mettere in regole la nostra lingua; “on the difficulty of putting our language into rules.” Giambullari returned in the second half of the volume with his grammatical rules. Gelli’s dialogue purports to reconstruct a conversation held between the two interlocutors on the day of Giambullari’s reappointment to the grammar committee. The interlocutors begin by identifying Gelli’s problem with the task. It is not that the project was to be prescriptive in some way, telling people how they should speak, something to which he would have objected; the Accademia Fiorentina had defined it as merely descriptive. Nor was it the subject matter itself that gave him difficulty; the interlocutors also agreed that the modern language was as worthy a language as the languages of antiquity, which could be and were described grammatically. When persons of letters speak it purely, as Gelli had heard people speak in his younger days in the Orti Oricellari, Florentine was so beautiful that one could not imagine Caesar or Cicero or any other ancient Roman to have sounded better. Gelli then explains why he quit the committee. Grammar, he has concluded, is a kind of analysis possible only on a dead language, whereas Florentine is very much alive. Gelli begins by citing ancient philosophers on the mutability of all things human; given that they undergo constant change, it is impossible to say genuinely true things about them. Living languages, as examples of such things human, change. The lone exception is the holy language, Hebrew. They change because new peoples move into a region, as happened in late antiquity, or languages vary due to other accidents. But the languages I call variable are not always spoken in a single way; rather, they vary and alter themselves from time to time, sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better … As for example happened in Italy to Latin with the arrival of the Goths and Vandals. And these,

Modern Language Practice either they are dead, that is, lost, and are not spoken anywhere any longer, but are found only in books by writers; or they are alive, and are spoken and used in some land, as for example our language in Florence.56

Once a language is dead and must be learned from books, then its rules may be deduced and established with certainty. It has stopped changing, and hence can be studied as a stable entity. That is the case with ancient Latin and Greek. Gelli continues by invoking a biological model, comparing language to a man; he refers the reader to Dante’s Convivio. A man in his middle years serves as the best and most complete example of human and personal traits. In the arc that moves from growth to decline, not only is the peak at mid-point, but the top of the curve flattens. That is, a man retains the traits of full adulthood for a number of years, so a description of a man based on the heart of his life is not only the most accurate one but is true the longest. So too languages have a lifespan.57 With a dead language such as Latin, one can see and assess that linguistic lifespan as a whole. The language’s prime years, its “full adulthood,” could be seen in the age of Cicero, and so examples of best usage could be chosen with confidence. Like the life of a person, the language had remained stable and at the peak of its powers for some years, and then declined. Yet as he looks at Florentine, he finds it impossible to assess whether or not it has reached its peak. It is simply too soon to say. Further, notes Gelli, Latin as a living language spread due to Rome’s political and military dominance over the region. In modern times (here Gelli cites Amerigo Benci, who had lived some time in France), Henry II of France has followed in the footsteps of his father in imposing a single form of speech in France. But the spread of Florentine beyond Florence is different and is based on the beauty of the language. Across Tuscany the “Ma le lingue che io chiamai variabili, non si favellano sempre in un’ modo; Anzi vanno variando & mutandosi di tempo in tempo, quando in peggio, & Quando in meglio … Come avvenne verbigratia in Italia, nella venuta de Gotti & Vandali, alla lingua Latina. Et queste tali, od elle sono morte cioè mancate, et non si parlano più in luogo alcuno, ma si truovon solamente su pe’ libri de gli scrittori; od elle sono vive, & si parlano ancora & usano in qualche Paese, come è verbigratia a Firenze la lingua nostra.” Giambullari and Gelli, De la lingua che si parla & scriue, 17–18. 57 On the use of these biological models, see Tavoni, “Storia della lingua e storia della coscienza linguistica,” 214; Tristano Bolelli, “Principi di linguistica generale in autori del Cinquedento italiano,” Studi e saggi linguistici (=Supplemento alla rivista “L’Italia dialettale”) 28 (1988): 81–100. 56

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speech is of course similar but varies somewhat from one city to the next. Cosimo proposes various ways one might set a standard for the purposes of writing a grammar; Gelli finds fault with each one. The Tre Corone are not acceptable, though of course they wrote beautifully. Not only was much of their output poetry and hence subject to “poetic license,” but words have changed in usage since those times. In any case, the interlocutors agree on the primacy of spoken language: Gel. One cannot take the rules of Tuscan from writers. MC. Those for Florentine (we are not dealing with the others) are taken from the usage of Florence.58

Cosimo continues to press; Gelli continues to emphasize the elusive qualities of a language. Like all things in this world, a language has two principal parts: matter and form. A language’s matter is its vocabulary and that, concedes Gelli, can be collected and ordered; their friend Giovanni Norchiati, had begun such a project that was cut short by his death in 1541. But the form is the fabric that connects it all, the language’s construction; that, he says, resists such order.59 Gelli maintained consistently here as in other writings that for a living language, the evidence of speakers must serve as the guide and standard. At the same time he was at work on this dialogue, he was asked by Simone Porzio, the philosophy professor at Pisa, to translate into vernacular a little book Porzio had just written on Christian prayer.60 Gelli agreed, and added a dedication (to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este of Ferrara) as well as an afterword to his Florentine friend Bartolomeo Tolomei, both dated November 15, 1551.61 In both cases he emphasizes his credentials as a native speaker, first noting in the dedication that he was born and raised in the city and had never left it, so that unlike other writers born in other places he had not mixed his vocabulary or altered his pronunciation.62 Usage makes the rules, he states: “Gel. Non si possono adunque le Regole Toscane cavare da gli scrittori. M.C. Cavinsi le Fiorentine (che de l’altre non tocca a noi) da l’uso di Firenze.” Giambullari and Gelli, De la lingua; et uno dialogo di Gelli, 36. 59 Giambullari and Gelli, De la lingua; et uno dialogo di Gelli, 40. 60 Simone Porzio, Modo di orare; and Formae orandi christianae, enarratio Simonis Portii eiusdem in Evangelium divi Ioannis scholion (Florence: Torrentino, 1552); the translation preceded the original in print. 61 The letter was noted subsequently by canon Salvino Salvini in his biographical notes on Gelli: Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana A.CXI. fol. 4. 62 Porzio, Modo di orare, 10–11. 58

Modern Language Practice According to Aristotle one should think like the few and speak like the many. Thus in speaking Florentine I too have wanted to follow the many, and the particular Florentine usage, having always heard it said that the languages and usage make the rules, and not the contrary that the rules would make the languages and the usage.63

He notes at the end that Tolomei will have observed from his writings the distinctiveness of his pronunciation and word choice: “what I use is real and proper Florentine speech.”64 One may also trust the writing of a number of others to reflect the best of local spoken practice, though printers may have amended some words: Bartoli, Giambullari, Francesco and Luigi Guicciardini, Jacopo Nardi, Filippo Nerli, Giorgio Dati, Bernardo Segni, and Carlo Lenzoni, among others. “As true lovers of their language, never having wanted to mix it with any foreign words, or use in it another pronunciation than proper Florentine; they have always conserved it as much as they have been able in its purity and its natural beauty.”65 Giambullari was much more comfortable with a mixed approach to assembling rules that described both spoken and written practice in the city. He modeled the work explicitly on a highly respected humanistic Latin grammar, Thomas Linacre’s De emendata structura latini sermonis (London 1524), as he told his readers at the outset.66 Linacre had a connection with the Florentine scholars of language; in the 1480s he had been a student of Angelo Poliziano.67 The first six of Giambullari’s eight books follow Linacre quite closely; only the last two, the sections on style, are significantly different.68 The association with recent Latin “Dicendo Aristotile che d’ si debbe sentire come i pochi & parlare come e piu. Si che volendo io favellare Fiorentino ho volute seguitare anchora io i piu, & l’uso propio Fiorentino, havendo sentito anchor sempre dire, che le lingue, et l’uso, fanno le regole, & non per il contrario che le regole faccino le lingue, & l’uso.” Ibid., 12. 64 “… & che questa che uso io, sia la propia & vera favela Fiorentina …” Ibid., 97. 65 “… iquali come veri amatori della loro lingua, non havendo mai volute mescolare con quella parole alcune forestieri, o usare in quella altra pronuntia, che la Fiorentina propia, l’anno conservata sempre il piu che eglino hanno potuto, nella purita, & nella bellezza sua naturale.” Ibid., 98. 66 Giambullari and Gelli, De la lingua; et uno dialogo di Gelli, 7.On Linacre’s work, see K. Jensen, “De emendata structura latini sermonis. The Latin Grammar of Thomas Linacre,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 49 (1986): 106–25. 67 Charles B. Schmitt, “Thomas Linacre in Italy,” in Linacre Studies: Essays on the Life and Works of Thomas Linacre, c. 1460–1524, ed. Francis Romeril Maddison, Margaret Pelling, and Charles Webster (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 36–75. 68 Giambullari, Regole della lingua fiorentina; edizione critica. On more technical aspects of Gambullari’s grammar, see Ilaria Bisceglia Bonomi, “La grammatica di 63

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scholarship speaks to the seriousness of the task. At midcentury, the use of Florentine was continuing to expand outside of Florence; it was coming to include not only print culture and publishing across Italy, but international vernacular letters as well. It is to this non-Florentine audience that Giambullari claims to address his work. Florentines themselves may not need this publication, he states, but he hopes to serve those foreigners and youths “who desire to know how to speak and write according to rules this sweet language of ours, so honored and esteemed, not only in all of Italy, but in all the royal and finest courts of Europe.”69 The marketing arm of his press, Torrentino, did not generally reach nearly that far, unless the purchasers were already visiting Florence; the printer was nonetheless an appropriate choice given Torrentino’s association with the Accademia Fiorentina and the Accademia’s role in the project. Much of the work reflects this mixed goal. Giambullari relies on Latin grammar to identify and label the parts of speech and to present them to the reader, yet remains emphatic that the vernacular is a distinctly different language with its own norms. He asserts several times the centrality of current spoken practice. Yet true to his goal of offering guidance to non-native writers who presumably would want to imitate the best, his abundant textual examples come mainly from Dante, Petrarch, or Boccaccio. He includes only one reference to Hebrew, in describing the cases of nouns in a manner reminiscent of Il Gello: “we have cases Hebrew style, that is, not varied in sound but only in meaning.”70 Nonetheless, Giambullari still needed to determine how to set standards of quality and correctness for the language practices he described, especially when he could identify any variation in practice. Reliance on classic literary models would not do for the spoken language; no one claimed that modern Florentines actually spoke or should speak the way Dante or Petrarch wrote, even if some acceptably modern turns of phrase Pierfrancesco Giambullari: Saggio di un’analisi delle forme verbali del fiorentino vivo,” in Il Rinascimento: Aspetti e problemi attuali, ed. Vittore Branca et al. (Florence: Olschki, 1982), 231–42. 69 “se non a’ nostri medesimi, che di me non hanno bisogno; a’ forestieri almanco, ed a’ giovanetti che gramano di saper regolatamente parlare et scrivere, questa dolcissima lingua nostra, tanto onorata et pregiata, non solamente in Italia tutta; ma in tutte le regali et prime corti della Europa.” Giambullari, Regole della lingua fiorentina; edizione critica, 3. 70 “Abbiamo dunque i casi a la ebraica cioè non variati nella voce; ma solo nel significato.” Ibid., 104–5.

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or examples of usage could be found in their literary corpus. Nor were modern Florentines willing to elevate one of their own contemporaries to the exalted position of a living model of the spoken (or written) word as some sort of modern Cicero. They lacked the research tools to undertake mass studies of speech habits across the city as a twentieth-century linguist might propose; in any case, they probably would not have wanted to publish norms based on uneducated speakers. Instead, Giambullari opts for a standard that was less philosophically systematic but one that colleagues would resort to increasingly: the judgment of the “qualified” speaker. That is, he offers a generalized type, someone with both formal education and a well-developed sensitivity or appreciation of the language. He presents this solution in Book 3, in which he discusses basic grammatical constructions. He observes at the outset that correct rules are derived not just from the texts of the best writers, but in the common usage of “qualified” speakers who write and speak now, or who will do so in the future while the language is still alive.71 He explains that he means educated native speakers: Thus usage is the true teacher: I say “usage” of those who write or speak not foreign languages, but their own proper native one, with majesty and gracefulness; that is, words chosen and ordered well, but not those used only by the common people that are only understood by a few.72

Taken on its own, this standard might pass nearly unnoticed. Yet in fact Gelli too had commented on the ability of speakers to make judgments and choices about the quality of the spoken language, and to choose to improve. He could point to an example during his own lifetime. After the age of the Tre Corone the language had declined, due to influxes of non-native speakers with poor pronunciation, the introduction of foreign words, and so on. Then a group of speakers – mainly those associated with the Orti Oricellari – had decided, with thoughtful reading of the earlier authors, to improve their speech and take more care with pronunciation. Together they helped raise the level of Florentine once again. The Ibid., 99. “È adunque l’uso il vero maestro: lo uso dico di que’ tanti che parlano, o scrivono; non le lingue forestiere, ma le proprie native loro, con maestà et con leggiadria: cioè con parole scelte et bene ordinate sì; ma non tanto di lungi de la communi, che elle non siano intese se non da pochi.” Ibid., 100.

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interlocutor Cosimo agrees, and notes that this effort has paid off in terms of literature as well; there are many more poets in the city at present than there had been twenty-five years ago. He refers in several contexts to the importance of the “qualified” speaker: This matter – that I think today people in Florence speak better than in any other past era – I attribute greatly to the usage not of the market and the common masses, but of the noble and qualified people of our city …73

Gelli repeats a variation of this position in other works as well: the best guide is a native speaker, though one who uses careful judgment may choose the best without losing the natural feel of the language. The ability to improve perception and judgment by means of education, training, and practice – and the value of doing so – would begin to receive increasing attention during the second half of the century. The judgment of the trained ear would become increasingly important for writers on music, in assessing such apparently simple matters as the pitch of a sound or the size of an interval, or for more complex matters of aesthetic judgment; so too, the educated or trained judge begins to appear more often as a judge of language. Giambullari’s inspiration here seems to be Girolamo Mei (see below), who attended the Accademia Fiorentina in its early years and maintained an active correspondence with several members and with other Florentines in the years that followed. The brief mention of common people alludes to another point that would continue to receive more attention in the years that followed: the size of the linguistic circle in which a given speaker could participate. Norchiati had observed that a given uneducated speaker might use words and diction that would be understood only by a very small group of people who were very close to that person in some way. The value of such a person as a source of evidence for language usage would be limited given the narrow range of this very local and possibly idiosyncratic speech. People with more education spoke, even in their native language and city, in ways that could be understood by more members of that community. Educated native speakers, then, were the best models of language use. “Per laqual cosa giudicando io che oggi si favelli meglio in Firenze, che in nessun’ de tempi passati, attribuisco molto allo uso, non di Mercato & del vulgo vile, Ma de’ Nobili et qualificati della nostra città…” Ibid., 41.

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This group of scholars managed to produce one final collaborative project: Carlo Lenzoni’s writings on language as assisted by Giambullari and Bartoli. They brought them out as a single volume, In difesa della lingua Fiorentina, et di Dante con le regole da far bella et numerosa la prosa, by Torrentino in 1556.74 Lenzoni had been slower to publish than his colleagues. Only one book appeared under his name during his lifetime, an edition of Marsilio Ficino’s commentary on the Symposium as translated by Tommaso Benci, also published by Torrentino.75 Most surviving biographical information on Lenzoni comes from the funeral oration given by Cosimo Bartoli and published as part of this volume. The Lenzoni family was well established in Florence, and Carlo was educated in humanities and philosophy as well as astronomy. He had been one of the earliest members of the Accademia degli Umidi and remained when it became the Accademia Fiorentina; he served as a consul in 1543 and held most of the group’s other offices at some point as well. There is record of his having lectured once, on a sonnet of Petrarch, in 1542. The positions presented in this posthumous volume suggest he had been involved the “Dortelata” enterprise as well. As a volume, the book is less than fully successful. The three pieces it contains had been left unfinished at Lenzoni’s death in 1551, and they remained rough even in the hands of sympathetic editors. Yet they include a number of innovative thoughts on language; those thoughts are interspersed with argumentative barbs against detractors and with other interventions in particular issues in the questione della lingua. Lenzoni had been working to develop better tools, both descriptive and analytic, for the study of languages at a variety of levels. One topic of interest involved the pace and rhythm of both poetry and prose. In his efforts to analyze and describe them, Lenzoni turned to several different disciplines. He looked first to classical metrics, treated especially in the works of Cicero and Quintilian. For the study of the proportions that made up metrical feet and rhythms he turned to musical scholarship. He consulted Leon Battista Alberti’s writings on the visual arts as well. Lenzoni discussed language in terms both of communities and the mind Lenzoni, Difesa. See Valentina Martino, “Le ‘Difesa della lingua fiorentina e di Dante, con le regole da far bella e numeros la prosa’ di Carlo Lenzoni,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 189, no. 625 (2012): 23–69. 75 Hermes Trismegistus [pseudo], Il Pimandro di Mercuris Trimegisto, ed. Carlo Lenzoni, trans. T. Benci (Florence: Torrentino, 1548). Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 221. 74

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of the individual speaker. At times he employed concepts in natural philosophy in addition to those used more commonly in humanist studies, a composite approach that seemed appropriate to the mutable nature of his subject. He had apparently fussed over his volume and delayed publication for some time. It was approved for publication by the Accademia’s literary censors in 1548, but he withdrew it to redraft it.76 The first version of the Difesa had been his response to the Ludovico Dolce’s negative remarks on Il Gello in Dolce’s letter to Paolo Crivello. In the surviving, published version, Il Gello seldom appears. In the first dialogue Lenzoni discusses the study of Florentine as a living language. The second defends Dante against charges by the followers of Bembo. It also contains a fairly lengthy digression on proportion, using both Celsus (via Columella) and Boethius, cast as a response to a request by Giovanni Francesco Beato, the Paduan professor of metaphysics. In the third, Lenzoni discusses stress accents and other sound features in modern spoken Tuscan, uses them to discuss quantifying Tuscan prose in metrics, and seeks to apply these numerical measures to evaluate the quality of prose. Lenzoni was at work on the second and third dialogues when he became ill. At that point he entrusted the unfinished work to his friend Giambullari. Giambullari composed, at Lenzoni’s request, the dedication to Michelangelo that Lenzoni was no longer able to write himself. He began the task of editing as well and continued after Lenzoni’s death. Yet Giambullari was still at work on this project at the time of his own death, in 1555. As a result, the final dedication and the last rounds of editing fell to Cosimo Bartoli, who included his own funeral oration for Lenzoni in the volume. He also added another dedication, this one to Duke Cosimo, in which he explains the situation that had led to the appearance of a book in such a state. Bartoli does not otherwise intrude in any explicit way upon the text. Giambullari had been a more active editor, apparently working at Lenzoni’s direction. He uses his own voice in the Michelangelo dedication; in addition, he interrupts Lenzoni’s text twice in his own voice. The first occurs in the second dialogue, the defense of Dante. About thirty-five pages into the dialogue, as the interlocutors begin a defense of Dante’s word choices and not long before the digression on proportion, Giambullari inserts a note to the reader. Lenzoni, he writes, had completed Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 221.

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the work to this point and entrusted the rest of the task to him.77 He breaks in again at the beginning of the third work, the one on number, in order to discuss his editorial decisions with regard to this increasingly fragmentary material.78 Neither Lenzoni’s nor Giambullari’s manuscript notes have survived to allow for comparison with the published work, but there seems little reason to doubt Giambullari’s statements. The willingness of these scholars to intervene so actively in order to publish the book attests not only to their friendship but also to their agreement with one another on a number of issues, even if they did not agree on the history of the language. The first dialogue, on the study of the Florentine language, was the one Lenzoni had come closest to completing. He introduces the interlocutors at the chapter house after a lecture at the Accademia just prior to its vacation time, occupying themselves by discussing the old paintings there. Gelli, Giambullari, and Lenzoni are joined by Bartoli, Lorenzo Pasquali, and a Bembist from Padua called “il Licentiado.” Gelli takes the leading, didactic role, expressing positions based especially on his own recent dialogue on modern Florentine.79 Gelli and Giambullari note with pleasure the work of the Accademia to promote the language. The Paduan expresses surprise at two related matters, thus setting up the topics for the first two dialogues. These are issues that did indeed appear with some regularity in writings on language by non-Florentines. First, he remarks that the spoken Florentine he has heard in the city is inferior to what he expected, especially in comparison with the great authors and with Bembo. Second, he has been surprised at the great respect in which Dante is held there, much higher than his reputation in other cities. Licentiado, in his criticism, raises another theme that will continue through the work: comparisons between language and visual arts. The topic was both timely and relevant; most of these friends had been involved in producing Vasari’s Lives of the Artists. To imitate Dante in writing, he asserts, would be like choosing in painting to imitate Giotto rather than the much more recent Raphael, though Vasari does praise Giotto. Gelli suggests that Michelangelo might be a better point of comparison. Raphael learned from him, though had not surpassed him; such was also the relationship between Petrarch and Dante. Giambullari, in Lenzoni, Difesa, 75. Giambullari, in ibid., 124. 79 Giambullari and Gelli, De la lingua; et uno dialogo di Gelli; Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 223. 77

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Throughout the dialogue, the interlocutors return to a few main topics: comparisons and contrasts between ancient languages (Latin and Greek) and modern ones; the use of ancient languages in antiquity versus their uses in modern times; and the criteria that should be used to assess good language use. Lenzoni distinguishes between two aspects of a language: the words themselves, and manner of speaking.80 He turns first to words. Language use is about communication, so comprehension among the widest number of users is paramount. He compares language in this regard to money: the value lies in that which is in common use, and generally accepted. Nonetheless, he suggests this usage should be based on the more learned, not the lesser, majority of the people: I mean by “greater,” not the lowest plebeians of the city, as great as their numbers are; but that of the citizens, and intelligent people; just as habits of life are taken from the consensus and custom of the good.81

These citizens may not sound exactly like the common people, but can be understood by them, whereas the reverse is not always the case. Word choice is an important factor in comprehensibility. Florentine has dropped some words used in Boccaccio’s day, shedding what was harsh. Good modern writers keep what is best from writers like Boccaccio, in which “best” may be defined as the usage of the more educated majority of modern Florentines. The Bembists, by contrast, cling to their two fourteenth-century writers and thus promote many words that are no longer heard and hence not generally understood. This assessment helps provide criteria for judgment when he turns to the second aspect, manner of speaking. Good language use takes full advantage of that language’s particular features, including its sounds as articulations and rhythms. He compares the attempts to write based only on reading and copying a few writers, to a soldier who has only learned to use a few of the necessary weapons, and so chooses those and ignores others that might be more appropriate to the task. Writing is part of a language, but no single text, nor even one author’s work, contains the entire “Parole e modi del dire,” Lenzoni, Difesa, 11. Modern readers will note some similarities between his terms and the “langue” and “parole” of Saussure. The latter also alludes to the stylistic levels of classical rhetoric. 81 “Intendendo per maggiore, non la più bassa plebe della Città, per infinita che ella sia; Ma quella de Cittadini, & intelligenti: Si come la consetudine del vivere, si piglia da’l consenso, & uso de’buoni.” Ibid., 14. 80

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language. No such selection could include all the words and phrases in current use; nor could it show how often they are used. Further, writing itself is inadequate in recording the sounds of a language. The written word serves as an imperfect guide to pronunciation, notes Lenzoni, in words reminiscent of Dortelata’s efforts to address that particular problem. Further, it does not indicate inflection or cadence at all. As a result, no one can learn proper pronunciation or the rhythm of speech from books alone, and a writer who uses a language learned in this way may make infelicitous choices out of ignorance of the exact sounds of what one is writing. The fifteenth-century humanists tend collectively to serve Lenzoni as exempla mala. They had sought gain for their studies in an era that valued doctors and lawyers, he asserts, and had found that little in those fields was written in vernacular. So they had ignored the vernacular in favor of Latin and Greek, leaving Florentine to women and artisans. Those writers had not striven for clear expression; on the contrary, they seemed to compete to choose the most obscure Latin words possible. A similar practice then spread into vernacular prose and continues into the present, with authors reaching for borrowed, exotic spellings and word choices, rather than seeking clear expression. These vernacular writers overuse obscure constructions such as those that transpose the verb to the end of the phrase, that are not only absent from current use, but that even Boccaccio used only occasionally. Licentiado notes that many non-Florentines feel obliged to follow such models because they want to avoid possible errors in writing; Gelli urges them instead to study the language in Florence, or with a Florentine teacher. Throughout this dialogue, Lenzoni contrasts living languages with the Latin in use in his day as a language of scholarship and of humanistic letters. Greek and Latin as they were spoken and written in antiquity, though they are now dead languages, make a closer comparison with modern Florentine than do ancient languages in modern usage. For Greek and Latin too, native speakers would be the ideal models and guides; were there a place where Latin was still the native tongue, that would be the place to go to learn Latin. Lenzoni, continuing to speak primarily through the main interlocutor Gelli, addresses peninsular concerns about how to label the vernacular. He compares the relationship of Florentine within Italian vernaculars to Athenian in ancient Greek; while Greek had included several dialects, Athenian had pride of place in literature. He had earlier distinguished

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regional levels of vernacular: Florentine, based on the usage in the city; Tuscan, a composite from the various cities; and Italian, a broader composite. But, he observes, some people have also used the label “Italian” for Florentine. It might earn such a title both for its outstanding beauty among regional idioms and because it is the one that learned people everywhere understand.82 Lenzoni returns at the dialogue’s end to the earlier humanist preference for the study of Greek and Latin at the expense of volgare. As a result, no one had tried before to establish the rules of metrical feet as had been done for Greek and Latin. But, notes the Gelli character at the end of the first dialogue, someone has been at work remedying that problem. That would be the subject of Lenzoni’s third dialogue. The second dialogue responds directly to Bembo’s negative remarks about Dante in Book Two of the Prose. Bembo had asserted that the Commedia in particular was deficient on a number of levels, so it was not a good choice for imitation. There were problems with its metrics in the elision of syllables; occasionally it showed bad word choices; it failed to meet literary standards as an epic. Bembo had swayed other Italian critics, whose assessments of Dante differed considerably from that shared by the members of the Accademia Fiorentina, where he was the subject of regular lectures, particularly by Gelli, and continual study.83 Lenzoni developed his response into a lengthy critical discussion of the Commedia; Judith Bryce has discussed its significance, particularly his use of Aristotle.84 Dante, of course could not have known Aristotle’s Poetics, which had been rediscovered fairly recently; nonetheless, he had produced a work that met its standards as an epic. He continues to a defense of Dante’s vocabulary, metrics, and other features. Giambullari inserts his first address to the readers, informing them that this is the point at which Lenzoni fell victim to his fatal illness.85 He states that he will continue from here as if he were Lenzoni; and the dialogue returns to the discussion of Dante’s vocabulary. Then follows a digression. The text presents issues and terminology that would seem relevant to the volume’s third section on metrics: Ibid., 19. A generation later, in 1587, Baccio Valori had a bust of Dante added to the entrance to the Florentine Studio. Salvino Salvini, ed., Fasti consolari dell’Accademia Fiorentina (Florence: Gio. Gaetano Tartini e Santi Franchi, 1717), 286–87; Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana A.CXI. 84 Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 225–27. 85 Lenzoni, Difesa. 75–76. 82 83

Modern Language Practice

ratio and proportion according to Boethius’s Arithmetic and Music. The topic is introduced by having the interlocutors take a break for a glass of wine. They will mix it with water, and the proper mixing should proceed, according to Celsus, as for musical consonances, such as the duple proportion of 2:1 or the hemiola, 3:2. The interlocutors find the terms confusing, and they call upon Gelli to explain them. To do so, he reads a letter written by Lenzoni to the Paduan professor of metaphysics Giovanni Francesco Beato. In it, Lenzoni recalls an earlier conversation in Gelli’s shop in which Beato had asked about vernacular versions of the terminology of proportion; Lenzoni then fulfills the request. The letter is presented in its entirety; it is sufficiently substantial that it seems to form a miniature treatise within the dialogue. It exemplifies the efforts made by several members of the Accademia Fiorentina, like Padua’s Infiammati before them, to bring philosophical topics into vernacular language.86 It is also reminiscent of Norchiati’s efforts to collect artisanal vocabulary, since Lenzoni observes at the outset that the Florentine language as used every day in the city, especially by artisans, has more than enough words to express complex and technical concepts. Indeed, continues Lenzoni, he hopes that Beato and his colleagues will do the same with other subjects. Lenzoni then launches into a description of ratio (referred to as proportion), following Boethius’s Arithmetic. Proportions can be equal or unequal; the latter consist of several types, beginning with multiplex, or the form x:1, for which Lenzoni presents the terms dupla, tripla, and so on. The following pages include long charts of proportion types and names. The Paduan expresses gratitude, requests a copy of the charts, and notes that while they must now pick up again their main subject of Dante, he would like to return to this topic at another time. The discussion of Dante then resumes, presumably with Giambullari editing Lenzoni’s draft. This topic might seem to relate to the theme of the next dialogue, on metrics and prosody. The literary use of vocabulary from specialized fields had been raised in the second dialogue. Yet not only does the letter interrupt the flow of the conversation; the third dialogue does not actually employ this Boethian terminology, though it does cover some related topics. Either Lenzoni had planned to do so but had fallen ill first, or Giambullari had simply found the letter in Lenzoni’s papers, wanted to see it published, and decided that this was the best place for it. Ibid., 79–89.

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The third dialogue begins with Giambullari in his own voice. He states that Lenzoni left this part of his work in too rough and fragmentary a state for Giambullari to edit or complete it as a full dialogue. His only options were to suppress it altogether, or simply to present the remains as numbered fragments. Having chosen the latter, he begins with Lenzoni’s definitions of numero or meter, and proceeds with Lenzoni’s fragmentary but fascinating discussion of metrics and the sounds of language. Meter, he begins, is a measure (tempo) harmonized from accents and proportioned in its parts. It consists of three things: the quality of words, the means of their accompanying one another, and in the quantity and quality of feet.87 Later he notes that it consists of material (that is, the letters, syllables, and words), sound (the actual tone of pronunciation), and time.88 Lenzoni asserts that he is the first person to tackle the subject of prosody and metrics with a genuine focus on the Florentine language; previously, writers had simply worked from Latin authorities on the Latin language, mainly Cicero and Quintilian. Bembo, in his poetry or prose, seems simply to have followed Pontano on Latin.89 Aldo Manuzio’s Regole had been similar in its approach.90 Some earlier writers, notably Dante and Boccaccio, had written measured prose, but had just done so by ear.91 Lenzoni describes at some length the qualities of each vowel and consonant. He moves on to the sounds of syllables, whose qualities arise from their predominant sound; he has assembled lists of sound qualities such as sweet, strident, or low, and associates the appropriate syllables with those qualities. Good writers, for example Homer and Vergil, paid attention to the sounds of the syllables they chose. Syllables also have measure: short, long, or common; and they have accent, which may be acute (accented), grave (unaccented), or circumflex. This system of accents, developed from Cicero and Quintilian, recalls those used earlier by Neri Dortelata; in the first dialogue, Gelli had praised Marsilio Ficino as a prose stylist, also recalling the choice of Ficino’s vernacular for the Dortelata publications.92 Sound production is a key part of language use; equally important is the perception of the listener. The pleasure of the ear and the mind, which judges the perception, is the foundation on which the other features of prosody and metrics rest. Well-composed meters please the ear when Ibid., 125. Ibid., 141–42. 89 Ibid., 188–89. 90 Ibid., 200. 91 “per buon giudizio di orecchio, e non per regola di piedi”; Ibid., 140. 92 Ibid., 13. 87

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their harmony is sweet and natural; they please the intellect when they are appropriate to the subject matter of the passage.93 Lenzoni lists some seventy metrical feet, from Greek and Latin sources, and observes that they impart a range of qualities. He narrows his focus to Tuscan. Verses of seven and eleven syllables, for example, fit Tuscan and please a Tuscantrained ear. Like his colleagues, Lenzoni argues first, that every language has particular features that are native or natural to it; and second, that the best tool for identifying those features and for assessing the quality of a given example is the trained ear: All men in every language have had by nature a music in their ears from the accents and pace of the words, such that they may not vary either to increase or decrease, without a loss to that first natural grace that is able to make verse beautiful and sonorous; this very thing has happened to Tuscans, so that by experience itself, any purified ear may judge, seeming obviously to appear to be the true, first, and principal light of the language that we speak.94

After a discussion of verse, he turns to prose. In prose, unlike verse, one should vary the feet; otherwise the speech will sound affected. Nonetheless the two are closely related; they both have their basis in vocal communication. That connects both in turn to singing. Contemporary theories of music still saw number and ordered proportion, as described in Boethius’s Arithmetic and Music, as the basis for analyzing beauty.95 Normally those proportions related mainly to pitch, but they might be applied to rhythm as well. Giambullari had seemed to assume that Lenzoni’s letter on the vernacular terms for musical proportion was relevant to the topic. And indeed, Lenzoni builds upon this close set of ties between poetry and prose, speech and song in some of his practical advice to writers and speakers so as to train their ear. To those who want to learn to add meter Ibid., 142. “Tutti gli huomini, & in ciascuna lingua, hanno havuto da la Natura, una Musica negli orecchi, da gli accenti, & da’l tempo delle parole; dove nè quegli si possono variare, nè queste accrescere, o sminuire, senza perdimento di quella sua prima, naturale grazia, & accomodata, che fa il verso bello & sonoro: Ilche medesimamante, è avvenuto ancora a’Toscani; come per la esperienza stessa, agevolmente può giudicare, ogn’orecchio purgato: esser paruto così a’veri lumi, primi & principali della lingua che noi parliamo.” Ibid.,149. 95 Ann E. Moyer, Musica Scientia: Musical Scholarship in the Italian Renaissance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992). 93

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to their prose, he has three suggestions. The first is to sing. They should practice singing improvised verses of varying syllabic length: five, seven, eight, eleven syllables, and so on. This suggestion may not suit all, so his second option is to recite prepared verses of Petrarch; the preparation involves replacing those unusual words that Petrarch used for the purposes of rhyme with more ordinary vocabulary.96 Finally, one might also practice by scanning the writings of noted authors, such as Cicero for Latin prose or Boccaccio for Tuscan. The learned person understands the principles, and the ignorant ones may simply enjoy hearing good speech; but in any case, it is the ear that judges prose. Elsewhere, he turns to the quantitative meters of Latin. Modern speakers might learn to pronounce classical Latin properly by having a musician notate on a musical staff the pitch range of a good speaker. Because classical Latin uses long and short syllables, notating the rhythm of speech was fairly straightforward; the musician could mark out the rhythm of a Latin passage at the same time he notated the pitch. The speaker could then read the text and the musical line together as if it were song, and could thus rehearse how the pitch and rhythm of a line of Latin should sound.97 This suggestion would seem to make several assumptions about Latin, notably that it used an inflectional pattern similar to modern Latin speakers, or at least similar to sixteenth-century humanists doing their best to produce something plausibly classical, such that the musician could listen and notate that pitch pattern. Nonetheless, it would serve as a starting point. It also resembles a description of operatic recitative that would develop not many years later. Lenzoni is using here some but not all of the musical principles that he had translated for Beato. The proportions and their names came from Boethius, who had argued that these mathematical proportions made up not only musical intervals but also the world itself; the human soul contained similar proportions, and so it perceived them as beautiful. Lenzoni, however, includes nothing of the sort. He states that the perception of order is natural, but for him, the meters charm the ear, whereas the mind responds to the meaning of the words. This interest in perception and performance is consistent with his references to Aristotle’s Poetics. Musical scholars would propose some similar solutions to the problem of how to assess aural experience. They too would begin to argue for the Lenzoni, Difesa, 175. Ibid., 190–91.

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essential role of the trained ear in making such judgments. Within a few decades, the Florentine musician and theorist Vincenzo Galilei would use an argument like that of Lenzoni: a trained or purified ear could serve as an effective and essential tool. Lenzoni also refers to the visual arts throughout the text. Given that this circle of colleagues had been working with Vasari on the Lives of the Artists, the references to both the topic and the work itself are hardly surprising.98 Lenzoni dedicates his book to Michelangelo; he draws parallels repeatedly between artistic and literary compositions. Analogies between painting and poetry had a long humanist history by this time. Musical scholarship had provided earlier Florentines, notably Alberti, with tools for studying the visual arts. Cosimo Bartoli’s work as translator of Alberti meant that Alberti’s work and ideas would have been familiar to Lenzoni had he chosen to use them. It is especially significant, then, that neither Lenzoni nor his colleagues turned to harmonics and Boethius’s theories of proportion and universal beauty to account for the appeal of rhythmic or metrical proportion in speech. Rather, Lenzoni turns to custom to account for the order and beauty of each language. He is strenuous and consistent in his claims that each language has its own standard that is appropriate to itself, a standard that develops in the ear of the native speaker. When he praises earlier artists or authors, whether Giotto or Boccaccio, Lenzoni notes that their work is appropriate to their own time; present practices and standards are not the same as those of the past. In fact, meter was just such a case in which the standards were distinctly different, not universal, for ancient versus modern language. Classical Latin had quantitative meter, with long and short syllables, as seen in Lenzoni’s suggestion of musical notation as a learning aid. Earlier Renaissance humanists had made a point of reviving these meters. Florentine, like other European vernaculars, used accent instead. Whereas contemporary French poets might, like the members of the Pléiade, experiment with classical meters in vernacular poetry, these Florentines continued to identify the well-established traditions of Florentine poetry as embodying features fundamental to the nature of the language. Lenzoni locates the standards for judging and assessing those qualities in modern speech in two places. One is the mind of the individual actor, as speaker or as listener. Lenzoni notes several times the mind’s natural tendency to seek order, moderation, and balance on the one hand, Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 220.

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and its desire for variety rather than monotony on the other. Yet these natural tendencies can also be trained and developed. Foreigners who want to improve their ability to judge what sounds good in Florentine can do so by extensive listening to the language and speaking it. Speakers can learn to add rhythm to their speech by following his exercises of singing or recitation. The other is the collective behavior of living speakers, that is, custom and practice. Individual members of the community may participate in different ways; they differ in levels of education, by trade, and more. Lenzoni distinguishes here between active abilities to speak and passive abilities to understand the speech of others. An educated speaker is able to communicate ideas that are understood by a wider group of people. An uneducated person can understand the speech of an educated speaker, but their own speech is understood only by a smaller and more local group. Later writers would follow Lenzoni in this distinction. Cosimo Bartoli outlived this group of friends and colleagues. With the death of Giambullari the cluster of overlapping and collaborative projects came to an end. Meetings of the Accademia Fiorentina were surely calmer without the division they had once represented. Their writings were for the most part not reprinted. Yet these men and their writings left a strong mark on the ways Florentines thought and wrote about language in the years and decades that followed. Some of that mark was direct. Varchi would include some of Norchiati’s scholarship in his Ercolano. Mei would continue to promote some of Giambullari’s claims about the early history of the city, raising yet another controversy about the city’s past in which Annius lurked in the background. Other aspects of their impact were broader and perhaps less direct. Perhaps the most important was to focus scholarly attention in Florence clearly on spoken language. Those who followed them, though their methods differed significantly, tended to follow similar ways of thinking about members of linguistic communities who differed in profession, social standing, or location. So too, they continued to focus on local variations in pronunciation and usage, along with ongoing efforts to distinguish the study of everyday language from literary criticism. By their later years the Aramei may have given up their arguments about the origins of Florentine. Yet their engagement with speech and its variations across time, place, and social standing survived to shape the scholarship of years to come.

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    iambullari

and his friends were certainly not the only Florentines took a serious interest in the Florentine language. Benedetto Varchi, Girolamo Mei, and Vincenzio Borghini all outlived Giambullari and their writings continued to appear through the next decades. Each of them brought the greater analytic precision the field was demanding, in particular the humanistic skills in classical textual scholarship that they traced back to Angelo Poliziano. All were accomplished scholars of ancient letters and worked over many years with Florence’s noted classicist Piero Vettori. Each of these figures composed important and innovative works on language and its nature, with a particular focus on Florentine vernacular. They used the written forms and genres typical of the era: argumentative prose in treatises, dialogues, and similar works. Like many of their colleagues, they too planned a number of projects they failed to complete. The quick work by surviving colleagues and friends in bringing these writings posthumously to press in the best form possible attests to the wide interest in their arguments and ideas. All were busy correspondents as well, whose letters found readers well beyond their official recipients; some of those letters also made their way into print in the decades and more after their death. They also participated in some of the numerous collective editorial projects undertaken in the middle decades of the century. Some of those publications carried their names, others not; this collaborative style has obscured from view some of their achievements. Not all of these projects were successful. The production of a full and scholarly Florentine grammar book was one example. Despite continued efforts by committees and     who

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individual scholars, the project would be completed only many years later, under the auspices of the Accademia della Crusca. Florentine authors of the fourteenth century received particular editorial interest, especially from Borghini. Publishers and scholars alike strove to bring to press early Tuscan texts and to produce better editions of those already in print. They compared these early Florentine authors and their works to those of antiquity, worthy of similar levels of editorial care and study. Borghini composed annotations on Dante, Boccaccio, and Villani similar to those being produced for ancient authors. In critical introductions and elsewhere they compared the editing and reading of early vernacular authors to collecting, restoring, and viewing ancient sculptures. Yet even as they praised good editions, criticized bad ones, and in general celebrated the preservation and access to sources brought about by the print industry, they had to deal with new and demanding limits on the circulation of knowledge. The Roman Index of Forbidden Books, beginning in 1559 with numerous subsequent revisions and updates, banned some classic Florentine authors just as they were coming to enjoy such scholarly scrutiny. Most prominent was Boccaccio and, among the moderns, Machiavelli. Teams of Florentines worked, with mixed results, to produce editions that would pass the censors and allow scholars as well as casual readers to use and cite these authors. Literary issues of the questione della lingua continued to engage men of letters, including Florentines, across Italy, both in the criticism of new literary works and in the efforts to edit and to comment on older ones. Indeed, Varchi began his major work on language, the Ercolano, because Borghini urged him to respond to ongoing literary debates and controversies. Borghini himself even composed some recommendations on the conduct of such debates. Some of the standard topics of the questione appeared in their writings, though often in the guise of a particular example or application of a more general principle: whether a language is best learned on location from a native, the proper nomenclature for the vernacular, and more. Yet the center of their interest was not these discrete issues, but larger questions about language in general and the properties of Florentine in particular. They shared many topics of interest with each other and with their elder colleagues: changes in language over time, region, and social level; the connections between spoken language and written; the relationships of one language to another. They also shared some important

Philological Approaches

methodological principles, and continued to build upon them. One was the distinction between studies of language and of letters; they too chose to focus on language. As scholars with humanistic training in ancient languages, they took particular care to compare Florentine to Latin and Greek. Florentine or Tuscan, they agreed, was a major language in its own terms; its study was parallel to, though distinct from, the scholarly issues about the Latin language, its history, and Latin style.1 They also agreed with their colleagues about the need to develop new means for the study of living languages that varied over time, across regions, and across social levels. Yet they also operated with a more thoroughly historical sense about ancient languages. Giambullari and his colleagues found it important to distinguish living languages from dead ones. Mei, Varchi, and Borghini had the familiarity with classical scholarship to discuss the development of Latin and Greek in the eras when they too had been living languages. For analysis they turned especially to basic logical tools and the writings of Aristotle that were receiving renewed attention and interpretation, and to other ancient authors as well. The distinction between language and letters, argued Borghini, was a distinction between art and nature. To write with skill and beauty is an art, acquired with study by a given individual and evaluated with care. Language itself, on the other hand, is natural to all humans. Like other parts of nature, it follows orderly rules that can be understood and investigated in a systematic manner as a collective practice common to many. He and Varchi also classified related languages by genus and species, taking models from natural history. Mei took an early interest in perception, using newly available works such as Aristoxenus that would contribute to his later writings on music as well. To discuss language change over time continued to present challenges. One way to overcome the vagueness and imprecision they found in Gelli and Giambullari was to limit their scope to changes for which they had clear evidence, avoiding speculation. Another was to discuss the causes of language change. War and political transition were obvious causes, notably the barbarian invasions that marked the end of antiquity and of classical Latin, while giving birth to the postclassical languages. Yet 1

On Latin, see Frederic Clark, “Antiquitas and the Medium Aevum: The Ancient/ Medieval Divide and Italian Humanism,” in Remembering the Middle Ages in Early Modern Italy, ed. Pericolo and Richardson, 19–41.

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they also realized that factors other than war and invasion were at work in the spread of a language. War accounted for the spread of Latin in antiquity, but not the dominance of Florentine in modern Italian language and letters. At the same time, they saw that the study of language might contribute to other fields in turn. If language in a given place changed over time in ways that could be identified, then the Florentine language itself carried traces of Florence’s past. Studies of those language changes might thus contribute to an understanding of that past with information that had not been preserved any other way. Thus, on the one hand, it was often necessary to invoke political history to explain the history and changes in a language; the role of Germanic languages in the development of Tuscan, for example, including a number of lexical additions, made no sense without understanding the wars and invasions of late antiquity. On the other, increasing numbers of scholars wanted to use language and its changes as evidence to help them understand the history of a region; that is, they hoped to find ways to use place names, vocabulary, and more, to support claims about some other kind of historical change. These possibilities seemed to show potential for new scholarship, though as the authors of the 1540s had shown, they also held a risk for circular argumentation and other problems. These authors communicated their ideas in a variety of ways. All left an extensive network of correspondence. The Accademia Fiorentina offered Varchi in particular a wide network of colleagues. Their publications were of primary importance, not only for their contents, but also for the collective nature of the work that produced many of them. From the editorial work that helped produce the posthumous Ercolano to the fraught Decameron project, each represented extensive work and sympathetic collaboration. Just as the Florentine vernacular shaped the literary culture of Italy, so too Florentine studies of that vernacular left a lasting legacy in establishing the systematic study of modern languages.

Girolamo Mei on Verse and Prose Girolamo Mei (1519–1594) devoted himself to humanistic studies both ancient and modern. He is now best known for his studies of ancient music. Those studies seem also to have informed his writings on language. Florentine by birth and education, he studied with Piero Vettori

Girolamo Mei on Verse and Prose

and began a collaboration that continued for many years.2 He contributed to editions of a number of ancient texts, mostly while working outside Florence, primarily in Rome; some ninety letters survive from Mei to Vettori. He and Bartolomeo Barbadori worked together on Greek drama. They discovered Euripides’s Electra, which Vettori brought to press (Rome, 1545), and undertook considerable manuscript work on Aeschylus’s Agamemnon and Libation Bearers. Vettori referred to him (in his commentary on Aristotle’s Politics) as the closest of friends.3 Mei also worked on Thucydides as well as on Latin texts, notably Cicero’s (fragmentary) Republic.4 Mei joined the Umidi in February 1541 along with forty-one other new members, among them Vettori himself, and remained a member when the academy was reorganized in 1547.5 He also served in the Florentine magistracy; he was named one of the Dodici buonuomini in 1545.6 Early in 1546 Mei traveled to Rome for Vettori, to find and consult manuscripts and printed books.7 He returned to Florence and left again sometime after August 1547; thereafter he returned to his native city only occasionally. He left Rome for Paris to serve with the bishop of Agen, a position that had dissolved as he traveled; he remained in Lyon as a tutor until 1554 and then moved to Padua, where he lived until 1559. There he conducted research for Vettori for an edition of Aristotle’s Poetics, and assisted in editing the statutes for the community of Florentines in Veneto.8 He returned to Rome, and after establishing a position with the Cardinal Giovanni Ricci and attending lectures by Giovanni Battista Benedetti, he was devoted to his serious studies of ancient music by late 1561. He also continued work on the Poetics. In 1562, while working for For biographical information on Mei, see D. Restani, “Mei, Girolamo,”DBI, 73. 207–11; Girolamo Mei, Letters on Ancient and Modern Music to Vincenzo Galilei and Giovanni Bardi; a Study with Annotated Texts, ed. Claude V. Palisca (Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1960), 18–34. 3 “… est enim amicus meus summus.” Aristotle, Aristotelous politikon biblia okto. Aristotelis. De optimo statv reip. libri octo, ed. Piero Vettori (Florence: Giunti, 1552), Commentary on Book 8, 676–77. See Rilli and Magliabechi, Notizie letterarie, 1727, 65. 4 Mei, Letters on Ancient and Modern Music, 20–21. 5 Michel Plaisance, L’Accademia e il suo principe (Manziana (Rome): Vecchiarelli, 2004), 88–89, 226. 6 Donatella Restani, Donatella Restani, L’Itinerario di Girolamo Mei dalla “poetica” alla musica: con un’appendice di testi (Florence: Olschki, 1990), 23. 7 Ibid., 20. 8 Ibid., 25–34. 2

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Cardinal Giovanni Ricci.9 he suffered detention by the Inquisition; on September 4 Mei’s brother in law, Girolamo Baccelli, sent Vettori a letter along with a copy of another from Mei’s brother, asking for Vettori’s assistance in his release.10 They seem to have been effective. Mei continued to work for the Florentine cardinal until the latter’s death in 1574.11 Mei’s scholarship remained largely out of the public eye. His editorial work came out under the names of others, primarily Vettori, and his own writings remained in manuscript.12 The reliance on manuscript circulation was by choice. In the case of technical works such as De modis musicis, he asked his readers further that unsupervised copies not be made; he hoped thereby to minimize errors of transmission.13 This choice limited the range of those who read his works. His colleagues and other specialists knew them, but they lacked the wide circulation of the printed works of others. Indeed, Mei kept such a low profile that some modern scholars suggested he lived as an exile, though that seems unlikely. Some cities in which Mei lived, notably Lyon, were known for harboring political and religious dissenters; yet they also were home to well-established communities of Florentines resident as merchants, bankers, scholars, and clerics. The Giunti Press maintained a branch in Lyon, and Mei may have had family ties there.14 Intellectual connections occupied him in Padua and Rome. He was reportedly friends with a number of prominent clerics, among them Ippolito Aldobrandini (later Clement VIII) and Alessandro de’ Medici (Cosimo I’s ambassador to Pius V, later Leo XI), friendships not consistent with religious dissent.15 His brush with inquisitors in Rome seems to have left no blemish on his employment. Mei’s various scholarly Mei, Letters on Ancient and Modern Music, 26. “Molto Magno M. Piero. S. Io son costretto dare briga alla S.V. per conto di Girolamo Mei mio cogniato, ilquale come quella potra vedere per una lettera di Niccolò suo fratello inclusa in questa, si truova in Roma sostenuto per la inquisitione. Pe la qual cosa io priego la S.V. che per la affettione che ella gli hà portata tanto tempo, et per amor mio, et per sua innata bontà et cortesia, voglia degnarsi di scrivere in Roma a qualche suo amico, fattendogli qualche favore, accioche egli sia aiutato…” London, BL Add. MS 10276, fol. 87. Girolamo Baccelli, letter to Piero Vettori, September 3, 1562. 11 Mei, Letters on Ancient and Modern Music, 33. 12 Mouren, “Professeur de grec,” 501–6. 13 London, BL Add. MS 10268, fols. 313r–315r, June 20, 1573, July 3, 1583; see also Mei, Letters on Ancient and Modern Music, 31. 14 Restani, Donatella Restani, L’Itinerario di Girolamo Mei dalla “poetica” alla musica: con un’appendice di testi, 27. 15 Zanobi Mei, in Vatican City, BAV Barb. Lat. 3990, fols. 20r–79v, at 1v. 9

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Girolamo Mei on Verse and Prose

positions on issues from language to history to antiquarian scholarship did not align with any single group of Florentines. The two works he wrote on Tuscan language and literature exemplify the contrast between his high reputation as a scholar and his low profile as author. They have been little known or studied; even their dating has not been established with certainty. Del verso toscano and Della prosa toscana (also entitled “Della compositura delle parole”) deal, as their titles suggest, with written literary Tuscan. The topic seems clearly associated with the Accademia Fiorentina, so it has been generally assumed that Mei wrote the pieces while he was living in Florence and was actively involved with the group. Internal evidence suggests that he wrote them after he had returned from his first trip to Rome in 1546, though by the evidence of his correspondence it would seem that if he began them then, he returned to them later. A letter to Vettori from Rome in 1560 says that he has been at work on pieces on poetry and prose, not, he adds, because he sees himself as a poet, but simply to see if he could do it. Because it is on the subject of volgare, he has not sent it to Vettori.16 Mei’s writings on language include a number of themes shared with other Florentines. One was an exploration of the ways language and letters were connected by identifying literary elements, such as rhyme and meter, as either intrinsic features of the language or as ornament and artifice. Another was the role of perception and judgment. His close work with Aristotle’s Poetics, as well as with ancient drama, seems to underlie some of this interest. Still more significant is his reading of newly available Greek music treatises that addressed topics such as perception and rhythm. Both of Mei’s treatises investigate features particular to the Florentine or Tuscan language, as they manifested in literature, and place those features in contrast with Greek and Latin. His treatments of both poetry and prose focus first on the language in the age of Dante. Mei argues, consistent with most of his other Florentine colleagues, that the point of departure for any sort of language study is the spoken language. Literary standards for any language are properly based in that language’s particular qualities, and those qualities are identified at the level of speech. Although a number of Mei’s points are similar to those in the writings of Giambullari, Lenzoni, and their friends, Mei’s training in classical studies allows him to develop in greater depth both the particular

London, BL Add. MS 10268, fols. 214–15, August 31, 1560.

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features of the Greek and Latin languages and the ancient literature on grammar, poetics, and related fields. The treatise on prose begins with a summary of meter, a topic he develops in more depth in the treatise on poetry. Meter (rhythm in Greek, number in Latin), he writes, aids the mind in understanding the sense of what is heard, as long as the meter is matched appropriately to subject matter. The subject has not been addressed before for Tuscan speech, he states, and must begin from the bottom up, with the basics. Mei accordingly turns to description. He discusses the pronunciation of vowels and consonants, and moves up through larger units, from syllables to words and beyond. Book Two discusses style, including Petrarchisms, and issues such as the effect of word order on shades of meaning. Within the first few pages of Book One (7v), Mei invokes a new authority on the sounds of language: Aristoxenus of Taranto (fl. ca. 335 BCE). Aristoxenus, a student of Aristotle, had written a treatise on harmonics as well as one (mostly lost) on rhythmics and metrics. They had been unknown in medieval Europe; the surviving sections of his Harmonics would be published in a much-criticized Latin translation by Antonio Gogava in 1562, and in Greek in 1616. The Harmonics was especially notable for its criticism of Pythagorean approaches to music theory. The latter had been the main tradition for centuries, through the writings of Boethius, in Latin scholarship. Aristoxenus had argued that the perception of sound, rather than its production, should be the basis for analysis, a position for which Boethius had attacked him repeatedly; thus, his name was known, though not his writings, to Mei’s colleagues. Mei was one of the earliest scholars to study the Greek texts in manuscript. In a letter to Vincenzo Galilei in 1572, Mei would summarize the extant texts: two and a half books, perhaps a bit more of the Harmonics, and a fragment of slightly more than a half book entitled Book Two of the Rhythmics. They survived in two copies in the Vatican Library.17 He knew of them already by 1562 (the year the translation would appear), when he wrote to Vettori from Rome in February about his interest in finding more of the Rhythmics.18 It is possible that Mei had found some of these texts already in his 1546 trip to Rome, spoken with colleagues there about them, and made that reading a part of his two treatises on language. Mei, Letters on Ancient and Modern Music, 109. Girolamo Mei, letter to Piero Vettori, February 21, 1562; ibid. 180–82.

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Perhaps the most significant part of the discussion here, on the value of the trained ear in making judgments, comes from Aristoxenus. Much of Mei’s distinction between rhythm and meter seems based mainly on another music treatise, that of Aristides Quintilianus (fl. third century CE). It was available in a manuscript translation as well as the original Greek. Aristides Quintilianus had mainly synthesized earlier writers. Though he organized his work with a Pythagorean framework, he had also included a discussion of rhythmics. Boethius’s text and, as a consequence, the postclassical tradition that developed from it, had dealt mainly with pitch; thus these new sources that included discussions of ancient rhythmics were especially innovative in the mid-­sixteenth century. Lenzoni had explored similar topics. His writings went through their early stages during the years Mei was still in Florence, suggesting that these issues were raised and discussed at the Accademia Fiorentina. The treatise on Tuscan poetry covers some similar topics.19 Mei discusses metrics here at great length. He argues that meter, not rhyme, is the essential distinguishing feature of Tuscan poetry, as had been the case for ancient poetry. But the type of meter is very different; both Greek and Latin quantified syllable length, whereas Tuscan employs accent. Mei distinguishes acute, grave (unaccented), and circumflex accent. Tuscan meters, he observes, developed and continued to exist in the pattern of acute versus grave syllables. The property within the language is attributed to habit or custom, but the effect of an accent is due to perception. An acute accent is like an acute angle, he states; it penetrates the mind more quickly and hence is perceived more sharply.20 Not only are some accent patterns more suited to a given language than others, but the ear also perceives different patterns differently. Thus, good poetry employs meters appropriate to the subject; some of the shorter seven-syllable forms are more suited to light subjects, whereas the eleven-syllable line is more serious. Mei presents a description of proportion types based on Boethius, similar to the one seen later in Lenzoni’s letter to Beato. He notes that if the poem is sung rather than recited, the music obscures these patterns somewhat; thus music may cover up small defects in the meter. Greek For a discussion of the verso toscano, see Barbara Russano Hanning, Of Poetry and Music’s Power: Humanism and the Creation of Opera (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1980), 31–41. 20 BAV Barb. Lat. 3990, fols. 20r–79v Girolamo Mei, Del verso toscano, 21r; ibid., 33–34. 19

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authors, too, had commented that those poets who accompanied their verses with song were often less strict about their metrics.21 Mei goes through one metrical pattern after the next. He also turns to discuss style, as he had in the work on prose. Rhyme, he argues, is properly understood as an ornament; as in painting and sculpture, ornament is a source of beauty.22 Further, it was not born fully developed all at once, but developed little by little over time; indeed, one may see such development in works such as Poliziano’s Orfeo. Mei ends by repeating his argument about meter versus rhyme: But to bring our treatise to an end: it appears manifestly by the things said here, that rhyme is not something necessary to the essence of Tuscan verse, or useful to its perfection, nor likewise its ornament, but an ornament of locution pertaining to its nature in speech in general, as much in prose as in verse …23

Mei’s treatises do not discuss the historical development either of the language or of its literature. He restricts his topic to the language from the time of Dante and beyond; this gives him a linguistic and a literary arena that he can compare with ancient Greek and Latin. If these works were composed around 1546 after his return from Rome, however, that would date them to the publication of Giambullari’s first version of Il Gello and his work on the revised edition, Ludovico Dolce’s letter to Varchi, and the first drafts of Lenzoni’s work. Giambullari’s arguments in the Gello about the histories of Florentine versus Provencal verse include statements about meter versus rhyme, which he describes as an ornament that can even be found in some Latin examples. If the later date is correct, then Mei’s texts are closer in date to the Difesa. All of these authors were taking issue with the history of vernacular poetry offered by Bembo in the Prose, though most did not name him explicitly. For most of them, nonetheless, their arguments go well beyond a mere response to Bembo. The interest BAV Barb. Lat. 3990, fol. 34v. BAV Barb. Lat. 3990, fol. 71r. 23 “Ma restrignendo hormai il ragionamento nostro verso il fine apparisce manifesamente per le cose, che in sin’ qui si son dette, che la Rima non e` cosa necessaria all’essenza del Verso Toscano, ne utile alla perfezion’ di lui, ne medesimamente suo ornamento, ma un’ ornamento de locuzione appartenente di sua natura indistintamente al parlare tanto in prosa, quanto in versi, e’ in que’ luoghi dove le qualita` delle cose, che allhor si esprimono con dovuto rispetto di tutte le circonstanze ne lo comportono.” BAV Barb. Lat. 3990, fol. 79v. 21

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in spoken language that takes them to sound, and then in turn to ancient music theorists, is a direction distinctly different from Bembo and most of his colleagues. Mei appears to have been instrumental in setting that new course.

Benedetto Varchi on Language Benedetto Varchi and Girolamo Mei seem to have shared time in Florence only during the mid-1540s, after Varchi’s return in 1543 and before Mei’s final departure in 1547. Apparently, they did not correspond with one another. Yet they, and Vincenzio Borghini, shared a connection with Piero Vettori, and along with it a training and passion for philological humanistic study that distinguished their work. Varchi had worked with Vettori in Florence from 1530 until his departure from the city in 1537. During these years Mei, thirteen years his junior, was still a young student; his work with Vettori would begin in the following decade. Varchi, about four years younger in turn than Vettori, was establishing himself as a scholar rather than as a lawyer, as his father had originally hoped. Varchi helped manage Vettori’s financial affairs while assisting with his edition of Cicero, whose four volumes were being published by Giunti in Venice. He and Vettori remained correspondents and colleagues thereafter.24 Both remained for a number of years outside Florence during the years of Alessandro’s regime, Vettori in San Casciano Val di Pesa, until called back by Cosimo.25 The lengthy experience of working with Vettori’s Cicero project, with its careful study of language and manuscripts, left its mark on Varchi’s later writings in many ways. The references in the Ercolano to classical scholarship, to the Latin and Greek languages, and to all aspects of manuscript criticism and editing, demonstrate the value for Varchi that these tools brought to the study of postclassical languages as well. Varchi’s work with Vettori continued during his time in Padua and Venice, an important time in his intellectual formation. He was also a colleague of Pietro Bembo. Varchi had traveled to consult with the Giunti Others referred to their friendship as well. Ugolino Martelli, in his letters to Vettori from Padua, carried Varchi’s greetings often and referred to him as “compare Vostro.” Ugolino Martelli, Lettere a Piero Vettori, 1536–1577, ed. Vanni Bramanti (Manziana (Rome): Vecchiarelli, 2009); see also Vanni Bramanti, “Introduzione,” Ibid., 16–19. 25 On the political events from the fall of the last republican government through the rise of Alessandro, and the lasting impact of those years on both Varchi and Vettori, see Lo Re, Crisi della libertà fiorentina. 24

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in person in 1535 and returned to Venice and Padua after the Cicero project was completed. His departure from Florence shortly after the assassination of Alessandro had led to his extended residency there as well as Bologna.26 He first met Bembo on one of his early trips and had more extended contact during his longer time in Padua as tutor to the Strozzi youth, before Bembo departed for Rome. Varchi retained his interest in Bembo’s work throughout his life. He referred to Bembo often when he lectured at the Accademia Fiorentina, and when Bembo died in 1547 he offered lectures in his honor; he was already working to publish a Florentine edition of the Prose, which appeared with Torrentino the next year.27 In his dedicatory letter to Cosimo, Varchi praised Bembo’s great service to the city. Bembo, he wrote, had both favored its language and purged it of the rust accumulated since the days of the great authors. Not only had Tuscans benefitted from his efforts; Italians and ultramontanes could now write as well as read good Tuscan thanks to him.28 Varchi had chosen his words carefully, though apparently with great sincerity. His praise of Bembo here is selective, focused on his promotion of literary Florentine. Modern critics would largely agree that Bembo’s advocacy of peninsula-wide literary standards based especially on the models of Petrarch and Boccaccio was effective in promoting such a standard, and was in fact a key feature in its long-term success. Yet Varchi’s own studies of language at this point were already far broader than the promotion of a literary language, and his opinions came to diverge significantly from those of Bembo in many ways. Nonetheless, he was consistent in attributing this point to Bembo, and in praising his learning and eloquence. The group that had begun the Accademia degli Infiammati in Padua in 1540 also shared Varchi’s interest in language study and modern letters. Padua’s intellectual scene was one of the most intense in Europe, and the academy attracted those directly involved with the university as well as other men of letters in Padua and Venice.29 The organization did not last long, and by the time of its demise, Varchi was already in Bologna. Yet the Infiammati left a mark on many of those involved with the group, particularly an interest in bringing philosophy into vernacular language. Sperone Speroni, who had also lectured in philosophy at the university, composed a work on Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” diss., 111–283. Pietro Bembo, Prose (Florence: Torrentino, 1548); also 1549. 28 Ibid., sig. A iii r. 29 Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” article; Sgarbi, Italian Mind, 40–42. 26 27

Benedetto Varchi on Language

vernacular rhetoric using the tools of Pomponazzi’s Aristotle.30 He argued that philosophy was too broadly useful a tool to limit access only to those who participated in a given language tradition such as Latin. His student Bernardino Tomitano continued to develop these arguments and goals. Varchi maintained similar interests. He had begun a translation of the Prior Analytics in 1540, before the Infiammati began their meetings; on the advice of Verino and Vettori, who had written him from Florence, he shifted to the Ethics instead.31 He brought the projects back to Florence with him, and continued to work on vernacular logic treatises after his return.32 He left most of them unfinished, and their manuscripts remain in Florentine library collections.33 Varchi also continued to translate other ancient philosophical works; his translation of Seneca’s De Beneficiis went through four editions, and that of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy saw many more. He also moved these philosophical tools into the study of vernacular language itself. This approach characterizes a number of his lectures for the Accademia Fiorentina.34 A Dante lecture might focus on an aspect of natural philosophy presented in the Commedia; a passage in On the Generation of Monsters defends philosophy in vernacular. His lectures on poetics and poetry from late 1553 are more closely related to his linguistic interests. Many of these lectures include topics to which he would return in more depth in the Ercolano. His philosophical training brought precision and care to his discussions of the vernacular, its development, and its current practice.35 Varchi began the Ercolano, his major work on language, sometime in 1560. He left it unfinished at his death, but unlike his history of Florence it was edited and published not long afterwards, in 1570.36 As noted on the title page, the proximate cause was the ongoing feud between Annibale

Sperone Speroni, I Dialoghi (Venice: Figlivoli di Aldo, 1542). Sgarbi, Italian Mind, 81–85. 32 Ibid., 88–89. 33 Marco Sgarbi, “Benedetto Varchi on the Soul: Vernacular Aristotelianism between Reason and Faith,” Journal of the History of Ideas 76, no. 1 (2015): 1–23. 34 Annalisa Andreoni, “Luoghi aristotelici nelle lezioni accademiche di Benedetto Varchi,” in “Aristotele fatto volgare:” tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento, ed. David A. Lines and Eugenio Refini (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 61–76. 35 Sgarbi, Italian Mind, 71–126. 36 On Varchi’s writings about language in general, see among others Herbert J. Izzo, “The Linguistic Philosophy of Benedetto Varchi, Sixteenth Century Florentine 30 31

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Caro, an old friend who had worked for a time in Florence but spent most of his career in Rome, and Ludovico Castelvetro of Modena. It had begun in 1553; Caro had sent to Castelvetro a poem he had written at the request of a patron and asked for comment, a common sort of exchange between persons of letters. The response was a scathing critique that extended to larger issues of proper literary language in several ways, such as identifying non-Petrarchan vocabulary. Like many other literary feuds of the era, it had generated more heat than light; yet it also attracted readers, so publishers were happy to fan the flames with additional rounds of debate.37 Varchi had been asked repeatedly to enter the fray, including a request from Borghini.38 Eventually he used the controversy as a starting point for a much broader discussion of language. According to Filippo Giunta’s preface, he died after completing some but not all of the final editing. In any case, by the time it reached print, the feud itself had cooled somewhat.39 While Varchi was an old friend of Caro, he was also a colleague of Castelvetro; thus he was quick to assert at the outset that despite the friendship, he intended not to support or attack either one, but rather to write as a friend of truth. Castelvetro was nonetheless not alone in seeing a stronger support for Caro, though in this regard Caro had an advantage:

Humanist,” Language Sciences 40 (1976): 1–7; Mario Pozzi, “La critique florentine entre Bembo et Speroni: Varchi, Lenzoni, Borghini,” in Les commentaires et la naissance de la critique littéraire France/Italie (XIVe–XVIe siècles), ed. Gisèle MathieuCastellani and Michel Plaisance (Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1990), 255–61; Michael R. Ward, “Benedetto Varchi as Etymologist,” Historiographia Linguistica 16, no. 3 (1989): 235–56; Michael T. Ward, “Benedetto Varchi and the Social Dimensions of Language,” Italica 68, no. 2 (1991): 176–94; Paola Gambarota, Irresistible Signs: The Genius of Language and Italian National Identity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 36–45; Guido Manacorda, Benedetto Varchi, L’uomo, il poeta, il critico (Pisa: Fratelli Nistri, 1903); Umberto Pirotti, “Benedetto Varchi e la questione della lingua,” Convivium 28 (1960): 524–52. 37 For a discussion of another literary feud that included efforts to involve Varchi, this one between Ludovico Dolce and Girolamo Ruscelli, see Paolo Procaccioli, “‘Amicus Plato… ’ Varchi tra Dolci e Ruscelli,” in Varchi e altro Rinascimento: studi offerti a Vanni Bramanti, ed. Salvatore Lo Re and Franco Tomasi Cinquecento Studi (Manziana (Rome): Vecchiarelli, 2013), 111–28. 38 Vincenzio Borghini, letter to Benedetto Varchi, May 9, 1563, in Bramanti, Lettere a Benedetto Varchi, 1530–1563, 412–17. 39 Though Castelvetro replied with his own work, Lodovico Castelvetro, Correttione d’alcune cose del dialogo delle lingve di Benedetto Varchi … (Basel: Peter Perna, 1572). By this time Castelvetro, who had been excommunicated as part of the extended controversy and lived in exile from 1560, had died in 1571.

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Cosimo had put Caro and Lorenzo Lenzi in charge of Varchi’s papers, so in fact Caro helped edit the version that went to Giunti.40 The central dialogue is framed in a way reminiscent of Platonic dialogues. The frame is a conversation between Vincenzio Borghini and Lelio Bonsi, set at the Villa delle Cure in 1560.41 Bonsi reports to Borghini a conversation he had witnessed between Varchi (here Benedetto) and Count Cesare Ercolano, who was visiting on his way to Rome; this conversation then constitutes the body of the work. The conclusion reprises this frame briefly: Bonsi tells Borghini that Silvano Razzi had interrupted the conversation to announce the arrival of visitors. This text is preceded, in turn, by a sort of table of contents, in the form of a list of “doubts and queries” (dubitazioni e quesiti) that are raised and then answered over the course of the work. The first group of six includes more general issues such as “whether speech is natural to man.” The second group of ten begins with the general “what is a language” and moves to particular topics common to the questione della lingua, such as “whether languages make the writers, or writers make the language.” Varchi’s dedication to Francesco de’ Medici introduces the subject first in a vernacular Aristotelian manner, full of definitions and distinctions, to highlight the subject’s importance.42 Everything in existence is a creation either of nature by means of God, or of art by means of humans. Humans are the highest of natural creation; eloquence is the greatest creation of art. As he moves on to a praise of the study of language, Varchi notes that the importance of the topic and the growing debate led him to interrupt the studies of history for which Francesco’s father, the duke, is paying him, and he shifts to a more topical and Florence-centered presentation of the issues. The dispute has raised questions about the language of the great writers Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, as well as the language used by many modern writers; he will demonstrate that it is indeed properly called Florentine. The dialogue that follows does make that case, and Varchi takes care to conclude the work on that note as well. Yet those arguments depend on the more general principles about

Benedetto Varchi, L’Hercolano, ed. Antonio Sorella, 2 vols, Biblioteca linguistica (Pescara: Libreria dell’Università editrice, 1995), 1.167–70. 41 Bonsi was a member of the Accademia Fiorentina from a young age; a lawyer, he served both Duke Francesco and Ferdinando. See Gianni Ballistreri, “Bonsi, Lelio,” DBI. 42 Varchi, L’Hercolano, 2.485–91. 40

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language developed earlier in the work. Along the way, Varchi offers abundant empirical discussions of Florentine grammar, vocabulary, and usage that could nearly stand on their own. Varchi uses the feud at the beginning of the work not only to engage the contemporary reader but also to build an essential part of his argument. He first describes a set of issues of interest to his readers, notes that they have resisted resolution, and offers a solution. Yet he also uses the case as an example of the important role of judgment in assessing all aspects of language; thus the feud is not merely used as an excuse for the exploration of the topic, but rather is integrated into the argument. Men of learning may disagree on matters such as a critical assessment of the quality of a piece of writing; that observation allows Varchi to reflect on judgment and how it works. Knowledge or ignorance is the largest single cause of differing judgments, he observes, but there is such a diversity of things that may be known, and such a varying range of levels of knowledge and expertise, that there is no single continuum in this regard. Those who differ in their judgment may each have knowledge, but of different things. Other factors are also relevant. Different souls may take more pleasure in one thing than another; thus passions may be a factor, as one person prefers the sound of a cornemuse and another the lute. Time also affects judgment; the same person may assess something differently when young than when old. So too, the judgments of many people in one era may differ from those of another era. Literary judgments in two eras serve as examples. After the death of Cicero and Vergil, and again after the age of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, people wrote in ways that seemed to them best, but their judgment was flawed and writing quality declined in each case.43 Judgment, then, will vary, and has variable components. It varies over time and from one individual to the next, and it can be improved with greater learning. Here and throughout the work, Varchi demonstrates his engagement with the tools and topics of the philosophers with whom he had studied and worked in Padua and Bologna, and particularly the works of Pietro Pomponazzi. Pomponazzi’s thought also had controversial elements; he had entertained Aristotelian positions on the eternity of the world and more. Those positions had raised concerns in his own lifetime and beyond in the confessionally unsettled years in which Varchi Ibid., 2.517–25.

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wrote the work and his executors published it. Varchi takes advantage of dialogue form both to acknowledge these controversies and to bracket them. Cesare objects that these arguments suggest an eternal universe, not a created one. Benedetto responds that he has raised the matter especially as a reminder that they are speaking as philosophers and not theologians, so that they can conduct an open inquiry unfettered by such concerns.44 That is, theologians were not allowed to propose an eternal world, but philosophers could do so in the abstract for the purpose of debate. Throughout the dialogue the interlocutors identify topics that have different sorts of answers depending on whether they address them as theologians or as philosophers. The biggest single component of judgment is knowledge. Therefore, at Cesare’s request, Benedetto turns to his task of providing the necessary tools; the dialogue itself moves from a conversation toward a set of questions and answers. Cesare has prepared two sets of questions; he poses the first set, and the dialogue proceeds to work through them. The first set is about speech and its development. Cesare asks first, for a definition of speech; whether it is exclusive to humans, and whether it is natural. The rest of these first questions relate to the history of speech: whether it would be possible for there to be one common human language for all time; whether a person is born with one particular language or another; and the nature of the first language spoken by humans. Benedetto begins, as would be proper for an introductory course lecture, with his definition of speech: to speak is to manifest to someone the concepts of the mind by means of words.45 His basic formulations put him in the tradition not only of Aristotle’s De interpretatione, but also Speroni and Pomponazzi.46 Cesare poses questions and Benedetto replies. Speech is unique to humans; angels and other divine creatures have no need of speech due to their connection with the divine; animals may make sounds and may communicate passions, but they lack the ability to form concepts. To live in society is an essential feature of human nature, so humans must communicate with each other, though of course they may also “talk” to themselves internally. Thus, speech is necessary to humans as well as unique. Varchi, L’Hercolano, 2.525. “Il parlare, o vero favellare humano esteriore, non è altro che manifestare ad alcuno i concetti dell’animo mediante le parole.” Varchi, L’Hercolano, 2.530. 46 Sgarbi, Italian Mind, 72–73. 44 45

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Just as important is the next set of issues. Although speech is a feature essential to humans, no particular form of speech is essential to any human. Some ancient authors such as Herodotus claimed to report the results of experiments in which babies were raised in isolation to see which language they spoke; Benedetto dismisses them as fables told for entertainment.47 If children really were born with an innate knowledge of any particular language, then children born deaf would nonetheless know that language automatically, and yet they do not. And language could never be universal and changeless. Everything in the sublunary world is subject to change. That includes people, and must include their language as well: “human beings change their desires and thoughts from one day to the next, and this because they are subject to the heavens and the heavens never stay in the same state, are never still; thus as they change, so too perforce do the thoughts and desires of human beings change.”48 Any study of language must recognize that its subject matter undergoes change, as would the study of any living thing. As Benedetto notes, this is not necessarily so bad. Humans naturally strive for excellence; once one writer had reached a pinnacle of achievement, others would simply forever be discouraged unless there were some way to alter the standard. Greek continued to change after Homer, and so later writers were able to excel in ways that differed from Homer’s excellence. The nature of the first language is a subject that can admit of no consensus, the speakers agree. The philosophers, of course, argued that since the world is eternal there could be no “first.” The theologians say that it was the language of Adam. Yet accepting the latter would not resolve the problem, because several different theories have been advanced as to just what language Adam spoke. Augustine argued that it was Hebrew, as seen in the Ten Commandments, and still spoken by Jews today. Others have said it was Chaldean, or even Scythian; some argue that biblical language was changed fundamentally by Ezra, or that the language of Adam was completely lost with the Tower of Babel. Varchi truncates the discussion with a diversion. Cesare asks about Dante’s opinion on the language of Izzo, “Linguistic Philosophy of Benedetto Varchi,” 4. Sgarbi, Italian Mind, 75; Varchi, L’Hercolano, 2.546: “perché solamente gli huomini, havendo essi soli la ragione, si chiamano razionabili, o vero ragionevoli, può essere eterno, cioè durare sempre; anzi, per più vero dire, non può non mutarsi quasi ogni giorno perciò che gli huomini di dí in dí mutano voglie e pensieri; e ciò fanno, perché sono sottoposti al cielo, e il cielo non istà mai in uno stato medesimo, non istando mai fermo…”

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Adam; that which appears in the Commedia, he says, is different from De vulgari eloquentia. Benedetto notes that many have questioned that work’s authenticity. He begins with the exchange between Trissino (who had discovered the work) and Ludovico Martelli, and ends with the doubts expressed by Vincenzio Borghini. They return to the description of the Tower of Babel in Josephus as a brief response to the query about dating early linguistic diversity, and move on. Before turning to the second set of questions, Cesare returns to an issue raised at the beginning by asking about synonyms for parlare or favellare, to speak. Benedetto goes off on a virtuoso presentation of the enormous range of ways to refer in Florentine to speech in one manner or another, from simple verbs to colorful phrases, from elevated literary language to the most informal colloquialisms. This long digression serves a number of purposes, among them to demonstrate the capability of the vernacular to express an endless range of gradations in meaning and register; to show that this lexical range exceeds that found in any given author or set of authors; and simply to record these examples, a collection reminiscent of Norchiati. The topic then shifts to language for the second set of questions that make up the rest of the dialogue. The first three are general topics: a definition, the features that distinguish a language, and the divisions or classifications of languages. Then follow several questions about languages, communities, and the history of volgare. The last questions raise issues about evaluations and standards: whether one should learn to speak a language from teachers, writers, or the crowd; how one judges one language to be better or worse than another in some given feature; and finally, the proper name for the language of Dante and Petrarch. The conversation varies between the presentation of Varchi’s own ideas, and interventions in the ongoing language debates across the peninsula. The first three topics on language build on the first set of questions. Varchi maintains that language is based in spoken usage; he defines it as “the speech of one or more peoples who, in explaining their concepts use the same words with the same meanings and the same accidents.”49 Shared words by a smaller group, such as friends, should rather be referred to as jargon. In studying language, one may focus either on production or “Lingua, o vero linguaggio non è altro che un favellare d’uno o piú popoli, il quale o i quali usano nello sprimere i loro concetti i medesimi vocaboli nelle medesime significazioni e co’ medesimi accidenti.” Varchi, L’Hercolano, 2.635.

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reception, speaking or understanding. He emphasizes that writing is an accidental feature of language, not an essential characteristic. Varchi presents these main characteristics as a set of divisions, mostly binary, that mark out a language in its use by speakers. A language may be original to the place where it is spoken, or it may be imported from elsewhere. It may be written or unwritten. It may be living or dead. Dead languages may be completely dead; that is, they once existed but are understood now by no one. Examples would be ancient Egyptian and Etruscan. Those that are half alive no longer have native speakers but can still be understood and like Latin, may be in active use. A language may or may not have a notable literary tradition; one that does can be labeled noble. For a given speaker, a language is native if it was learned naturally; if it was acquired artificially through study or some sort, it is foreign. These foreign languages may vary in the degree of difference from the speaker’s native language. Those that are “simply other” are languages that are not naturally understood or spoken by the speaker in question. To someone from Italy, examples would include Arabic, Turkish, or English. Those “not-simply other” are those that are not intelligible to the speaker but have nonetheless contributed words to the speaker’s language. Examples would include Greek for a (past) Latin speaker, or Latin to a Tuscan speaker. Some languages are sufficiently similar to the speaker’s native language that the speaker can actually understand them; those can be categorized as “diverse.” Those “diverse” languages could share a similar level of nobility, and those would be labelled diverse and equal. Those diverse and unequal differ in that regard, as say, Brescian, Paduan, or any other Italian language as compared with Florentine, since Florentine is generally agreed to be the peninsula’s main literary language.50 With these basic tools, Varchi wades into the problems caused by a number of linguistic labels in current use. One is “barbarism” and “barbaric.” Are some languages barbarous, asks Cesare? The problem with the term, Benedetto replies, is that it is equivocal – that is, it has more than one meaning and usage. The term refers to people who are cruel and bestial; yet when discussing the diversity or distance between regions, it can be used to mean someone from far away, little different from “foreigner.” With regard to language it is used either to refer to someone who cannot speak one of the noble languages, or someone who speaks it incorrectly. Ibid., 2.645–56.

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Ancient Greeks used the term to refer to anyone who spoke anything but Greek; Romans called barbarians those who did not speak Greek or Latin. Some now use the label for someone who does not speak Greek, Latin, or Tuscan. Benedetto notes that by this usage barbaric languages would include Hebrew, which seems inappropriate, as well as French, Spanish, German, and so on. Conversely, although a language may be considered “noble” because a number of noted writers have written in it, those writers did not thereby “make” the language. A language is based in speech, and “nobility” is merely a category of languages; no writer can create a language as such. When they turn to the history of the Florentine language, the interlocutors present historical narratives that reflect an emerging consensus among Florentine scholars as well as some problems that had resisted resolution. Benedetto first summarizes the history of Roman rule from the foundation of the city of Rome up to the current Holy Roman Emperors. Upon that he superimposes a history of Latin that follows a biological model of the ages of man: its childhood was the era of Livius Andronicus (d. ca. 200 BCE); and its youth, up to the age of Cicero. With the death of Cicero and the Republic, either because the language was already old or because of the proscription and the death of so many of its best citizens, Latin began to change quickly, within about 150 years.51 Benedetto returns to the political narrative to list in finer detail the barbarian invaders. He begins with Radagaisus, king of the Gepids and 200,000 Goths, and proceeds through the Sack of Rome; the Huns; Theodoric; Totila (by this time he is following Villani); Lombards; and Franks, up through Charlemagne.52 Though these times were dark, he notes, two good things came from them: the birth of volgare and the founding of Venice. This was the point of transition for the language, and he quotes Bembo on the process. As the various peoples mixed, they picked up one another’s words in order to speak and eventually created a new language, along with the mix of laws and customs. Yet one cannot speak of a single location at which volgare developed, for the term itself is not the name of any particular language. Rather, it refers to everyday language in general: “All the languages which are naturally spoken, in whatever place they are spoken, are volgari; but just as the common people who speak them are diverse, so are the languages they speak, so Ibid., 2.662.2 Ibid., 2.666; Varchi also refers to Matteo Palmieri here, 2.667.

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Florentine volgare is different from Lucchese, Pisan, Sienese, Aretino, or that of Perugia.”53 Of primary interest here is, of course, the vernacular of Florence. Although it might seem obvious that it had developed around Florence itself and not elsewhere, Varchi feels obliged to refute an argument made by Girolamo Muzio that Florentine had come from Lombard.54 Benedetto rejects the possibility with historical arguments. To suggest that an entire language was imported to Tuscany and adopted by the people there lacks both evidence and plausibility. Changes of ruler, such as the presence in Tuscany of Lombard leaders, would be insufficient to account for such a change; that kind of change did not happen elsewhere. Further, he argues, there was no point in the city’s history to suggest that the region was devastated and then repopulated by new, Lombard-speaking people. Villani and others claimed that the city was destroyed by Totila.55 Yet many now agree that Totila did not completely destroy the city; and it is clear that no matter what the destruction, the area was not depopulated. Those people still needed to speak to one another, and so the language continued to develop. As to why the language turned out so well, there is no way to know; one might attribute it to the cleverness of the people, but just as well to the stars. Varchi turns to philosophy rather than history to make the case that volgare is its own language and not just corrupted Latin. He follows Aristotle in noting that the corruption of one thing is the generation of another; as the old language loses essential features, the new one that is emerging gains new and different ones. He notes later that in fact Aristotle says it is more proper in general to emphasize generation, as nature desires generation and does not seek corruption as such. Thus, it is more accurate to speak of the new language as generated.56 Asked for a less philosophical argument, Benedetto goes straight to spoken practice: volgare can be acquired naturally as a mother tongue, but Latin must be learned. “Tutte le lingue, le quali naturalmente si favellano, in qualunche luogo si favellino sono volgari, e la greca e la latina altresí, mentre che si favellarono, furono volgari; ma come sono diversi i vulgi che favellano, cosí sono diverse le lingue the sono favellate, percioché altro è il volgare fiorentino, altro il luccchese, altro il pisano, altro il sanese, altro l’aretino, e altro quello di Perugia.” Ibid., 2.669–70. 54 On Muzio and Varchi’s critique, see Marazzini, Storia e coscienza della lingua in Italia dall’umanesimo al romanticismo, 29–34. 55 Varchi, L’Hercolano, 2.675. 56 Ibid., 2.678. 53

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They are therefore distinctly different. Further, one might say the same of Latin, as it was generated from other prior languages. Benedetto shows his humanist-educated disdain for medieval and university Latin by adding sarcastically that if one wants to see “the ancient Latin language corrupted and ruined,” all one needs to do is read Bartolo;57 the same goes for the writings of many other doctors of law and philosophy, not to mention notarial contracts. Dante and Petrarch worked to help bring Latin back to life, as have a number of men of letters since then, so that now one can find it written as well as in the age of Cicero. Despite this interest in linguistic generation and corruption, Varchi is dismissive of most efforts to examine the early development of the language. The next question recalls the early work of Gelli and Giambullari: from what languages, and from how many, Florentine was composed. Bembo had had discussed Provencal in that regard, based on the role of Provencal literature in shaping the poetry of Brunetto Latini and others; Giambullari had discussed it as well. Varchi himself had devoted some attention to the study of Provencal, working on a grammar and studying accounts of the lives of early Provencal poets.58 He and Castelvetro had even corresponded on the subject in 1551–1552.59 Tolomei’s Cesano was in print by this time as well. Yet for the most part Varchi rejects such efforts. Cesare refers to two French scholars who had published works on the links between Latin and French, including systematic lists of changes in words and sounds: Charles de Bovelles (Liber de differentia vulgarum linguarum et gallici sermonis varietate, 1533) and Jacques Du Bois (In linguam gallicam isagoge, et Grammatica latino-gallica, 1531). Benedetto rejects them. He cites Quintilian and other classical authorities who ridiculed etymologies as far-fetched and frivolous, and lumps the works of Bovelles and Du Bois together with the very different, far less systematic and more speculative work by Guillaume Postel.60 They have no value for the matter at hand, he says, because in volgare there are words from so many different languages Ibid., 2.685. Bartolus of Sassoferato (1313–1357), the famous legal commentator, was still read, though by this time also known for his very non-classical style of university Latin. 58 Based on the Donatz proensals and the Rasos de trobar. Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” diss., 333; Ward, “Benedetto Varchi as Etymologist,” at 247. 59 Bramanti, Lettere a Benedetto Varchi, 1530–1563, letters 148, 150–51. 60 Guillaume Postel, De originibus seu de Hebraicae linguae et gentis antiquitate … (Paris: Apud Dionysium lescuier, 1538). 57

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that one cannot tell for certain from whence a given word came. Modern authors frequently contradict one another in deriving the same word from one language or another; they transpose letters or perform other sleights of hand in their efforts to suggest similarities. And even if a word did come from another language, it is possible that it was introduced directly; but it is also possible that it was introduced by way of some third language. For example, some Tuscan words of Greek origin came into the language directly from Greek, but others via Latin. Cesare then raises questions about Hebrew, Chaldean, and ancient Etruscan. By now it is clear that Varchi has in mind not only Postel, but mainly Gelli and Giambullari and their imprecise claims about the history of the language. Benedetto replies that the Etruscan language and empire had both been destroyed by the Romans before Florence was founded, though traces may survive in place names and similar terms. Further, those words that are certainly from Hebrew came in from the Bible, for example Hosanna. Thus they do not indicate Aramean influence. Many other words that some claim were derived from Hebrew, in fact came from Latin. Etymological approaches to words may serve poets and orators, but they are simply speculative. Despite this explicit rejection of etymology, Benedetto nonetheless identifies some Tuscan words that have their sources in each of these languages. The case of Provencal is very particular. Benedetto agrees with Bembo that the earliest Tuscan writers of both poetry and prose were influenced greatly by the troubadors of Provence, and brought many Provencal words into the language.61 The lists of words Varchi offers are reasonably consistent with modern assessments, though he is too generous with Provencal.62 Modern scholars have suggested several reasons for this apparently mixed message. Perhaps most significant is his emphasis on the experience of the speaker as a means of distinguishing languages; the fact that a Tuscan speaker must study Latin, Greek, or Provencal formally trumps any other similarities they may have. Varchi did not pursue this line of research more deeply, so he would be relying on the scholarship of others. His own interests had focused much more on the experience of speakers, for whom the histories of a particular lexical item would indeed be generally irrelevant, as he notes. Further, Varchi emphasizes consistently that a 61

Varchi, L’Hercolano, 2.702 Ward, “Benedetto Varchi as Etymologist.”

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given speaker does not invent a language tradition but simply inherits it. If a language were created de novo, perhaps one might find some sort of essential identity, or divine inspiration, that connected the thing and the word used to describe it; such a claim would be consistent with Plato’s Cratylus as well as Hebrew cabala. But in fact any speaker uses words whose meanings were assigned long ago for the most part; as far as that speaker is concerned, they are simply conventional. In any case, Varchi found grammatical study to be more fruitful than lexical in identifying a language’s key features. In his lengthy discussion of grammar, the focus is especially on features particular to Tuscan as compared with Latin and Greek. Here Varchi moves easily beyond efforts such as those by Giambullari to identify features that typify the language.63 The examples are taken mainly from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, whose prominence here reflects the central role these authors held for all parties involved in debates over language and literary standards. Yet their use in this way also exemplifies how heavily all these scholars had to rely on literary sources, rather than other possible kinds of writing, when they sought examples of past linguistic usage. Contemporary literary concerns are evident in the next question on the list: whether one should learn a language from the crowd, from teachers, or from writers. This issue too had seen considerable debate from Bembo onwards; Varchi uses what may seem a tired question to reiterate some of his arguments about language and to show how the analytic categories he presented earlier can be used to address practical concerns. This question, notes Benedetto, makes some assumptions about the type of language involved. It assumes not only a living language, but a noble one – that is, a language that has famous writers, such as Florentine. In these cases there are two kinds of usage: spoken and written. The whole, or universal language includes all the words and forms of speech of all its speakers. Written language is one kind of subset of that whole. The speakers from whom one might wish to learn a language fall into three main groups. The first are the illiterate; they are simply out of consideration as potential teachers. Another may be called persons of letters, litterati. They know more than one language and have studied letters. There are also many people who would fall in between these two groups of illiterate and learned. Such people may know no language other than their own; they may have read Florentine authors. They can both speak Varchi, L’Hercolano, 1.83–150. See also Sorella, “Introduzione.”

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well and write competently, but they cannot explain why they say things in a particular way. Good usage is found especially among the learned, and secondarily those in the middle. Yet, Varchi continues, in practice the situation is more complicated. In order not to seem affected, speakers should accommodate themselves to the people; and so, in order to learn to speak, one must go to the place where the language is spoken and one encounters all groups. That breadth matters less in writing. Many foreigners seem to value the skill of good writing more highly than do many Florentines, so that some foreigners may indeed excel over some natives as writers. Therefore, it is not necessary to be in any particular region to learn good writing, though it is much more difficult to learn from writers alone. Still, though one should not write exactly as one speaks, the speaker can call upon the resources of the spoken language when writing, in a way that writers from elsewhere cannot. Questions about evaluation continue; Benedetto is asked how to decide whether one language is better than another. A larger vocabulary makes a language more expressive, and is thus better than having few words; but also vital is harmony. In speech, that harmony consists in the relationships between syllables. Varchi sends his interlocutors off on yet another digression to present a particular feature of the language, in this case metrics. He begins by noting that the relevant feature is accent rather than syllable length as in Latin and Greek, and consists in acute and grave; the circumflex, nearly gone in Latin and Greek, never existed in Tuscan. Cesare points out that Neri D’Ortelata had claimed that there was indeed a circumflex accent in the vernacular; Benedetto is dismissive, suggesting merely that Neri D’Ortelata must have better ears than his.64 He is less harsh about Lenzoni’s own scholarship. Varchi’s discussion of metrics praises Tuscan for its natural cadences, such that poetry seems to develop almost naturally, as a criterion for calling it beautiful. The final question – on the proper name of the language in which Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio both wrote and spoke – once again combines issues of judgment and evaluation with those of description and analysis. Bembo, Tolomei, Dolce, Trissino, Muzio, Castiglione, and Ludovico Martelli are all noted as interested parties. Varchi suggests a hierarchy of terms. Benedetto reminds his audience that genus is predicated upon species, and species upon individuals. If Italian is the genus Ibid., 2.829.

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(as is commonly agreed), then Tuscan is species, and Florentine the individual language. All the fourteen regions of Italy have their own species of language and together those constitute Italian. Yet it is not correct to say that these writers wrote and spoke Italian as such, because that pegs the statement to the wrong level of generality. Italy is part of Europe and Europe part of the world, but referring to their language at those levels would be absurd. The interlocutors proceed from one to another position taken from contemporary debate. They compare the regional variations in Italian to those of Latin and Greek. In the case of Latin, Varchi wants to rebut claims that ancient Latin had no spoken variations; he cites a raft of sources to show that it did vary by region, and that the variation was commonly recognized. Greek, on the other hand, served as an example for many sixteenth-century writers who favored court language; these were places where people from various regions spoke regularly with one another and hence produced a sort of composite. It was known that ancient Greek had four principal dialects; the standard “classical Greek,” they argued, had been established as such a composite. Benedetto takes issue with the comparison. He argues that as far he can tell, the opposite situation had been the case. At an early point in time Greek had existed as a single language; over time, it separated into four main groups. It was not the case that speakers from each of the groups got together and created an artificial composite that they then called Greek; rather, the standard had preceded the dialects.65 Benedetto also reminds readers of the point made earlier in the dialogue that volgare is a general term for any spoken language; Dante had used it in order to distinguish his usage from Latin. It was not a particular label for the language. Varchi brings his dialogue to an end by returning very briefly back to his frame; thus the work ends with a praise of Florentine both literary and spoken, as well as a declaration that modern languages and ancient ones each have a set of unique features and merit analysis in their own terms. By the time the Ercolano appeared in print, not only had Varchi been dead for five years, but most of the Florentines against whose positions he argued were gone as well. Caro had been appointed as one of the editors of Varchi’s unfinished text; he himself died in November 1566, leaving others, among them Razzi, to complete the publication. Borghini was asked, but declined. He wrote to Filippo and Jacopo Giunta in 1569 and Ibid., 2.954–55.

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early 1570, saying there were too many copying errors to correct. He noted that Varchi had kept putting off completing a number of additional corrections, including some to the Borghini character, thinking he had time and not knowing how soon he would die. In particular, he had promised to correct a line in which the interlocutor had praised Dante over Homer, which Borghini did go in and change.66 Razzi and his colleagues carried on, and Giunti brought out Florentine and Venetian editions almost simultaneously.67 They issued another in Venice ten years later. Both during his lifetime and in his posthumous legacy, then, Varchi left a set of important innovations. Crucial both to contemporary literary debates and to the study of language was his solution for distinguishing between descriptive and prescriptive standards. By separating written language from spoken (though he certainly portrayed them as related and ultimately, mutually dependent), the two could be studied separately. Writers might develop standards to evaluate literary quality without imposing the same standards upon spoken communication. Varchi was not, in fact, without any sense of improper speech. In addition to the plain errors of grammar or usage committed by foreign speakers, he noted at several points that thoughtless or excessive importation of practices from other languages was problematic. He also referred to late-antique Latin as corrupted, though he did not offer much in the way of specifics about what features constituted corruption. His approach also placed ancient and modern languages on an equal footing in a variety of ways. Not only could they be equal in expressive power (though different in particular features), but ancient as well as modern languages had linguistic predecessors. Each had spoken as well as written forms and standards. Although he himself focused on Florentine, by building a general framework for language study his arguments had comparative implications. The behavior and history of one language could assist in evaluating competing arguments about others. So, for example, Varchi could argue that it was unlikely that Florentine descended from Lombard by noting that there were no other historical examples of one regional Italian language and population displacing another. Varchi’s historical discussions of language and language change have greater depth and specificity than those of Giambullari and other predecessors, though their historical narratives have points in common. Indeed, Sorella, “Introduzione,” ibid., 170–77. Sorella, “Introduzione,” ibid., 179–235.

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Varchi’s writings assume that his readers already share a general consensus about the time periods of most rapid and significant language change, the first being the era of the barbarian invasions. His writings demonstrate a more sophisticated sense of the relationship between political change and language change, as in the case of the Lombards in Tuscany. Varchi argues that the invasion of Lombards, the establishment of their kingdom, and the subsequent presence of Lombard dukes in Tuscany all had an effect on the language, but he rejects vague claims as made by earlier writers that a ruler might simply impose a new language by conquering a group of people and ruling over them personally. In this case he attributes the linguistic change to the ongoing need for the combined populations of the region, old residents and new, as well as the new rulers, to communicate with one another. Varchi continued along the path set by Lenzoni and others in trying to identify and describe particular features that characterize a given language. These arguments extend well beyond the often casual lexical comparisons that Gelli and Giambullari had relied on, to include not only grammatical structures but also metrics and rhythm. Nonetheless, he did not adopt some of the tools for describing language change systematically that were newly available, notably the efforts to show distinct patterns of phonological change between Latin and Romance vernaculars. Borghini would note such patterns of change in his own later writings on language. This reluctance seems due to Varchi’s urge to eliminate the conjecture that he found so irksome in the writings of Giambullari and others. That conjecture could not be replaced by data in such cases because neither Varchi nor his colleagues had any records of speech from any of the time periods crucial to the changes in the language. Such records are sparse even today. He turned his attention instead to language practices for which he did have evidence. The focus on spoken language was consistent with a strong sense that language is a shared practice. A language community is often named along with its language such that the name for the language is often the same as that of the group of people who speak it; that group might or might not be a political unit too. Thus the causes of language change have at times been political change. Yet also other factors might be at work as well or instead, particularly the need to communicate on everyday matters and markets such as the buying and selling of food. Varchi uses a biological model for language as did a number of colleagues, including Gelli and Giambullari. That model distinguishes

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language as an entity separate from individual speakers. Language is natural to humans, so it follows natural laws. It behaves in some ways like the living individuals who make up its speakers; it is born, lives out a lifespan, and dies. Just as the changes in a person over the course of a lifetime may be attributed not only to external factors and events but to internal ones, so too a language may change independently of those external influences, for change is part of its nature.

Vincenzio Borghini Vincenzio Borghini (1515–1580) was a noted scholar with a busy administrative career that co-existed with his monastic vocation. Thanks to his erudition as well as the many years he spent working closely with Cosimo as both scholar and administrator, he became one of the city’s most significant cultural figures, well known by the time Varchi made him an interlocutor in the Ercolano. Many of the projects for which he was best known were collaborative, particularly with Giorgio Vasari. Borghini’s career and his legacy serve as the clearest examples of the interdisciplinary approaches that marked Florentine cultural life in the second half of the century. His scholarship combined humanistic and philological rigor with a deep interest in all aspects of Florentine history, language, and culture. Borghini was a native Florentine who joined the Benedictines of the Florentine Badia in 1531.68 He studied philosophy with Francesco Verino the elder, as well as Greek and classics with Chirico Strozzi and Francesco Zeffi before working with Piero Vettori. The relationship with Vettori continued throughout his life. At the Badia he taught Latin and Greek and began acquiring administrative experience, serving several years as For biographical information on Borghini, see Giulio Dolci, “Borghini, Vinecenzo,” DBI; Gino Belloni and Riccardo Drusi, eds., Vincenzio Borghini: filologia e invenzione nella Firenze di Cosimo I, Biblioteca di bibliografia italiana (Florence: Olschki, 2002); Gustavo Bertoli, “Il giovane Borghini e la paternità del De administratione nosocomii s. Mariae Novae e di alcune marche tipografiche fiorentine,” Lettere italiane 51, no. 1 (1999): 85–93; A. Legrenzi, Vincenzio Borghini: studio critico, 2 vols. (Udine: D. del Bianco, 1910); Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives’.” Some of Borghini’s letters have been edited as part of other publications; an edition is underway, and a complete edition remains to be completed. See Vincenzio Borghini, Carteggio, 1541– 1580: censimento, ed. Daniela Francalanci and Franca Pellegrini (Florence: Presso l’Accademia, 1993); Vincenzo Borghini, Il carteggio di Vincenzio Borghini (Florence: SPES, 2001).

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cellarer and porter before moving to Arezzo for a year in 1541, where he assisted the abbot. Giorgio Vasari was back in his native Arezzo at this point as well. After some additional travel, including time in Venice, he was reassigned to the Badia and spent the rest of his life in Florence. For some time he was able to devote himself to study at their holdings at Le Campora, near the Porta Romana; during those years he assisted Vasari with revisions of the first edition of the Lives, along with Cosimo Bartoli and Pierfrancesco Giambullari. Borghini also undertook projects of his own. He began a work on Roman surnames, sending a draft to Lelio Torelli in 1551, but never completed it. During the next year, 1552, Borghini began the first of many administrative and public assignments. Cosimo appointed him director of the city’s foundling hospital, the Innocenti, which was at that point in financial difficulties. Additional responsibilities came his way over the years: the foundling hospital in Pisa; a deputation on monasteries, tasked with enforcing the cloistering of nuns in the wake of the Council of Trent. He declined an opportunity to serve as archbishop of Pisa. These administrative tasks and others added over time kept him too busy to participate in the Accademia Fiorentina, though his brother Agnolo was a member, serving as consul in 1554. In 1563 Cosimo named him luogotenente of the new Accademia del Disegno, which soon called for his involvement with the memorials for Michelangelo, though he handed that position off to successors not long thereafter. Throughout these years, his work with Vasari continued on a number of major artistic projects sponsored by Cosimo. Some involved high-profile ephemera, such as the themed procession celebrating the wedding of Francesco with Giovanna of Austria. Others, such as the ceiling of the Sala dei Cinquecento, were installed permanently. He planned other Medici ceremonies as well, from baptisms to funerals, including that of Cosimo himself in 1577. His insistence that historical paintings adhere to high scholarly standards led to conflicts at times with those who preferred popular accounts, and motivated some of his writing. The most notable was the dispute of the ceiling paintings in Sala dei Cinquecento. He also worked on several editorial and publishing projects over the years, often as part of an editorial team, beginning with his consulting work for Vettori. Borghini turned his philological expertise increasingly to trecento Florentine and Tuscan writers and became known as the era’s preeminent specialist in early Tuscan language and letters. After corresponding with Dionisio Atanagi in 1561–1562 on his edition of Matteo Villani’s

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Chronicle,69 he continued his studies of the Villani; he eventually composed a set of textual corrections on the Chronicle, the first such critical study of a modern author.70 He was especially attracted to texts that seemed to offer compelling records of the spoken language of the trecento, either because their authors wrote with little apparent art, such as Villani, or because they had worked to offer realistic representations of conversations, such as Boccaccio. Although many such authors were not well known, he also took a great interest in Dante; at several points he complained about the misreadings, poor editing, and lack of appreciation of Dante by non-Florentines, many of whom seemed in fact not to have a sufficient understanding of the language itself.71 Varchi praised his expertise in the Ercolano: … being extremely learned and discerning in the Greek language as well as Latin, has nonetheless read and examined matters Tuscan and the antiquity of Florence with long and unbelievable study, and has devoted incomparable study to the poets, and especially to Dante.72

Efforts by Borghini and his colleagues to edit and publish more Florentine texts ran quickly, however, into efforts to control the publication of controversial materials thanks to the Reformation. Boccaccio and Machiavelli were both widely respected Florentine stylists of their generations; yet both had been placed in the first Roman Index of Forbidden Books, and remained there on subsequent editions. Not only did the situation stymy efforts to produce better editions; those who wished to write and publish on the general topic of Florentine vernacular found it very Matteo Villani, Historia (Venice: Giunti, 1562). On the correspondence, see Richardson, Print Culture, 156–57. 70 Print Culture, 158; Borghini, Annotazioni sopra Giovanni Villani. 71 Most of this writing remained unpublished in his papers. A criticism of Girolamo Ruscelli’s relevant writings was later edited and published: Vincenzio Borghini, Ruscelleide, ovvero Dante difeso dalle accuse di G. Ruscelli, ed. C. Arlia, vols. 57–60, Collezione di opuscoli danteschi inediti o rari (Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1898). For a modern collection of these writings, see Vincenzio Borghini, Scritti su Dante, ed. Giuseppe Chiecchi (Rome: Antenore, 2009). For a discussion see Aldo Vallone, L’interpretazione di Dante nel Cinquecento: Studi e ricerche (Florence: Olschki, 1969), 218–26 72 “… il quale essendo dottissimo e d’ottimo giudizio cosí nella lingua greca come nella Latina ha non dimeno letto e con lungo e incredibile studio le cose toscane e l’antichità di Firenze diligentissimamente e fatto sopra i poeti, e in ispezielità sopra Dante, incomparabile studio…” Varchi, L’Hercolano, 2.557. 69

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difficult to do so without quoting and referring to their works. The wide interest in this field meant that the lack of access was a problem for many scholars. Borghini participated in the efforts to produce a Decameron that would keep some version of the text in print and in use, though he left the Machiavelli issue to others. The Decameron project in particular became a point of intersection for scholarly issues and politics; issues of cultural patrimony, of preservation, and access were debated among parties with very different interests. The situation with Boccaccio also affected other trecento texts. Boccaccio’s sixteenth-century readers knew, for example, that the practice of collecting popular stories had predated the Decameron, and they became increasingly interested in other such story collections. Yet these tales were similar to those Boccaccio had collected; they too included anticlerical and bawdy themes, and seemed likely to present similar issues with Church authorities. Thus, these publication projects involved some amount of political negotiation as well as editorial expertise. One such collection, known as the Novellino or Centonovelle that dated from about 1300, had been published in Venice in 1525. It was felt to be in need of a better edition. Borghini undertook the task, using similar goals and practical strategies that would soon also apply to the Decameron project. Brian Richardson has discussed them in some detail.73 Borghini presented the new Novellino, published by Giunti in 1572, as an improved and corrected version of the original Gualteruzzi edition of 1525.74 The preface explains the need for serious manuscript study in preparing the edition. It was signed by the Giunti brothers but was clearly composed by Borghini; a draft survives among his papers.75 The previous edition had followed a single manuscript, failing to correct scribal errors, he notes. It is also important to know that the collection of stories is not fully stable from one manuscript copy to the next; even the number of stories varies. Hence it is more appropriate to use the title Novellino rather than Centonovelle. Borghini emphasizes and indeed celebrates the fact that the extant manuscripts are not close copies and the authorship is variable and unknown. These features reflect the habits of the time, and even increase Richardson, Print Culture, 155–66. On the Novellino, see esp. 159–61. Libro di nouelle, et di bel parlar gentile: nel qual si contengono cento nouelle altrauolta mandate fuori da messer Carlo Gualteruzzi da Fano (Florence: Giunti, 1572). 75 “Bozzaccia d’una lettera inanzi al Novellino,” Vincenzio Borghini, Scritti inediti o rari sulla lingua, ed. John Robert Woodhouse (Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1971), 11–14. 73 74

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the work’s value as witness to the language and customs of earlier days. This practice, he continues, is the tradition in which Boccaccio worked to produce the Decameron; some of the stories in the Novellino appear there as well, in one form or another. The stories were clearly not the work of a single hand: “they are not all from one single father.” They should be considered stories that were found rather than composed, and had been told orally as well as written out; “they ran through the mouths and the writings of many, as can easily be seen in our ancient text.”76 These features increase the value of the work as a witness to the era’s language: “But given the goal proposed in this little book, which is to give an example of the pure and natural language of the early age, it is not very important to know who exactly was the author…”77 Thus, he says, in his own editorial work he has emphasized careful following of the text, though that includes thoughtful correction of the scribal errors that had marred the earlier edition. Pure though the language may have been, the content of many stories was certain to fall as far short of modern ecclesiastical standards as did those of the Decameron; and without Rome’s approval, the new edition could not be published at all. Accordingly, Borghini felt obliged to censor the stories himself. He did so in a way that seemed to him reasonably consistent with the original collectors. The most common objection of Church censors was anticlerical sentiment; they objected particularly to stories that featured negative or lewd presentations of clerics. In such cases, Borghini altered the characters to make them lay people. In his introduction to the Decameron he would observe that many of these stories had circulated in a variety of forms, and the identities of characters really did vary from one version to another. Thus presenting a form of the story with lay characters, which would allow them to be published, did not do them excessive harm. Borghini also emphasized the value of the text particularly for the study of the language in which they were written. The preface itself is addressed “to scholars of the Tuscan language” (“alli studiosi della Lingua Toscana”); Borghini praises the work as an “Et apparisce, che le novella prese dal Boccaccio, correvano ne suoi tempi per le bocche, & per li scritti di molti come nel nostro antico testo potra facilments conosceresi… ” “Alli studiosi della lingua Toscana” (unpag.), Libro di nouelle. 77 “Ma perché al fine che ci proposto in questo libretto, ch’ di dare saggio della pura et natia lingua di quella prima età, non molto importa sapere chi fosse apunto lo autore …” preface to Novellino, in Belloni and Drusi, Vincenzio Borghini: filologia e invenzione nella Firenze di Cosimo I, 21. 76

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example of the language’s earliest age, and as a resource for understanding and appreciating Boccaccio. He also precedes the body of the text with an index of archaic words and phrases found in it, accompanied by brief explanations for each. The Decameron project was more complex and much more public. It involved a team of Deputati in Florence; the Master of the Sacred Palace in Rome, Fra Tommaso Manrique; and Duke Cosimo himself. Cosimo, responding to a rumor that an expurgated version of the text would be published in Rome, requested successfully in 1570 that Rome allow Florentines to undertake the task.78 Borghini and others agreed to serve. Manrique and his staff sent both general guidelines and a long list of specifics. The following year he sent the prospective publisher, Filippo Giunta, a copy of the 1522 edition showing what needed to be changed. Borghini took charge of the correspondence; the copies he saved fill a modern edited volume, and additional drafts and copies remained scattered through his papers.79 Because Borghini generally wrote in the name of the group, however, the identities of all the individual Deputati are not entirely clear, and there were some changes over the course of the project. They included Antonio Benivieni and Bastiano Antinori; Giovanni Battista Adriani, who seems to have become involved partway through the project; and Richardson adds Braccio Ricasoli as well.80 Borghini also stayed in contact with Baccio Baldini, Cosimo’s physician and close advisor, with whom Borghini corresponded often; with Ludovico Martelli, who in 1571 was consul of the Accademia Fiorentina; and a number of other advisors. On occasion the Deputati communicated directly with Cosimo. For a concise narrative and a discussion of the editorial task, see Richardson, Print Culture, 162–66. For an extended discussion of this edition as well as the censored editions that followed, see Giuseppe Chiecchi and Luciano Troisio, Il Decameron sequestrato: le tre edizioni censurate nel Cinquecento (Milan: Unicopli, 1984). On prior events, see Peter Melville Brown, Lionardo Salviati: A Critical Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 160–64. 79 On the documents and their organization as well as numerous transcriptions, see Chiecchi and Troisio, Decameron sequestrato, 28–42; Claudia Tapella and Mario Pozzi, “L’edizione del ‘Decameron’ del 1573: lettere e documenti sulla rassettatura,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 165 (1988): 54–84, 196–226, 366–98, 511–44. On the Laurenziana documents, see Giuseppe Chiecchi, Dolcemente dissimulando: cartelle laurenziane e “Decameron” censurato (1573) (Padua: Antenore, 1992). See also Andrea Sorrentino, La letteratura italiana e il Sant’uffizio (Naples: Francesco Perrella, 1935). 80 Richardson, Print Culture, 161; Chiecchi, Dolcemente dissimulando, xix–xx. 78

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As seen especially in their correspondence, the editors set themselves two distinctly different tasks. First, they sought to improve the editorial quality of Boccaccio’s text from that of the previous editions; had there been no banning of the author at all, they would still have wanted a new edition. Second, they needed to meet Manrique’s demands in order to receive permission for their edition to be published. Not only did they want to keep the work in print, but they wanted authors of new texts to have a version they could cite without complications. In their negotiations, the Deputati referred to both goals, but especially to the latter; they emphasized consistently Boccaccio’s central role in shaping their modern language, and the importance of that language in the world. Borghini led with this topic when he began his correspondence with Manrique in July 1571. This vernacular was now in use not only locally but across Europe. He equated its role in the modern world to that of Greek and Latin in antiquity: And if it may well seem a frivolous thing to say that a book of stories is taken so seriously, do not wonder, Reverend Sir; for it is because the language that is particular to this country has today the same level, prestige, and reputation that Greek and then Latin once had, and it is studied not only here but through all of Italy and through all of Europe. And because in fact this author is its first founder and its source, full of all of those lovely sayings, those graceful figures and those ornaments and flowers that can be found in beautiful and ornate language, by art or by nature, it is no different than if one were to take away Cicero and Demosthenes, which would be followed by the world’s infinite displeasure; just so and not one bit less would happen with this writer, particularly among our men who see the language becoming corrupt and going to ruin with the lack of this author who is the best – indeed, the only – master; this is a matter about which very many are extremely concerned.81

Borghini continued to negotiate on the one hand with Manrique and his colleagues in Rome, and on the other with those Florentines who were adamant that the work should not be touched at all. First in importance “E se bene e’ pare cosa leggiere a dire che e’ sia in tanto conto un libro di favole, non si maravigli, Vostra Signore Reverendissima, perché, essendo oggi la lingua che è propria di questa patria nel medesimo grado, pregio e riputazione che già fu la greca e poi la latina, e studiandosi non sol qui ma per tutta l’Italia e per tutta la Europa e essendo, come in effetto egli è, questo autore il prime fondamento e come la fonte di lei e pieno di tutti que’ leggiadri motti, di quelle graziose figure e di quelle vaghezze e

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was to undertake the best editorial work possible of the text itself. Then he was willing to make such changes as necessary to get the edition into print. Here he could draw upon his work with the Novellino and familiarity with other trecento story collections. Manrique expressed particular concern about the stories with clerics as characters. Borghini replied that in some cases such changes were fairly simple. Boccaccio had taken the story of Masetto, for example, from the Novellino, where the story involved not an abbess but a countess of Burgundy. Thus, it would not cause undue damage to change the characters back to laypeople for this edition.82 In many instances the alterations were more difficult to reconcile and led to numerous extended exchanges. Borghini explained to Manrique the fourteenth-century usage of words or phrases, and even references to articles of clothing. He urged Manrique not to insist on changes that would ruin phrases that were particularly gracious and natural, which would leave the result subject to ridicule.83 Manrique finally issued his license in August 1572. The edition is prefaced with many pages of licenses and permissions in both Latin and vernacular to attest to its legality. The text itself bears the conspicuous marks of censorship. The editors had chosen to indicate word substitutions with an alternate type font. They also marked deleted passages with asterisks. They were able to retain the basic shape of 100 stories, though they indicated, explicitly, that they had been compelled to delete one of them (1.6) entirely. The Deputati planned to accompany the text with a volume of annotations, but when Manrique died in 1573, they rushed the text into print on its own because they knew that his successor, Paolo Costabili, would be still harsher in his demands. They published the Annotationi separately the following year (1574).84 In fact, Costabili did insist on further cuts,85 and he soon ordered Giunti to stop selling the text. Piero Vettori intervened; he brought the matter to the attention of fiori chc possono trovarsi in bella e ornata lingua per arte o per natura, non altrimenti che, se si levasse Cicerone e Demostene, che seguirebbe con infinito dispiacere dcl mondo, così non punto meno intervienc di questo scrittore e particularmente ne’ nostri uomini che veggono la lingua imbastardirsi e andarsi pcrdcndo, mentre che ella manca di questo autore che n’e il migliore, anzi solo maestro; cosa che prieme a molti e molti in fino al cuore.” Dolcemente dissimulando, 8. 82 Ibid., 12. 83 Ibid., 94–96. 84 See Prose fiorentine, 4.4, 238–41; Tapella and Pozzi, “L’edizione del ‘Decameron’ del 1573,” 517. 85 Tapella and Pozzi, “L’edizione del ‘Decameron’ del 1573,” 517–44.

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Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto, with whom he was in general correspondence, and who was by this time librarian of the Vatican Library. Vettori referred to the text as the “flower and the pillar of our language”; its lack would be crippling.86 Nonetheless, the successful production of another Florentine edition would require a wait for cooler heads in Rome. By that time Borghini too had died; Lionardo Salviati would take on the task a decade later.87 Boccaccio’s text was preceded by a brief dedication to Cosimo signed by Filippo and Jacopo Giunta; draft notes show that Borghini was in fact the author. It signals the project’s importance by declaring at the outset that Boccaccio was the most beautiful prose writer of “our language” of any era, a broad claim that was nonetheless the product of reflection and a careful choice of words. In undated remarks to Giovanni Battsta Adriani, Borghini discussed the precise wording; he sought both to avoid entangling the claims to excellence with Dante, and also to avoid labeling “lingua nostra” as either Florentine or Tuscan.88 The dedication describes the problems leading up to the Council of Trent that had given rise to the demand for expurgation. It also notes the vital role of rulers as protectors of a language, comparing the current situation to the past example of Provencal. Provencal too had once been an important literary language; but when it lost its court, it had faded in importance. The long history of the project demonstrates that this was no empty praise; Cosimo’s support behind the scenes had indeed been key. Borghini also composed the introduction to the Annotationi. The entire volume was simply attributed to the Deputati; nonetheless, Florentines identified it as his work. When Borghini died some six years later, Giuliano de’ Ricci noted it in his diary, describing him as “known for his annotations made on Boccaccio” as well as his research on the origins of the city and its Vettori, letter to Guglielmo Card. Sirleto, February 6, 1573, in Prose fiorentine, 4.4, 25–26. 87 See Brown, Lionardo Salviati, 160–82; “Aims and Methods of the Second ‘Rassettatura’ of the Decameron,” Studi secenteschi 8 (1966): 3–41. 88 “Egli è stata sempre, Serenissimo Gran Principe, comune & ferma opinione de’ piu giuditiosi huomini, & de’ piu scientiati: che M. Giovanni Boccacci Cittadino Fiorentino, & per la maestria dello scrivere, & per la vaghezza & la purità delle voci, sia in questa notra lingua il piu bello scrittore di Prose, che, o in Toscana, o altrove si sia per alcuno tempo trovato.” Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Decameron … Ricorretto in Roma, et emendato secondo l’ordine del Sacro Conc. di Trento (Florence: Giunti, 1573), dedication, unpag. For draft notes and comments by Borghini, see Chiecchi, Dolcemente dissimulando, 169–74. 86

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ancient families.89 The introductory remarks were addressed to the readers, “a’ benigni e discreti lettori”; like the dedication to the Decameron, it too was signed by Filippo and Jacopo Giunta. Here he developed in more depth a number of the points he made in the dedication. He described and ranked in quality the manuscripts they had consulted and the editorial and linguistic principles the Deputati had employed. He defended Boccaccio’s piety, and supported his argument by printing the full text of Boccaccio’s will, in both vernacular and Latin.90 The present work, he argued, had been the product of a lighter age when such humor was the norm; it represented no lack of piety on the part of the author, who was clearly a sincere Christian. Yet those who turn to this work simply for amusement miss its significance. In particular, the work is valuable for its language. By no means does he defend the censorship; quite the contrary. Borghini likens it to the destruction of antiquities and even human mutilation. The Deputati, he says, acknowledge that readers will be unhappy with the necessary alterations, and share that unhappiness. The removals and substitutions are like removing a human limb and replacing it with a wooden prosthesis. Just as dramatic is his comparison of the text to a piece of ancient sculpture that had been damaged and then clumsily restored: And in this one might consider those who delight in antiquities, who, coming upon a statue by a good ancient sculptor, seeing some sections missing, they want to have it mended by the worst master, rather than its looking so mangled and cut up as it had been; they would think it madness to throw it away because it was not whole, thinking mainly that the new part could always be recognized and not taken easily for the ancient.91 “persona conosciuta per le annotationi fatte al Boccaccio et per una estrema fatica che ha durato in vita per ritrovaare l’origine della città et l’antichità delle famiglie di essa.” Ricci, Cronaca (1532–1606), 309. See Gino Belloni, “Agosto-settembre 1580: Libri per San Lorenzo dalla biblioteca del Borghini,” in Studi vari di lingua e letteratura italian in onore di Giuseppe Velli (Milan: Cisalpino, 2000), 479–510, at 497. 90 Le Campora, where Borghini lived and worked early in his career, was one of the beneficiaries of that will. 91 “Et in questo vaga l’essempio di quegli che della antichità si dilettanto, i quali, abbattendosi a una statua di buono scultore antico, di qualche suo membro mancante, la voglion più presto rappezzata da peggior maestro che vedersela così tronca innanzi e smozzicata; chè il pensar di gettarla via perchè non sia intera terrebbono una pazzia, pensando massimamente che la parte nuova si possa sempre riconoscere, nè venga facilmente presa per l’antica…” Annotazioni et discorsi sopra alcuni luoghi del Decameron … (Florence: Giunti, 1574), proemio, unpag. 89

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This comparison echoes one Borghini had made in a letter of December 1571. There he noted that some were accusing the Deputati of mangling the “bella statua” of the Decameron, but in fact it had it had been mutilated in Rome. It was like a statue of Hercules that had also been sent recently from there, broken into pieces and missing parts; it had been broken there, not by the Florentines.92 During the long process of negotiation with Rome, Borghini also became involved in other projects. One was an innovative proposal for adding instruction in Florentine grammar to the city’s schools. Borghini raised the idea in the midst of the Decameron project, in a letter to Baccio Baldini. On December 5, 1571, Borghini sent him a letter with a notebook and a copy of Boccaccio; they had exchanged such materials before.93 Baldini had stated in a previous letter that Cosimo had agreed to a preference for retaining all 100 stories. Borghini had been seeking consensus from others; he concurred, though he noted the problems with 1.6 that would ultimately result in its removal. Then he turned to a new issue that he had been considering and asked Baccio to raise it with Cosimo. The Tuscan language was singularly important, not just locally but beyond; the only precedents for a language so prominent outside its native region, in fact, were Greek and Latin. Provencal had once had its moment, as he would later observe in the Decameron’s dedication. Yet although it had enjoyed the support of Raimondo Beringario (d. 1243) during that leader’s lifetime, no one took on that role after his death, and so it had faded. So too, he argued, Tuscan needs attention at home in order to provide a healthy core for the large body of users of the language. The Accademia Fiorentina was a great help; but the youth of the city were speaking incorrectly, a sign of future difficulties.94 Borghini proposed a new approach: to make formal instruction in the rules of Florentine a part of the city’s grammar school curriculum: And today it seems that in the schools they learn the Latin language and forget our own, for they speak it very incorrectly; where if, just as they teach Latin rules, they were to teach those of Tuscan together Tapella and Pozzi, “L’edizione del ‘Decameron’ del 1573,” 211–12. Ibid., 196. 94 For a discussion of earlier Florentine pedagogy and a summary of modern scholarship on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century schooling, see Ronald Witt, “What Did Giovannino Read and Write? Literacy in Early Renaissance Florence,” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 6 (1995): 83–114. 92 93

Vincenzio Borghini with it, and we learned well as children the conjugations, the nature of our nouns and articles, the quality of adverbs and the others parts of speech, then children would speak it properly rather than just picking it up from servants and the crowd.95

Baldini replied a week later that Cosimo was interested and had asked for more detail. Borghini wrote that it would not be too difficult a project, “because one would give an order for all those who keep grammar schools that they include the rules of the Tuscan language, which they would lecture on and teach as a unit to the students together with those of Latin.”96 He suggested a committee be set up through the Accademia Fiorentina to compose a set of rules; those of Bembo are too learned and no other is satisfactory either. He specifies that he does not mean instruction in eloquence, but in “pure and simple grammar,” a notable use of the term in connection with vernacular.97 Baldini replied in turn on the 17th, saying Cosimo wanted to move forward on the matter. He asked for a list of names of Academy members who would be a good choice for the task, and they would set up a committee.98 Borghini redrafted portions of this exchange, perhaps for broader circulation among prospective supporters.99 In one he states, as he had remarked to Baldini, that children learn their local language from their servants and the crowd. Yet at present both groups include many

“E oggi pare che nelle scuole sue si impara la lingua Latina e si dimentica la nostra, perché vi si parla scorrettissimamente; dove se, come si insegnano le regole latine, vi si insegnasse insieme le toscane e da fanciulli imparassimo bene le coniugazioni, la natura de’ nostril nomi e articoli, la qualità degli avverbii e l’altre parti dell’orazione e che ai maestri ne fussi ordinate e dato ordine e modo, chi dubita che in breve non si sdimenticassi una cotal grossezza e scorrezione di lingua che è scorsa in questa plebe e che i fanciulli poi in casa dalla bocca delle serve a fuori dal volgo imparano, guastando il dolcie e puro idioma nostro?” Tapella and Pozzi, “L’edizione del ‘Decameron’ del 1573,” 209. 96 “Il modo dell’introdurre il buon uso delle regole toscane a me non si rappresenta molto difficile, perché si ha ‘ dare uno ordine per tutti quelli che tengono scuole di grammatica che abbino le regole della lingua toscana, le quali e’ legghino e insegnino unitamente insieme con le latine agli scolari e insieme con quelli si mettino in uso…” ibid., 216. 97 “io non intendo della eloquenzia e arte del dire, ché di questo molti de’ maestri oggi si potrebbono scusare a ragione, ma della pura e schietta grammatica, che est ars pure et emendate loquendi et pronuntiandi…” ibid., 217. 98 Ibid., 218. 99 Borghini, Scritti inediti, 5–10; for a discussion of the manuscripts, see 5 n. 1. 95

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non-native speakers, something that one did not see in the city long ago, and that is why they are not learning correctly: “Establish the rules of good speech and present them to the young in the schools; if this was something our forebears did not do, that is because it was not necessary, each having at home their teachers of language, and outside it as well.”100 If the teachers themselves lack knowledge, they must learn. The committee needed to begin by putting the teaching materials together. Though Borghini told Baldini he could identify only some of the qualified people, he came up with nearly twenty names, beginning with Piero Vettori and including Baccio Valori, Agnolo Guicciardini, and a host of others, particularly members of the Accademia degli Alterati.101 On the first of January 1572 Baldini informed Borghini that he was contacting Baccio Valori, at that time serving as Vice consul of the Accademia Fiorentina, Borghini wrote shortly thereafter to Martelli with the names of those who would serve: Baccio Barbadori, Vincenzio Alamanni, Giovan Battista Cini, and Bernardo Davanzati.102 Cosimo’s announcement establishing the group followed closely the wording of Borghini.103 Despite the quick beginning, this group produced no more substantial results than the one two decades earlier that had included Gelli and Giambullari. The project itself seems to have drifted away following Cosimo’s final illness and death. Nonetheless, this early and ambitious plan represented a significant innovation, an effort to raise the status of modern language instruction to that of the classics. Borghini continued to edit as well as to write. He maintained his interest in making fourteenth-century texts accessible, producing an edition of the Istorie pistolesi (1578).104 He had hoped to edit Giovanni Villani as well, though he did not complete the task, and his set of Annotations remained in manuscript until the twentieth century. Also unfinished was an attack “fermare le regole del buon parlare, e quelle proporre nelle scuole alla gioventù; cosa che se non si fece dai nostri antichi, fu perche non era necessario, avendo ciascheduno in casa i suoi maestri della lingua, e fuori similmente.” Ibid., 6. 101 Ibid., 9–10; Tapella and Pozzi, “L’edizione del ‘Decameron’ del 1573.” 102 “L’edizione del ‘Decameron’ del 1573,” 369. On this commission, see also Giambullari, Regole della lingua fiorentina; edizione critica, xlvii n. 103 Giambullari, Regole della lingua fiorentina; edizione critica, 5. See also John Robert Woodhouse, “Borghini and the Foundation of the Accademia della Crusca,” in Italian Academies of the Sixteenth Century, ed. D. S. Chambers and F. Quiviger (London: The Warburg Institute, University of London, 1995), 165–73, at 170–71. 104 Istoria delle cose auuenute in Toscana; dall’anno 1300 al 1348 (Florence: Giunti, 1578). See Richardson, Print Culture, 165–66. 100

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on Girolamo Ruscelli’s criticism of Dante’s language.105 His major project, however, was his increasingly sprawling set of writings on a range of Florentine topics, including its language. Borghini had stated that his goal was to produce a treatise on Florentine like the work Guillaume Budé had composed on classical Greek.106 These topics were extended still further thanks to the queries and requests of others, some of which he received as part of his administrative correspondence. Although they contributed both to his research and to the networks of people with whom he communicated on such matters, they slowed his progress still further. The work of organizing the notes and notebooks on language began in earnest in 1575. Borghini had already established in his will of 1574 a committee to undertake the task in the likely possibility that he would not see it to completion personally.107 Thus the general plans he outlined were as much guidelines for them as for himself. The first part would treat language in general, the second the differences between languages. Then he would turn specifically to the Florentine language, its origins, and properties. He planned to address whether the label Italian would apply to it or whether Florentine or Tuscan was more appropriate; he also planned to include replies to a number of recent authors and debates, including Castelvetro and Muzio.108 He made several general outlines, and began to coordinate some sections; he planned first to complete the historical writings, and then turn to the language topics.109 Nonetheless, when he died in 1580 the whole project, both historical and linguistic, remained Girolamo Ruscelli, Del modo di comporre in versi nella lingua italiana (Venice: Sessa, 1559); Borghini, Ruscelleide, ovvero Dante difeso dalle accuse di G. Ruscelli, 57–60; Scritti su Dante; J. R. Woodhouse, “Straws and Pearls: Borghini’s Defence of Dante’s Language,” in The Languages of Literature in Renaissance Italy, ed. Peter Hainsworth et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 223–41. 106 Borghini, Scritti inediti, 15. 107 On the will see Gustavo Bertoli, “I quaderni storico-linguistici di Vincenzio Borghini,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 176, no. 4, alt. no. 576 (1999): 528–82, 528–29. For an edition of the will, see Paola Barocchi, Pittura e scultura nel ‘500: Benedetto Varchi, Vincenzio Borghini (Livorno: Sillabe, 1998), 99–114. See Bertoli for a detailed discussion of the notebooks. 108 Borghini, Scritti inediti, 21–22. 109 Michele Barbi quotes from a notebook of 1569 as notebook X, 86. Borghini intended first to complete everything related to the dispute with Mei, including Roman historical topics, then turn to language. Michele Barbi, “Degli studi di Don Vincenzo Borghini sopra la storia e la lingua di Firenze,” Il Propugnatore N.S. 2, no. pt. 2 (1889): 5–71, 37. 105

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in various states of incompletion. A team of Deputati worked to bring as many of them as possible into shape for publication. The writings on language were among the most scattered and least complete, as his editors complained; they left most of them in manuscript. Most of those notebooks are now in Florence’s National Library and were finally edited in the twentieth century by John Woodhouse. Despite the failure of these writings to appear in print with the other discourses in 1584, Florentine men of letters clearly had ample opportunity during Borghini’s lifetime to hear as well as to read his opinions on language. Although he did not participate in the meetings of the Accademia Fiorentina, the collaborative projects in which he was involved kept him in continuous contact over a number of years with the city’s men of letters on language-related matters.110 He shared with them a genuine love for the vernacular as well as a number of particular issues, such as the variations in speech in cities versus countryside, by social level, by professional group, and more. His unpublished writings take not infrequently a conversation or the draft of a letter as a point of departure; thus they serve as a guide not only to his planned work on language, but also to the topics he discussed in person with others. Two issues figure prominently in Borghini’s approach to the study of language. One is the fundamental distinction between language and literature, nature and art. This feature he shared with Varchi. He composed most of his writings on language in the years following Varchi’s death, and he built very much on the work of his colleague. The other is the centrality of change to languages, particularly change over time. Also like his Florentine colleagues, Borghini combined an interest in establishing some general principles for the study of language on the one hand, and a focus on the particularities of Tuscan or Florentine on the other. Borghini established the distinction between literature and language early in his organizational notes as well as in his writings themselves. Literature is art, the product of human artifice and design. Language itself, however, is a natural feature of humans. It follows rules that can be discovered, examined, and analyzed: The first thing is to declare that I intend to speak about nature and not about art, that is, about simple and pure and natural manners, On Borghini’s relationship with the academies and their members, see Rick Scorza, “Borghini and the Florentine Academies,” in Italian Academies of the Sixteenth Century, 137–63.

110

Vincenzio Borghini and not about those that are born from artificial compositions and ornaments and figures of learned minds, that is to say grammar and not rhetoric.111

He maintains this distinction throughout his writings, and is particularly at pains to do so when criticizing the writings of contemporaries. Most of them have failed to make this distinction consistently, he states, and that has muddied many arguments. In one such case he returns to the familiar claim, made by Bembo and repeated by many others for some time, that in order to learn to write with a good style (good style being based on the best Florentine authors), it is actually an advantage not to be Florentine. Borghini suggests that he can almost hear people tell him as he casts his reply that in his objection he seems to have misunderstood Bembo. For Bembo had said that the person who has the language by nature tends not to pay sufficient attention to careful literary style, relying instead on their natural facility; whereas the foreigner must learn it with study and care, and thus will do better.112 Yet this argument is like changing the dice in the middle of a game, he complains, because it shifts back and forth between native command of a mother tongue on the one hand, and literary skill on the other: … these are those deceptions that learned people are accustomed to call paralogisms, and others paradoxes: when either they change the terms and jump not from pillar to post but from the Arno to the Bacchiglione, or truly inferring the cause where it is not, or different from that which it is, beginning from a woman’s head and adding a horse’s body and finishing with a fish’s tail and making a fantastic chimera.113 “Dichiarare, la prima cosa, che intendo di parlare della natura e non dell’arte, cioè delle semplici e pure e naturali maniere, e non di quelle che nascono dall’artificiose composizioni, e ornamenti e figure dei dotti ingegni, e come dir grammatica e non rettorica.” Borghini, Scritti inediti, 22. 112 Elsewhere in his notebooks Borghini composed a passage that defended this possibility; that is, he agreed that a hardworking foreigner could indeed excel. Ibid., 35–36. 113 “…questi sono di quelli inganni che questi scienziati sogliono chiamare paralogismi, e certi altri paradossi; quando, o scambiando i termini e saltando non di palo in frasca, ma d’Arno in Bacchillone, o veramente riferendo la cagione ove ella non è, o diversa da quell che l’è, si comincia da un capo di donna e fassi il mezzo di cavallo e finiscesi in coda di pesce e fassi una fantastica chimera.” Ibid., 117. The Arno flows through Florence, the Bachiglione through Padua. 111

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One can see the problem more clearly if one moves from writing produced by non-Florentines following Bembo’s guidelines back to spoken language. They would not offer effective guidance as sources for the study of Florentine spoken language practice. Unfortunately, the Prose did not state clearly this distinction between unadorned everyday language on the one hand, and good writing style on the other. Borghini expressed several times a sincere appreciation for Bembo’s contributions to the study of vernacular, but also noted more than once this important point of difference between his own and work and that of the Venetian scholar. All languages share a number of features; one of them is change. Borghini finds three main causes of such changes. First, all languages change over time. So too, languages change across regions; they differ throughout the geographic area where they are spoken, and often geography sets boundaries between one language and another. These factors are, so to speak, internal; that is, no external cause such as war or conquest need occur for such changes to take place.114 The third factor is the mixing of people, that is, people who speak differently to some degree; if they speak with each other, they will find and develop similarities over time.115 In this instance he compares Roman and modern examples. Latin changed from the time of the Decemvirate to the age of Ennius and Plautus, and was different again in the age of Cicero, when it was at its most beautiful. So too our language was rough before Dante and became more beautiful, reaching a peak around 1360. In the present day, he suggests that the quality depends on the person and the care they take; the quality may be excellent, or it may be less so. Borghini offers a range of evidence to support his arguments about how languages change. One had become standard: the barbarian invasions that ended not only the ancient political world but also its language. He also looks to more contemporary examples of urban versus rural speech. Rural speech clearly has some differences from urban. One reason is that rural speakers tend to have little interest in the art that distinguishes some urban speech. Another, perhaps greater difference is vocabulary. Rural Tuscan speakers use some words that are not heard in cities. Many of them are in fact pure Tuscan words and phrases that have existed a long time, but that urban speakers have ceased to use. They have remained in

Ibid., 184–85. Ibid., 184.

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use in the countryside: “… (and this is a general rule) because country people converse less with foreigners than city people and thus change less.”116 The speech of women often shows some similarly archaic features, because women too are more likely than men to speak mainly with other local speakers and less with foreigners. Similarly, coastal cities see more language change in general than inland locations that are more isolated.117 The contact that speeds language change may include literary and cultural influences. Borghini takes a classical example: the plays of Plautus. They contain a great many Greek borrowed words. Plautus himself surely did not introduce those words into Latin usage by using them in his play; no ancient suggests that Plautus did so, and his audience would not have understood his plays if he had. Plautus used these words because they were already popular with his audience. Trade contacts between Greeks and Romans were not the cause; Plautus wrote in an era before that development. Rather, it was because at this time Romans had begun taking an interest in Greek letters, particularly drama, and some vocabulary came along with the rest. Borrowed words are not bad in themselves; Borghini notes that Aristotle had observed their presence in Greek. Something similar, he argues, had happened in Florence with Provencal. Early Florentine authors were using Provencal poetry as the model for their own; they borrowed some Provencal words at the same time.118 Further, during the era when Charles of Anjou was king of Naples there was considerable Florentine contact with the court; that had led to an influx of words, just as German words came in via military contact with the various regional lords. Borrowed words, then, are normal and a part of every language, the result of contact of every sort with other groups of speakers. New borrowings enter a language at different rates at different points in time. They only present a problem when too many appear too quickly for them to assimilate consistently. Borghini’s basic history of the vernacular has a shape like that of Bembo. Vernaculars in Italy arose out of the population movements, dislocations, and disorders of the end of antiquity. This spoken practice

“(e questa è regola generale), perché i contadini conversano manco con forestieri che non fanno i cittadini, e però mutano mando.” Ibid., 139. 117 Ibid., 185. 118 Ibid., 157–60. See also Vincenzio Borghini, Annotazioni sopra Giovanni Villani, ed. Riccardo Drusi, Scrittori italiani e testi antichi pubblicati dall’Accademia della Crusca (Florence: Accademia della Crusaca, 2001), 79. 116

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began to leave sparse written records around 1200, and more visibly after about 1250. The last decades of that century saw a flowering of great authors, most notably Dante. The fourteenth-century sources present a sort of linguistic golden age. Not only were there major literary authors, but many people with no training in eloquence wrote as well. Many also represented casual conversation in their writings. In this body of written records one can see a fully developed language with distinct patterns of usage, multiple registers of expression, and a genuine beauty appreciated both by native speakers and foreigners. Fourteenth-century writers, even the very unlearned, did not make basic grammatical errors: I have seen books written from 1300 to 1348, which was the year of the great mortality, and written entirely by persons simple and untaught, and one does not find one language error. They have some in orthography, about which our ancients neither knew nor cared very much. So too I have them from 1250 to 1300; there one finds very regularly observed the conjugations, numbers, modes, tenses, and in short all that which today is full of errors. So one know that nature itself or common usage, as I would say, was in that age a true and sure rule.119

Over time, the language lost a number of rough edges and became sweeter, as observed by contemporaries as well as later scholars. This everyday language was a thing of beauty. Borghini frequently describes it as pure and sweet, particularly the language of this early period; he frequently praises its simple beauty, completely without art: … we have seen these letters and other private writings from the age of Boccaccio of our citizens, however much they are without letters or learning, they are beautiful and so pure and full of such a native sweetness that it is a marvel.120 “Io ho veduti libri scritti dal MCCC al MCCCXLVIII che fu l’anno della gran mortalità e scritti pur da persona idiote e semplici, e non vi si truova uno errore di lingua. Havvene alcuno intorno all’ortografia, della quale invero i nostri antichi non seppero né curarono troppo. Similmente ne ho dal MCL al MCCC e vi si veggono regolarissimamente osservate le congiugnazioni, i numeri, i modi, i tempi e brevemente tutto quello ove oggi si pecca assi bruttamente. E si conosce che la natura stessa o l’uso commune, che sia de’ dire, era in quella età vera a sicura.” Scritti inediti, 5. 120 “… avendo vedute di queste lettere et altre private scritture dell’età del Boccaccio di nostri cittadini quantunque senza lettere o dottrina, bellissima e così pura e piena di una cotal nativa dolcezza che è una maraviglia.” Ibid., 24. 119

Vincenzio Borghini

Borghini identifies some specific features that would constitutes such sweetness, drawn from his extensive study of Tuscan manuscripts. One was a shift in some words from the vowels o or a to i, as for example the early form “arrossare” has been replaced by “arrossire.” The i, he notes, sounds softer and sweeter. Such changes are the basis of the claims often seen that older pronunciations sounded rougher.121 This narrative of the history of vernacular for Borghini, as for his colleagues, differs somewhat from the history of visual arts seen in Vasari and elsewhere, which is similar in many ways, for it was not simply a story of recovery and rise. It also included a decline in the fifteenth century. For Bembo and others interested in good writing, the number and relative quality of major authors and literary works might serve as a way to measure those ups and downs. Given Borghini’s focus on language rather than letters, his measure was grammatical consistency. In a healthy, normal language, as in fourteenth-century Florence, speakers use consistent rules over time, and share those rules with other speakers. Conversely, inconsistences constitute errors; they are signs that the language is not working well as a whole. During the fifteenth century the vernacular showed increasing signs of stress, argues Borghini, and these problems persist. People made errors of grammar; they used borrowed words when there was no need for them, that is, in cases where an established and appropriate Florentine word already existed. The resulting excessive number of foreign words itself led to confusion about meaning and to inconsistent usage. The cause was a very rapid increase in communication with outsiders. That happened for a range of reasons, the first having to do with the city itself; Florence grew and its population increased, especially due to people moving to the city from elsewhere. So too regional developments played a role, in particular those related to the court of Naples. To add to these public developments were private ones. The increase in trade increased in turn the conversations with foreigners. Teachers and servants might come from elsewhere, so that children learned to speak from people who were not locals; family members communicated at long distance, and more.122 To study this past language required the study of written records. Borghini was aware of the constant temptation to see the era’s great authors as the causes of language change or to elevate them as Cicero Ibid., 191. Ibid., 6–7.

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had been elevated as the model of Latin. Language, he reiterated, was a collective effort; he notes “that there is no single inventor or patron of a language, not of Greek, not of the Roman, nor of ours.”123 It would be inaccurate to claim that any prominent author of the past created a language; an author may invent a turn of phrase, but not change a language beyond its nature. Cicero used his language beautifully and one can thus feel confident that everything Cicero wrote is good Latin. Yet Cicero did not take non-Latin words and phrases and turn them into Latin simply because it was he who used them. One might say the same of Petrarch.124 The writings of Boccaccio presented a more complex example Not only did he excel as an author of narrative prose, but also at representing the conversations of everyday Tuscans in the dialogue of his characters. That made his work particularly valuable to Borghini. In the introduction to the Annotations on the Decameron, Borghini discussed at some length his larger task of documenting the language of the era as fully as possible, a task that went well beyond the study of a single noted author such as Boccaccio himself. No single author’s works could bear witness to all its words, phrases, and turns of speech. Therefore, it was essential not only to examine a range of Boccaccio manuscripts, but also to study other sources from the era, written by authors esteemed or not, known or unknown, so as to have the fullest possible record of words and usage. A scribal error might reveal patterns of speech or pronunciation; previously unknown words or phrases might turn up in very mundane written records. So too, the early translators of classical texts are also valuable sources for study, since their choices would serve as a guide to usage.125 This knowledge in turn would help in the editing of literary texts; a word or turn of phrase in a major that seemed at first sight to be an error, might simply represent a word or form of speech no longer in use. Yet he also demonstrated a genuine interest in the compilers of the Novellino, the author of the Istorie pistolesi, and the other fragments he collected as examples of writing with minimal art. He was less interested, he asserted, in the writings of those considered by some to be masters of what one should say, than in those that served instead “as records and witnesses of “Che non è d’una lingua inventore o padrone un solo; non della Greca, non della Romana, non della Nostra …” Annotazioni et discorsi sopra alcuni luoghi del Decameron, 21. 124 Borghini, Scritti inediti, 107–10. 125 Barbi, “Degli studi di Don Vincenzo Borghini sopra la storia e la lingua di Firenze,” 40, 45–47. 123

Vincenzio Borghini

what was once said.”126 Some people, he observed, have argued that we should rely on only a few authoritative authors as examples. We can safely oppose them because we know that “pure language belongs to the people, who are its true and certain master.”127 Borghini tended toward a standard set of terms to discuss languages, though he discussed some but not all of his choices. He normally used “grammar” for the study of vernacular, though he often referred to published books of vernacular practice as a rule book, as he did to the publication by Muzio.128 At one point he raises the matter explicitly. Our forebears, he observes, used the term “grammatica” to mean “Latin,” among them Villani.129 The label for vernacular itself was more complicated, and in some ways inseparable from the ways languages related to one another. Often he simply referred to it as “our language.” Yet this was an important issue for many contemporaries. One approach, in this case as in others, was to consider the term “language” (lingua) itself. Its usage has varied over time, he notes at one point. On occasion it has served as a sort of label for nations of people, as for example during the Crusades, Duke Gotfried organized his men into nations and called them lingue.130 So it can mean a nation of one blood in one location, though that generally needs subdivision. In any case, often “language” is used to refer to land (paese); as for example Dante, Boccaccio, and other early writers used “lingua latina” for Italian. It is important to be aware of such habits of usage; yet they can lead to difficulties if such assumptions drift into definitions of a language. For example, the use of a given language might not correlate at all with any single group of people or a single region; the Latin language and its long history from ancient times onward serves as a case in point.131 Tuscan serves in the modern world as a language of literature and communication not just for native speakers but for many more people as well. Thus for Borghini, as for Varchi and numerous other colleagues, it merits comparison with Greek and Latin, which have also been used over time far more widely than just by native speakers themselves. Not “… ma per ricontri e testimoni di quello che fu già detto …” Annotazioni et discorsi sopra alcuni luoghi del Decameron, 1857, 18. 127 “… sappiendo che la lingua pura e propria è del popolo, e egli ne è il vero e sicuro maestro.” Ibid., 19. 128 Borghini, Scritti inediti, 68. 129 Ibid., 33. 130 Ibid., 32. 131 Ibid., 38. 126

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only does this comparison reflect the modern language’s prestige; it also offers scholars the advantage of two comparable languages that have been relatively well studied. Italian developed more like Greek than like Latin in terms of dialects, centers, and peripheries. Ancient Greece had not had a single urban center but several, and thus had developed several dialect groups; Italian had a similar history.132 Borghini returned often to this comparison, in which Florentine functioned as an Italian dialect in some ways similar to ancient Athenian as a dialect of ancient Greek.133 These regional distinctions merit their own examination in turn.134 One might certainly say that in many cases at least, different provinces have their own language, as they are distinct people separated from the whole. Yet even smaller distinctions exist as well; one can hear differences from one market to the next in the city, or nobles speaking differently from plebeians. Therefore more specificity is needed, a hierarchy of terms. Borghini, like Varchi, goes to Aristotelian systems of genus and species. Suppose someone is asked where they are from, and the reply is “Italian.” If the questioner wants a more specific answer, he might answer Tuscan or Lombard or the name of whatever land that person is from. “So it is necessary to confirm that the Italian language is one, as a generic, but contains in itself some specific and differential parts.”135 So too “fish, beasts, and birds in the genus of animals, to which perhaps correspond Italian, French and German in the genus of languages.”136 One might distinguish different types of birds like domestic or wild or raptors, corresponding to Tuscan, Lombard, and so on, subaltern to the genus Italian. “But as within the genus of raptor birds are the eagle, goshawk, falcon, sparrow-hawk, the merlin, that are very similar but not the same; so within Tuscan are Florentine, Lucchese, Pisan, Aretine… ”137 The differences are real, continues Borghini, though they may be sufficiently subtle that Ibid., 32. He left a note to himself that he had passages on the topic in several different notebooks; ibid., 32. For the edited texts cited there along with others on the same topic, see 335–47. 134 Ibid., 25–33. 135 Però bisogna fermare che la lingua italiana è, come generica, una, ma contiene in sé alcune parti specifiche e frase differenti …” ibid., 27 136 “… come sono i pesci, le bestie e gli uccelli nel genere degli animali, a che risponde forse la italian, la Francesca, la tedesca nel genere delle lingue…” ibid., 27. 137 “… ma saranno, come nel genere degli uccelli rapaci, l’aquila, l’astore, il falcone, lo sparviere, lo smerlo, che sono molto simili, ma non i medesimi, così saranno nella Toscana, v.g, la Fiorentina, la lucchese, la pisana, l’aretina, …” ibid., 27 132

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foreigners do not hear them. In short, similar does not mean identical, though accidental differences add up to less than the substantial ones. Given Borghini’s consistent argument that language itself is nature and not art, it is reasonable for him to use analogies from natural philosophy as well. Each language, then, though it always undergoes changes and picks up features from those that surround it, has a fully functional set of rules as well as words. In one note from 1569, Borghini uses the analogy of an alloy. Taking up the point Giambullari had made years before, he observes that the Florentine language was not a corruption of Latin, but a mix of several. It resulted from the variety of inhabitants who had lived in the area over time. Though it developed from an ad hoc mix, one might compare the result to the alloy Corinthian bronze; it was a fully complete language with all the parts of speech necessary for any sort of communication.138 This is so even though some of the grammatical categories of Latin have no Tuscan or Florentine equivalent. For example, the modern language lacks neuter nouns entirely. Some verb forms do not exist either, such as the passive. In fact, no two languages share exactly the same forms; indeed, Greek and Latin are not identical either. Yet Florentine is not somehow less expressive than Latin. In the case of the passive voice, it applies systematically a different construction to express a similar thought. Such usage is not some sort of grammatical error, but a proper and particular feature of the modern language, one that follows its own distinct rules.139 Borghini’s careful distinctions allowed him to write with greater precision about the ancestry of particular features of the language. On occasion this might seem a corrective echo to Giambullari’s earlier claims, as when he noted that Greek words had come into Florentine in more than one way, at more than one era; not only might they come directly from Greek or indirectly via Latin, but the move of particular Greek words into Latin might have occurred at different points in time for different reasons. So too he offered a sober counter to Giambullari’s exuberant suggestions about the shifts of sounds and letters over time. The Latin words that became Florentine followed some regular changes. He cited a few examples. One was Latin morior, I die, which shifted to to muoio; corium, cuoio; furius, fuio; -iculum, -iglio.140 Such brief examples of many topics begun but not Ibid., 20. Ibid., 48–51. 140 Ibid., 243–44. 138 139

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completed suggest at Borghini’s often-expressed frustration at leaving so much of his work unfinished. This relative approach to language definition, in which a label for a language makes sense in the context of other languages and its rules follow their own internal logic, seems both flexible and effective. Borghini also reflects on some efforts by other contemporaries at defining language that he finds to work less well. Girolamo Muzio and others advocated the label Italian. Muzio had argued that a language group should be defined by comprehension; that is, if a listener or especially a reader can understand what is being presented, then they are a part of that language group. All speakers within the language label “Italian” could understand one another. Borghini, however, disagrees that comprehension by a given individual is a helpful component in defining a language. It is too imprecise; those who use it have failed to take into account issues such as degrees of comprehension, or education and study. After all, he notes, with sufficient study, anyone in Europe could read and understand Boccaccio. Further, many such readers are assisted by using editions that have notes, annotations, vocabularies, and other aids that are not needed by Florentines. Such efforts at definition are therefore too vague to be genuinely useful. Borghini turns his analytic tools to a number of contemporary debates. One was the nature of rhyme, whether it should be seen as a trait of the language or a literary ornament. Borghini argues that rhyme seems to have developed in Tuscan at about the same time as in Provencal. One manifestation of the development of rhyme was, of course, the sudden abundance of poetic composition and poetic forms that employed rhyme. Yet given his interest in language rather than letters, Borghini examines proverbs and other turns of phrase that are part of everyday speech. These little sayings are coined and persist in use, he argues, not only because of the meaning they contain, but also because of their wordplay; hence they serve as good examples of a language’s features that are sufficiently distinctive to attract such play. Some of the earliest vernacular proverbs recorded show principles of rhyme. Thus, he concludes, it is genuinely a feature of the language and not simply a literary artifice. Borghini also developed his ideas into a plan for language reform, the need for which he attributed to the excessively rapid influences to which Florentine speech had been exposed. It called for both scholarly and administrative remedies. Borghini certainly did not consider turning back the clock or limiting contact with foreigners. Instead, he developed

Vincenzio Borghini

his proposal for the formal teaching of vernacular grammar in the city’s schools. The problem was located especially at the level of childhood language acquisition from non-native speakers, the children’s caretakers. Thus, schools were the most effective place for a solution. The task required not only administration but also scholarship; it called for books of two types. The first, like the Donadello for Latin, would be the textbook for which Cosimo appointed a committee. The other was to be scholarly; it should cover all the complexities of the language, including literary usage and older usage, so that Dante and other early writers can be understood properly.141 Most of Borghini’s late linguistic writings might be seen as contributing to this latter task. His notes even included incomplete drafts of paradigms of the parts of speech based on the 1549 edition of Bembo’s Prose.142 Like many of his colleagues, Borghini uses a biological model or analogy for language: a language is like a living thing. Sometimes he develops it at length; other appearances are brief, as when he refers to Latin in Cato’s time as still young and developing. Languages have a life cycle that they will undergo regardless of outside influence: “not only do languages change, but they are born and die.”143 Just as a language might be part of a category distinguished by genus and species as in his analogy with birds, so too it might have subdivisions that lack full independence and thus are more analogous to body parts. He describes, for example, the colloquial speech of the popolo minuto, the city’s lesser tradespeople, as not being a fully separate language from Florentine. Its particular mix of plain composition, proverbs, trade words, and more, made it more similar to a member of a body.144 Borghini also develops another set of analogies that would itself become very productive: material culture and customary practice. Many factors identify and distinguish a group of people, including their dress, their diet, and other artifacts; language, he argues, varies in similar ways. In ancient times, language varied by region from one colony to the next, especially insofar as such colonies were settled by different groups of people. Here the main cause of language variation from place to place was the Ibid., 7. Ibid., 91–102. 143 “… le lingue non solo variano ma nascono e muoiono (Dante, “la lingua ch’io parlai”).” Ibid., 185. 144 Ibid., 52. 141

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diversity of origin of the population, along with their relative isolation. Diversity of language accompanied a similar variety of other practices: “they are the ones who varied, and consequently the language varied with them, like customs, clothing, and so on… ”145 Borghini also refers to language communities as a marketplace. Borrowed words are an example; when a new word is needed, people may choose from a range of options, domestic or imported, as one might go to a market.146 These new borrowed words have the charm and allure of a new purchase, such that people may look for occasions to display them. That analogy helps account for the great influx of borrowed words into fifteenth-century Tuscan. Borghini would return to these analogies in his investigations of both material and immaterial habits and customs. The study of language and its change could help shed light on these sorts of changes in turn. These topics overlapped in some instances. His knowledge of scribal handwriting styles helped identify manuscript errors, traditions of manuscript transmission, and the possible spoken language practices of copyists. In the cases of the Goths and Lombards, he suggested, those styles may be the principal vestige that remains of their presence in northern and central Italy. The hand known as mercantile is in good part Lombard in origin, he notes, and it is in sources written in such hands that one might occasionally find a surviving Lombard word as well.147 Scribes often wrote as they spoke; thus a pattern of vowel usage or other errors could help identify regional pronunciations. Conversely, if the regional variations were already known, their usage might help the modern scholar identify the scribe’s own region of origin. Girolamo Mei, Benedetto Varchi, and Vincenzio Borghini all sharpened the study of language in general and Florentine in particular. Their education in humanist traditions of classical textual scholarship and their work with Piero Vettori gave them a precise and effective set of tools. They argued, with increasing vigor as well as persuasive evidence, that their own language merited a position next to the languages of antiquity that enjoyed a tradition of respect and scholarship. Particularly valuable was the distinction they drew between the study of language and letters. It built on the distinction between living and dead “… non è dubio che la principal cagione sono gli uomini, e son loro quelli che variano, e consequentemente variano con loro le lingue, come le usanze i vestimenti ecc.” Ibid., 185. 146 Ibid., 194. 147 Ibid., 20. 145

Vincenzio Borghini

languages in a number of ways, among them the biological model. It separated further the goals of good writing from the investigation of speech, whether by living Florentines, those of the fourteenth century, or ancient speakers of Latin or Greek. They were able to apply the philosophical tools that Varchi and his colleagues were increasingly translating into their vernacular. Fundamental was the observation that language itself is natural to humans. As a product of nature, then, it followed orderly rules that could be investigated with the tools of philosophy. Borghini had observed in the letter on language instruction to Cosimo that “… language, the interpreter of our intellect and thus one of the beautiful and marvelous works of nature, has in itself questions sought by means of philosophy.”148 So too, a language with a natural lifespan might be examined as natural philosophers examined living things. Related languages could be classified by genus and species. These scholars also suggested that literary traditions, which remained subject to the tools of humanistic study, had norms that would vary according to the properties of the particular language. Although they advocated the study of any and all regional vernaculars, all three focused in practice on their own. They clearly shared a love of their language’s particularities, its variations, and its sounds. Its international fame as a well-established language of great writers spared them from any need to defend it as a worthy subject of study. Their interest in other languages, whether Provencal or classical Hebrew, remained secondary.149 They would pass on to their successors both this love of the language and their innovative methods for language study. The generation that followed Borghini, notably those who would go on to form and to undertake the projects of the Accademia della Crusca, would continue to build on those methods. Their work thus marks an important transition in late humanist language studies. The studies of language and letters remained so central in Florentine thought that they served as useful models in turn for the study of other topics, notably the arts, material culture, and custom. The best-known case in the visual arts would be Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, which followed a similar historical narrative and strengthened it in the minds “… la lingua, che è l’interprete dell’intelletto nostro, e perciò una delle belle e meravigliose opere della natura, ha in sé speculazioni cavate del mezzo della filosofia.” Ibid., 8. 149 Ibid., 70. 148

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of both the project’s collaborators and its readers. Borghini would go on to investigate habits and customs of Florentines, both out of his own interests and at the request of fellow citizens. Florentines consistently preferred such language-based approaches, even though other types of explanations were available. A text by Luigi Guicciardini offers an example of a different approach that Florentines might have chosen. Guicciardini (1478–1551), the older brother of the famous historian, was in Castrocaro (near Forlì, at the edge of ducal lands) as commissario when he wrote in the 1540s about the differences in nature between Tuscans and Romagnoli.150 He invoked a different sort of natural philosophical explanation, one based instead in geography and the stars. He began with the observation: I have often thought about the course of the great diversity of air, of custom, and of temperament between the people of Florentine Tuscany and those who live on the other side of the Apennines in our Romagna and that of the Church; I have noticed how different the taste of animals, fruits, and vegetables of this and that province even though they are not only close but contiguous. It seems not inappropriate for me to write about the causes of such a difference, since with the measure and example of these two regions so close to one another one may conjecture the great divergence from one another of all other more distant provinces…”151 On Luigi Guicciardini, see M. Doni, “Guicciardini,” DBI, 61 (2004); Randolph Starn, “Francesco Guicciardini and his Brothers,” in Renaissance: Studies in Honor of Hans Baron, ed. Anthony Molho and John A. Tedeschi (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971); Luigi Guicciardini, The Sack of Rome, ed., trans. James H. McGregor (New York: Italica Press, 1993), xvii–xxv. 151 “Havendo meco medesimo piu et piu volte considerato donde proceda tanta diversita di aria, tanta varieta di costumi, tanta diverse complessione delli huomini della Thoscana Fiorentina, da color che habitono di la dalla Apennino nella Romagna nostra, et della Chiesa: et gustato quanto sieno differenti di sapore li animali, e pomi, et lherbe di questa et di quella provincia: benche si truovino non che propinque ma contigue. Non mi e parso fuori di proposito scrivere le cagioni donde percio tanta differentia: acioche con la misura/ et esempio di queste due regioni tante vicine si possa coniecturare la difformita che hanno in loro tucte le altre piu distanto provicie in tucte le cose che in epse si generono et si nutriscono: le quali da la natura dotate producono quanto el cielo et li elementi con la humana industria concedono loro: ma con tanta varieta che meritamente sono state luna da laltra per nome divise et separate: Imperoche non per altra cagione e prudenti antichi posono e termini/ et confini fra questa et quella parte: et con varii nomi le chiamorono 150

Vincenzio Borghini

This is a difference of long standing, he continues. To explain it, Guicciardini offers a quick summary of the celestial sphere and the movements of the planets. Heavenly forces are exerted differently on different regions, leading to a diversity of customs; they have given rise in turn to mutual hostility. Guicciardini suggests that the problems have worsened with the gradual deformation of the calendar over time, and he urges calendar reform. Both astrology and the related need for calendar reform were subjects in which Guicciardini had a long-term interest.152 Similar sorts of arguments about the causes of diversity were appearing in printed works across Europe, though in very different contexts, more often as part of discussions of differences in habits seen among New World and other distant peoples.153 Authors such as André Thevet cited Galen as an authority; Pliny and Ptolemy were also relevant.154 So too was the Hippocratic Airs, Waters, Places.155 Yet among Florentines, such explanations remained uncommon; Guicciardini and his approach remained an outlier. His fellow citizens would continue to prefer and to extend the arguments they were developing about language change and historical development when they turned to discussions of customary practices or material culture.



152



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che per demonstrare a ciascuno la loro manifesta differentia: come facilmente achi con diligenza le considera apparisce.” Florence, BNC, Magl., VIII.1422, cc. 51–58; Luigi Guicciardini, “Delle cagioni della differenza della natura che è fra Toscani e Romagnoli,” at 51 r–v. See, for example, his correspondence on astrology with Ramberto Malatesta: Francesco Guicciardini and Lodovico Guicciardini, I Guicciardini e le scienze occulte: l’oroscopo di Francesco Guicciardini: lettere di alchimia, astrologia e cabala a Luigi Guicciardini, ed. Raffaella Castagnola (Florence: Olschki, 1990), esp. 36–37, 51–52. Luigi corresponded with Malatesta at length on such topics 1521–1531; also with Marchione Cerrono 1534–1539 and Giovanni Bersano 1539–1540. Jorge Cañizares Esguerra, “New World, New Stars: Patriotic Astrology and the Invention of Indian and Creole Bodies in Colonial Spanish America, 1600–1650,” The American Historical Review 104, no. 1 (1999): 33–68. André Thevet, The New Found Worlde; or, Antarctike Wherin Is Contained Wonderful and Strange Things… (London: Henrie Bynneman for Thomas Hacket, 1568). Andrew Wear, “Place, Health, and Disease: The Airs, Waters, Places Tradition in Early Modern England and North America,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 38, no. 3 (2008): 443–65.

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F

      lorentines saw their city as the center for excellence and ­innovation       in

the visual arts. In the middle decades of the sixteenth century, it was also a center for writing about the arts. Florentines could look back to Leon Battista Alberti, whose treatises on painting and architecture presented the principles of linear perspective, orderly proportion, and thoughtful composition not only to practitioners but also to their fellow citizens who commissioned new buildings, contracted for works of art, and increasingly, built collections of those works. Leonardo Bruni’s Laudatio had celebrated the city as a home to beautiful buildings filled with equally beautiful objects, in addition to its ornamented public spaces. Florentines lived and worked amid celebrated monumental buildings dating back some 300 years, with many others still older; Florentine art works old and new were renowned across Europe, attracting the eyes of visiting artists as well as the many foreign notables who hired the city’s artists for new projects. It was natural for Florentines to think and to write about a city or a state not just in terms of its rulers or its army, but also for the achievements of its architects, painters, and sculptors, in addition to its excellence in letters and learning. The social standing of artists and artistic practice differed nonetheless in some important ways from the world of letters, though there were notable points of change underway. Most literary works of any sort, poetry or prose, were products of the leisure time of relatively elite people. Even in the noted exceptional cases, such as Varchi’s agreement to write his history or Marsilio Ficino’s translations of Plato in the prior century, the scholar was given a stipend or other general form of support; he was not paid a set fee for a product. Artistic works, on the other hand, were part of

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the marketplace. The visual arts were trades; artists received their training through an apprentice system, worked in shops, and produced objects, large or small, that were purchased most often by contracted commission. Although the level of general education a given artist received might vary, especially by midcentury, artists did not normally read or write Latin, and they worked with their hands. “Artefici,” as they were called, were thus of lower social standing than men of letters. Artists nonetheless expected their works to be valued and admired by viewers of all social levels; they also possessed and exercised specialized skills and techniques that were not general knowledge. Yet humanists and artists had talked and worked together increasingly, especially in Florence, for over a century, and the status of artists had risen as well. Florentines could look back to the fifteenth-century recovery of Vitruvius’s architectural treatise and the development of linear perspective thanks to collaboration between Alberti and Filippo Brunelleschi; Alberti had written about it both for practitioners and for patrons, in vernacular as well as Latin. Commissions for major artistic projects had come increasingly to include allegories, historical or classical references, or sets of symbols and programs sufficiently complex that humanists were often called in as consultants. The social distinctions did not disappear, but certainly became more blurry by the sixteenth century. Alberti, a man of learning from a major family, had not only written books on painting and architecture but also designed buildings; so did some sixteenth-century men of letters, among them Cosimo Bartoli. A number of sixteenth-century artists came from well-established families and were related to men of letters. Fra Giovann’Angolo Montorsoli, a key figure in the founding of the Accademia del Disegno, was the nephew of Giovanni Norchiati. Michelangelo took pride in his noble ancestry and distant kinship with the Medici. Mastery of perspective and of human anatomy called for a level of learning among artists once reserved for those who studied at universities. Leonardo da Vinci, himself the son of a notary, as well as other artists, had attended and undertaken anatomical dissections, and it had become a more general practice and expectation. Some practicing artists acquired both skill and reputations in letters, particularly as vernacular poets. Several joined the Accademia Fiorentina. Michelangelo was sufficiently esteemed as a poet that Varchi lectured there on one of his poems in 1547. His literary skill was also celebrated at his death in 1564. The artists who designed

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his catafalque included personifications not only the three visual arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, but also poetry.1 The worlds of books and of arts also connected in a new way by midcentury, thanks to an increase in ephemeral artworks for special occasions, often with a man of letters in charge of the conceptual program; though the works of art did not themselves survive, they were described in commemorative booklets that marked the event. Displays of power, status, and respect were becoming ever more important. Visits by foreign rulers, marriages and funerals of leaders or their family, major holidays and more called increasingly for processions, theatrical performances, and other special events, all of which required temporary constructions such as arches, parade carts, sculptures, and other constructions, perhaps combined with more permanent works. Effective combinations of mythological or literary references, special effects, and impressive execution were all essential features of these collective projects. Many such events were memorialized with a descriptive publication that appeared soon after the event. These small books summarized the events and participants, described the costumes, arches, and other elements, reproduced poems or inscriptions, and explained the symbols and allusions they bore. They served not only as commemorative objects but also as planning tools for those responsible for designing future events across Europe.2 Not only did these projects call for continuing collaboration across disciplines; their topical programs also served to keep in the public eye many historical themes, issues, and even debates that might otherwise have remained matters of private scholarship, known only by small groups of learned elites. In Florence, as in any city, the past achievements displayed and recalled on these occasions included great past military victories and triumphs. In many cases, however, they celebrated the city’s great writers and artists. An early example appeared not in Florence but Rudolph Wittkower and Margaret Wittkower, The Divine Michelangelo: the Florentine Academy’s Homage on His Death in 1564 (London: Phaidon, 1964), 105. 2 The literature on such festivals and their records is enormous. For a brief selection relative to Florence, see Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1980); Bonner Mitchell, Italian Civic Pageantry in the High Renaissance: A Descriptive Bibliography of Triumphal Entries and Selected Other Festivals for State Occasions (Florence: Olschki, 1979); Randolph Starn and Loren Partridge, Arts of Power: Three Halls of State in Italy, 1300–1600 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 1

Writing about the Arts

Antwerp. When Philip II entered the city in 1549, the foreign trading communities resident in the city participated in the ceremonies, an event commemorated in illustrated publications that appeared soon thereafter in Latin, French, and Dutch. The Florentine community in Antwerp sponsored an arch that included a number of typical figures, including the patron saints Zenobius and John the Baptist, and the city’s leader, Duke Cosimo. Accompanying them were figures that identified their city clearly as the celebrated home of arts and letters: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, as well as Giotto and Michelangelo. Though most of these figures represented the city’s past achievements, Michelangelo was, like Cosimo himself, very much alive and working.3 Florentines were both planners and audience for these events in the city. In several cases Vincenzio Borghini worked as conceptual designer with Giorgio Vasari as artistic director, while any of several men of letters assembled the publications that followed. Members of the Accademia Fiorentina in particular might also weigh in with their own assessments of the spectacle. These ongoing close links between artists and men of letters had institutional as well as scholarly consequences. The artist Giorgio Vasari was involved in both. Florentines founded an academy for artists, the Accademia del Disegno, a loose parallel to the Accademia Fiorentina but with some important features based on the guild system that it substantially replaced. Not only did it support the training of young artists with instruction in mathematics as well as drawing; it offered to Cosimo and his successors an effective means to call upon the large number of artists often needed for major events. Further, it served as a single institution for the visual arts and artists as a whole. Rick Scorza, “Vasari, Borghini and Michelangelo,” in Reactions to the Master: Michelangelo’s Effect on Art and Artists in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Francis AmesLewis and Paul Joannides (Aldershot; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), 180–210, at 180– 1; Cornelius Grapheus, Spectaculorum in susceptione Philippi Hispaniae principis, divi Caroli V caesaris F. anno M.D.XLIX. Antverpiae aeditorum, mirificus apparatus (Antwerp: Gillis Coppens van Diest: Pieter Coecke van Aelst, 1550), sig. H iii–i; De triumphe van Antwerpen. De seer wonderlijcke, schoone, triumphelijcke incompst, van den hooghmogenden prince Philips, prince van Spaignen. Inde stadt van Antwerpen, anno M.CCCCC.XLIX (Antwerp: Gillis Coppens van Diest voor Pieter Coecke van Aelst, 1550), sig G iiii–H ii; La tresadmirable, tresmagnificque, & triumphante entree, du … prince Philipes … (Anvers: Gillis van Diest, Anvers: pour Pierre Coeck d’Allost, 1550). sig. Hr; Spectaculorum in susceptione Philippi Hispaniae principis, sig. I r–v: “… saeculi nostri, seu Statuariam, seu Pictoriam spectes, ingentem utriusque artis gloriam, ambos argenteo simulachro illustres…”

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Vasari shaped the study of art and artists in historical terms with his monumental publication project, Lives of the Artists. It took several years to produce in its first iteration. The second edition appeared some eighteen years later, even larger. It was a sprawling work in three volumes that included much more than just a set of biographies, and involved a whole cluster of consultants and contributors. Several public events in the years that separated the two editions of Vasari’s work also kept Florence’s art, both past and present, very much in the public view: the wedding of Cosimo’s son and heir Francesco; and funerals, notably that of Michelangelo. Vasari and his colleagues faced tasks that extended well beyond those of assembling names, biographical information, and lists of works. One was simply how to write coherently and persuasively not only about individual works of art, but also about styles and their changes over time; neither ancient nor modern models provided easy answers. How to evaluate quality was another. Further, they sought to explain why artistic practice changed. Although ancient writings about art offered a few answers, they found that the narratives and explanations being developed for language and literature were more directly relevant. To keep Florentine artists at the center of the narrative seemed as natural as it did for the world of letters. Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Michelangelo easily occupied positions reminiscent of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio; it was a commonplace, and not just in Florence, that Giotto had begun the revival of the arts. Arts and letters had risen and declined together in antiquity. Then, after an early stirring of energy around the year 1000, the real revival for both began together, in Florence in the second half of the thirteenth century. Vasari and his colleagues would posit several causes for artistic change; no single cause dominated the others. In some ways, art seemed to behave like language; a biological model seemed appropriate, such that art might seem to develop according to its own internal clock. In other cases, however, works of art might seem more like works of literature, as a set of choices best understood at the level of the individual artist and his own desire to excel. The marketplace linked art to other features of society; architecture, in particular, responded to the needs of a city one sort of structure versus another as well as the ability to fund the project. No single explanation would be appropriate for all cases. One point on which they could all agree was that the arts were flourishing, and there was every reason to think they would continue to do so.

Vasari and the Lives, 1550

Vasari and the Lives, 1550 Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) came from an artisanal family in Arezzo, though he built his career in Florence and was closely associated with the Medici from his first arrival in the city. His father supported his education as well as his training in art, and brought him to the attention of Cardinal Silvio Passerini when he was passing through Arezzo in 1524. Passerini brought the young Vasari to Florence, where he trained with both Andrea del Sarto and Baccio Bandinelli. Passerini, as regent for Alessandro de’ Medici, also had him continue his study of letters in the company of Alessandro and Ippolito de’ Medici, with their tutor Pierio Valeriano. With the regime change of 1527, Passerini and his young Medicean charges left the city; at nearly the same time Vasari’s father died and left him with family responsibilities. Vasari thus returned to his hometown, taking up small commissions in that area before returning to Florence and working with a goldsmith; the fall of the republic in 1529 sent him to Pisa and another return to Arezzo. Along the way he stopped in Bologna, where he saw the coronation of Charles V in 1530, at which Ippolito was present. He soon joined the latter in Rome, where he worked with Francesco Salviati; he then returned to Florence and Duke Alessandro. His production included not only paintings but also the celebrations surrounding Charles V’s visit to the city in 1536.4 He became involved with Alessandro’s building and fortification projects as well. The death of Alessandro left him both distraught and professionally insecure, having lost – as he later noted – his three Medici patrons Clement, Ippolito, and Alessandro, all within a few years. Vasari spent several more years in Arezzo, productive time that included travel; some of his stay overlapped with Vincenzio Borghini’s time there in 1541. After a few years he found himself working once again in Rome. It was there at a gathering with Cardinal Farnese, he recounted later in a biographical passage relating events of 1546, that he had a conversation with Paolo Giovio that led to the Lives.5 Several modern scholars have suggested that this date may have been misremembered and was actually 1543.6 They were discussing Giovio’s collection of portraits of Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de piu eccelenti pittori, scultori, e architettori … di nuovo … riviste et ampliate con i ritratti loro … (Florence: Giunti, 1568), 3.2.982. 5 Ibid., 3.2. 996. 6 T. S. R. Boase, Giorgio Vasari: the Man and the Book (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 43–45; Silvia Ginzburg, “Filologia e storia dell’arte. Il ruolo di Vincenzio Borghini nella genesi della Torrentiniana,” in Testi, immagini e filologia nel XVI secolo, ed. Eliana Carrara and Silvia Ginzburg Carignani, Seminari e convegni (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2007), 147–203, at 151–52 n. 11. 4

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famous men and the elegies he was writing for them; it would be valuable, he said, to have a set of lives of famous artists from Cimabue to the present time. Vasari had commented that Giovio would need the assistance of someone in the field to get the particulars right; later Giovio and others had argued that Vasari should not simply serve as such a consultant, but should head up the project himself. Giovio’s Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (1541) was only one part of his own ambitious agenda of writing and publication.7 His collection of portraits of famous men at his home in Como was already taking shape; his goal was to open it as a museum. The lives treated in Giovio’s volumes would grow to include not just military leaders but also men of learning and letters, ranging from Albertus Magnus to Lorenzo Valla to Guillaume Budé. His support for Vasari’s enterprise continued throughout all phases of the project; they remained in regular correspondence.8 Artists’ portraits were more difficult to collect, but Vasari was able to include them in his second edition. In 1550 Giovio himself moved to Florence, where Torrentino published his Histories and other works; he died there in 1552.9 Many projects, from Plutarch to Giovio, had recounted the lives of famous men. Yet few precedents existed for a project devoted to artists, especially as written by practicing artists with the technical knowledge to discuss works in depth. Pliny’s Natural History served as one sort of model, though Pliny had had no more specialized expertise in the arts than in most of the other topics to which he had turned his attention.10 Perhaps the most important had been Lorenzo Ghiberti a century before, whose unfinished Commentarii, available in manuscript from Cosimo Bartoli, had also discussed artists and their work from the age of Cimabue onward.11 The scale of Vasari’s project bore more resemblance to Anton Francesco Doni’s Libreria or Conrad Gesner’s Bibliotheca universalis, though those publications themselves were, by design, lists rather than narratives.

Paolo Giovio, Elogia viris clarorum virorum inaginibus apposita … Addita … Adriani pont. vita (Venice: Tramezzino, 1546). 8 Zimmermann, Paolo Giovio, 159–61, 214–15. 9 See Chapter 3. 10 Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 27–33. 11 Patricia Lee Rubin, Giorgio Vasari Art and History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 148–51; Boase, Giorgio Vasari, 51. 7

Vasari and the Lives, 1550

Vasari returned to Florence in October 1546 and worked on the book as well as artistic projects. He also continued to travel. By July of the next year he took the manuscript to Rimini, where, he reported, a colleague made a fair copy (which does not survive); he undertook art commissions there and at Ravenna, then returned to work on his house at Arezzo. From spring to fall of 1549 he was once again in Florence, by this time seeing the book into production.12 Florence in 1546 was full of men of letters writing books. Varchi had returned to the city three years before; he had been lecturing at the Accademia Fiorentina and working on vernacular philosophy manuals as well as language studies. He would deliver his “Paragone” lectures comparing the visual arts the following year. Duke Cosimo had not yet asked him to write a history of the city. “Neri Dortelata” had recently expressed in print his opinions on vernacular pronunciation, and Bartoli would soon turn to his translation of Alberti’s treatise on architecture. Giambullari had just published the first edition of the Gello. Mei was living in the city, following the publication of the Electra. Borghini was in residence at the Badia’s property at le Campora; he was working with Vettori on the editions of Sophocles and of Aristotle’s Ethics that would appear in 1547, among other projects.13 Most of them already knew Vasari. All of them had participated in collaborative scholarly projects, or would do so at some point over the course of their careers. Vasari’s project enlisted the assistance of many of them and of others as well, both for the initial edition of 1550 and its expanded revision of 1568. Most of this work left no direct record, since they saw each other in person in Florence and the early drafts do not survive. Vasari’s correspondence from 1550 on shows that by the late stages of the project Bartoli, Giambullari, and Lenzoni were contributors, though Lenzoni’s effort seems mainly to have consisted of proofreading; his name comes up in the correspondence but he did not write any surviving letters

Thomas Frangenberg, “Bartoli, Giambullari and the Prefaces to Vasari’s ‘Lives’ (1550),” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 65 (2002): 244–58, 246. 13 Sophocles, Tragoediae septem cum interpretationibus uetustis & ualde utilibus … ed. Pietro Vettori (Florence: Giunti, 1547); Aristotle, Ethikon Nikomacheion biblia deka; De moribus ad Nicomachum filium libri decem, ed. Piero Vettori (Florence: Giunti, 1547); Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 63; Lucia Cesarini Martinelli, “Contributo all’epistolario di Pier Vettori (lettere a don Vincenzio Borghini, 1546–1565),” Rinascimento, Seconda serie 19 (1979): 189–227, at 194–200. 12

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himself. Lenzoni was already at work on the dialogues on language that he left unfinished at his death in 1551. Borghini also contributed, especially with the postscript and the indexes.14 His involvement may well have begun earlier, as Silvia Ginzburg notes. His earliest surviving correspondence with Vasari was not professional but personal, on the subject of Vasari’s wedding arrangements; Borghini wrote to Vasari’s future father-in law and assisted while on a visit to Arezzo, suggesting a well-established relationship.15 From that trip in September 1549 he also returned part of the manuscript of the life of Mino da Fiesole he had inadvertently carried with him, so he was clearly involved with the project by that time.16 In January 1550 he wrote to Vasari, telling him that he would be getting the whole work put in order, in consultation with Bartoli and Giambullari.17 These colleagues assisted Vasari in a number of ways. One was to collect and provide biographical information or descriptions of artworks that Vasari had not been able to see or study himself. Although Vasari had spent time in Rome, he had a very busy schedule with artistic commissions; the Torrentino edition of 1550 included much more detail on works of art in Rome than he could have been expected to assemble before he departed for Florence. The Lives also discussed places such as Genoa that Vasari had never visited. Evidence of collaboration is clearly visible in the variation in writing style, tone, and level of detail from one life to another; the work shows very few signs of editing for stylistic unity.18 Its great length, as well as its breadth of coverage, called for such shared resources and limited editorial intervention. Frangenberg, “Bartoli, Giambullari and the Prefaces to Vasari’s ‘Lives’ (1550),” 246–48. Silvia Ginzburg, “Filologia e storia dell’arte. Il ruolo di Vincenzio Borghini nella genesi della Torrentiniana,” in Testi, immagini e filologia nel XVI secolo, ed. Carrara and Ginzburg, 147–203; Giorgio Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, ed. Karl Frey and Herman Walther Frey (Munich: G. Müller, 1923), 232–40, 242–46; censimento, 1.286–291. 16 Borghini in Arezzo, letter to Vasari in Florence, September 10, 1549, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 242–44, at 244; Borghini, Carteggio, 1541–1580: censimento, 1.291. 17 Borghini, letter 51, to Giorgio Vasari in Arezzo, January 24, 1550, Carteggio artistico inedito, ed. Antonio Lorenzoni (Florence: Seeber, 1912), 1.299: “Io, in quanto a me, sarò a ordine et se ci sarà dubbio lo conferirò con messer Cosimo et il Giambullari, et con lor consiglio si assetterà ogni cosa.” Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 1.255. 18 Charles Hope, “Vasari’s Vite as a Collaborative Project,” The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari, ed. David Cast (Farnham; Burlington, CT: Ashgate, 2014), 11–22. 14 15

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Vasari seems nonetheless to have composed the greater part of the Lives, and to have put them in order as well; his voice is found throughout. Nothing in their contents suggests that he had envisioned any particular organizational scheme other than a chronological one. The features that gave the work its larger narrative and analysis took shape when Bartoli and Giambullari became involved. The lives were separated into three main chronological clusters; each cluster was given an introduction that discussed the key features and trends that distinguished that era. Vasari prefaced them all with an extensive introductory discussion on the arts themselves. These chapters, totaling nearly 100 pages, define and discuss basic materials and techniques of architecture, sculpture, and painting. They contextualize the subject in terms of craft, mixing practical knowledge with references to Vitruvius, Alberti, and other authors. The general reader thus could acquire sufficient background knowledge to follow technical discussions as necessary in the main text. The general proem seems to have been written last, tying the whole work together with a literary and theoretical introduction to the visual arts and those who have practiced them. Nearly all record has been lost of the artists of the past, it begins, an oblivion that constitutes a sort of second death for them; the present work seeks to remedy that sad fate. The works of artists, past or present, are distinguished as painting, sculpture, and architecture. Recent debates on the relative merits of painting and sculpture have helped to highlight the principal features of each. The proem thus turns to that debate to introduce these media. This discussion had begun with Benedetto Varchi in the Accademia Fiorentina, and moved into print. The general format held sufficient interest in Florence and elsewhere to have earned its own label among modern scholars as a paragone or comparison. Varchi had presented a lecture on the topic at the Accademia Fiorentina in March 1547, at the time Vasari was working on the Lives. It was published by Torrentino in 1550 (1549 s.f.), not long before the Lives. The volume included a second lecture by Varchi on a sonnet on art by Michelangelo, as well as a set of related letters solicited from eight artists.19 Varchi’s lecture, in three parts, had Benedetto Varchi, Due lezioni … nella prima delle quali si dichiara un Sonetto di M. Michelagnolo Buonarroti. Nella seconda si disputa, quale sia più nobile arte la Scultura, o la Pittura (Florence: Torrentino, 1549); on Varchi and the Paragone, see Leatrice Mendelsohn, Paragoni: Benedetto Varchi’s Due lezzioni and Cinquecento Art Theory (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1982); Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi,” 313–21.

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first defined the various arts; then it compared painting and sculpture; and finally, compared disegno to poetry. Varchi concluded that painting and sculpture were the same in substance; they differed only in their accidental qualities. Each has both its origin and its end in disegno.20 The artists who wrote the letters included Vasari, Bronzino, Pontormo, Maestro Tasso, Francesco da Sangallo, Tribolo, and Michelangelo. Vasari’s contribution suggests that this topic was not confined to the lecture hall or even to Florence, but was current in learned circles. He had discussed it in Rome, he says at the outset, at the Farnese court. At that time, he had consulted with Michelangelo. He had replied that the two arts had the same goal.21 Michelangelo confirmed that opinion in his own letter, which concludes the volume; he had written it after the composition of Varchi’s lecture.22 Some of the artists’ letters favored one art over the other; but the principal authors in this little book were in agreement. The Proem to the Lives uses the format of the paragone and many of the arguments in this work in order to introduce the arts to the reader and to make the case that painting, sculpture, and architecture should be treated together in a single work. Stylistic evidence suggests particularly the hand of Bartoli,23 though it is certainly consistent with the viewpoints Vasari expressed in Varchi’s volume, and it displays Vasari’s working familiarity with these skills. Unsurprisingly, it arrives at a conclusion similar to that of Varchi and colleagues, though it makes its case without Varchi’s philosophical tools. The two arts, painting and sculpture, are twin sisters: I say that sculpture and painting in truth are sisters; born of one father, that is, disegno, in one single birth, and at one time; one does not precede the other except insofar as the ability and power that they have within them allow one artist to surpass another, and not by a difference or grade of nobility that one actually finds within either.24

Varchi, Due lezzioni, 101. Varchi, Due lezzioni, 121. 22 Ibid., 155. 23 Frangenberg, “Bartoli, Giambullari and the Prefaces to Vasari’s ‘Lives’ (1550).” 24 “Dico adunque che la Scultura & la Pittura per il vero sono sorelle; nate di un’Padre, che è il disegno, in un’sol’parto, & ad un’tempo: & non precedono l’una alla altra, se non quanto la virtù e la forza di coloro che le portano adosso, fà passare l’uno artifice innanzi a l’altro; & non per differenzia, o’ grado di nobiltà che veramente si truoui infra di loro.” Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de piu eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri (Florence: Torrentino, 1550), 1.19. 20 21

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Indeed, many artists have excelled at both. The proem also emphasizes the artisanal skill and training required, and the need to understand and appreciate them in order to appreciate the works produced. Hence the importance of the first chapters, which begin with architecture and introduce the three principal arts; they are intended to be enjoyable as well as useful for both practicing artists and a general readership. The technical chapters combine classical references, particular examples, and technical information. They begin by invoking both Vitruvius and Alberti and then turning to the types of stone in use for building as well as for sculpture in a manner that is reminiscent of Pliny’s Natural History, though without following that work directly. Early Roman churches serve as initial examples, including San Giovanni in Laterano, Sant’Agnese, and Santa Constanza. More modern and Florentine examples appear as the discussion moves on to local Tuscan stones such as pietra serena. Chapter three introduces stylistic terms, such as the main architectural orders as compared with the maniera Tedesca, the inferior manner or style of building introduced by the Goths at the end of antiquity. Like the proem, these sections on architecture seem especially to have benefited from the contributions of Bartoli, who was working on his translation of Alberti at the time. Bartoli also had practical experience in architecture; he had designed a palazzo in Florence for Archbishop Giovanni Battista Ricasoli.25 In these chapters and in those that follow on sculpture and painting, stylistic and critical remarks about good and bad buildings share space with discussions of practice. Vasari describes how to install a stone-tiled floor in a mud bed; how to make a wax or clay model for sculpture and cast it in bronze or other metals; how to fix the cartoon for a fresco to the wall with paste; and many other techniques and practices referred to in the Lives themselves. Chapter thirty-two discusses painting on glass and the leading of windows, topics that recalls Vasari’s youth working with the French glass painter Guglielmo Marzilla (Guillaume de Marcillat), who had done church windows in Cortona and Arezzo.26 Several biographies also include digressions on practice; the life of Valerio Vicentino, for example, pauses to discuss gem cutting and its history.27 Frangenberg, “Bartoli, Giambullari and the Prefaces to Vasari’s ‘Lives’ (1550),” 254–55. On Bartoli’s translation, see Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 185–92. 26 Vasari, Vite, 1550, 1.100–5. See esp. chapters 6, 9, 11, 32; Boase, Giorgio Vasari, 7. 27 Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 130. 25

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Only after this survey of artistic practice does attention turn to the main subject, the artists and their works. This topic needs its own introduction in turn. The first artist whose life is presented, Cimabue, was certainly not the first artist ever known, so it is essential to understand something about those who preceded him; thus this introduction situates the topic historically. Like those that begin sections two and three, it is clearly the work of men of letters familiar with a range of classical sources. Bartoli and Giambullari seem to have worked together here, perhaps with advice or assistance from others, as Thomas Frangenberg has argued convincingly.28 Especially telling are references to Alberti’s architecture treatise, Bartoli’s translation of which would appear in print the same year, as well as to sculptures mentioned by Annius of Viterbo, whose works Giambullari had followed so closely. It is generally agreed, the work begins, that sculpture and painting developed earliest in Egypt, though Chaldeans are credited with marble and relief sculpture, and the Greeks with the use of brushes and colors; both painting and sculpture proceed from design, manifested first in God’s creation of humans. The authors present the early history of sculpture somewhat piecemeal; they offer information from Pliny, Diodorus Siculus, Lactantius, Alberti, and others, suggesting that much of the information is insufficient to draw definite conclusions about just which regions might have been the first to develop a given technique or medium. Surviving evidence is much better for the Roman era. Not only is there more information on artists and their works, but also surviving sculptures and buildings, thus contributing to an assessment of the rise and fall of quality in the arts over time. The arts improved through the age of the republic; then, “as emperor succeeded emperor” they declined. The age of Constantine produced abundant evidence of that decline. Examples include the Arch of Constantine and the baptistery at the Lateran, which combined new work with pieces from older ones that were clearly superior. Constantine’s departure for Constantinople exacerbated the problem, as he took the best artists with him, along with a great deal of Rome’s art. These examples show that while the subsequent German invasions hastened the decline of Roman art, then, they did not cause it; the decline was already underway. The early Church added to the damage by supporting the destruction of statues and temples. Painting and sculpture failed first; architecture lingered on out of the necessity for building, but Frangenberg, “Bartoli, Giambullari and the Prefaces to Vasari’s ‘Lives’ (1550),” 248–53.

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declined in quality as well. This decline is measured in several ways: a lack of proportion, a failure to observe the principal architectural orders, and a lower quality of workmanship and level of skill overall. One notable feature in this narrative is the unequal coverage of the three arts. Painting is treated most briefly of the three, even for the Roman period. This brevity is due to the evidence available; although more textual references to painting and painters survived from the Roman era than for earlier times, few actual examples could be seen in the sixteenth century. Vasari notes the discovery of Roman paintings during the last years of the fifteenth century in the buried rooms of the Domus Aurea in Rome; since the rooms seemed like grottoes, they had become known as grotesques. Otherwise, the available examples of late or postclassical two-dimensional art were mainly mosaic. More sculpture had survived continuously from antiquity, and both the pace and the fame of new discoveries of ancient sculptures had increased rapidly during the years covered by Vasari’s work. The greatest continuity of surviving examples throughout the centuries that separated the ancient world from the modern was found in architecture. Therefore, architecture anchors the narrative, especially since so many of the works of art that did survive, whether in three dimensions or two, could be found in or on surviving monumental buildings. Also notable is the degree to which the story of the arts parallels those that were now standard for language and literature. First is the familiar humanist narrative of the decline of the Latin language; the best ancient period for artistic achievement was the late republic and perhaps the age of the first emperors, from the age of Cicero to Quintilian. The proem also invokes the biological model that Vasari’s colleagues used in describing the history and nature of language: “the nature of this art is similar to that of others, which like human bodies have their birth, their growth, their old age, and death.”29 The period of architectural decadence and decline marks the major transition; the basic terminology changes as well. Once the Lombards controlled the region, it notes, the term ancient is no longer used. These buildings and works of art are old, not ancient: So that you understand more easily that which I call old [vecchio] and ancient [antico]: “Ancient” were those things before Constantine, from Corinth, from Athens, and Rome, and other very famous cities, “… la natura di questa arte, simile a quella dell’altre, che come i corpi umani, hanno, il nascere, il crescere, lo invecchiare, & il morire …” Vasari, Vite, 1550, 1.124.

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Two styles or maniere prevailed during these centuries; these labels would be used throughout the work as a whole. They do not map precisely to terminology now in use. The first of these was Greek. Early examples cited include figures over the doors of the portico at St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. The other style was built for the Germans and is referred to as German style, the maniera Tedesca introduced in the earliest chapters in contrast to the classical orders. It can be seen in Theodoric’s Palace in Ravenna as well as a number of that city’s churches. Some signs of improvement appeared in buildings of the Carolingian era. A stronger sign of revival is seen in Florence’s church of San Miniato, from 1013, followed immediately by the cathedral at Pisa, built by the Greek architect Buschetto. This part of the story of art that as not “ancient” but merely old follows a narrative similar to the rise of the Tuscan language. From this point, references to specific buildings appear much more thickly and their praiseworthy features increase in number. So too with the identification of individual figures, causes for change begin to figure in the discussion. Pisa’s cathedral inspired a desire to excel in increasing numbers of craftsmen; one city after the next, especially those of Tuscany, vied to host these new efforts. The sculpture and paintings, or more commonly mosaics, of this era were mainly the products of Greek craftsmen brought to Italy, or their local students who copied their style. This stage lasted until 1250 and the birth of Cimabue.31 With the first life, that of Cimabue, the focus shifts from architecture to painting and remains there for most of Part One. The proem to Part Two explains the overall narrative and periodization. The present work, it begins, was not intended as a mere inventory of artists’ names and works; all histories strive to explain how and why the historical actors, in this case artists, behaved as they did. The present “Ma perche piu agevolmente si intenda. quello che io chiami vecchio & antico, Antiche furono le cose inanzi Costantino, di Corintho, d’Athene, e di Roma, e d’Altre famossime citta, fatte fino à sotto Nerone a i Vespasiani, Traiano, Adriano & Antonino; percio che laltre si chiamano Vecchie, che da San Salvestro in quà furono poste in opera da un certo residuo de Greci …” ibid., 1.123. 31 Ibid., 1.125. 30

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work describes the rebirth of the arts; that rebirth had three main eras. Art produced by those in the first era (età) was bold, new, and pathbreaking. Yet despite the impact it had at the time, it lacked many features vital to the best art; it lacked rational proportion, for example. In the second era, the artists discovered and applied the rules and principles of good art. Among them are linear perspective and proportional construction as presented by Vitruvius. These rules were so new, however, that they were applied rather rigidly. The third era, which extends to the present, finds artists at home with these techniques, full masters of both theoretical and practical principles of their arts. These distinctions are reiterated in the proem to Part Three. Here the qualities added in the second era are defined more precisely: rule, order, measure, disegno, and style (maniera). In the third era, the modern, they are perfected so far as to surpass antiquity. Explanations for the causes of artistic change appear scattered throughout the work. The first, artistic talent itself, is ascribed to divine gift; it came from God at the creation of the world, according to the proem to Part One. The individual biographies offer many examples of boys who displayed talent and love for art seemingly from nowhere. Traits of individual character are also essential to continued artistic development. Artists improve out of an internal, personal desire to excel, a desire that is fed when they are given the opportunity to test their skills against those of others and compete. Thus the social environment is also an essential feature. They must be exposed to existing works of art that offer them good models to emulate and eventually, ideally, to surpass; they also require an appreciative audience that can fund projects and reward excellence. A stable society that seeks and values good buildings and art is necessary for art to develop, though insufficient on its own. Given the biographical approach, however, most artistic change is explained at the level of the individual artist. A devoted artist competes with colleagues, studies the works of their predecessors, and invents innovative new compositions. Vasari brings the work to a conclusion in his own voice, with remarks directed at both artists and general readers. He thanks his many consultants and assistants, without whom this enormous work would not have been possible. Of particular help were the writings of some past artists, particularly of Lorenzo Ghiberti, Domenico da Ghirlandaio, and Raffaele d’Urbino. Returning to the work’s introductory lament about the obscurity in which arts of the past have languished, he suggests that has done

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his simple best to remove the dust and oblivion surrounding these past colleagues, tracking down and confirming sources as best he was able: To come to the end of this long discussion, I have written as a painter, and in the language that I speak, without otherwise considering whether that be Florentine or Tuscan, or whether the many terms of our arts, strewn throughout the whole work, can be safely used; in using them I tend more towards the need to be understood by my artists than the desire to be praised.32

He continues to remark on his plain-spokenness, noting that he had not taken much care either with orthography, since his intention is not to teach how to write Tuscan but rather to present the lives and works of the artists. Finally, he concludes with a promise to produce an addition that discusses artists who are still alive. This postscript, so disarming and personal, nonetheless also reflects the considerable advice and consultation that it acknowledged. His remarks on writing style suggest both his own preferences and recommendations of colleagues. One was Annibale Caro, who had written to Vasari in late 1547, on reading a portion of the work. Caro had praised both the project and the pure writing in which it was composed, though he offered some editorial suggestions, including one about style: “In a work such as this I would prefer the writing to be just like speaking.”33 Vasari had also sent this last section to Borghini for advice in January 1550 before sending it, at last, to Florence to go with the final materials to the printer.34 Vasari’s emphasis here on the plain speech and vocabulary of an artisan is consistent with his emphasis from the outset on practical skill and artisanal expertise. It is also consistent with the interests of the collaborators who demonstrated in their own writings an interest in natural “Ma per venire alfine oramai di si lungo ragionamento, io hò scritto come Pittore, & nella lingua che io parlo, senza altrimenti considere se ella si è Fiorentina o Toscana; & se molti vocaboli delle nostre arti, seminati per tutta l’opera possono usarsi sicuramente; Tirandomi a servirmi di loro il bisogno di essere inteso da miei artefici, piu che la voglia di esser lodato.” Ibid., 2.993. 33 “In un’opera simile vorrei la scrittura apunto come il parlare.” Annibale Caro in Rome, letter to Vasari in Rimini, December 15, 1547, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 209–10. 34 Frangenberg, “Bartoli, Giambullari and the Prefaces to Vasari’s ‘Lives’ (1550),” 257; Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 255–56; Ginzburg, “Filologia e storia dell’arte,” 161. 32

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language versus literary ornament and in the vocabulary of Tuscan artisans, and whom Vasari thanked. The assistance of Vasari’s collaborators extended the scope of the project and helped give it its interpretive shape. It is also indicative of the broad appeal of the subject to men of letters in the city. Varchi’s lectures brought the topic before the Accademia Fiorentina. He and Torrentino expected readers to be interested not only in his own lectures, but also in the letters solicited from practicing artists. Indeed, some of these practicing artists were themselves part of that learned community: Tribolo, Bronzino, Francesco da Sangallo, and Michelangelo had been members of the Accademia Fiorentina, though most of them lost membership during the 1547 reorganization. Bronzino rejoined it in 1549, and Michelangelo had remained in the group throughout those years.35 Not only had Michelangelo’s poetry commanded sufficient respect to maintain his membership; his poem on art and artists, “Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto,” had been the subject of the second lecture in Varchi’s volume. Nor was this the only work on art by a member of the Accademia. Giovan Batista Gelli also assembled a collection of artists’ lives, though he never completed it. It too begins with Cimabue and Giotto; it breaks off partway through the twentieth life, that of Michelozzo.36 Although it seems not to have circulated, it attests to the interest in visual arts and artists among Florentine men of letters. Vasari’s project built on this widespread interest. Not only the reading of the Lives, but also its writing and production kept issues related to the visual arts under the attention of a Florentine learned community that was already, and increasingly, engaged with just those issues. Detlef Heikamp, “Rapporti fra accademici e artisti nella Firenze del 500,” Il Vasari: Rivista d’arte e di studi rinascimentali 15 (1957): 139–63, at 141. 36 Wolfgang Kallab and Julius Schlosser, Vasaristudien, Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Vienna; Leipzig: K. Grasser & Kie; B.G. Teubner, 1908), 178–207; De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli, 47, 311–12; G. Mancini, “Vite d’Artisti di Giovanni Battista Gelli,” Archivio Storico Italiano Ser. V, vol. 17 (1896): 32–62. Gelli also commented on visual arts in some of his lectures on Petrarch: Il Gello Accademico Fiorentino sopra que’ due sonetti del Petrarcha che lodano il ritratto della sua M. Laura (Florence: Torrentino, 1549); Margaret Daly Davis, “Giovanni Battista Gelli, Giorgio Vasari,” in Giorgio Vasari: principi, letterati e artisti nelle carte di Giorgio Vasari, Casa Vasari: pittura vasariana dal 1532 al 1554, sottochiesa di S. Francesco: [catalogo delle mostre] Arezzo, 26 settembre–29 novembre 1981, ed. Laura Conti, Margaret Daly Davis, and Anna Maria Maetzke (Florence: Edam, 1981). 35

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The Accademia del Disegno The success of the Torrentino edition of the Lives and the continuing high profile of the visual arts in Florence kept alive the plans for a second edition. Vasari hoped both to publish a supplement on living artists, and to undertake a general revision and enlargement of the Lives as a whole. By the time he returned to the project some dozen years later, however, his professional circle had undergone significant changes. Several key figures had died: Lenzoni in 1551; Giovio, with whom Vasari had remained in communication throughout the production of the first edition, in 1552; Giambullari in 1555; and even Torrentino, the publisher, in 1563, Torrentino’s business, already in poor financial shape, did not long survive him, and the second edition came out instead with Giunti. Bartoli moved to Venice as Cosimo’s agent in 1562, a position he would hold for a decade. This location allowed him to help Vasari with information on Venice and the area, but removed him from the orbit of colleagues who could work locally and with printers.37 Bartoli maintained an active interest in the project; he also continued his own work as editor and translator of Alberti during these years, publishing Alberti’s Opuscoli morali in 1568.38 The art world also continued to change. Vasari himself was in ever more demand as an artist. He had been busy with commissions throughout the time he worked on the first edition; he became busier still in the years that followed, working especially but not exclusively in Florence and Tuscany.39 Younger artists emerged and some older ones died. Perhaps the most significant development was the formation of a new institution, the Accademia del Disegno. It recast many aspects of the professional lives of Florentine artists. Vasari described its origins in the 1568 edition of the Lives, in his Life of Fra Giovann’Agnolo Montorsoli.40 The proximate cause was the effort to bring that artist back to his religious community. Montorsoli, a nephew of Giovanni Norchiati, had taken his vows as a Servite at Santissima Annunziata, but spent much of his career outside Florence. The prior, Maestro Zaccheria, came up with a plan to bring him back to the community; he arranged with Duke Cosimo to commission Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 85–159. Leon Battista Alberti, Opuscoli morali, trans. Cosimo Bartoli (Venice: Francesco Franceschi, Sanese, 1568). 39 On Vasari’s commissions from Cosimo during these years, see Boase, Giorgio Vasari, 56–61. 40 Vasari, Vite, 1568, 3.2. 609–12. 37

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Montorsoli, if he would return, to work on an altar in the chapter room. The goal was to make the room a burial place not just for himself but for artists who had no other burial site. The prior’s efforts were successful, and Montorsoli and the prior had a conversation with Vasari about the need for such a space. Typically, such a need would be met by a confraternity. In fact, Florentine artists had long had such an organization, the Compagnia di San Luca, with a past that went back to the days of Giotto. It had been located at nearby Santa Maria Nuova. Major remodeling had displaced their chapel there, however, and for want of a location the whole organization had languished. The confraternity was now in need of a home.41 They spoke with other artists in turn, as Montorsoli worked on his altar. The project brought new life and new inspiration to the confraternity. On the date of first celebration of services for the artists at the Servites’ chapter room, an event attended by some forty-eight members, they moved the body of Jacopo Pontormo, already interred elsewhere in the church, to the new tomb. Given their new renewed strength they decided to create a new group from among their numbers, called an Academy, made up of their very best. Vasari described its purpose as the promotion of excellence among both young and established artists: “so that those who needed to might learn, and others be spurred on by honorable competition.”42 At that point, Vasari turned to Cosimo. Their request for support compared their initiative to those Cosimo had already pursued for the liberal arts: they “asked that he might wish to favor a school of these noble arts, as he had done with those of letters, having reopened the school at Pisa, created a college of scholars, and founded the Accademia Fiorentina.”43 Cosimo agreed; they set up a committee to compose statutes, which Cosimo approved in 1563, and they became the Accademia and The earliest documentation dates from 1349; see Mary Ann Jack, “The Accademia del Disegno in Late Renaissance Florence,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 7, no. 2 (1976): 3–20, at 6. 42 “… licenziandosi poi la compagnia, fu ordinate la prima tornata per la prossima Domenica, per dar principio, oltre al corpo della compagnia, a una scelta de’migliori, & creato un Accademia: con l’aiuto della quale, chi non sapeva imparasse, e chi sapeva, mosso da honorata, e lodevole concorrenza, andasse maggiormente acquistando.” Vasari, Vite, 1568, 622. 43 “Giorgio intanto, havendo di queste cose parlato col Duca, e pregatolo a volers cosi favorire lo studio di queste nobili arti, come havea fatto quello delle lettere, havendo riaperto lo studio di Pisa, creato un collegio di scolari, e dato principio all’Accademia Fiorentina.” Ibid., 622. 41

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Compagnia del Disegno.44 Borghini was named Cosimo’s Luogotenente, the official representative of all such groups, who attended meetings and maintained reporting with Cosimo and advisors. He retained that position for two years while the group was established before handing it off to others.45 A permanent meeting space remained elusive for several years. The Servites decided they could not cope with meetings held in their chapter room and restricted use of the space to burials, services, and other ceremonies as originally intended. Vasari noted that in any case the group’s plans called for a significant amount of space. They wanted not only a place to meet, but also to work and to display projects. They turned to other nearby churches. Cosimo’s secretary Lelio Torelli asked the community at Santa Maria degli Angeli to allow the group to use their large, unfinished chapel. They were not able to remain there either, so they moved again, to the New Sacristy at San Lorenzo. That was their location at the time Vasari was writing the Life of Montorsoli. Not long thereafter, in 1567, Cosimo arranged for meeting space and a chapel at Cestello, down the street from the Annunziata where they had begun.46 The first group of Academy members underwent a complex nomination procedure. The nominating group was to consist of twenty-seven members, fifteen officers of the old confraternity and twelve members at large, drawn by lot. They would assemble a list of thirty-two names that had received positive votes from at least two thirds of the nominating group. Borghini sent that list, along with a list of runners-up, to Cosimo to be finalized.47 That led in turn, perhaps inevitably, to protests about names that had failed to make the final list of founding members; nonetheless, the group settled in with regular meetings as well as means to admit new members over time.48 Karen-edis Barzman, The Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State: The Discipline of Disegno (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 28–29. 45 Scorza, “Borghini and the Florentine Academies,” 149; Borghini, Carteggio artistico inedito, letter iii, 3–5; Borghini to Cosimo, January 1, 1564–1565. Borghini states that he has served for two years and asks not to serve a third. 46 Barzman, Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State, 52. 47 Ibid. An early draft of the statutes allowed for membership by gentlemen knowledgeable in the arts as well as artists, a clause that was deleted in the final version. 48 Ibid., 37–39. 44

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Within a few years it became clear that this group was serving many of the functions of a guild, and had similar legal power. Yet its members were still obliged to hold traditional guild memberships and pay dues, so many members felt they were paying twice for their professional status. Painters in Florence had long made up a part of the Arte dei Medici e Speziali; architects and sculptors were in a different guild, the Arte dei Fabbricanti. In 1571 they requested and received a change from Duke Cosimo to recognize the new organization as the single guild for all three visual arts, and to remove the need for membership in one of the old guilds. At that point the group acquired a set of titles reflecting its status as a city Magistrato; it became known as the Università, Compagnia, et Accademia del Disegno.49 The organization carried out a range of functions as matched this composite title. It retained its old confraternal tasks, which included observances of holidays such as that of their patron St. Luke, memorializing deceased members, and the like. It became the organization to turn to for planning and executing projects connected with major city celebrations and events.50 It held competitions among members and awarded prizes.51 It also sponsored instruction, though it supplemented rather than replaced workshop-based training. Documentation is incomplete, but the Academy sponsored a lecturer in geometry 1569–1570 and again from 1589, and likely offered similar instruction during the intervening years as well. Statutes in 1563 called for an annual dissection at Santa Maria Nuova. Group instruction in drawing of drapery seems to have begun around 1571.52 The group soon acquired recognition from afar. In 1566 they received a letter from Venice signed by six artists, praising the group’s fame and its memorial to Michelangelo, and asking to be inscribed; their names were entered as foreign members and the was letter read publicly at a meeting.53 Cosimo Bartoli was most likely their source of inspiration and Charles Dempsey, “Some Observations on the Education of Artists in Florence and Bologna during the Later Sixteenth Century,” The Art Bulletin 62, no. 4 (1980): 552–69, at 553; Barzman, Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State, 59, 207–9. The term Università referred to its status as a corporate body or guild, Compagnia as a confraternity. 50 Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State, 187–207. 51 Jack, “Accademia del Disegno,” 14–15. 52 Barzman, Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State, 152–53, 163, 175. 53 Ibid., 57, 295. The artists include Andrea Palladio, Josephe Salviati, Danese Catanio, Batista Veronese, Tintoretto, and Titian. 49

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interest. The following year the Disegno received a letter sent by Philip II, requesting advice on the construction of the Escorial.54 Such an organization for artists was not entirely without precedent. Florence had seen a few prior efforts to organize instruction in the arts outside the apprentice system. Vasari and others described a school for sculpture and painting connected with Lorenzo de’ Medici’s collection of ancient sculpture, drawings, and paintings in the garden at the palazzo. The sculptor Bertoldo had maintained the collection and taught students using the artworks as models. The young Michelangelo had spent time there; so had Torrigiano Torrigiani, Francesco Granacci, Niccolò da Domenico Soggi, Lorenzo di Credi, and Giuliano Bugiardini, as well as several non-Florentines.55 More recently, Baccio Bandinelli had kept a school in his workshop in Florence when he returned to the city in 1541, on the model of one he had kept during the previous decade in Rome. He referred to each one as an “accademia.”56 These schools were small and informal with a single teacher. There were also groups that met consistently in a given location, where like-minded practitioners could converse in a relatively elevated social setting. Benvenuto Cellini described such a group in Rome in the 1520s.57 The Accademia del Disegno combined these functions and enlarged their scope. They were clearly a more stable institution than the earlier schools, offering instruction as well as serving the city’s professional artistic community. The most visible precedent was, of course, the Accademia Fiorentina, which had begun its private life as the Umidi at nearly the same time Bandinelli had been holding his workshop academy. It was surely this group that the title “Accademia” hoped to evoke, and the group to which they had compared themselves when taking the plan to Cosimo. Each Academy had membership lists, official recognition by the state, locations for regular meetings, and an enviable public profile. Yet there were also significant differences. Excellence in letters was a mark of the highest achievement in Florentine society. It was not a craft or professional category, and the Accademia Fiorentina served neither as a guild nor as a confraternity. It

Ibid., 57. Vasari, Vite, 1568, 3.1. 53–54; 3.2. 718–19. Jack, “Accademia del Disegno,” 7; Barzman, Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State, 6–7. 56 Jack, “Accademia del Disegno,” 7; Barzman, Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State, 4–7. 57 Jack, “Accademia del Disegno,” 7–8. 54 55

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had no particular business or trade to regulate; although publishing was a related business, the members of the Accademia Fiorentina were not publishers. Nor were its lectures intended mainly to educate the young. Yet despite these differences the groups maintained a collegial coexistence. They served their members; they also served as markers of Florentine values within the city, and markers of Florence’s distinction to outsiders. The new academy, which had arisen from the desire to honor departed artists, soon had the opportunity to demonstrate its talents in honoring its most esteemed member. From the outset they had recognized Michelangelo not only as a member but as “head, father, and master of all,” though he was resident in Rome.58 In February 1564 he died there, just short of eighty-nine years of age. Vasari and others described the events that followed as his Florentine colleagues sought to honor his memory. His nephew Lionardo traveled to Rome and arranged to have the body sent to Florence; it was delivered to Vasari.59 Borghini recommended to Vasari that the Academy do something special in his honor, a commemoration with a speaker.60 Cosimo was informed; he expressed sorrow at the loss. He also expressed regret at losing plans for the façade of San Lorenzo, which Michelangelo had long promised. Michelangelo had burned them along with other unfinished sketches before his death. Cosimo approved the Disegno’s request to hold a public funeral ceremony at San Lorenzo, the family church of the Medici, with Varchi delivering the oration. A committee was appointed and planning began. The body remained meanwhile at Santa Croce, the site of his family burials, and where Michelangelo’s permanent monument would eventually be built. Visitors left commemorative poems, which were collected to become part of the booklet that memorialized the event. The plans expanded as they developed. The decorations for San Lorenzo in particular grew too elaborate to complete quickly, and William E. Wallace, Michelangelo: the Artist, the Man, and His Times (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 325; Wittkower and Wittkower, Divine Michelangelo, 11. 59 Wallace, Michelangelo the Artist, 330–37. 60 “Et sará bene, quando a Dio pur piaccia di tirarlo a sè, che l’Academia ne faccj qualche dimostratione straordinaria; et ne scrivo 2 parole a consolj, che parendovi darle, datela. Ma ben sarebbe, che se ne facessi un’ofitio segnalato, con fare dire a qualche duno parechj parole in laude sua et in honor dell’arte et in esortamento de giovanj.” Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.46, letter CDXXIX, Borghini to Vasari, February 21, 1564. 58

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problems multiplied. Benvenuto Cellini, who had preferred a smaller program, quit the committee and broke permanently with many of the members.61 Financial issues slowed progress; the project was funded mainly with member subscriptions, with additional support from Cosimo that was slow in appearing.62 The catafalque and memorial paintings were constructed by the younger artists who worked without pay, though they were elected to full academy membership in recognition of their service; despite the donated labor, the materials incurred significant costs. The event finally took place July 14. Cosimo and Francesco each visited the site beforehand but were not present for the service. The crowds were nonetheless great and the event impressive. In addition to the commemorative book, a letter by an anonymous attendee survives describing the event.63 The completed decorations emphasized Michelangelo’s achievements, his ties to Florence, and the general respect and admiration he earned during his lifetime due to his achievements. They also showcased the talents of the city’s artists as well as many men of letters. The church interior was draped extensively with black cloth; each chapel on the side aisles had a large painting with a scene representing the artist. Varchi delivered his oration from Donatello’s pulpit on the left side of the nave. In the center of the nave was erected an enormous catafalque. The published book included descriptions but no illustrations, though a surviving drawing shows the catafalque with three main levels corresponding with the written description. The first two levels, rectangular, had paintings on each side; on the third, the four personified arts sat around an obelisk topped by an angel. The book compares it to the mausoleum of Augustus or the Septizonium of Severus.64 The lower level paintings presented three episodes from the artist’s life in Florence; the fourth side contained an epitaph by Piero Vettori. They included his youth at the Medici gardens; his presentation of a model for the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo to Clement VII; and the building of the fortifications at San Miniato. The upper level illustrated his expertise in

Wittkower and Wittkower, Divine Michelangelo, 20–21. Ibid., 26. 63 Cosimo was at the villa at Caffagiuolo, as seen by the letter exchange between Vasari and ducal secretary Bartolommeo Concino immediately after the event. On the letter, see ibid., 25, 144–47. 64 Ibid., 104–5. 61

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each of the four arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, and poetry. The paintings in the chapels included two related to his death. First was his reception in the Elysian Fields by friends and colleagues from Apelles to Giotto to Montorsoli; the other depicted the Arno comforted in its loss by rivers of the world: the Nile, the Ganges, and the Po. The rest represented events from Michelangelo’s life as chosen by academicians, with themes “that showed notable things in their arts, how they acquired fame, credit, benevolence, honors, and other similar things from princes both ecclesiastical and secular, adding to the reputation and redounding the favor of their arts.”65 Virtù, comments the author, earns so much respect that even powerful people blessed by fortune must cede to it. In addition to a representation of Michelangelo as teacher, they depicted rulers and nobles showing respect to the artist: Popes Julius II and III, Cosimo, Francesco, and Venetian nobles. Several publications appeared quickly thereafter to memorialize the event. The commemorative funeral booklet was relatively new to Italy, though such descriptions had long been common for other occasions. Borghini seems to have been its author.66 The book’s first two sheets appear to have been printed before the event, which would have helped speed its release; these pages contain the narrative of the body’s transit to the city, the initial correspondence with Cosimo, and the poems that had accumulated at Santa Croce. The edited version of Varchi’s oration also appeared quickly. Two additional commemorative orations came out as well; one, by Giovan Maria Tarsia was delivered to the Accademia del Disegno on August 30, and the other, by Lionardo Salviati, was dated September 19. Despite their impressive size and quality, the decorations were not destined to remain long in place. The Emperor Ferdinand died soon thereafter, on July 25, and San Lorenzo needed to be readied for a memorial service for him, which was held August 21. The Michelangelo materials had to be rushed into storage and despite several efforts to

“… fu intenzione degl’Accademici mostrar’alcune delle piu segnalate cose accadute a Michelagnolo, & perche erano infinite, quelle sole, che mostravano cose notabili nell’arti loro, come sono havere acquistato fama, credito, benevolenza, honori & altre somiglianti cose, da i principi cosi ecclesiastichi; come secolari, reputando, & con verità tutto redundate in favore delle loro Arti…” ibid., 111. 66 Ibid., 33; prior examples commemorated the services that marked the death of Charles V in Piacenza and Bologna, 1558–1559. 65

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preserve them or render them more permanent, none survived. They seem nonetheless to have served as models for subsequent occasions, thanks both to the memories of participants and to the publication.67 When the artist’s grand-nephew established Casa Buonarroti, new versions were painted of many of the scenes as well as scenes depicting the event itself.68 [Fig. 6.1] A year later the artists of the Disegno would take on another collective and more cheerful task, the wedding celebrations of Francesco and

Fig 6.1  Agostino Ciampelli. 1617. Benedetto Varchi speaks at the memorial service for Michelangelo. Florence: Casa Buonarroti. Photo: Sailko (Wikimedia Commons). Ibid., 24 Ibid., 44.

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Giovanna of Austria. They continued to fulfill such functions for future events. As Michelangelo himself passed into memory, that passing helped to cement the new professional roles of the artists in his home town.

Vasari’s Lives, Second or Giuntina Edition, 1568 Preliminary work for amendments and revisions to the Lives was already underway not many years after the initial publication, as can be seen in the surviving notes of collaborators. Borghini assumed a much larger role in the second edition than he had in the first, and was involved from the outset. He had left le Campora when Cosimo named him prior of the Innocenti in 1552, a position he would hold permanently in addition to the many projects he undertook, both long and short-term, especially for Cosimo. In preparation for the new edition of the Lives he had already taken some notes in 1557 in Volterra and San Gimignano; Bartoli, for his part, had copied inscriptions at the Campo Santo in Pisa in 1561.69 Serious work on the new edition seems to have begun in 1562, when Vasari spent several days with Borghini at his country house in Poppiano. Silvano Razzi also became involved with the new edition.70 Razzi (1527–1611), a Camaldolensian, was resident at Santa Maria degli Angeli, the congregation that briefly housed the Accademia del Disegno. At this point he was already known as the author of comedies; later he would also write biographies of a number of Florentines, including one of Varchi. Despite this additional assistance, numerous interruptions intervened. In addition to the founding of the Accademia del Disegno and the death of Michelangelo, there were more funerals. Eleonora died in December 1562 near Pisa of malaria. Two sons also succumbed, Giovanni and Garzia, nineteen and fifteen years of age, the former already a cardinal. Piero Vettori gave the funeral orations for Eleonora and Giovanni, and Lionardo Salviati for Garzia. New artistic projects also interrupted work on the book, especially projects that involved both Vasari and Borghini. In 1562 Cosimo asked Vasari to remodel the Sala dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio; the next year Borghini was brought in to organize the program for the history paintings that were to decorate it. Borghini continued to develop topical and iconographic programs for other

Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 81, 132–33. Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 111–13.

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high-­profile projects that Vasari executed, generally at ducal request; their work on these projects continued after the publication of the second edition of the Lives. They included the studiolo of Francesco, rooms in the Medici apartments at the Palazzo Vecchio, and the cupola of the Duomo.71 The two also worked together on several public events, including the memorial service for Michelangelo as well as the wedding of Francesco to Giovanna of Austria in 1565. Their collaboration continued with projects at the Vatican and elsewhere.72 The new edition of the Lives took shape amid these projects. Indeed, Borghini referred to it in the same letter in which he raised the suggestion of the Disegno’s memorial to Michelangelo.73 As soon as that event had passed, the edition became a steady feature in his correspondence with Vasari.74 Borghini’s involvement can be seen at every level, from methods and analysis, to sources of information, to the practical matters of assembling indexes and finding aids. Borghini worked to sharpen the value of the Lives as a reference work. Each volume begins with a set of indexes, themselves unpaginated, to aid the reader. They include a general index of notable topics; the portraits of the artists that appeared in each volume; the individual lives, alphabetically by artist; and the locations, mainly by city, of the works of art discussed. Parts One and Two, significantly expanded from the first edition, make up the first volume. Part Three, the modern era, fills two additional volumes. The total occupies over 1500 pages of paginated text and a significant amount of unpaginated material as well. Some of the changes in the second edition were simply expansion: more and updated information, more artists, more works of art.75 Yet the proem to Part Two of the first edition had stated that the project was For correspondence on the studiolo, see Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.522–25; letters DCCXLVIII–DCCXLIX, August 29 and 30, 1570. 72 Robert Williams, “Vasari and Vincenzio Borghini,” in Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari, 26–35. 73 Giorgio Vasari, Il carteggio dal 1563 al 1565, ed. Karl Frey (Arezzo: Zelli, 1941). 63–65, letter 429, Borghini to Vasari, February 21, 1564, 45–47; Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 23–24. See also letters 430, 434, Borghini to Vasari. 74 See Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.89–90, Letters 455–59, Borghini to Vasari, August 3–11. In 455, of August 3, Borghini notes that in the first edition there was a reference to the duke’s guardaroba, which contains a number of small pieces, both ancient and modern; he volunteers to put together a passage on them, which can be included where relevant. 75 For a summary, see Kallab and Schlosser, Vasaristudien, 300. 71

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not intended to be merely a list of artists and works. Borghini was more specific in a letter to Vasari. There he expressed the desire that the new edition would serve as a universal history of the arts in Italy; hence the need to move beyond Florence itself.76 The greater depth of coverage in part reflects Borghini’s greater role, but it also suggests that over time, Vasari and his colleagues were developing a more consistent sense of the kinds of information and arguments that pertained to the historical study of visual arts and hence needed inclusion. There were more, and fuller, discussions of patronage and the various contexts of production. Since almost all significant works in any medium resulted from commissions, usually by individuals but also by religious groups or civil governments, these features were nearly as essential to the creation of any given work as the life of the artist himself.77 Further, more attention is given to the programs and allegorical subjects of paintings, which is not surprising given the attention Borghini was now devoting to such programs himself, and Vasari to their implementation.78 Examples include the lives of Masaccio, Perugino, and Raphael, among many others.79 Borghini outlined some of these principles in his correspondence with Vasari. In one much-quoted letter he focuses on the value of specific detail and factual accuracy. He also raises an important point about the choice of biographical format. A reader might sit down with Plutarch or other lives of famous men to find models for good character or to be moved by great and stirring deeds. In this case, however, the artists are important not for their lives but for the art they produced. The art must remain the focus, and accurate, detailed reporting is vital: “Et di nuovo vi ricordo, che mettiate a ordine le cose de’ vivi, e massimamente de’ principali, acciò questa opera sia finita et perfetta da ogni parte, et che sia una HISTORIA universale di tutte le pitture et sculture di Italia, ecc, che questo e il fine dello scriver vostro.” Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.98. 77 Among many examples, see the lives of Antonio and Bernardo Rosellino at Vite, 1568, 2.412–15; Benedetto da Rovezzano 3.123–25, or Baldassare Peruzzi, 3.137–44; for comparisons, see Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. Rosanna Bettarini, comments by Paola Barocchi (Florence: Sansoni, 1960), 3.1.390–97; 4.1.285–89, 315–28. 78 Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 137–38; C. Jean Campbell, “Vasari in Practice, or How to Build a Tomb and Make it Work,” in Remembering the Middle Ages in Early Modern Italy, ed. Pericolo and Richardson, 43–65, at 46. 79 For Masaccio, see Vasari, Vite, 1568, 2.295–300; Perugino, 507–17; Raphael, 3.1.64–89. For comparisons of the two editions, see Vite nelle redazioni at 3.1.122–34, 594–614; 4.1.162–92 76

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Writing about the Arts In organizing the index I have considered many things, so too in reading the lives; many of them I have noted, and we will find time to discuss them. This I will repeat, because it takes time to do: that in certain lives you say (as in that of Pordenone), “he did a façade on the Grand Canal.” If you can, I would like you to name whose it is, that is, the house of the Contarini, and so on. And if you cannot, at least give the subject that is depicted there, as that of Curtius, that is sufficient to distinguish and identify it. Because if you say of someone, “he made a figure in Santa Croce,” and do not say where or what, it is useless … The goal of this project of yours is not to write the lives of artists nor about whose sons they were, or what they did daily; but only about their works as painters, sculptors, architects. Otherwise it matters little for us to know the life of Baccio d’Agnolo or of Pontormo. To write about lives is only for princes and men who have done princely things, and not for lowly people; but here your goal is art and the works of their hand. And if you persist in this as much as you can and exercise diligence, the little things will work out.80

The information that led to this greater completeness had several sources. Some came from direct observation of the works of art themselves. They received ever more careful scrutiny for signatures, dates, donors, patrons, or other information. Vasari himself did much of the scrutinizing, of course, both locally and as he traveled. Collegial assistance was invaluable as well, especially in reporting from places Vasari himself could not visit in sufficient depth or at all. Although most of these contributors remained unnamed, a few received acknowledgment. “Nell’ordinare la tavola ho considerato di molte cose, così nel leggiere le vite; che molte ne ho notate, che sareno a tempo a ragionarne. Questo vi replicherò, perché ha bisogno di tempo a fare, che in certe vite voi dite (come in quella del Pordenone): ‘Fece una facciata sul canal Grande.’ Havendo voi commodità, vorrei, nominassi di chi l’è: come dir, di casa Contarina, ecc. Et se questo non potessi, almeno l’historia, che vi e dipinta; come quella di Curtio, che basta, a poter distinguere et farla conoscere: Perché se dicessi d’uno: ‘El fece una figura in Santa Croce,’ et non dicessi o dove, o che, chiama e rispondi … IL FINE di questa vostra fatica non e di scrivere la vita de’ pittori, né di chi furono figluoli, né quello che e’ feciono dationi ordinarie; ma solo per le OPERE loro di pittori, scultori, architetti; che altrimenti poco importa a noi saper la vita di Baccio d’Agnolo o del Puntormo. E lo scriver le vite e solo di principi et huomini che habbino esercitato cose da principi et non di persona basse, ma solo qui havete per fine l'arte et l’opere di lor mano: et pero insistete in questo piu che potete et usateci diligentia; et ogni minutia ci sta bene.” Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.101–2.

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Vasari credits, for example, the physician Nicolò Masini of Cesena, along with his cousin, artist Francesco Masini, for the enhanced description of Raphael’s work in the Stanza di Eliodoro at the Vatican.81 Other names are scattered through the work. These additional eyes and pens assisted at every level. To discuss manuscript illumination required access to and familiarity with the manuscripts and their local collections. Borghini was the likely source for a passage on the illuminated manuscripts in the holdings of the Badia.82 Silvano Razzi, for his part, was probably responsible for the expanded treatment of the manuscripts at Santa Maria degli Angeli.83 Bartoli contributed descriptions of a number of manuscripts in Venice.84 Vasari corresponded regularly with Bartoli; sixty-one of Bartoli’s letters to him survive.85 Vasari visited him in Venice twice, in May 1563 and in spring 1566, and Bartoli supplied Vasari with information on Venetian art and artists.86 Most of their assistance nonetheless lay in textual references and resources, which Vasari, busy with commissions throughout the time he worked on the new edition, would have had little time to study. Wolfgang Kallab examined the sources employed in the Lives.87 Written records were especially important for more remote eras, such as for the artists of the first period, and for the general introduction. Chronicles and similar historical writings were one important type of resource. The planning and construction of noteworthy and monumental buildings, defensive walls, and works of art figured often in such sources, whether prominently or in passing. Kallab identified a number of chronicles, among them the Venetian works of Andrea Navager and Marin Sanudo; that of Andrea Dei and other Sienese sources; Manetti’s Life of Pope Nicholas V; and many others. Machiavelli’s descriptions of Cosimo de’ Medici’s patronage in his history of Florence contributed to the life of Michelozzo.88 Borghini had

Vite, 1568, 3.1. 75 Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 144, 204; for the contents of the notes see 292–94; Kallab and Schlosser, Vasaristudien, 341–42. 83 Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 130–31. 84 Vasari, Vite, 1568. Vita di Giovanni da Fiesole [Fra Angelico], 1.364–65; Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 132. 85 Bryce, Cosimo Bartoli, 131 86 Ibid., 134–36. 87 Kallab and Schlosser, Vasaristudien, 334; Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 138. 88 Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 235. 81

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worked extensively with Florentine sources, and they were useful both for the information they contained and the narrative and interpretive structures they offered. Villani’s chronicle was especially important not only for the wealth of detail he provided, but because in many cases it was the exclusive source of information. He provided relatively full coverage of many years that were crucial to the early development of the arts but were otherwise sparsely documented. Vasari also inferred many links between significant chronicled events and artistic projects, especially in suggesting the dates of building projects. A flood with a known date might help identify the time a bridge was rebuilt, or an account of a major fire would suggest the date of subsequent new construction. Some of these implied associations were not confirmed by research in later years.89 Still, they served as points of departure for future scholarship, and they demonstrate a solid effort to embed the production of buildings and major projects in the economic, political, and social structures of the cities that were their home. These sources also show that some of the key features and turning points in Vasari’s narrative were not new with him, but were already accepted in use by earlier authors. Perhaps the most notable example is the beginning of the narrative. Dante had observed that the fame of Giotto had surpassed that of Cimabue; similar statements about Giotto appear in the writings of Petrarch as well as Boccaccio and Sacchetti. The broader claim that Florentine painting had begun its revival with Cimabue, followed by Giotto, was at least as old as Filippo Villani. Filippo, Giovanni’s nephew, had continued the last section of the Chronicle following the death of his father Matteo, who had himself taken up the project after the death of his brother Giovanni. Though the son and nephew of businessmen, Filippo was a man of letters as well as a magistrate. He served as chancellor of the city of Perugia 1377–1383, and lectured on Dante publicly at the Florentine studio from 1393; he counted Coluccio Salutati among his friends. His written work was not restricted to the Chronicle. He commented on Dante, and also composed the Liber de civitatis Florentiae famosis civibus, or Book on Famous Citizens of the City of Florence, ca. 1381–1382.90 “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 235. Filippo Villani, De origine civitatis Florentie et de eiusdem famosis civibus, ed. Giuliano Tanturli (Padua: Antenori, 1997); Talbot R. Selby, “Filippo Villani and His Vita of Guido Bonatti,” Renaissance News 11, no. 4 (1958): 243–48.

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In Liber de civitatis Filippo devotes chapters to prominent physicians, poets, and more. Eventually he turns to artists. He asserts that it was Cimabue who had revived the art of painting, which had almost been lost from antiquity. Cimabue was followed by Giotto, who had truly excelled even beyond the ancients. Filippo mentions very few specific works, notably Giotto’s work at St. Peter’s in Rome and his portrait of Dante and himself in the Palazzo of the Podestà. Villani mentions several other painters, and singles out the imitation of nature as Giotto’s great achievement. He connects Giotto to poetry in general and to Dante in particular. It is not clear how much Borghini or Vasari used Filippo Villani’s Liber de civitatis. The work is attested in far fewer surviving examples than the Chronicle, though it was certainly available in Florence in multiple manuscripts, both in the original Latin and in vernacular translations. One of the latter was copied by Antonio Manetti, author of a life of Brunelleschi that was used in the Lives.91 Yet they did not need to use Villani’s text to have access to the narrative; the commentary of Cristoforo Landino on the Commedia was sufficient. Landino, writing a century later, had used Filippo Villani’s work in his own discussion of the arts that begins the commentary.92 He added to it a survey of the great artists who had followed in the intervening century. Landino’s commentary was readily available in multiple editions from 1481 onwards, and was widely read and respected in Florence and elsewhere. Members of the Accademia Fiorentina consulted and cited it regularly in their lectures on Dante and related topics.93 Thus Vasari did not need to convince his Florentine audience that Florence was home to a revival of the arts that was begun by Cimabue, established by Giotto, and that featured painting according to nature. So too, Landino and others had already identified the artists whose innovations marked the second period of artistic practice. Indeed, Villani, De origine civitatis Florentie et de eiusdem famosis civibus, xxi–xxix. The vernacular version was published in the eighteenth century: Filippo Villani and Giammaria Mazzuchelli, Le vite d’uomini illustri fiorentini (Venice: G. Pasquali, 1747). 92 Proem 6: “Fiorentini eccellenti in pictura et sculptura,” Cristoforo Landino, Comento sopra la Comedia, ed. Paolo Procaccioli, 4 vols, Edizione nazionale dei Commenti danteschi (Rome: Salerno, 2001), 1.240–42. See Simon A. Gilson, Dante and Renaissance Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 163–230. On Landino’s art criticism, see Ottavio Morisani, “Art Historians and Art Critics-III: Cristoforo Landino,” The Burlington Magazine 95, no. 605 (1953): 267–70. 93 For example, on Gelli, see De Gaetano, Giambattista Gelli, 300. 91

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Landino was the source for the core of Vasari’s description of Masaccio, the agent of the transition.94 In this instance Landino could refer back to Alberti in turn. Alberti had mentioned Masaccio as one of the leading lights of his own times who were doing so much to advance the arts in Florence. Masaccio was a noted name not only among those who wrote about art, but also among practicing artists. Vasari shows his own working familiarity with the details of his paintings elsewhere in the proem. When he discusses the greater likeness to nature as one of the characteristic features of the paintings of this era, for example, he singles out the figure of a nude in the Carmine who “shivers with cold.” Thus in the case of art’s second era as for its first, Vasari has built upon on a basic narrative about which there was already broad consensus in Florence. Borghini’s studies of fourteenth-century novelle contributed at several levels, especially to Part One.95 In addition to his editorial work on the Novellino and the Decameron that would appear in the years following the second edition of the Lives, Borghini hoped to edit Franco Sacchetti’s Trecentonovelle, though in fact he never completed the project.96 Some of the stories in these collections featured actual artists as characters and hence were potentially useful as sources of information; both Sacchetti and Boccaccio wrote about Giotto, for example. Many novelle focused on a single main character and a set of events that illuminated particular character traits; thus they served as a model for the literary form of the Lives themselves. Such a narrative template was consistent with the important causal and explanatory roles Vasari gave to individual personal qualities such as ambition to excel, love of the arts, and clever and creative innovation. Thus despite Borghini’s observation that the art and not the biographies formed the center of the study, a number of the lives offer vivid personality sketches and anecdotes that have charmed and held the attention of readers ever since, and the second edition added more of them. Cimabue’s life, the very first, exemplifies some of these features, combining enhanced biographical detail as well as telling character anecdotes. He was responsible for nothing less than the rebirth of the art of painting, in terms both of figures and color, and his story shows him both to have been marked for greatness and to have trained with diligence. His youth On Masaccio, see Roberts, “Vasari’s 1568 Life of Masaccio,” Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari, 92. 95 Boase, Giorgio Vasari, 51. 96 Richardson, Print Culture, 166. 94

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sounds more like that of an early humanist than a thirteenth-century artisan. His family was noble, and young Cimabue was sent to study grammar with a relative who was teaching at Santa Maria Novella; he was then given to study with visiting Greek masters. The difference in this case is that the Greek masters were painters rather than men of letters; his father had consented, despite the lower status of the trade, because Cimabue’s talent and devotion to art were so apparent. Cimabue’s artistic success is attributed to a combination of factors: his inborn talent, his drive to excel, and his training. These personal qualities allowed him to overcome the impediments of his times and to blaze a trail for Giotto, who was similarly blessed with both talent and ambition: “And that is the reason why Giotto his student, moved by ambition for fame, and aided by heaven and by nature, rose so high… ” Some character sketches offered blame as well, pointing out those habits of life that did not benefit the artists or their art. The mutual envy and jealousy of one group of artists – Bartolomeo da Bagnacavallo, Amico Bolognese, Girolamo da Cotignola, and Innocenzo da Imola – served as bad examples. These flaws kept them all from reaching the heights of achievement they desired.97 Conversely, Vasari believed strongly in the positive value of friendlier competition, which prodded an artist to excel and to grow. The life of Masaccio begins with such remarks; he notes the value of having Brunelleschi, Donatello, Ghiberti, and Uccello all in Florence at the same time, along with Masaccio: It is Nature’s custom, when she creates a person who is truly excellent in some profession, many times does not make that person alone; but at the same time, and nearby, she creates another in competition. The reason is that each may benefit from the talent and the emulation. This, besides the singular advantage of these things in the competitors, it kindles beyond all measure the spirits of those who came after that time, to strive with all possible study and effort to arrive at that honor and that glorious reputation for which they hear those past people praised so highly every day.98 Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 128. “È costume della Natura, quando ella fa una persona molto eccellente in alcuna professione, molte volte non la far sola: Ma in quell tempo medesimo, & vicino a quella, farne un’altra a sua concorrenza; a cagione, che elle possino giovare l’una all’altra nella virtu, e nella emulazione. La qual cosa, oltra il singular giovamento di quegli stessi, che in cio concorrono; accende ancora oltra modo, gli animi di chi

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Balance and moderation were also important traits, essential to an artist’s full development. Paolo Uccello’s obsession with perspective had a negative effect on his productivity and earned him reproofs from Donatello, his colleague and rival. Piero di Cosimo’s eccentric behavior and capricious changes of style limited his success.99 Indeed, so many artists manifested idiosyncrasies and excesses that such traits might seem to be the negative correlate that accompanied the talent and drive necessary for artists, and therefore a common problem against which they needed to strive. Some individual artists were identified with key turning points in the history of art, and Vasari links the particulars of their lives directly to the larger arguments as presented in the proems. Just as Giotto had begun the first era, so Masaccio began the next. It was marked by the recovery of classical orders and proportion in architecture and the discovery of linear perspective in painting, and Giotto ceased to be the model that painters emulated: Painting made similar improvement in this era. In it, the truly excellent Masaccio took away the style of Giotto so completely in heads, clothing, house, nudes, coloring, and foreshortening, that he brought forth the modern style that has been followed from those times up to today, and is followed by all our artists…100

Masaccio’s success proceeded from a key first principle: he realized that painting must imitate nature. All his accomplishments and innovations, beginning with his use of perspective, followed from that. Masaccio combined sound judgment with technical skill and a love for his art, and reshaped the field despite the brevity of his life.101 viene dopo quella età, a sforzarsi con ogni studio, & con ogni industria, di pervenire a quello honore, e a quella gloriosa reputazione, che ne’ passati, tutto’l giorno altamente sente lodare.” Vasari, Vite, 1568, 1.195. 99 Karen Hope Goodchild, “Bizarre Painters and Bohemian Poets: Poetic Imitation and Artistic Rivalry in Vasari’s Biography of Piero di Cosimo,” in Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari, 129–44. 100 “Et il medesimo augumento fece in questo tempo la pittura, de laquale l’eccellentissimo Masaccio levò in tutto la maniera di Giotto, nelle teste, ne’ panni, ne’ casamenti, negli ingniudi, nel colorio, negli scorti, che egli rinovò, & messe in luce quella maniera moderna, chef u in que’ tempi, a sino a hoggi, è da tutti i nostri Artefici seguitata.” Vasari, Vite, 1568, 1.247. 101 Perri Lee Roberts, “Vasari’s 1568 Life of Masaccio,” in Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari, 91–106.

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Still other cases offer a celebratory or even heroic narrative, showing that the artist had already passed into the popular imagination as the subject of anecdote. The Life of Giotto establishes clearly his impact on painting styles for the next century. Yet much of its appeal for the reader lies in its anecdotes about the artist. Giotto is portrayed as a sort of quintessential Florentine: quick-witted, ready with a clever response, and just as ready to take down the social pretensions of others. Some of these stories have classical antecedents; that of “Giotto’s O” resembles a story in Pliny about Apelles.102 Others come from the novelle. One was taken directly from Sacchetti, about whose writings Borghini had written to Vasari in August 1564.103 In it, a crude person (grossolano) hires Giotto to paint his arms on a shield, and gets his comeuppance when Giotto shows him the result; he had painted on it a helmet and other pieces of armor because the man clearly lacked the social standing to have an actual coat of arms. The entire anecdote is quoted verbatim, “so that with the narrative of the novella one may see some of the manners of speech and expression of those days.”104 This portrayal of Giotto in the words of his times clearly recalls Borghini’s interests in fourteenth-century language. It also demonstrates how long-standing was the nature of Giotto’s fame both for art and for wit. These accounts differed significantly from the broader and more interpretive material of the proems. Ancient art called for a more extended treatment than it had been given in the first edition. Giovanni Battista Adriani was asked to compose it, but he completed it too late for its intended placement at the beginning of the first volume. It finally appeared in the form of a letter dated September 1567; it had to be printed separately, so it lacked pagination and was not included in the indexes.105 Its presence was signaled on the title page of the third and final volume, and was often bound with it. Adriani relied especially on Pliny but also used Cicero, Lucian, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and a number of other Norman E. Land, “Vasari’s Vita of Giotto”; ibid., 77–89, at 80–82. Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.1930, letter CDLVI, 5 August 1564, 93–95. Borghini noted that he had one part of it, Razzi the other. 104 “… accio con la narrazione del la novella si vegghino anco alcuni modi di favellare, e locuzioni di que’ tempi.” Vite, 1568, 1.132. 105 Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 193; Margaret Daly Davis, in Giorgio Vasari: principi, letterati e artisti, 229; Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 118–20. See also Robert W. Gaston, “Vasari and the Rhetoric of Decorum,” Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari, 245–60, at 253. 102 103

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authors, including Herodotus.106 He identified artists and works, locations, and other relevant information, as well as emphasizing the high value placed in antiquity on artists and their works. Borghini’s ongoing studies of antiquity and medieval Tuscany helped to inform and shape the proems. His extensive reading uncovered information, often scattered throughout lengthy texts or documents, that helped identify, date, or locate works of art. Some of these texts were histories. Borghini gave Vasari several pages of notes on Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards (available in several printed editions) that helped date buildings in Ravenna.107 More documentary sources were brought to bear as well. His scrutiny of regional church records helped provide dates as well as authorship of a number of works. Still more information came from his studies, copies, and collections of inscriptions, not only those found on the artworks themselves, but also the family crests and other markings that identified chapels, tomb inscriptions, and more. The three eras distinguishing the development of the arts are consistent from one edition to the next. The account of the pre-history of art’s rebirth, on the other hand, underwent some significant development. In the first edition, the proem emphasized the low quality of production, mainly in architecture, throughout this era; the earliest signs of renewal, seen in the eleventh century, especially in Pisa and Lucca, are portrayed merely as clumsy and inferior. The Giuntina, by contrast, is more positive and places more emphasis on the signs of improvement in the same buildings.108 The Carolingians are credited with an early spark. The church of Santi Apostoli, which was attributed at the time to Charlemagne, as well as San Marco in Venice, the Badia in Florence, the Badia a Settimo, and a few other churches all reveal some signs of Greek style and represent improvements over the inferior, German-style buildings that preceded them. They suggest that architecture was still alive, if bastardized, at this time. San Miniato, begun in 1013, shows improvement especially because in the façade the architects were taking the Baptistery as a model.109 Vasari, Vite… nelle redazioni, 1.234, ed. Barocchi, comment. Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 144, 204; Kallab and Schlosser, Vasaristudien, 341–42. 108 Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 206–9. 109 Ibid., 77–8. 106 107

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Ancient models and Greek leadership then led to a major advance in the construction of Pisa’s cathedral; its architect, the Greek Buschetto, showed good judgment in the use of spolia at his disposal, thanks to the powers of the Pisans to bring in pieces from the places where they traded. At this point, the argument about competitive spirit and its value extends beyond the traits of individual artists to include the cities whose citizens sponsored the work. The example of Pisa’s cathedral awakened Italians and especially Tuscans, and inspired them to do more, encouraging competition among cities; so Pistoia began work on San Paolo, and Lucca began building San Martino. All employed students of Buschetto, who remained the only source of architects. From this group arose Nicola Pisano and colleagues; their Lives were added to the second edition and helped connect the revival of painting with that of sculpture and architecture. Greek artists, who maintained a residual part of ancient skill, were invited to work and to teach Italian artisans. That brings the narrative up to the middle of the thirteenth century, when “heaven took pity” and created Cimabue. Like the first edition, the narrative here remains focused on architecture, with a nod to sculpture, though it follows the rise of communal governments more closely. The third and final volume of the second edition includes even more new material, most of it on modern art and artists. As a volume it is poorly organized; it bears many signs of having been assembled and printed as it went along. The need to get it through the press and on the market clearly overcame the desire to edit and organize, a task made more difficult by the number of guides, lists, and other items Vasari wanted to include. Two of those lists are appended to the index. The first gives the portraits currently held in Cosimo’s own portrait museum. The second identifies the antiquities held in the Palazzo Pitti. In most copies, Adriani’s essay on ancient art follows. Then the lives begin again. Some are thoughtfully composed while others, notably some of the briefer notices of contemporary artists, appear rushed. In the first edition, Part Three had concluded with the life of Michelangelo, who was still alive at that time. His life had provided a triumphant and dramatic climax to the work as a whole, and its greatest example of an artist valorized as a heroic figure. By far the longest, it took advantage of Vasari’s personal acquaintance and friendship and other recent biographical treatments of the artist, notably by Ascanio Condivi. By the time of the second edition, Michelangelo had died, and new material was available thanks to the recent funeral commemorations.

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Michelangelo himself had been highly deliberate in developing and shaping his public image; this care included managing the information offered to biographers such as Condivi and Vasari.110 Thus the Life was a literary creation on many levels. The newer biography was even longer. The additions included not only his later years but also considerably more detail and information overall, beginning with his time as a youth in the Medici garden that had been so emphasized at the memorial service. Vasari has added more anecdotes as well as quotations from personal correspondence. A description of the memorial service itself provides a lengthy conclusion. Much of it is based on the funeral publication, the Esequie, including quotations from Vasari’s correspondence with Duke Cosimo as well as the descriptions of the service and the decorations. Vasari notes particularly the work of the Accademia del Disegno, and concludes with the observation that the permanent tomb in Santa Croce was under construction at the time of writing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the additions made after this point make for a less dramatic conclusion than the first edition. They also show signs of hasty composition, with inconsistencies of style and format. The Life of Michelangelo is followed by several others; some artists, such as Titian, are well-known, others less so. These become successively briefer, more notices than biographies. They are followed by a new section that treats members of the Accademia del Disegno who were still alive, beginning with Bronzino. That section too ends abruptly. It is followed by a lengthy and detailed description of the wedding festivities for Francesco and Giovanna d’Austria, work undertaken by members of the Disegno. Though it is unattributed in the volume, the author was Giovan Battista Cini, a friend of Borghini and member of the Accademia Fiorentina.111 Nearly 100 pages later, Vasari finally adds his own biography, and concludes with a new version of his afterword to fellow artists. He alludes to the project’s organizational issues by observing that some readers may notice the occasional repetition. In some instances, he mentions, they

Wallace, “Who is the Author of Michelangelo’s Life?” Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari, 107–19. 111 On Cini (1528–1586) see Michele Feo, “Cini, Giovan Battista,” DBI. Cini was the author of many works published without attribution as well as many issued under his name. He helped plan the festivities with Borghini. On the attribution, see Borghini, Carteggio artistico inedito, 154–63. 110

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were necessary in order to present a given issue properly, but other causes were at work as well. The project was interrupted so many times for so many reasons, he laments, that full continuity was not possible. As in the first edition, he declares that he has written plainly as an artist without regard for ornament, and has used technical terms when needed so as to be clearest to his main audience, the artists themselves. And so, both monumental and imperfect, the project finally saw its last sections move from pen to press to the shelves and desks of its readers. Florentines celebrated the works of art that surrounded them and their artists who produced them. They portrayed their city, whether for local or foreign audiences, as the home of excellence in both arts and letters; Giotto and Michelangelo exemplified the city along with Boccaccio and Machiavelli. Not only did they present this image in public displays and festivals, but they built it into the city’s institutional life. The Accademia del Disegno became a city magistracy that united all arts and artists, modeled not only on older guilds and confraternities but also on the Accademia Fiorentina as a mark of distinction. It is not surprising, then, that writing about the arts became a widespread activity for men of letters. Vasari was able to enlist a large group of consultants across the city and beyond, and of course an even bigger audience of readers. The Lives brought the visual arts in nearly every way into the realm of letters. Paintings, sculptures, and buildings all became subjects of extended written description and analysis. Stylistic distinctions and innovations required articulation as part of that description and analysis. Florentines agreed that the arts changed over time, and that indeed, they had improved. They developed explanations at several levels to explain the causes of those changes. Individual artists were the single biggest agents. Talent itself was divine in origin but was not a sufficient explanation. Artists also needed particular character traits: an inner drive to excel; a desire to emulate the best examples; a friendly spirit of competition; a quick and inventive mind. There was also a general consensus that the new age had begun with Cimabue and Giotto, had been transformed once again in the age of Masaccio, and in their own day equaled or even surpassed the standards of antiquity; and further, that art should take nature as its model. The long-term changes and developments in the arts were found to follow a trajectory that was similar to the narrative that charted the rise of the city itself and the formation of its language, a narrative that was

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itself acquiring more nuance. Its basic shape was already well established among Florentine authors from Filippo Villani to Cristoforo Landino. Yet most of these earlier authors presented it briefly, in just a few pages, in the Lives it was extended to unprecedented length and detail. They also agreed to the general shape of the longer term narrative of art’s history, though Vincenzio Borghini seems to have articulated its shape most clearly. Its outline followed that of language. Ancient art had reached its peak in the days of the republic and early principate, then declined. It reached a low point after the invasions; that was also the point that marks off the era of ancient art from that of the modern. The earliest signs of revival can be seen by the year 1000, with the early stirrings of city states, and they blossom with the rise of communal and popular governments. Here the striving for excellence is attributed both to the artists and to those who made decisions in the cities, as well as the essential access to Greek models and teachers. Florentines also invoked a biological model for art, as they did for language, such that the arts would grow and mature according to an internal dynamic, though no one seems to have developed this model in great detail. Neither in life nor in scholarship did the products of words or of art stand in complete parallel to one another. The Accademia del Disegno was not identical to the Accademia Fiorentina. Artists were very much a professional group that needed the functions of a guild and a confraternity; not so for the Accademia Fiorentina and its members. Florentines who wrote on language distinguished consistently between language, with its basis in everyday speech, and the artifices of written literature. No similarly sharp distinction arose between the study of works of art versus everyday material objects. Yet both in the life of the city and in learned writing about the city, Florentines saw letters and visual arts increasingly as closely related to one another, and also as comparable to the products of antiquity. To understand the Florentine past as well as its present it was necessary not just to understand its state but especially its language, its letters, its customs, and its art.

7

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F

      rancesco

de’ Medici married Giovanna of Austria, daughter of Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and sister of his successor Maximilian II, in Florence on December 18, 1565. The celebrations continued through Carnival. Florentines rose to the occasion to produce an extended spectacle worthy of an imperial family. Not only did they present an array of ephemeral arches, parade floats, theatrical performances, and more with imperial themes both impressive and inventive; they also celebrated the achievements of Florence as a worthy partner for Habsburgs and empire. The most prominent single event was Giovanna’s official entrance into the city.1 It began at the Porta al Prato and proceeded along the streets that had long marked the lines of Florence’s original Roman walls, ending at the Palazzo Vecchio. Once in the building the celebrants gathered in the Sala dei Cinquecento, mostly completed after several years of remodeling by Vasari and Borghini. The route included many of the city’s notable buildings: its churches, both new and historic; its civic structures as well as private residences; outdoor sculptures, monuments, and bridges; and its few, though celebrated ancient relics, including the column recently sent from Rome as a papal gift. They were enhanced by an enormous set of temporary decorations, including a dozen festive arches and a throng of statues and fountains. Some of the smaller pieces recalled local saints and religious observance; others commemorated local events; still others, such as wine-spewing fountains, simply added to the spectacle and to the entertainment of the crowds. All testified to the depth and breadth of Florentine       Holy

1

On triumphs and this procession, including diagrammatic reconstructions of constructions, see Starn and Partridge, Arts of Power, 154–256; Piero Ginori Conti, L’apparato per le nozze di Francesco de’Medici e di Giovanna d’Austria (Florence: Olschki, 1936).

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artistic expertise that went back several centuries and continued in the present to produce both edifices for the ages and wonders for the moment. As important as the display itself was the erudition that underlay and organized the event. Florentines could both celebrate genuine antiquities and produce new sculptures, permanent as well as temporary, that rivaled ancient ones in quality. They presented scholarly experts able to describe and distinguish the visual attributes and proper settings for displays of ancient divinities, Roman emperors, or river nymphs, as needed; they could explain the ancient precedents of such arches and the processional triumphs of which they were a part, and how the modern one brought those to life once again. They could also praise and analyze Florence’s own celebrated modern tradition of letters and learning. The city’s poets might produce commemorative verse on demand in Latin or vernacular, in styles modeled on ancient Romans or fourteenth-century Florentines. In addition, the opulence showed that Florentines still commanded sufficient wealth to pay the bills for a full season of celebrations that stretched over three months, from the days before Christmas to the Feast of the Annunciation. Borghini oversaw the planning, concepts, and design, while Vasari was in charge of the visuals and the artists. An enormous team from the Accademia del Disegno worked from the time the marriage was announced in March, through the last parties and processions preceding Lent in 1566, to the final dramatic representation of the Annunciation that marked the Florentine new year.2 The magnificence of the occasion thus depended on good scholarship as well as good art. It was important to get the details of ancient allusions right, to understand ancient customs and practices as well as the physical artifacts. It was also important to portray the great events of the city’s history with correct detail, right down to the costumes and the layout of the streets.3 Perhaps it was inevitable that the decorations on view for the event would raise a debate among Florence’s men of letters. The cause was a controversy instigated by Girolamo Mei. Writing from Rome, he raised questions about the city’s classical and early medieval past as displayed in the Sala dei Cinquecento of the Palazzo Vecchio. In order to defend his decisions and the integrity of the event, Borghini turned to the project of research and writing about the city’s past that would occupy the insufficient leisure time that remained to him through the 1570s. His For the calendar of events, see Nagler, Theatre Festivals, 14–15. On Vasari’s efforts to ensure correct costuming for the figures in the paintings, see Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 204–5.

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interests, already broad, expanded as he wrote into a range of questions and issues about Florence’s past. Most topics fell outside the range of conventional historical writing and involved both material culture and customary practice. The vague title that Borghini’s posthumous editors gave to his unfinished writings, Discorsi, shows how little they conformed to any standard discipline or subject. Borghini’s studies were also driven by queries that continued to accumulate from fellow Florentines who inquired both in person and in writing. Many of these questions related to issues about the past of their families and the city that affected their present life. A man’s eligibility or not for a given post or preferment might depend on the civic roles played by his predecessors. The city’s increased involvement with other regions of Europe made Florentines more aware of features that distinguished their own elites from the rural nobles north of the Alps. Events such as the wedding, attended by distinguished visitors with titles and elaborate aristocratic hierarchies, brought those differences into relief. Knowledge about the city’s past customs and habits as well as material objects thus held value not only within the scholarly studiolo or library, but also in the practical world. These writings, from the dispute with Mei through the Discorsi, display a mix of scholarly methods. Borghini turned most often to the tools of textual scholarship and criticism; not only did textual sources offer the clearest and most detailed information as compared with other types of sources, but humanistically educated Florentines were familiar with the methods suited to their study. Thus not only he but his readers could find such arguments compelling. Further, Borghini was at work on the Discorsi during the same years he undertook his larger editorial projects such as the Decameron, so these textual methods regularly occupied his attention. Yet he turned to other sources as well, especially documentary evidence. He consulted the public archives that had become standard historical resources, as well as private contracts, church records of all sorts, and more. Nonetheless, in many cases written evidence was incomplete or nonexistent. Much of the dispute with Mei hinged on physical evidence, in particular the interpretation of ruins or sculpture fragments without identifying textual references. Borghini’s later writings seemed to be leading him to a set of general principles. One was to place a high value on comparative studies in addressing local questions, so as to identify typical patterns of practice and of change. Thus one might understand Roman Florence better not merely by studying Florence, but by examining the general patterns that had characterized Roman cities and colonies across Italy. Another was the use of language and language change as a model,

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already effective in the study of the visual arts. Whatever the approach, the resulting arguments thus depended on likelihood or verisimilitude. Borghini worked to broaden the context and offer more systematic means for assessing what might seem likely or plausible. Borghini’s scholarship gave shape, definition, and depth to the narrative of Florentine history from antiquity to the present. Nearly everything about this past that had led his native city to stand alongside the ancients in learning and arts seemed to him worth investigating. He argued that the new society that arose from the decline of antiquity, the world that became Italy, had its foundation in the rise of communal governments, a historical development with origins as early as the eleventh century. Key factors were the political struggles, great and small, that transpired during and especially after the rule of Frederick II. These years saw the establishment of a guild-based government of priors and the Ordinances of Justice. They also produced Cimabue and Giotto as well as Dante and the modern language. These were momentous achievements, he argued, that marked a new era.

The Wedding of Francesco and Giovanna The Porta al Prato marked the starting point of the wedding celebrations. Giovanna and her wedding procession approached the gate and paused; Giovanna received a crown. Then they proceeded along their route through the city itself, along the streets that marked the lines of the original Roman walls. Thus the gate was the first location for Borghini and Vasari to introduce the city and its heritage to the celebrants. They transformed it for the occasion into a triumphal arch with a wing on either side. Each wing had two bays and panels, painted in chiaroscuro; the end of each wing featured a similar painting in a single bay. Detailed descriptions appear in two accounts that commemorated the event. One, by Domenico Mellini, was published immediately. The other, by Giovan Battista Cini, was included in the final volume of the 1568 edition of Vasari’s Lives, though without attribution.4 Although no drawings of the final structure survive, Rick Scorza has identified several planning sketches by Borghini and the artists involved.5 [Figs. 7.1, 7.2] The gate, Mellini, Descrizione dell’entrata; [Cini], “Descritione della Porta al Prato,” in Vasari, Vite, 1568, 3.2.882–979. 5 Rick Scorza, “A New Drawing for the Florentine ‘Apparato’ of 1565: Borghini, Butteri and the ‘Tuscan Poets’,” The Burlington Magazine 127, no. 993 (1985): 887–90; 4

The Wedding of Francesco and Giovanna

Fig 7.1  Porta al Prato, Plan for entrance gate, wedding celebration of Francesco de’ Medici and Giovanna of Austria, December 1565. Florence, BNC Magl. II. S. 100, fol. 41v. Photo: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence.

“Borghini and the Florentine Academies”; “Vincenzo Borghini’s Collection of Paintings, Drawings and Wax Models: New Evidence from Manuscript Sources,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 66 (2003): 63–122.

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Fig 7.2  Alessandro Allori (attrib.) Drawing of a frame in the entrance at Porta al Prato. Florence, BNC Magl. II. S. 100, fol. 53r. Photo: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence.

with its paintings and sculptures, celebrated and summarized the city’s virtues and achievements. Arms were the subject of the façade of the left wing, facing the crowd; on the right wing was Letters. Industry occupied the first side panel on the left. It faced Agriculture on the right, followed by vernacular poetry facing Disegno. The arch of the main gate featured

The Wedding of Francesco and Giovanna

Florence flanked by Cosimo and Francesco, along with the attributes of fidelity and affection in honor of the occasion. The panels devoted to Agriculture and Industry depicted the bases of the city’s prosperity. Agriculture lent itself readily to classical allusions, given the abundant Roman literature in its praise; its representation featured an image of Ceres. The bounty of modern Tuscany, noted by both Cini and Mellini, has earned it the title “the garden of Europe.”6 Industry, portrayed in a market setting accompanied by Mercury and Fortune, was a subject tied closely to the city’s identity. Cini and Mellini refer here to the city’s old Ordinances of Justice, from the 1290s; they note that trade was so important to the city that Florentine citizenship had long required membership in a guild. With this image Borghini has presented Florence’s elites very much as urban business people: So that [the city] would abound in all commodities, they held guilds and trades in such esteem that they constituted and formed their city government of twenty-one guilds, ordering that no one would be admitted nor labeled as citizen who did not enter into one of those guilds, and justly so, seeing that they are what led it so such greatness and constant growth.7

The other panels featured portraits of eminent Florentines who had excelled in arms, letters and learning, arts, and vernacular letters. Many of the names as listed by Mellini and Cini included at least a brief reference to the source of their fame. Letters was an especially crowded group portrait, its figures clustered by discipline: theology, philosophy, medicine, laws, history, oratory, and other letters. Vernacular letters had its own panel with another substantial set of portraits; these figures surrounded Dante, who was flanked by Petrarch and Boccaccio. Disegno depicted young artists training in an idealized Accademia del Disegno, with Michelangelo

“Perche questo paese amenissimo, si puo veramente chiamare, il Giardino d’Europa.” Mellini, Descrizione dell’entrata, 5–6. “talche meritamente puo attribuirsele il titolo di giardino dell’Europa”; [Cini], Vasari, Vite, 1568. 3.2.885. 7 “& acciò che quella di tutte le comodità abbondasse, in tanto conto hebbero dentro le arti, & gl’essercizi, & cosi gl’essaltorno, che’ constituirono, et formarono il corpo della loro Città di venti una Arte: ordinando, che niuno fusse ammesso, nè chiamato Cittadino, che non andasse per qualch’una di quell’Arti, & meritamente, vedendole esser quelle, che l’havevano condotta à tanta grandezza; et che di di in di l’accrescevano.” Mellini, Descrizione dell’entrata, 4. 6

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surrounded by the city’s great artists of the past three centuries. Thus Borghini presented his city to the Habsburgs and the world as a city run by the Medici, defended by the arms of past citizens, supported by production and trade as well as farming, and the home of an incomparable pantheon of scholars, authors, and artists. The planning for this complex set of events called for continuous oversight, as seen in Borghini’s correspondence and surviving memos. He consulted with Vettori on the many Latin epitaphs on gates, sculptures, and other objects.8 He stayed in touch with Giovanni Caccini, the project’s administrative supervisor or provveditore, over matters large and small, including the budget; that ran to something like twice Borghini’s original estimate, but far less than had been feared at various points in the construction process.9 Borghini kept lists of the works destined for various locations, and additional lists of tasks assigned to individual artists and their assistants.10 One undated list for Caccini included detailed last-minute instructions to artists, such as: “tell Nanni di Stocco that the seated statue of Religion should have a crown in her hand.”11 Another asked that Caccini check and review the various coats of arms on each of the twelve arches along the route.12 He specified that in case of rain the princess should stand under the gate itself, despite the restricted space.13 And he consulted with Cosimo as well, of course, both in person and in writing.14 Borghini also understood the importance of the published booklets. Not only did they commemorate the event for those who attended or participated, but they also represented the event to other rulers and courts elsewhere, as well as to those who planned future events. He used such books himself; one of Borghini’s many personal memos listed, by date, forty-one past festivals of various European notables, particularly those with published descriptions.15 He referred to these books on occasion in his correspondence as he developed the program, noting both the need Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.212–14, letter 516, Borghini to Vasari, September 22, 1565. 9 Starn and Partridge, Arts of Power, 200–3. 10 Ginori Conti, L’apparato per le nozze, appendix V, 124–49; Starn and Partridge, Arts of Power, 197–99. 11 “Avvertiscasi Nanni di Stocco che la statua della Religione ch’egli fa a sedere ha havere in mano una corona.” Ginori Conti, L’apparato per le nozze, 115. 12 Ibid., 116–18. 13 Ibid., 120. 14 Borghini, Carteggio artistico inedito, 43–44. 15 Ibid., 124–25. 8

The Wedding of Francesco and Giovanna

for originality and the necessity, given the nature of the event, of some similarities nonetheless. It is clear that he assumed subsequent planners would do likewise.16 Domenico Mellini had agreed to compose and have published the description of Giovanna’s entrance, and Borghini took pains to ensure that Mellini had full access to the information necessary to compose it correctly and on time. He instructed Caccini: “The painters and sculptors should be told to show freely to Messer Domenico Mellini what they are doing, and said Messer Domenico should be able to read what I have written them.”17 Mellini asked questions and requested clarifications as work progressed.18 He was ready to take the manuscript to Giunti just two days after the event itself. Borghini checked the final version, and requested that Mellini make some final corrections of the Latin inscriptions: This morning, being by chance in the shop of the Giunti, I took a look at what they were printing and I saw that in those Latin epitaphs, both in prose and verse, there are many serious errors such that they neither look good nor make sense, and they need to be looked at and brought into order …19

Mellini reported back that he had worked continuously to make all the necessary corrections, and the work came out by January; it went through at least three printings. Cini, whose account would be included in the Lives, was also directly involved in the events themselves. He was the author of the intermezzi that accompanied the December 25 performance of Francesco d’Ambra’s La Cofanaria.20 The other main events were also memorialized in print. The texts of the commedia and intermezzi came out in one edition; two more were

Starn and Partridge, Arts of Power, 193–94. “Ordinisi a’ pittori et scultori che mostrino a messer Domenico Mellini quello si fa liberamente et detto messer Domenico potrà leggere quel che io gli scrivo.” Ginori Conti, L’apparato per le nozze, 113. 18 Borghini, Carteggio artistico inedito, 41–44. See also Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.212–14, letter 516, Borghini to Vasari, September 22, 1565. 19 “Magnifico messer Domenico: Questa mattina essendo à caso in bottega de giunti, mi venne dato un’occhiata à quello che si stampa: et ho veduto che in quelli epitafii latini, così in prosa come in versi son fatti molti e grandi errori, talche non vi si vede talvolta ne senso ne vaghezza alcuna et bisognerebbe avvertirci et metterci qualche buono ordine …” Borghini, Carteggio artistico inedito, 49. See also Carteggio, 1541–1580: censimento, letter 1434, dated December 1565. 20 Nagler, Theatre Festivals, 14. 16 17

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devoted to describing the event itself, one attributed to Mellini, the other by Anton Francesco Grazzini. The description of the Trionfo dei sogni, held in February, was published anonymously. Mellini is the attributed author of the description of the Mascherate delle bufole held during carnival; Baccio Baldini described the procession with the theme of the genealogy of the pagan gods, La mascherata della geneologia degl’iddei de’gentili.21 At least one unpublished personal account also survives, that of Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria.22 Borghini was involved in the program and design of the latter procession as well. The theme was a clear nod to Boccaccio; it was named for his text, Geneologia deorum gentilium, available in a vernacular translation by Giuseppe Bertussi. Borghini drew upon so many sources that a detailed set of references was required in order to explain the various floats. Cini’s description was relatively concise; Baldini, on the other hand, cited them in abundance. Not only Boccaccio but Pierio Valeriano, and the ancient authors Hesiod, Ovid, Aristotle, Eusebius, Claudian, and more crowded into just the first few pages of text, and more references appeared throughout.23 Baldini took pains to emphasize the learning on display; indeed, he began by observing that some of the initial onlookers had been unable to understand the complex allusions and therefore had criticized the event.24 There were twenty-one carts and many additional figures. Demorgorgon, accompanied by Eternity and Chaos, featured in the lead cart; he had also begun Boccaccio’s book. The last was Janus, who was accompanied by a Domenico Mellini, Descrizione dell’apparato della comedia et intermedii d’essa: recitata in Firenze il giorno di S. Stefano l’anno 1565 … (Florence: Giunti, 1566); Anton Francesco Grazzini, Tutti i trionfi carri, mascherate o canti carnascialeschi andati per Firenze del magnifico Lorenzo de’ Medici fino all’ anno 1559, 2. corr. ed. (Cosmopoli Lucca: s.n, 1750); Domenico Mellini, Le Dieci mascherate delle bvfole mandate in Firenze il giorno di Carnouale l’anno 1565 (Florence: Giunti, 1566); Baccio Baldini, La mascherata della genealogia degl’iddei (Florence: Giunti, 1565 ); (facs. New York: Garland, 1976). 22 M. A. Katritzky, “The Diaries of Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria: Commedia dell’Arte at the Wedding Festivals of Florence (1565) and Munich (1568),” in Italian Renaissance Festivals and their European Influence, ed. J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992), 143–72; “The Florentine Entrata of Joanna of Austria and Other Entrate Described in a German Diary,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 59 (1996): 148–73. 23 For a discussion of Borghini’s sources, as well as the texts and surviving illustrations, see Jean Seznec, “La Mascarade des dieux a` Florence en 1565,” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 52 (1935): 224–43. 24 “Perche la Mascherata, che andò fuori gli xxi. di di Febraio del lxv. fu tanto varia & tanto copiosa di figure, ch’e’ potrebbe esser agevolmente, che in quell tempo, che ella durò a andar’fuori la non fusse cosi compresa da ognuno, & per questo forse da 21

The Dispute: The Early History of Florence

key, implements for coining money, and other Roman attributes. While some of the other events catered to the tastes of the crowds for battles or sport, this one reiterated the city’s leadership in letters as well as the artistic skill required to represent this complex ancient pantheon. For Borghini, these programs called for – and demonstrated – the expertise he had already developed in the study of Florence and Tuscany as well as classical antiquity. They also inspired many of the scholarly pursuits that engaged him much of his life thereafter. Many of the topics that appeared in the Discorsi can be found in one aspect or another of these events, from the studies of local religious observance to the use of coats of arms. Few other events brought scholarship about the city’s past so sharply into the public eye.

The Dispute: The Early History of Florence After the wedding-related ephemera were removed and the streetscape returned to its familiar outlines, some permanent renovations remained in place. Perhaps most prominent was the Sala dei Cinquecento of the Palazzo Vecchio. This remodeling project had actually begun independently, well before the wedding negotiations. Vasari and Borghini collaborated over the plans for the new ceiling while they were at work on the second edition of the Lives. The plans went through three drafts in consultation with Cosimo; Cosimo wanted it to represent not just Florence but the whole region of Tuscany.25 Vasari and his assistants began the paintings in August 1563, though at that point the subjects for a few historical panels still remained to be finalized.26 Cosimo was hearing about the city’s early years from Benedetto Varchi as well; late that autumn Varchi read Cosimo his digression on the city’s early centuries that made up part of qualcun’biasimata: perciò io non credo, che e’sia per esser tenuto fuor di proposito il render ragione in questo discorso dell’intemdimento di chi la mandò fuori: delle figure, che vi furon’ dentro, & degli habiti, & ordine loro.” Baccio Baldini, Discorso sopra la mascherata della geneologia degl’iddei de’gentili (Florence: Giunti, 1565); La mascherata della genealogia degl’iddei, Florence, 1565, 5. 25 On the room and in particular the ceiling, see Ugo Muccini, Il Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio (Florence: Le Lettere, 1990), esp. 81–129; Nicolai Rubinstein, “Vasari’s Painting of The Foundation of Florence in the Palazzo Vecchio,” in Essays in the History of Architecture Presented to Rudolf Wittkower, ed. D. Fraser, D. H.Hibbard, and H. M. Lewine (London: Phaidon, 1967), 64–73; Robert Williams, “The Sala Grande in the Palazzo Vecchio and the precedence controversy between Florence and Ferrara,” in Jacks, Vasari’s Florence; Williams, “Vincenzo Borghini and Vasari’s ‘Lives,’” 80–84. 26 Muccini, Il Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio, 85.

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Book Nine of his history.27 The work on Michelangelo’s memorial service and planning for the permanent monument intervened, but by November 1564 most of the panels were completed. The ceiling paintings featured an apotheosis of Cosimo at the center and presented several related themes. One set celebrated Tuscan military victories, mainly from Cosimo’s era, including the conquests of Pisa and Siena. Another represented Florence’s main neighborhoods as well as principal Tuscan cities. Yet another portrayed the events commemorating the historic alliance with the papacy, notably Clement IV’s support for the Guelfs in 1267 that had marked the permanent Guelf ascendancy in Florence. Finally, four scenes represented the early history of the city. The first, the founding of the city, followed Poliziano’s findings that it had begun as a colony under the second triumvirate. Another featured the conquest of Fiesole and their union in 1125. The subjects of the other two had been more difficult to finalize. Borghini, Cosimo, and Vasari agreed that one would represent the final expansion of the city walls, with their architect, Arnolfo da Cambio, presenting plans to the Signoria in about 1284. The last remained undecided. Borghini wrote to Cosimo on November 4. Past conversations had seemed to suggest that Cosimo wanted to depict how the city had not been conquered, referring to the era when most of Italy had been subject to the Goths and Lombards. The relevant story was Villani’s account of Attila. Yet that tale, Borghini noted, could not be taken seriously since in reality Attila had never been in Tuscany; further, Villani had confused Attila with Totila. Indeed, the theme itself, “not being conquered,” could not really be represented visually. Borghini suggested an alternative: the defeat of Radagaisus, king of the Goths. According to Paulinus’s Life of St. Ambrose, a Florentine had reported that St. Ambrose had appeared to him in a vision, and the troops were so comforted that with Stilicho’s leadership they defeated Radagaisus. This victory had occurred on the feast day of St. Reparata; the city’s old cathedral had been dedicated to St. Reparata, presumably in honor of this event, and her day was still celebrated in the city. Borghini appended an excerpt from Paulinus’s text.28 Some two weeks later he wrote to Cosimo’s secretary Don Giusti with yet Baccio Valori, letter to Piero Vettori, October 9, 1563, London, BL Add. MS 10278, fol. 131. See Chapter 3. 28 Gino Belloni, ed., Vincenzio Borghini dall’erudizione alla filologia: una raccolta di testi (Pescara: Libreria dell’Università editrice, 1998), 141–45; Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.116–23. 27

The Dispute: The Early History of Florence

another possibility on a religious theme: the adoption of Christianity by the city in the age of Constantine and the conversion of the temple of Mars to a church, now the Baptistery.29 In fact, Cosimo had already replied on November 12, accepting the Radagaisus scene. He also stated that he had been misunderstood; he had meant to say that the city had never been destroyed.30 That, he said, had related to a discussion about the supposed destruction of the city and its subsequent reconstruction. He agreed with Borghini that the story was absurd, and he wanted to avoid anything that could be seen as absurd. Further, he liked on its own merits the theme of the defeat of Radagaisus, and was happy to make it the subject of the remaining panel. Cosimo was referring to the rest of the story about Attila (or Totila). Villani had claimed that the city had been laid waste by him and remained so until the advent of Charlemagne, who had refounded the city. Bruni had rejected this tale as mere legend, as had most subsequent scholars. Yet it remained a very popular story in the city. Some scholars, including Varchi, still found it plausible. Cosimo showed a consistent interest in portraying only historically verifiable events, representing current scholarship. After several more letters with Vasari to confirm, the project headed toward completion. Vasari confirmed to Borghini that the painting was finished on June 17.31 Installation and other details continued through the summer.32 By this time the room was figuring at the heart of the planned wedding festivities. Work on the room would resume after the wedding as well, when Vasari turned to the main walls, covering them with scenes of Florentine military victories. Despite the careful planning, some Florentines quickly found grounds for criticism, not of Vasari’s painting but of Borghini’s scholarship. Word of the completed ceiling reached Girolamo Mei in Rome. He objected to the choices made in representing Florentine history. Not only did he take issue with the account of the city’s foundation and hence the representation of the early city, he disagreed with the decision not to include a depiction of the city’s refoundation by Charlemagne. As Borghini and Vasari Belloni, Vincenzio Borghini dall’erudizione alla filologia: una raccolta di testi, 145–47, November 23, 1564; Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.132–33. 30 Cosimo I, to Vincenzio Borghini, November 12, 1564, Medici, Lettere, 197–98; Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 224–25. 31 Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 2.187–88. 32 Eliana Carrara, “Il ciclo pittorico vasariano nel Salone dei Cinquecento e il carteggio Mei-Borghini,” in Testi, immagini e filologia nel XVI secolo, ed. Eliana Carrara and Silvia Ginzburg (Edizioni della Normale, 2007), 317–96, 323. 29

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made final preparations for the wedding festivities, Mei composed a little treatise on the subject and sent it to Vettori. Borghini seems to have seen it just after the wedding itself; he wrote to Niccolò del Nero in Rome. Nero, not surprisingly, showed Borghini’s comments to Mei in turn. Already by January 4, Mei had composed a letter to Borghini defending his claims.33 Mei argued in his treatise that the city’s early history differed significantly from the consensus that had grown around the findings of Poliziano and the earlier arguments of Bruni. Roman Florence had been in a different location altogether; it had been farther downstream on the Arno, perhaps near the town of Signa. That original city had been destroyed. Florence was then refounded in its present location by Desiderius the Lombard with subsequent additions by Charlemagne. Mei offered a range of evidence in support of this claim, from Pliny and Ptolemy to inscriptions. Most notable among the latter was one on display in Viterbo, a discovery described by Annius in his Antiquitates. [Figs. 7.3, 7.4]

Fig 7.3  Decretum Desiderii. Viterbo, Museo Civico. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. Prose fiorentine, 4.2, 69–72. For an earlier discussion of these issues, see Ann E. Moyer, “Historians and Antiquarians in Sixteenth-Century Florence,” Journal of the History of Ideas 64, no. 2 (2003): 177–93.

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Fig 7.4  Decretum Desiderii. Nanni, Giovanni [Commentaria super opera diversorum auctorum de antiquitatibus loquentium]. [Rome, E. Silber, July 10–August 3,1498]. Sig. E iii verso. Photo: Harvard University Libraries.

Mei’s manuscript apparently aroused significant interest among its Florentine readers. His claims, if substantiated, would have been an especially public embarrassment given the high profile of the city’s streetscape during the recent wedding procession along the lines of the supposed

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Roman walls; indeed, the extended celebrations were still underway. The city’s location, replete with landmarks, was also featured in Vasari’s paintings of the city’s foundation and the defeat of Radagaisus. [Figs. 7.5, 7.6] Cosimo had emphasized historical accuracy in the final selection of

Fig 7.5  Giorgio Vasari. The Founding of Florence. 1565. Florence: Palazzo Vecchio. Photo: Scala Archives.

The Dispute: The Early History of Florence

Fig 7.6  Giorgio Vasari. The Defeat of Radagaiso. 1565. Florence: Palazzo Vecchio. Photo: Scala Archives.

themes for the ceiling of the Sala; as Borghini noted in one of his letters to Mei, he “had not wanted things that could be considered doubtful by anyone, let alone recognized manifestly as false.”34 Cosimo requested that Borghini develop a response. Years later, the Deputati who edited Borghini’s drafts for posthumous publication recounted the story; they recalled the task of painting the great Sala for the occasion of the wedding, including the representation of the origins of the city: Then a little book was issued with a new opinion: that our city had been built in the later times of the empire of the Lombards. Though this was not approved by the most discerning, there was nonetheless a lot of talk, and to our Don Vincenzio Borghini, who had planned the whole painting on the order of the Duke, fell the need to defend it; in fact, the Duke commanded him to write about it …”35 “… non volse cose che si potessino tener d’alcuno per dubio, nonchè riconsoscere false manifestamente.” Rubinstein, “Vasari’s Painting of The Foundation of Florence,” 66. 35 “Uscì fuori in que’dì un libretto d’una nuova opinione, che la Città nostra fusse edificata ne’tempi più bassi dell’ Imperio de’ Longobardi, laquale con tutto che da’ più intendenti non fusse approvata, diede nondimeno molto da ragionare, & al nostro 34

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The exchange of letters between Mei and Borghini continued for a year, until January 1567,36 and was followed by readers in both Florence and Rome. Borghini expanded his own letters into the writings that became part of the Discorsi; the letters themselves survive as well.37 Mei’s replies were published in the eighteenth century as part of a large collection of Florentine letters.38 His treatise was believed lost save for some excerpts made by Borghini, but one of the volumes among Borghini’s notebooks has been attributed to Mei, and appears to be a draft of the treatise.39 The points of disagreement themselves were fairly specific, as Borghini noted in his first response to Mei: the date of the city’s foundation and its original location.40 Nonetheless, the debate raised a much broader set of issues about how to study the past. Mei’s claim, tendentious though it was, pointed to the complexity of the evidence about the early city. Whereas references to ancient Rome’s buildings and cityscape could be found in many ancient sources, nothing similar survived for ancient Florence. Textual references included Pliny, Ptolemy, and Frontinus, and some scattered references in lists of cities and places. They were not works of history, nor had they discussed the city in any significant detail. The physical remains in the city were still a challenge to interpret, as Gelli and Giambullari had found them earlier. There were also some inscriptions that seemed to refer to Florence; as sources, they shared some features with both texts and objects. Thus the debate between Mei and Borghini hinged on how to weigh and understand a very imperfect and incomplete set of mixed sources that had been produced over many years. D. Vincenzio Borghini, che haveva d’ordine del Duca divisato tutta la Pittura, impose necessità di difenderla, oltreche il Duca glilo comandò. …” Deputati, “Alla Nobiltà Fiorentina,” unpag.; Vincenzio Borghini, Discorsi, 2 vols. (Florence: Filippo e Jacopo Giunti, 1584–1585), 1.1584. 36 Carrara, “Il ciclo pittorico vasariano nel Salone dei Cinquecento,” 327. 37 Primarily in Florence, BNC Filze Rinuccini 25. On Borghini’s correspondence, see Borghini, Carteggio, 1541–1580: censimento. 38 In Prose fiorentine, 4.2 (Florence, 1734), 32–79. As their correspondence proceeded and Borghini’s discussions grew lengthy, Mei began already to refer to Borghini’s writings as discorsi. See Mei, letter to Borghini, October 1566, Carteggio, 1541–1580: censimento, 61. For a modern edition, see Carrara, “Il ciclo pittorico vasariano nel Salone dei Cinquecento,” 330–96. 39 Florence, BNC II.x.64; an addendum credits the attribution to Dr. Thomas Maissen, June 25, 1992. See also Borghini’s summary, Florence, BNC Magl. XXV. 390. 40 Borghini, Carteggio artistico inedito, 56; Borghini, letter to Mei.

The Dispute: The Early History of Florence

Mei found fault with nearly all the ancient written sources that mentioned Florence.41 He rejected altogether the authority of the Liber coloniarum attributed to Frontinus, asserting that the work was unreliable. It contains a number of errors; for example, it identifies as colonies several places known (on the basis of other sources) not really to have had the status of colonies, and so it could be wrong on Florence as well. In any case, Mei doubted the text’s attribution to the Sextus Julius Frontinus who had written the Strategemata and De aquis urbis Romae. Modern scholars have rejected that attribution as well. This author, he asserted, was far more careless; accordingly, Mei dismissed the work. Next came those sources that included lists of place names. Some that referred to Tuscany nonetheless did not mention Florence; that omission suggested that it was not a city. Pliny was a particular instance; in Book Three of the Natural History he lists a number of cities and peoples by region. The place just before Faesulae (Fiesole) is referred to by way of its residents, as “Fluentini praefluenti Arno apposti.”42 Mei attributed other references to a subsequent corruption of the place name and to manuscript problems. The name “Florentia” does appear in a somewhat later author, Tacitus, listed among municipia and colonies.43 This passage, argued Mei, reflects a corruption of the name over time, such that Pliny’s “Fluentini” had become “Florentini” and “Florentia” by the time of Tacitus. This corruption spread in turn to later authors,

Most of these sources were well known at this point; Machiavelli had summarized them in Book Two of the Florentine Histories. 42 Pliny, Historia Naturalis, 3.5.8. Modern editions have corrected this reading to “Florentini.” Editions known to Mei and Borghini, however, did read “Fluentini.” See for example, Lyon, 1548; Venice, 1535–1536 or 1540; Basel, 1554. Cristoforo Landino’s translation also rendered the line as “Fluentini posti in su la riva d’Arno prefluente, cioe dinanzi alloro corrente, …” Pliny, Historia naturale, ed. Antonio Brucioli, trans. Cristoforo Landino (Venice: Gabriel Giolito, 1543), 53, line 32. Roman and Florentine manuscripts (BAV Vat. Lat. 3861 and Codex Florentinus Riccardianus) also included this error, and were the cause of this reading in the print editions; Naturalis Historia, ed. Karl Mayhoff (Leipzig: Teubner, 1875–1905), 1 viii–ix, 252. 43 “auditaeque municipiorum et coloniarum legationes, orantibus Florentinis ne Clanis solito alveo demotus in amnem Arnum transferretur idque ipsis perniciem adferret.” Tacitus, Annals, 1.79. Borghini notes that these books had been discovered in 1508; Florence, BNC Filze Rinuccini 25.14, 94v. Borghini, letter to Mei, July 13, 1566. Borghini, Carteggio artistico inedito, 206. Not only did this text support Poliziano’s claim, but it was not known to Annius of Viterbo; the Tacitus manuscript itself remains in the Laurenziana Library. 41

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especially Greek ones.44 Lucius Annaeus Florus in his Epitome also referred to “Fluentia,” Mei continued,45 but unfortunately, careless modern editors have over-corrected the text to “Florentia.”46 Of those ancient authors who seem to refer to a city Florentia in its modern location, then, Mei dispensed with several by alleging errors on the part of the author; he removed a few more by invoking the corruption of the Latin language notorious in later antiquity; and he did away with others by criticizing their modern editors. Since, therefore, there is no authority to determine the matter definitively, concluded Mei, one must proceed with care.47 Mei then took the remaining sources along with collateral information from other texts, and proceeded to produce a narrative of Florence’s history that seemed to him to have the proper verisimilitude. Borghini went to work with a detailed response. He eliminated some of Mei’s lists of cities on the grounds that they had not been intended by their authors as complete lists of Tuscan cities; therefore the lack of one name or another indicated nothing. To the matter of Pliny and the related example of Florus’s Epitome, with their references to “Fluentini” or “Fluentia,” Borghini devoted much more attention and energy; he continued to develop his argument in his discourse, “Dell’origine di Firenze.”48 We might suggest, he noted there, that in this passage Pliny was using loosely a regional name for a group of people; Poliziano had already raised that possibility. Yet that would suggest Pliny was imprecise; in the middle of listing cities by name he shifted for reasons unknown to general names of peoples. Borghini proclaims himself loath to attribute such imprecision to Pliny. “Fluentini” appears only three places: in this passage of Pliny, in Florus, and in the alabaster inscription in Viterbo ascribed to Desiderius. Thus Borghini casts this question mainly as a textual problem, a particularly thorny matter of accumulated errors that needed careful correction. Both Borghini and Mei saw themselves, with Vettori, as successors to Poliziano’s textual criticism; Borghini invoked that tradition accordingly. Poliziano, he observes, had suggested that in a case of such variants Florence, BNC II.x.64, 9r–v. “Possis singulorum hominum ferre poenas: municipia Italiae splendidissima sub hasta venierunt, Spoletium, Interamnium, Praeneste, Florentia.” Lucius Annaeus Florus, Epitome 2.9.27. 46 BNC II.x.64, 11r. 47 BNC II.x.64, 13v. 48 Vincenzio Borghini, “Dell’origine di Firenze,” Borghini, Discorsi, 1.1–206. 44 45

The Dispute: The Early History of Florence

one should seek a clearer test case elsewhere in the text. Borghini finds one in Book Fourteen of the Natural History, where Pliny discusses types of grapes. There Pliny mentions some that grow well in Florentia and Aretio.49 In this passage it is clear that Florentia is the name of a city, as it is listed with the city of Aretio (Arezzo); thus the earlier reference to “Fluentini” may be considered an error. Its cause could be scribal, a simple error in the transmission of the manuscript; or it might be that Pliny himself, in assembling for his text information collected by others, included the erroneous information without noticing it; or he himself might simply have miswritten.50 This error had found its way early into printed editions of Pliny, and from there it was perpetuated in many subsequent editions. Borghini was more dismissive of the Florus passage. The term in question, he noted, is not found in good manuscript copies of the text, and it appears only in a single printed edition, Paris 1542.51 Whether the error was caused by simple carelessness or by a desire to bring the text into line with the printed edition of Pliny, the press deserves the blame: And what can we do if a negligent and somnolent printer, or a thought­ less and presumptuous corrector, to show they know something when they know nothing, wants to take charge of other people’s things and ruin them without thinking, or correct wrongly something that was correct?52 Pliny, Historia naturale, 14.3. Early editions are consistent here in printing “Florentia” (or in the case of Landino, “Firenze”). 50 In the letters themselves Borghini tended to be less charitable, alluding at one point to an old saying, “Pliny bugiardo.” BNC Filze Rinuccini 25.14, 56r. Borghini, letter to Mei, June 29, 1566. Borghini, Carteggio artistico inedito, 206. Mei responded a week later, arguing that he neither idolized Pliny as an infallible authority nor regarded him as a liar, but as a learned man: “Circa il caso di Plinio, mi vo riserbare a quest’altra lettera; solo per ora voglio, che Vostra Riverenza sappia, che io non l’ho nè per gran Filosofo, nè per eccellente Matematico, e quello, che le parrà più strano, nè per Veritiere, nè per bugiardo, nè anche (ma questo si resti tra me, e lei) per giudizioso, e prudente nello scrivere, ma bensì per uomo di grandissima notizia, ed erudizione, e diligentissimo.” Mei, letter to Borghini, July 6, 1566, Prose fiorentine, 4.2.38. 51 Lucius Annaeus Florus, De gestis Romanorvm libri qvatvor repurgati, una cum adnotationibus Ioan. Camertis (Paris: Wechel, 1542). 52 “E che possiamo noi fare, se uno Stampatore negligente e sonnacchioso, o un correttore inconsiderato, e presuntuoso, per mostrare di sapere assai, quando e’ non sa nulla, vuol fare il padrone delle cose d’altri, e guastare temerariamente quel che e’ non intende, o migliorare scioccamente quel che sta bene?” Borghini, Discorsi, 1.352. 49

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He then presented a long list of references that attested to the use of “Florentia,” beginning with inscriptions (mainly Roman and funerary), their dates, the locations of their discovery, and their current locations. Then followed references in ecclesiastical and legal sources, beginning with the fourth century, including the Theodosian Code, Paulinus’s Life of St. Ambrose, and a papal reference in 680 to a Bishop Reparato of Florence, which showed that the diocese existed at a time when the city, according to Mei, supposedly did not. He rejected as farfetched the suggestion that the name of a Roman city might have changed in the brief span of time that separated Octavian and Tacitus. So too he labeled as pure speculation the claim that there had been a corruption of language during these years; Mei had offered it without linguistic or other corroboration. Mei then conceded that he had relied upon the inferior edition of Florus, and acknowledged that it was not certain whether Florus was referring to “Florentia” in Etruria or some other city elsewhere with a similar name.53 The case of Ptolemy’s Geography was more complicated. Mei, ever the textual scholar, identified what seemed the best version of Ptolemy’s text and drew conclusions accordingly. Most of the work consists of lists of latitudes and longitudes for a large number of places in the ancient world. Mei noted that in early exemplars of the Geography that seemed likely to be best texts, the numbers given for Florence and Fiesole suggest that they were separated by a distance several times greater than is now the case. They give the location as 43º north for both; for Florence (from Ptolemy’s zero point near the Canary Islands) 33º 50 min. east, Fiesole 34º 20 min.54 This reading supported his claim about the alternate location of the original city. Ptolemy’s text had been in print in Latin editions since the 1470s and in Erasmus’s Greek edition since 1533; many manuscript copies remained in use as well. Florentines had long used it, in manuscript and in print, as a practical handbook for surveyors and others. Accordingly, users had often felt free to update and correct the numbers; therefore they vary from one version or manuscript to the next. In this case, however, Mei wanted it as evidence for the locations of ancient places, so he wanted a text that offered the original figures. Hence he criticized these accumulated corrections as conjectural and injurious to a proper reading of the original text, and indeed they have long bedeviled its editors. Mei, letter to Borghini, February 15, 1566, Prose fiorentine, 4.2.41. Florence, BNC Magl. XXV.390, 10r. In his treatise, Mei does acknowledge the existence of scribal errors in some copies; see Florence, BNC II.x.64, 18v.

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Some of Borghini’s responses did address textual issues, but he moved quickly into the practice of surveying. First was the original practice; he questioned Ptolemy’s geographic accuracy in general. Ptolemy had not visited every region himself, he argued, but relied on the help of others; some of that help had been inaccurate. Those inaccuracies stemmed from many causes: human weakness; a failure on the part of the Roman surveyors to see details properly due to bad eyesight or bad weather; or the difficulty of the task itself, taking exact fixes of distances with accuracy. Other ancient writers had acknowledged that Ptolemy’s work was full of such errors.55 Borghini then turned to the modern practice of surveying. He seems to have consulted here with his colleague Egnazio Danti (1536–1586),56 who had been at work composing the maps of Tuscany, following Ptolemy, that were painted in the Guardaroba on the second story of the Palazzo Vecchio. It can be difficult even now, Borghini told Mei, to get an exact fix of distances in the region; he gave as an example the difficulty of standing at a good location, Monte S. Giuliano, to get the precise distance between Pistoia and Livorno. Yet no one disputes the real location of Livorno as a result of that difficulty.57 He concluded that Ptolemy’s figures could have no bearing on the matter. Mei eventually conceded this point as well; still, he remained reluctant to abandon his two-site theory. Borghini’s greater interest and ability in going outside texts and their production to argue about their contents – in this case, by turning to recent efforts at surveying and mapping the same geographic region – stood him in good stead. Yet the physical traces of ancient Florentia in the modern city might seem to make such arguments irrelevant. In addition to other survivals were the outlines of the Roman streets and walls, as followed by the wedding procession at Cosimo’s own insistence.58 Nonetheless, Mei had noted in his treatise that there was no textual evidence to support any of those claims. Without it, he argued, there was no way to know for certain the original functions of such remains. Even if a given set of ruins that seemed to be the foundations of buildings really were such foundations and really dated from antiquity, they might have been part of a completely different kind of building. They

The arguments in the Discorso appear in several copies and drafts of the letters and their revisions in Borghini’s notebooks and papers; in this case Florence, BNC Filze Rinuccini 25, 14, 1r. 56 Scorza, “Borghini and the Florentine Academies,” 142. 57 Florence, BNC Filze Rinuccini 25.14, 2r. 58 Starn and Partridge, Arts of Power, 169. 55

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may not have been urban structures at all, but rather the ancient villas that Villani said had occupied the Arno valley, the Villas Camarti and Arnina. Further, Mei continued, though there were no ruins at Signa, that meant nothing given the ravages of time; the original buildings had been merely of provincial construction, so their failure to survive was not so surprising. In any case, the barbarians may have well have tried to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies by obliterating all traces of the old city.59 Borghini turned to other sources of evidence. He made up for the lack of textual sources with another medium, inscriptions. Locally found inscriptions suggested strongly that the city’s location had remained constant. He also employed a very different sort of evidence and argument, comparative data. He summarized the information known in general about Roman provincial and colonial cities in order to describe what was typical, providing details about other such cities for which fuller information was available. Then he compared that to the incomplete evidence found in Florence. One example turned on the place name “Campidoglio” to refer to city centers on the model of Rome. The name was still in use in the part of Florence that Borghini, like modern scholars, believed to have been the relevant region of the ancient forum, such as the name of the church of Santa Maria in Campidoglio. Mei had based his own suggestions about local place names, their history, and their meaning on broad and general similarities of words; they are reminiscent of those made earlier by Giambullari. Villani had named two villas, Camarti and Arnina; the former name alluded, Mei argued, to the temple of Mars in the area of the present Baptistery. That suggests that the Villa Camarti would have included the property where the Baptistery now stands. “Arnina” may have developed from the Greek name for Mars (Ares), since Greeks had moved into the regions at several points in time. Or it may have acquired its name through its proximity to the Arno. That villa, according to Mei, may have been located near the present Santa Croce and Piazza dei Peruzzi, where there seemed to be the ruins of a theater or amphitheater.60 When confronted later with the existence of a place name as obviously urban and Roman as “campidoglio” near what he had asserted had been the grounds of the rural Villa Camarti, Mei returned once again to Villani and others. Villani had mentioned ancient markets near the Arno; perhaps the site had been used as a market for Florence, BNC II.x.64, 8r–v. Florence, BNC II.x.64, 24r–v.

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oil (campi d’olio). To find evidence for such place names he turned to Venice, where there was a church called Santa Maria in Campo; there “campo” was used to denote spaces outside a church.61 Borghini dismissed Mei’s claims about place names as farfetched, frivolous, and lacking in evidence. He then put forward his own findings based on comparative evidence. He identified some major ancient buildings and their roles in the city of Rome itself at various points in time, described the degree to which similar buildings were both constructed in colonial cities and named after the Roman originals, and then identified Florentine place names that suggest, even in the absence of the original buildings, that a similar development had taken place there, including the Campidoglio.62 Eventually, Mei acknowledged that Borghini had been correct, that the ancient and modern sites of the city were the same.63 Still, he claimed that what convinced him was not Borghini’s detailed and comparative discussion of place names, architectural types, or even of locally found inscriptions with references to Florence. Rather, it was the connection between an existing building and a text, the type of evidence he had sought all along. Borghini had managed to persuade him that the church of San Lorenzo was indeed the Ambrosian basilica described by Paulinus in his Life of St. Ambrose. Once he accepted that argument, Mei was willing to let pass the claims about Ptolemy as well as those long discussions about the nature of Roman colonial cities, without – as he said – needing to go through them point by point. All along the way Mei remained a textual scholar, resisting the use of physical evidence unless it could clearly be matched with a text that referred to the artifact in question. “I will always be of the opinion,” he noted, “that one can build a foundation much more on the witness of writers than on any other trace that remains without it, because in matters of antiquity one cannot confirm things with a more certain argument.”64 He Mei, letter to Borghini, January 17, 1567, Prose fiorentine, 4.2.79. Not far from the church in question and near the palace of the archbishop, there is a spot referred to as “Piazza dell’olio.” Whether it bore this name in the mid-sixteenth century is unclear. 62 Borghini, Discorsi, 1.181–89. 63 Mei, letter to Borghini, October 1566, Prose fiorentine, 4.2.60–61. 64 “… ed io sarò sempre d’opinione, che si debba far fondamento vieppiù sopra il testimonio degli Scrittori, che sopra qualunque altro vestigio, che apparisca senza questo; perchè ne’ casi dell’antichità non si possono confermar le cose con più certo argomento.” Mei, letter to Borghini, Sabato dell’Ulivo 1566, ibid., 50. 61

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continued, “ … because there are buildings everywhere, and you cannot prove with their traces any more, if they are not there, than where they were and perhaps that there might have been buildings there built like this or that.” A textual witness makes all the difference; once it is present, the physical evidence that Mei would not allow on its own might be added to it to strengthen it further. “ … Certainly it is true that when one has a witness in one’s favor, all the signs that one adds to that, even if they lack certainty, make that authority stronger and perhaps impregnable.”65 Mei’s long residence in Rome, with its medieval Mirabilia literature that had developed notoriously fanciful interpretations of relics and ruins, may make his reticence more understandable. In fact, Mei did advance the occasional argument on the basis of physical evidence, as when he disagreed with the traditional claim that the Baptistery had been built as a Roman temple to Mars, as it appears in Vasari’s painting. Here Mei argued that the “architecture” suggested otherwise; the columns were mismatched because they had been brought in from other buildings, which implied later construction.66 In this case, however, he cited the authority of unnamed experts on the subject; he preceded it with remarks about the poor and postclassical quality of the Latin in inscriptions on the building, also as a sign that it must be later construction. In general, Mei tried to avoid such issues altogether. Even here this evidence merely corroborated for him the text of the Desiderius inscription that announced that the city had just been rebuilt; therefore one might expect major buildings to be no older than the era of Desiderius (d. ca. 786). Mei referred to the Desiderius inscription – generally referred to as his decree, the Decretum Desiderii – repeatedly throughout his little book and his letters. The piece is still on display in Viterbo’s Museo Civico and identified as one of the famous forgeries of Annius of Viterbo. It had apparently been produced about 1492–1493, shortly before Annius claimed to have found it in the countryside.67 It consists of part of a circular piece of alabaster (broken into fragments) upon which the lengthy “… perchè degli edifizi ne son per tutto e non si può convincer con i vestigi loro altro, se non che, dove essi sono, è forza, che vi sia stato de’così fatti edifizi …. È ben vero, che quando s’ha il testimonio in suo favore, tutti i segni, che vi s’aggiungono, ancorchè non abbiano certezza alcuna, fanno gagliarda, e quasi inespugnabile quella autorità.” Ibid., 50. 66 Mei, letter to Borghini, October 1566, ibid., 67. 67 On the Desiderius inscription, see esp. Weiss, “Unknown Epigraphic Tract.” 65

The Dispute: The Early History of Florence

edict is inscribed. In it, Desiderius proclaims his efforts to rebuild Tuscany, including permits for the minting of money and the reconstruction of walls and cities, including Florence. The Latin was rough. The tone was oddly defensive in places: “we are not the destroyers of Tuscany,” asserts Desiderius, “of which Pope Hadrian accuses us to the Gauls; rather, the Lombards have built a long list of cities for the Tuscans from their foundations.”68 Mei had access in Rome to many manuscript copies of the transcribed inscription made both before and after the publication of the Antiquitates, as well as the much-reprinted book itself. His interest lay in the text of the inscription. First in importance was the content; it proclaimed that Florence was a city of eighth-century origins. Nearly as important was its value in supporting and reinforcing his readings of the contested ancient texts, for it corroborated those that used Fluentia or Fluentini. To modern readers it may exemplify how difficult it was to slay the hydra of the Antiquitates; for even though no one in the Accademia Fiorentina was advocating any longer Annius’s claims about the Etruscans, this case involved the postclassical world and an actual, physical artifact. Borghini nonetheless recognized the piece as fraudulent. He attacked it first in his letters to Mei, and in still greater detail in his Discorsi, both in the lengthy “Dell’origine di Firenze” and the briefer “Se Firenze fu spianata da Attila e riedificata da Carlo Magno.” He cited other such doubters, among them Melchior Cano, Gherard Mercator, and Onofrio Panvinio (whom he had consulted), to add to his own authority. Both the artifact itself and the text it carried, he argued, were fatally flawed. His assault on the text is somewhat reminiscent of Lorenzo Valla, as Woodhouse has pointed out, in that Borghini identifies terms and usage as anachronistic. One such example is use of “Gallos” to refer to the Franks. Borghini observed that the labels “Gauls” and “Gallia” had persisted in late antiquity. Yet there is no evidence to suggest that the Franks themselves had somehow lost their own name and taken up that of the earlier Gauls when referring to themselves, or that they had ever referred to their own king as King of the Gauls. Rather, they used the terms “Franks” and “Reges Francorum.” Nor had the Lombards in the former Cisalpine Gaul ever identified themselves this way. Thus Desiderius would not have used the term; nor would he even have recognized it as a reference to the Franks. “Nos enim non sumus Tusciae destructores, ut nos apud Gallos accusat Hadrianus Papa Nam in Tuscia edificavimus a fundamentis vobis quidem …” ibid., 113.

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Desiderius, noted Borghini, did in fact have good reason to have the Franks, and in particular the King of the Franks – the new Carolingian line – constantly on his mind. But to have called him a Gaul, he continued, would be like our calling the Grand Turk the Grand Greek. Such archaisms were unknown in common usage before around 1400, with the exception of Dante and a few others. Thus this term suggests that the text of the inscription is modern, and further, that its author did not have much historical knowledge.69 Other arguments dealt with the inscription as an object, a realm in which he was much more confident than Mei. The form of the letters themselves is completely wrong for the supposed era, he began, citing Panvinio.70 His own studies allowed him to speak about typical features of materials and content. The inscription is carved in alabaster, which suggests inauthenticity. The stone’s softness would make it susceptible to excessive wear. A legible carving in alabaster would likely not be as old as this one claims to be; or conversely, one that old would be so worn that it could not be read. Because of its softness, alabaster was seldom the stone of choice for inscriptions. And in any case, such edicts were not usually inscribed in stone of any sort, whether among the Romans or later, especially those that related to a particular occasion as in the case of this one. When Borghini turned to the edict’s long list of the places improved or rebuilt by the Lombards he employed a combination of methods.71 The inscription said that Desiderius founded the town of Bagnoreggio by uniting places called Roda and Civita. Here Borghini called upon his studies of regional ecclesiastical records and similar sources; the Registrum epistolarum of St. Gregory shows Bagnoreggio already in existence some 150 years earlier. The inscription stated further that a Fiesolan “Oppidum Munionis” had been established from dispersed peoples labeled “Ariniani” and “Fluentini.” Borghini turned to his own close familiarity with the region as well as with its surviving documentation. He knew of nothing near Fiesole that could ever have been called Oppidum (or Castello) Munionis; nor could he identify any location on the little stream of the Mugnone where there could ever have been a castle large enough to hold the population of two towns. Nor did any surviving document, public or private, include any reference to such a place. Also Borghini, “Se Firenze fu spianata,” Borghini, Discorsi, 2.313–17. Ibid., 2.305. 71 Ibid., 2.307–13. 69 70

The Dispute: The Early History of Florence

on the list was Pietrasanta. Yet according to Volterrano, Pietrasanta was in fact founded much later than the supposed era of the inscription, amid fighting between Lucca and Genoa; it took its name from the Milanese gentleman who founded it. Thus it had not existed at all in Desiderius’s day. To strengthen the verisimilitude of this naming device Borghini compared it to the Florentine bridge, the Ponte Rubaconte, which had also taken its name from an individual. Ecclesiastical records show that the inscription gave the wrong locations for some towns, even placing some in the wrong diocese. In short, said Borghini, the author knew neither the era nor the region. And the reference to the supposedly displaced Florentines as “Fluentini,” to which Mei clung so dearly in helping him assess the reading of other ancient texts, he dismissed as a blatant copy of the error in the early printed editions of Pliny. Other anachronisms also marred the text; for example, the coinage mentioned was completely wrong. It shows that whoever composed it must have known very little about eighth-century money. Borghini had no trouble suggesting possible motives and authorship for the fraud. Annius might have forged the text and produced the inscription himself as well; or perhaps he had one of the many local fabricators of false antiques carve it and then make it look old. Or perhaps someone else had produced it independently and fooled Annius, taking him for an easy mark to accept as real any item that helped him to make something grand of his beloved Viterbo. Borghini was even willing to locate Annius’s frauds in a historical tradition, that of medieval writers of annals and other historical narratives. He argued that while this fabrication of stories may seem new and strange, in fact it has a venerable history. In an older and ruder age, men felt that if they did not add something to a history when they recounted it, they had really done nothing. One may take as an example the Royal French annals, a work full of fictionalized tales. It seems that such stories were once widely accepted and believed – even Villani used one about Henry II (in which he is called Henry III, supposedly killed by the order of Emperor Conrad). Or there is good Gualdrada, who according to local legend refused to sully the virtue of herself and her family by kissing the emperor when he visited the city. Her portrait might be seen in the Palazzo Vecchio, and the story had persisted despite evidence that the historical Gualdrada had led a rather mundane life. Such stories, he concluded, might be understood as a sort of poetry in prose. In this case, Mei was left with few responses. One was simply to take refuge in the proverb, “tanti uomini, tanti pareri” (there are as many

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opinions as men),72 which would seem hardly to count as a defense. For the colleagues who followed the debate, and for the later readers of the Discorsi, the affair displayed the value of Borghini’s effective mix of sources and methods in the very particular business of historical research. His ability to combine the evidence of texts and documents, inscriptions, urban design, architecture, and a breadth and depth of local knowledge, served not only to defeat Mei’s claims but also to advance significantly the state of knowledge of Tuscan and Florentine history. Conversely, Mei’s arguments demonstrated the limits of purely textual skills at addressing such questions. Mei’s abilities to historicize the study of ancient music would have a huge impact on that field; yet the formidable abilities to interpret historically the contents of ancient texts that he demonstrated in that case did not extend, in this one, to matters of paleography or epigraphy, or to a systematic study of linguistic change, let alone to antiquarian research.

The Discorsi: City and Diocese Borghini never gave up his administrative responsibilities. Nonetheless he devoted himself to scholarship insofar as he was able from this time on, going so far as to decline the opportunity to become archbishop of Pisa. Yet despite his efforts, at the end of his life in 1580 the project of composing his great work on Florence still remained unfinished; his papers, with his other possessions, passed to his nieces, in accordance with the will he had made several years earlier.73 Along with Baccio Valori, his literary executor, a committee (Deputati) worked to organize and edit his notes and drafts for publication, following his request; they appeared as two volumes of Discorsi.74 The Deputati introduced the volumes by recounting the dispute over the paintings in the Sala and Cosimo’s request to Borghini to write about the history of the city. Borghini, they continued, had planned a three-part work with the title “On the Origins and Nobility of Florence.” The first Mei, letter to Borghini, January 1567, Prose fiorentine, 69. On the fortuna of Borghini’s notebooks and other papers, see Annotazioni sopra Giovanni Villani, 18–21. For the text of the will itself, see Belloni, Vincenzio Borghini dall’erudizione alla filologia: una raccolta di testi, 99–114. 74 The committee members consisted of Francesco Bonciani, Piero del Nero, and Alessandro Rinuccini. Belloni and Drusi, Vincenzio Borghini: filologia e invenzione nella Firenze di Cosimo I, 19; Gianfranco Folena, “Borghini, Vincenzio Maria,” DBI. 72

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part was to have focused on the origins of the city; the second, on the events from the Roman era up to 1200; and the third, on the Florentine language.75 He had completed a draft of the first part, which they published in Part One along with related essays. The second part was a series of essays or treatises on particular topics that Borghini had intended to assemble into a single work. The Deputati presented them in more or less the state in which they had found them, that is, as a set of individual treatises or essays. Borghini’s third section, on language, had been too incomplete for them to edit at all, so they had not attempted to publish that section. Much of Borghini’s study of the Florentine nobility had been too fragmentary to publish either. Those that they did produce lack divisions, paragraphs, or other marks of organization. Some include illustrations based on those in Borghini’s notes. Two centuries later, Domenico Maria Manni published the Discorsi again with extensive annotations of his own; that edition was reprinted in 1808–1809. Later editors, most recently John Woodhouse, have edited some of the remaining notes and fragments. Despite their unfinished and unpolished state, these essays offered a great deal to their readers. First, they presented an enormous amount of information, carefully examined, about the city and its developments over many centuries. Further, they discussed the sources themselves. Borghini had examined city and ecclesiastical records, notarial documents, family collections, and more, weighing them against one another as well as existing narratives such as Villani when relevant. In addition, Borghini’s writings demonstrated the value of studying a number of topics often now referred to as antiquarian, including both studies of material culture as well as practices and traditions. Borghini moved well beyond the topics generally covered by historical writers to present a much more rounded picture of Florentine society. Borghini found these topics intrinsically interesting and assumed that others would as well. They held practical value in a variety of ways; the recent wedding and other events had demonstrated their importance in representations of the past in works of art. Knowledge about coinage, about administrative history, and more helped authenticate documents or objects, as in the case of the Decretum Desiderii. They also contributed to Borghini’s own developing understanding of how a new society had taken shape over time in Italian cities in general and Florence in particular. “Alla Nobilta Fiorentina,” Borghini, Discorsi, unpag.

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The political events that shaped Italy were accompanied by transitions in many other features that, together, formed its distinctly postclassical society and culture. Step by step, Borghini adapted the tools of classical scholarship to study the society of Florence and of Italy. The first volume of the Discorsi focuses mainly on the classical past, and secondarily on the transitions that unfolded from later antiquity onward. It begins with the treatise on the origins of Florence. That long work is followed by a series of shorter ones on Fiesole; on Tuscan cities; on municipia and coloniae; the Latin coloniae; and Roman dating systems. The longest discourse of the volume, “Dell’origine” still bears the marks of the polemic with Mei. It argues first that the city had retained the original name and location of its foundation, and had survived the violence of late antiquity, diminished but not destroyed. It also carries on a running attack on the Decretum Desiderii, a topic that recurs in other discorsi as well. Documentation and interpretation are important issues here. The difficulty in establishing these issues about the city’s past with certainty, Borghini argues, lies in the written records themselves; for many years of the city’s history very few records survive. This scarcity is complicated by the practices of the authors of the early surviving narrative sources. They employed in their writing a sort of mix of history and poetry; both they and their readers expected embellishment of bare fact. Thus they are not fully reliable witnesses to the events they recount. Even Villani had not been able to free himself from these problems. Careful historical scholarship had begun with Bruni.76 Borghini’s discussion of evidence begins with a thorough and critical survey of Roman textual references to the city, cast as a rebuttal to claims made by Mei and others. He turns to Tacitus’s’s Annals. Tacitus mentions (Annals 1.79) a Florentine delegation in the second year of Tiberius’s rule. It is valuable as a rare early reference to the city, also noteworthy because the text itself was a relatively recent discovery.77 He would return later to that discovery because the passage is inconsistent with the Decretum Desiderii. Borghini briefly presents background information, particularly on the era of the Social Wars, to support the verisimilitude of some Ibid., 1.9. Cornelius Tacitus, P. Cornelii Taciti libri qvinqve: noviter inventi atqve cvm reliqvis eivs operibvs editi, ed. Filippo Beroaldo (Rome: Stephanus Guilleretus, 1515); Borghini, Discorsi, 1.35.

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readings of these early sources and to reject others. The question of the city’s original location moves him from text-based issues with Ptolemy into the realm of material remains, as in his earlier correspondence with Mei. He returns to the distances between Florence and Fiesole given in Ptolemy’s Geography, figures that he considers to be in error. He raises an issue to which he returns repeatedly, the survival and discovery of ancient ruins and fragments in the region. Fiesole, he suggests, lacks the number of ruins and remains found in Florence itself. Elsewhere Borghini would identify some finds outside the town; they included the discovery of a Roman mosaic pavement at the Medici villa just below San Girolamo, as well as burial sites not far from Fiesole.78 Fiesole’s ancient theater, now such a prominent feature of the town, was buried and unknown in Borghini’s day. In this case the lack of known ruins weakens Mei’s argument still further; for even if one were to consider the possibility that Ptolemy really had given the correct distance between Florence and Fiesole, he notes, that need not suggest that it was Florence that had been relocated; it could instead be Fiesole. Borghini had continued to reflect on Mei’s earlier argument that it was difficult to identify the nature of fragmentary remains without textual evidence. Accordingly, he takes pains to discuss how one might undertake such a task responsibly. He discusses one case after another of surviving fragments and works to show that they came from a particular type of urban structure. Here he works comparatively, treating Roman practices in general, in order to contextualize the Florentine case. He identifies the kinds of structures typical of a Roman town and typical features about them; he also contrasts those features, when necessary, with the buildings of different eras. The amphitheater in particular occupies his attention. Originally built outside the Roman walls, several medieval buildings had been built later on its foundations and remains. The ruin was traditionally referred to as the “parlagio,” and it was often attributed to Carolingians or Lombards. Borghini seeks to show that it was indeed a Roman amphitheater; thus its presence would serve as evidence for the city’s original location. When identifying walls and other remains, he observes, one must consider both their quality and their use. Some sorts of uses are common to all time periods, such as defensive walls and towers. While others are particular to one era and not another. Romans built and used theaters and baths, whereas Discorsi, 1.219–20.

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later occupants of the region did not. Further, the Romans themselves only began building such theaters at a certain point in their own history. Churches, conversely, denote a later era. So if one wants to prove that a site is, say, Roman simply by the presence of walls and bridges, that is arguing too broadly; such structures are not particular to Rome, but rather are common to most eras. It would be useless to try and show that a site was built by Charlemagne by pointing to the presence of a theater, because in that era theaters were neither used nor built. And to try to claim that a site had been Roman because one finds the remains of churches is also pointless, but in the other direction chronologically.79 Borghini describes the remains of the “parlagio” and the location near Santa Croce. He consults Vitruvius’s architecture treatise, and summarizes the development of theaters and amphitheaters in ancient Rome itself and elsewhere. Its shape and location are typical of amphitheaters in regional cities. Statuary fragments that have been found nearby are typical of those placed at and near amphitheaters. Numerous buildings have been incorporated into the ruins of the “parlagio,” including the city’s prison. It too has a nickname: “Le Stinche.” That sends Borghini into a digression on place names and nicknames; in this case, the label recalls the name of the rural castle on ridges or stinche that had been strongholds of some of the jail’s early Ghibelline inhabitants.80 Such digressions fill the discorsi. They are part of the works’ charm; they also suggest how it was that Borghini as well as the Deputati had found it fiendishly difficult to organize these writings into coherent units. No written records identified the amphitheater, and local legend was incorrect. To make his case convincingly Borghini had broadened his evidentiary base by working comparatively with the known information about other Roman cities. Most of the rest of this volume of the Discorsi is filled with just such studies of regional cities. Borghini investigated the typical development, legal standing, and organization of similar towns, as well as the similarities and differences between municipia and coloniae as they were founded and developed in antiquity. Only incomplete information existed for each single town, but taken together they allowed Borghini and his readers to build up a picture of typical Roman organization and development in the region. Thus one could argue for the likelihood of an attribution for a given ruin based on a much larger collection of evidence. Ibid., 1.121–22. Ibid., 1.128.

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These ancient cities and their citizens had shared laws, customs and attitudes across Tuscany and much of Italy; they also shared building types and urban layout: For it is very true that not just our people and those within Tuscany, but the rest, scattered through the rest of Italy, had the same buildings, and they did not only have those. Because they were all living with the same laws, customs, and ways of doing things, there arose by consequence the same buildings, as happens commonly in such cases, but especially to resemble as far as possible, almost as if to render the true image of their mother Rome, for those who were daughters; and for the others, to imitate and in a way to flatter their lady.81

Thus one might expect formerly Roman cities to have ruins of similar buildings, similar streets, and more. Those references to a Campidoglio in Florence seemed more plausible knowing Toulouse had possessed one as well.82 And one might expect additional typical features such as temples located at the forum, many of which had been converted into churches in late antiquity. Borghini suggested that several architectural features visible in churches at the Mercato Vecchio, the presumed original forum, made them likely candidates for such status: Santa Maria in Campidoglio, San Pier Buonconsiglio, and Sant’Andrea.83 So too other Roman practices left evidence that supported the claim that Florence still occupied its original location. Romans placed milestones along their roads, including the Via Cassia. A number of extant places, appropriately distant in Roman miles from the city, had incorporated those milestones into their names. A notable example was the abbey referred to the Badia a Settimo.84 Other evidence is found in the inscriptions found in the area, often as part of statuary. They are significant not “Perche la cosa è verissima, ne solo la nostra, e quante ne son qui intorno per la Toscana, ma il resto, che per l’Italia erano sparse, haveano i medesimi edifizij; e gli haveano tali non solamente, perche vivendosi per tutto con le medesime leggi, costumi, e modi di fare ne nascevan consequentemente i medesimi edifizij, come si vedrà sempre in ta’ casi comunemente avvenire, ma specialmente ancora per assimiglarsi, quanto era possibile, e quasi rendere la vera imagine della lor madre Roma, queste, che eran figiuole, e l’altre per imitare, & in un certo modo adulare la donna loro.” Ibid., 1.125–26. 82 Ibid., 1.129. 83 Ibid., 1.142. 84 Ibid., 1.133–34. 81

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only for mentioning Florence (and as Florentia rather than Fluentia), but because their format is similar to inscriptions found in other cities. [Figs. 7.7, 7.8] Borghini builds a web of contextual information that helps to assess and interpret new information; it also gives a more nuanced and realistic feel to Florence as a part of Roman Tuscany. This context, he notes, changed over time as well; the administration of the region developed over the course of several centuries of Roman rule.

Fig 7.7  Vincenzio Borghini, notebook page of inscriptions. Florence, BNC II. X. 70, fol. 32v. Photo: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence.

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Fig 7.8  Inscription. Vincenzio Borghini, “Dell’origine di Firenze.” Discorsi (Florence: Giunti, 1584), 1.61. Photo: Getty Research Institute.

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Mei’s attack had involved not only ancient Florence, but also the era from the barbarian invasions up to the age of Charlemagne. As arduous as Borghini had found the task of sifting through Roman data, these centuries called for still more work due to the scarcity of traditional sources. He worked first to set a basic chronology of political events and leaders. That had the effect of removing or at least minimizing the empty historical spaces that writers had long populated with legendary or alternative figures and events. Once again, this task required him to broaden his scope beyond the city, in search of sources that mentioned Florence itself or contained useful comparative information. Some of those sources were legal in nature; they included the Lombard Laws, the Justinian Code, and Gratian’s Decretals. Others related to the Church. Ecclesiastical sources and records survived in many instances where other sources had been lost. Borghini developed some of those arguments in fragments that the Deputati assembled into the various discorsi. One such essay focused on the archdiocese itself. Church sources offered the best information for the most difficult centuries. The Deputati singled it out and dedicated it to the current archbishop, Alessandro Ottaviano de’ Medici (later, briefly, Leo XI). By this time, many dioceses had some sort of history that sought to name and discuss the long chain of archbishops. Yet Borghini did not produce a conventional account. Rather, he seems constantly to be testing what an examination of records with a focus on the archdiocese can contribute to a general understanding of Florence and its people. Borghini suggested these broad goals at the outset: We shall discuss not only the persons of the Bishops but everything that pertains to our Church generally and to its other members specifically, and in sum the whole subject of religion, which in every well instituted city but especially in ours was always highly prized and conjoined closely with civil government.85

Vestiges, and often more, of ancient religious buildings persisted into Borghini’s day; so did a number of ancient customs and ceremonies. The early bishops themselves, conversely, had left few traces. For the first centuries, even establishing their names was a challenge. Borghini complains “Ragioneremo adunque, non solo delle persone de’ Vescovi, ma d’ogni cosa, che alla Chiesa nostra generalmente, ed all’altre membra sue, specialmente appartiene, ed in somma di tutta la materia della Religione, la quale in ogni bene instituta Città, ma nella nostra precipuamente fu sempre in sommo pregio, e col governo civile nel primo grado congiunta.” Ibid., 2.337–38.

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that the surviving lists of their names are full of gaps, that narratives of their lives when they exist at all seem often built on fantasy, and that there is little information of any sort before the age of Charlemagne.86 He begins with the age of Constantine, assisted by Gregory I’s Registrum and other surviving sources, most of them available in print and related to the early centuries of the church in general. Borghini’s goals in writings about these early centuries are straightforward. First of all, he seeks simply to present all known references to Florence’s clergy, buildings, or ecclesiastical institutions. Then he can demonstrate the diocese’s uninterrupted existence throughout these years of disruption and upheaval, identify principal churches and other institutions, name and place in order bishops and others when possible, and follow the basic development of local customs and practices that distinguished the diocese. The first reference to a bishop Borghini found was simply a name on a list in the writings of Optatus, the fourth-century bishop of Milevis, who wrote about the Council called during the reign of Constantine to address the problems of Donatism. Among those who attended was Felix, bishop of Florence.87 The next known bishop was a patron of the city, St. Zenobius, some ninety years later. Zenobius had connections with the much better documented St. Ambrose, who was recorded visiting the city to consecrate the basilica of San Lorenzo. Zenobius had been interred there; later his body was translated to the cathedral in its current location, commemorated by the pillar and inscription that remains there. This section fleshes out considerably the information that Mei had already found convincing. It is not clear, Borghini notes, whether the church of San Lorenzo had been an actual Roman basilica that was converted to a church after the legislation of Theodosius, or whether it had been built as a church from the first.88 Zenobius was followed by an Andrea, and the thread of succession is lost again; the city fell to the Goths in 470 and the Lombards in 568. The Goths, Borghini notes, were not known for hostility to church officials so they had likely left the bishops unmolested. The Lombard situation was less clear, but during these transition years a few references could be found. Pope Pelagius (555–580) mentioned the bishop of Florence, a reference preserved by Gratian in Dist. 34 of the Decretals. At the general council held in 676 a Reparatus, bishop of Florence is noted. Borghini finds a reference to a Bishop Speciosus in 722; around this time Ibid., 2.346. Ibid., 2.360. 88 Ibid., 2.382. 86 87

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the church San Piero in Ciel d’Oro was built, reminiscent of the Lombard church of that name in Pavia.89 At several points he digresses on source problems, both in quantity and reliability. One of the sources for this era as for others was, of course, Villani. Villani was vulnerable to the common weakness in reporting dubious material but seems, he says, to have refrained from actually manufacturing new fictions himself.90 In his search for any information about the early centuries, Borghini widens his net. At one point he notes that a reference to a bishop in some church sources might be oblique; he might be called the bishop “of San Giovanni” in the way Venice might be labeled “of San Marco” or Milan “of Saint Ambrose.”91 Such references do more than simply help identify a bishop; they also indicate the existence (and of course the prominence) of the church. “Of San Giovanni” supports the claim that the city really had been in the same location all along, and that the Baptistery had been a prominent urban feature. He also turns to descriptions of rituals, on the principle that they tend to retain earlier practices. One such account was especially useful because it involved a dispute about their incorrect performance. A source from 1286 documented difficulties encountered by the new bishop when he tried to alter some aspects of the standard ceremonies when he took office. For the sake of his canons he had wished to celebrate mass first in Santa Reparata, but other clerics opposed him; they invoked the tradition that San Giovanni was the first location where the new bishop celebrated mass. This tradition too suggested the long-term importance of the baptistery, even though it had never actually served as the cathedral.92 That ceremony honored St. Zenobius as well. According to ancient custom the bishop would remove his shoes at San Piero and process on foot, past long festive banners hanging in the street; he paused at the site of a miracle, then proceeded to Santa Reparata. Once there he was to celebrate mass at the altar of St. Zenobius before proceeding to the high altar.93 In the old church itself, Zenobius had a place of importance as well as the titular St. Reparata. The church had been constructed like a number of other churches built at about the same time, notes Borghini, with Ibid., 2.398–99. See also 1.155. Ibid., 2.359. 91 Ibid., 2.350. 92 Ibid., 2.347–48. 93 Ibid., 2.351–52. 89

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a raised presbytery over a crypt. Borghini noted that the procession still took place in his own day, though the bishop is shod and on horseback. The careful search of records also demolished some local myths, including a claim that the cathedral had once been called San Salvatore.94 As he works through these sources and fragmentary references, Borghini assembles a narrative of leaders and their relationships. Lombard rulers, popes, Byzantine emperors, and political rivalries gradually take shape so that his points of data acquire some amount of context. Central to any history of a diocese are the bishops themselves, and Borghini does his best to assemble as complete and continuous a list as possible. Yet while this chain of names punctuates the work repeatedly, he remains true to his broader goal. Tuscany in general and Florence in particular, he demonstrates, featured significantly in the long-term power politics of papacy and empire over many centuries. These larger developments played out within the archdiocese in terms of local monastic foundations, bequests, schisms and disputes, and more. The overall contour of this narrative recalls that of the Lives of the Artists, though with significantly greater nuance and development. Here the low point is the era of Lombard rule; the Carolingians returned order and liberty to the city. The late-Carolingian disorders in turn were soon followed by Ottonian era support for church lands and buildings as well as clergy; these developments produced evidence of growth and expansion by the year 1000. The foundation in 978 of the Badia, Borghini’s home institution, by Willa, the Marchioness of Tuscany, serves as an early example. The era was marked by the reforms of Gregory VII and, a century later, the cities’ victory over Frederick I. The tumultuous events during and after the life of Frederick II brought a new set of issues and concerns. The number and quality of sources increased rapidly during these centuries. At this point Borghini’s attention moves well outside the bounds of a typical diocesan history to include regional politics, social organization, and family structures. Although he would continue to use narrative histories, notably Villani, he begins to shift heavily to documentary sources. He refers often to “gli Archivi,” particularly the diocese’s own records. In some cases he notes information that is lacking. When he assembles a list of the churches known to exist in the eleventh century, he points out that the earliest such general description in the archives themselves dates from Ibid., 2.356.

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much later, to 1373.95 Borghini had recourse to diocesan, city, and private collections. By the fourteenth century some major families had assembled and preserved collections of family-related documents that might go back several centuries. Borghini used one such collection, a volume assembled in 1321 by the Visdomini and della Tosa families, “ancient guardians and defenders of the bishopric.”96 That collection referred to events as early as the Carolingian era. Though some of these documents had been badly copied, they recorded grants of lands and goods to the church, among other legal transactions. Elsewhere he praises the value of contracts for the study of families and institutions. Unlike private diaries or other sources, they have signs that help authenticate them, making them difficult to forge.97 The very existence of such documentation in the hands of private families serves him as evidence of the close connections between ecclesiastical powers and Florence’s great families. The improved documentation allows him to digress on a range of topics. Borghini wrote long passages on the development of residential canons for the Duomo and other churches; the use of basilica form in church construction; the ebb and flow of families associated with one or another church; reforms of canonical life and custom. Some of these seem to have been small research essays developed independently. The rambling nature of this reporting would surely have improved had Borghini survived to edit it. The Deputati simply offered it to the printers as continuous, undivided text without topical headings or other distinctions, a format that adds to the difficulty in following his transitions from one subject to the next. Yet it is clear that Borghini enjoys the details and particulars of local culture for their own sake, as well as for their contributions to larger arguments about the city and its people. At one point he comments: It may perhaps appear to some that I digress too much on minute and detailed things, but among so many tasks undertaken for others I concede to myself the small satisfaction of recalling and as far as I am able, representing to others who may take pleasure in it the customs and manners of life of one era and another; and besides no one, I believe, will be forced to read more than they want to.98 97 98 95

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Ibid., 2.413. Ibid., 2.403. Storia della nobiltà, 7. “Forse parrà ad alcuno, ch’io troppo in cose particulari e minute mi allarghi, ma fra tante fatiche prese per altri, mi si conceda questa mia piccola satisfazione, di

The Discorsi: City and Diocese

Elsewhere he notes that he has tended to offer multiple examples of a given practice, even when it seems one would suffice. This is because, he says, his readers will encounter, not just in his text but elsewhere, many literary, historical, or legal references to past events. Because the past phenomena to which they refer are so different from the way things are now, the reader may fail to understand the reference; hence the value of many examples. The eleventh century was an era of rapid expansion, as seen in the long list of eleventh-century churches. His records reveal the many ways that church business intersected with that of powerful families. Borghini describes the founding of new churches and monasteries, the building of castelli on church lands, the involvement of political leaders in the renovation of churches, and more. In Fiesole a new cathedral was built and the old one turned into a monastery; Borghini associated these developments with the construction of San Miniato al Monte in Florence. Borghini also discusses the features of these new buildings. Fiesole’s new cathedral had a raised presbytery over an oratory, or crypt with the saint’s tomb, as did Saint Reparata and San Miniato. Borghini returned to this design several times both for the architectural style and for the importance it implies for the customary observance of saints. Another common feature was a tramezzo or choir screen that divided the nave, separating a lay area from the choir and altar.99 Borghini traced this construction back to early Christian practices when there were many unbaptized lay people, who were often separated from the baptized. This custom had lain far in the past even when these Florentine churches had been built. The tramezzi have recently been removed from a number of churches in the city, he observes, allowing now for an unimpeded view of the nave. Indeed, Borghini and Vasari had been involved in such remodeling projects in Florence in the wake of the Council of Trent, at nearly the same time they were organizing the ducal wedding. These references remind readers that this careful study of custom and observance did more than contribute to the reader’s understanding of the history of art and architecture. It also found practical application in the liturgical reforms of Borghini’s own day.100 ricordarmi, e per quanto me lece, rappresentare agli altri, a cui fusse in piacere, l’usanze, i costumi, e le maniere della vita de’ passati tempo per tempo; e tanto più, quanto nessuno, ch’io creda sarà forzato a leggerlo più, che si voglia.” Discorsi, 2.424–25. 99 Ibid., 2.348. 100 Ibid., 2.437–41.

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The records of donations offered a window into the complicated relationships between families and the diocese. Its rapid growth, he noted, might involve the actual purchase of land or goods. Yet much more came from donations. An increase in targeted donations was very visible in the sources; people might give money specifically for candles, or for poor relief, or some other particular function, in addition to construction or renovation. One such donative focus was the residence for travelers or visitors, known variously as ospitale, foresteria, or ospice.101 These residences had become largely redundant in Florence itself and had mostly disappeared without a trace by Borghini’s day, but had persisted longer in the countryside. Borghini recounted their development in late antiquity and the use of a formata, or letter of recommendation, for access. So too, the bishopric might be given a castle, or a share in a castle. Borghini did not need to tell his readers about the custom of partible inheritance, which led to many individuals owning a share in a larger family property. He did note, however, that shared possession of castles was very common; one or more of those shares could be the substance of a donation to the diocese, such that major families might hold some of the other shares in the same castle.102 These castles and their lands had been sites of considerable action into the thirteenth century; the families called themselves nobles, cattani, or gentlemen, and they dominated the countryside, especially in the twelfth century.103 Thus the close connections between some families and the Church had to do especially with local power. Indeed, some apparent donations were actually fictive, and the family retained control in fact. These nobles were quarrelsome and violent in their assertions of power and dominance. The city’s government scarcely reached beyond the walls. After the death of Henry VI (d. 1197, father of Frederick II) both the city and the church enjoyed a more peaceful respite, and the city’s government began to develop: And the authority of the government, leaving little by little the hands of the few, broadened into the many, and the public began to assert itself; the greatest reason was that the nobility was divided and began to destroy itself.104 Ibid., 2.437. Ibid., 2.479. 103 Ibid., 2.507. 104 “… e l’autorità del governo, uscendo apoco apoco delle mani di pochi, si allargava in molti, & il pubblico cominciava a pigliar vigore: dandone massimamante cagione, che si era la nobiltà divisa, e cominciata fra se stessa a distruggersi …” ibid., 2. 511. 101

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At this point, during the contested rule of Otto IV and Phillip of Swabia in the early thirteenth century, the powerful families began to refer to themselves as “grandi,” or in Latin as magnates and potentes. The church in Florence assisted the growth of government by supporting the gradual expansion of law in the city, helping to loosen the grip on power of the old families. At this time the office of podestà appeared, improving the impartial administration of justice.105 Noble families were clearly important to the city’s past, and Borghini planned to devote a separate essay to the subject. Further, many of the custom and practices of these years related to elites were quite unfamiliar to his Florentine readers, and he notes that they called for some explanation as well. Borghini paused for a digression on matters that would otherwise seem far removed from diocesan history: lords, lordship, and those who tilled the land. This set of social relationships was perhaps less alien to Florentines’ modern experience than Borghini implies; Cosimo established five fiefs in Tuscan regions during his administration, and more existed across rural Tuscany.106 Yet not only were they far from the everyday world of most Florentines, but they differed significantly from the practices of several centuries earlier. Not surprisingly given his humanistic training, Borghini begins his discussion of rural dependency by examining crucial terms such as vassal and serf: And because we have touched on some matters and we need to touch on many others below, it is good to discuss this part a bit better, because these words are found often: vassalli, fedeli, huomini, coloni, and other similar ones, that are not today in use, or not in that way, and if the words have remained, the act is gone and forgotten …107

Borghini explains that such persons were servile; they worked the land and went along with it in contracts, as did flocks, tools, and more, and indeed can be called “living tools.” In Latin contracts the term is coloni; Borghini thus pauses to discuss the Roman practice. Lombard habits were

Ibid., 2.513–15. Elena Fasano Guarini, Lo Stato mediceo di Cosimo I, Archivio dell’Atlante storico italiano dell’età moderna, quaderno 1 (Florence: Sansoni, 1973), 63–72. 107 “E perche noi habbiam tocco alcune cose; e ne habbiamo a toccare ancora molte altre de’sottoposti, è bene di chiarare un poco meglio questa parte, perche trovandosi spesso queste voci di vassali, e di fedeli, de d’huomini, e di Coloni, e d’altre tali, che non sono oggi in uso: o non sono in quel modo, e se le voci di son rimase, è spento, e dimenticato il fatto …” Borghini, Discorsi, 2.515. 105

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similar; they used the terms aldi or aldioni, and distinguished various levels, as can be seen in the varied levels of recompense for their deaths in the Lombard Laws.108 But centuries later these terms also appear in contracts, as in a donation to San Miniato from 1026 and countless other examples. There is no modern equivalent, he continues; lavoratore refers to a “much more human” condition. The various terms seem to be used almost interchangeably. Other sorts of terms appear as well, such as: ligio (liege) and omaggio (homage). Borghini admits he cannot entirely resolve all the distinctions, nor the exact meaning and usage in this context, in the words used to modify or describe a huomo.109 The term fedele suggests the swearing of an oath, and some legal experts have argued that it refers to a relationship with a prince; yet the documents show many such ties among much lesser gentlemen. These men paid annually to enjoy goods, and he suggests this may be what legal experts refer to as feudo.110 The sale of coloni or other similar servile people along with the sale of land was banned, he also notes, in a Florentine law of 1289.111 Such terms appear in contracts until around 1300; he quotes one from 1217 as an example. These noble families and their dependents were prominent in both city and countryside; the commune, as it developed, needed to limit their power and to support those without it. Borghini continues to discuss the contracts and the bishops of the thirteenth century. His careful parsing of these relationships of lordship and vassalage, serfdom and dependence, are interesting in and of themselves. Just as interesting, perhaps, is his assumption that these customs and practices, fundamental as they were to rural medieval society, were so foreign to his readers that they required this level of definition and discussion. This discussion contributes to Borghini’s argument, made more fully elsewhere, that the events of the thirteenth century reshaped the city, the countryside, and the people in major ways. Key moments were the establishment of the primo popolo government at midcentury and the establishment of priors and the Ordinances of Justice in the century’s later decades. Important changes and developments also marked the centuries that followed, but it is clear that the city of Dante’s day had made important transitions from the preceding years. This level of detail, thoughtful Ibid., 2.517. Ibid., 2.519–20. 110 Ibid., 2.521. 111 Ibid., 2.523. 108

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analysis, and leisurely digression had its cost; the work remained unfinished. The last ten pages of published text race from the late thirteenth century to the era of Duke Alessandro. The discorso comes to an abrupt conclusion, another reminder that the Deputati had been obliged to edit these unfinished writings as best they could.

Urban Culture: Money and Elites Borghini continued his focus on the thirteenth century as the formative era of Florence and the region. In both his studies of coinage and of nobility, he took his topic in new directions. The starting point of “Della moneta fiorentina” was the first minting of the gold florin in 1252. Ancient coins had long been objects of collection and study for humanistic scholars and rulers alike. Borghini corresponded with Antonio Agustin, Onofrio Panvinio, and others about coins, including authentication and counterfeiting as well as metals, inscriptions, and more. In this case, however, Borghini was not interested in ancient coinage but those struck from the end of antiquity onwards. The collections of Borghini and others seem to have included postclassical coins; he refers several times to coins in his own possession as well as coins of others that he has seen.112 The florin had been replaced by the scudo during Duke Alessandro’s rule, so it had become a historical coin at this point.113 Its basic appearance had remained stable during its many years of production, a lily on one side and a standing John the Baptist on the other, though smaller secondary emblems had appeared on it as well. Like many of Borghini’s investigations, this essay on coinage has more than one goal. The first is to provide information; in this case, he explores a range of topics that assist in identifying, explaining, and dating the various features of the gold florin and other Florentine coins as physical objects and as means of exchange. Yet he also uses that knowledge to address broader questions about Florentine society and its development. He begins with the observation that the city seems never to have obtained any formal license, imperial or otherwise, to coin its own money. The simple response to this apparent difficulty was that in 1252, the disorderly years following the death of Frederick II, there was a need for coinage but Ibid. for example, 2.131. Carlo M. Cipolla, Money in Sixteenth-Century Florence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), chapter 1.

112 113

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no one to ask for permission.114 The fuller response took Borghini from antiquity to the rise of communes and after, to questions of law and commerce, modern implications about legal status, and symbolic representations of rulers and power. Eventually he showed that apparently Florence had always held such authority, so it had never sought permission. The topics spin out from that starting point in this clearly unfinished draft, which lacks transitions and a genuine conclusion. They show nonetheless a set of interests shared across the Discorsi. One is the development and decline of Roman traditions and the emergence of Italian ones. Another is the shared use of systems and symbols. In this case, not only are coins themselves shared and exchanged, but they also share conventions; both law and custom contribute to the particulars of their size, material, and appearance. Those conventions call for several digressions, such as one on the development, use, and variations in Roman numerals, because of their use on coins. He also discusses the kinds of metals used; units, weights, and measures; and textual references to money and minting. Knowledge about coinage, he observes, offers a means to date or authenticate dubious sources; the notorious Decretum Desiderii receives another drubbing here for its references to coins and monetary units that were not actually in use in the age of Desiderius.115 The images found on coins typically represent in some way the political entity that authorized their production. Roman coins had depicted emperors. Lucca produced its earliest coins with permission from Otto I, and his sign appears on that coin.116 The papal symbols on the coins of Ferrara show that its license to mint had come from the papacy.117 Perhaps one might therefore expect to see that as one regime succeeded the next in a region, they would have produced a series of coins and images from the Roman era onward. Yet in fact, there are many more cases of discontinuity. The Ottonians, who granted authorization for Lucca’s coinage, had brought order back to many regions long left in disorder with the end of the Carolingian line; their rule had not simply succeeded that of the ancients, notes Borghini. In other cases one sees less discontinuity, but nonetheless without authorization. When the Visigoths took over a region, they had not waited to receive word from the Roman emperors Borghini, Discorsi, 2.129–30. Ibid., 2.149. 116 Ibid., 2.131. 117 Ibid., 2.146. 114 115

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before they produced coins. In later years monarchs, for example in France, kept the sole right to issue coins there; neither cities such as Lyon or Marseille, nor regions such as Normandy, issue money in their own names.118 Such kingdoms, including also Spain or England, do have a history of producing money in their names; so do a number of Italian cities. Borghini turns to the civil law and Bartolo to note that the authority to mint money is solely that of the sovereign ruler.119 Borghini returns his attention to Florence. The city had probably produced minor coins for local markets for many years, though examples do not survive; it was certainly doing so before the appearance of the gold florin. Textual references from around 1150 show that it was producing a silver florin already at that time.120 The evidence suggests, then, that Florence had always assumed it had the right to mint its own money. Surviving Florentine coins bear symbols and words that refer exclusively to Florence. There is no sign of imperial authority. Indeed, Henry VII showed in 1313 the emperor’s inability to assert such claims to authority.121 Biondo Flavio and Platina had suggested that the city had been obliged to repurchase its liberty in the late thirteenth century from Rudolph I. Borghini addressed that issue separately, in its own discourse, to refute it.122 In this case as in others, Borghini shows that the city took on its distinctive features during the thirteenth century. He also argues consistently that this phase of growth first became evident around the year 1000. This era marks the genuine break from Roman patterns and the beginning of Italian ones: The reader must keep always in mind that this does not relate to the era of its first origin; while the Roman Empire was flourishing, since it was a part of it, it [the city] flourished too and enjoyed all the honors and conveniences and privileges of the other members. Our discussion is entirely about the new age, or the rebirth, as I would say, of the liberty of Italy; so one might refer to the time when, freed from the yoke of servitude of the Goths and Lombards and other foreign

Ibid., 2.142. Ibid., 2.144. 120 Ibid., 2.152. 121 Ibid., 2.144 122 Ibid., 2.318: “Se Firenze ricompra la liberta …” 118 119

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A few pages later Borghini repeats the term “rinascimento” for this era; for these reasons and others, he reiterates, one might say this era was, “as I call it, a new age and rebirth of the new liberty of Tuscany, and of its greatness and power …”124 This new era produced distinctive habits and customs, ways of life that were particular to the region. Borghini showed great interest in any and all such topics that caught his attention in the sources, whether they related to material objects such as currency or immaterial ones; clearly, however, he lacked the time to pursue most of them. The history of Florence’s leading families was a subject on which he worked at length. The study of Florentine social elites had obvious parallels with his earlier interest in ancient Roman surnames and families. He needed to engage with the matter of noble titles and insignia when he was planning the wedding decorations for Francesco and Giovanna. There he had to give detailed instructions to the artists to put appropriate family crests and other signs in the proper places. That necessity had focused his attention on the diverse and confusing coats of arms of Florentine families, and the distinct differences from the traditions of the northern European families who featured among the distinguished guests. This investigation thus involved both material objects in the coats of arms and their display, and the immaterial definitions of the elites who used these and other visible markers of status. Borghini left some of the project, the section on arms, in a sufficiently coherent shape that the Deputati could publish it among the Discorsi. The study of nobility remained in manuscript until the twentieth century, when John Woodhouse assembled and edited the remaining notes for publication. “e ricordisi pur sempre il lettore, che non si tratta or qui de’tempi della prima origine, quando fiorendo l’Imperio Romano, come membro e parte di lui, fioriva anch’ella godendo tutti gli onori e commodi, e privilegi dell’altre membra; ma è tutto il nostro ragionamento del nuovo secolo, e del rinascimento, dirò così, della libertà d’Italia, che così si può chiamare quel tempo, quando digiunta dal giogo della servitù de’Goti e de’ Longobardi, e se altre straniere nazioni ci hebbero luogo e parte, cominciò a ripigliare le forze, e apoco apoco aspirare all’antica gloria, e governarsi con proprie leggi; cosa, che nè a un tratto, nè con poca fatica venne sortita.” Ibid., 2.146. 124 “… si possa fermare quel, che io chiamo nuovo secolo, e rinascimento della nuova libertà di Toscana, e della grandezza e potenza …” ibid., 2.152. 123

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Borghini’s fellow Florentines also had a strong interest in the subject. The 1565 wedding was only one very prominent example of the ways in which elite Florentines were increasingly integrated into wider European networks of power and politics, where they dealt regularly with elites from regions that had developed titles and traditions of nobility very different from those in Florence.125 As Nicholas Scott Baker has discussed, Florentine elites generally did not have feudal titles. They were merchants, and their status could be explained or justified only in Florentine terms.126 Even within the city, these elites now needed increasingly to document their status. The Order of Santo Stefano restricted its membership to those of noble status; so too, positions in the Quarantotto and elsewhere were restricted by status. For several decades, Florentine had relied heavily on a past history of family service as a prior in the old republican government. Its list of priors (priorista) went back to the late thirteenth century, and was coming to serve as a standard measure of status.127 The government of the priors was linked with guilds and trade; yet these mercantile families regularly displayed coats of arms, a practice associated with nobility in northern Europe. Borghini received several queries from Florentines and others who sought clarification.128 One request came in 1577 from the papal nuncio who asked to know which families were called grandi.129 At about the same time, Baccio Valori asked about his own family. He included a list of priors and gonfalonieri and asked about changes in family names over time; he also wondered how it was that some of the men on the list who bore his family name did not seem actually to have been part of his family. Borghini’s reply included a discussion of how to trace family trees. Questions from Antonio Benivieni led him to write about the consorteria of the Vettori and Capponi.130

See Claudio Donati, L’idea di nobiltà in Italia: secoli XIV–XVIII (Rome: Laterza, 1988). 126 Baker, Fruit of Liberty, 11–13. 127 Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy, 31–34. 128 See for example Borghini’s letter to Antonio Benivieni, republished in Borghini, Storia della nobiltà, 112–15. 129 Barbi, “Degli studi di Don Vincenzo Borghini sopra la storia e la lingua di Firenze,” 28–29. 130 Ibid., 29–30, later published as Vincenzio Borghini, “Discorso di Vincenzio Borghini sul modo di ritrovare e distinguere le famiglie,” in Collezione di opuscoli inediti o rari di classici o approvati scrittori (Florence: n.p., 1844), 77–106; “Lettera intorno 125

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Borghini’s exploration of the topic, like his research on coinage, had more than one goal and so proceeded along several paths. One was practical: to identify, by name, Florence’s leading families through the centuries, along with their arms and changes in either. Another was more general: to discover the features that had characterized Florentine elites over time. He acknowledged that his writing on the topic remained fragmentary. In part it was due simply to his lack of sustained time to write; he had to write down brief thoughts as they struck him.131 They are repetitive at some points; at others they are contradictory, either because he himself has changed his mind or he is observing different parts of the subject; he notes that for this complex subject it is imperative first of all simply to observe isolated facts clearly. One investigative path was to identify major points of transition in the city’s political history and survey the main written evidence that identified elites at each point. The earliest era in the city’s history dates from its founding by Romans through the Lombard invasions.132 The next runs from Italy’s liberation from the Lombards by Charlemagne up to the death of Frederick II in 1250. Records are too poor to identify any surviving families from the first era or most of the second. Even the records from the first years immediately thereafter have not survived well. Thus, Borghini’s discussion begins with the thirteenth century. The second half of that century saw rapid transitions; although earlier eras spanned several centuries, the major events at this point were often separated by only a few years. The government referred to as the “primo popolo” in 1250 after the death of Frederick II marks the beginning of an era of consuls. The government divided the city into six regions, with neighborhood militias. Each region elected two elders or Anziani for sixmonth terms; it also contributed men to the city’s army. The government sought to restrain urban violence, particularly Guelf-Ghibelline rivalries. It lasted ten years; then, following a military defeat, the Ghibellines ran the city for six years under a podestà.133 With the defeat of Frederick’s illegitimate son Manfred and the imperial cause at Benevento in 1266, a

alla consorteria dei Vettori e dei Capponi,” in Collezione di opuscoli inediti o rari di classici o approvati scrittori, 107–13. Also edited by Woodhouse, in Borghini, Storia della nobiltà, 94–115. 131 Borghini, Storia della nobiltà, 28. 132 Ibid., 143. 133 Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200–1575, 66–72.

Urban Culture: Money and Elites

new government returned, at first dominated by Charles of Anjou. After the Sicilian vespers of 1282 destabilized Charles, the city was governed by priors of the guilds, again with a goal of defending peace against the powerful few. This government in turn grew increasingly dominated by elites until the passage of the set of laws known as the Ordinances of Justice in 1293 (s.f. 1292). Government service was restricted to guild members, and many old noble families were specifically banned as “magnates” from service. Some chose to maintain their roles in Florentine civic life by joining guilds and changing their names. This set of political developments combined international politics with local concerns, and established sets of rivalries and oppositions in the city. Those divisions seemed to be binary, but in fact, notes Borghini, they splintered and reformed constantly. They included those between Guelfs and Ghibellines (and later, Black Guelfs versus Whites), as well as magnates versus guildsmen; another division seemed to be rule by violence versus rule by law. So too the sources for these years offered general discussions of groups and social categories, as well as specific names of individuals and families who were identified with one or more of these groups. Borghini built on this political narrative in several different ways and returned to it at numerous points. Borghini found a language-based approach useful in his studies of nobility. He began with definitions. Legal experts and philosophers have discussed nobility, he notes, yet the topic extends beyond each of these fields. Social distinctions may seem both universal and natural; he cites Cicero’s line from the Tusculan Disputations that “that which is believed by all seems to have the force of natural law.”134 But these distinctions mix customs, laws, and judgment. Further they are not the same at all times and places; rather, they undergo constant change over time and from one location to another. So do the terms used for the distinctions.135 To add to the complication, authors such as Dante and Boccaccio have also used the word nobile to refer to traits of personal character. Further, the term nobile may be used for entities such as cities as well. In either case, the qualities that it describes are acquired ones; thus they can be lost, though not immediately.136 Florence’s elites were a permanent social fixture in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century city, as they were later. Yet neither Borghini, Storia della nobiltà, 16. Ibid., 24–25, 29–30, 43. 136 Ibid., 30. 134 135

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the terms, the traits, or even the individual families remained stable or changeless. Nobility was based in custom and practice; its particular features changed as society changed: Nobility is a matter of choice and consensus and invention of men, born in usage and principally from the fact of governing and directing others, and not out of the course and order of nature.137

At one point, Borghini uses a biological model for these social roles, just as he did for languages, and had also applied to artistic traditions: Nobility, in all those things where it is found, whether in cities or people, is born, grows, decays, and dies, but with order, pattern, and almost a rule.138

Thus the existence of elites is natural, and the changes that they undergo in their features are regular; yet the specific features and their changes are particular to time and place. Borghini accumulated a set of observations about those particulars. Florentines, he notes, have used more than one word to denote its elites. Yet such a group does not exist in isolation, and therefore no matter what term is used, its definition requires one to consider the words used for other social groups in the city. Ancient Romans often used two terms in opposition, patricians and plebs; Florentines have had nobili and popolo. The Roman distinction has some points in common with the Florentine; for example, each pairing appears in both civil and military contexts with different shades of meaning.139 Yet the Roman patricians and plebeians are not the same as nobili and popolo. Each refers to a particular society.140 Nobility as the term is generally used, he observes, seems to have several attributes: virtues, antiquity, wealth, and magistracies or honors.141 Florentines use the term differently from northern Europeans, and their usage also differs from that of ancient Rome. The lack of records makes it

“La nobiltà esser cosa di elezione e consenso e invenzione d’uomini, nata dall’uso e dal fatto principalmente del governare e guidare gli altri, e non di corso e ordine di natura.” Ibid., 29. 138 “La nobiltà in tutte quelle cose ove ella ha luogo, o città o uomini, nasce, cresce, scema e muore, ma con ordine, modo e quasi regola.” Ibid., 30, statement 19. 139 Ibid., 34, statement 55. 140 Ibid., 65. 141 Ibid., 16–17. 137

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difficult to trace the transitions that occurred in late antiquity. Yet in any case, the particular features that defined Florentine nobles were specific to that society and were not found in ancient Rome. One was the holding of city magistracies. Another was the foundation and patronage of churches. The third was chivalric practice; Borghini referred both to fighting with horse and the rest of the related cultural practices, all of which marked out the era as different from antiquity: The third, which seems particular to our age – and I say our in this matter (…) as dating from the renovation of that age by the inundation of barbarians in Italy and ruin of the true Roman Empire that led to new ways, new opinions, new rules and new customs – I call it ours, in sum, as distinct from the ancient Romans – that is chivalry that by its nature is a grade of nobility and consequently a sure indication …142

The Florentine mix of these various features was especially complex; the multiplicity of the terms in use was consistent with that complexity. In some languages, “nobility” refers solely to a distinguished blood line; for that, he observes, gentile is more accurate.143 Villani used buoni, migliori, and more when he referred to elites. From around 1280 the term grandi appears in texts. The term grande seems also to be used in opposition to popolo, and hence serves sometimes as a synonym for nobile; yet in other cases it is clear that some people belonged to one of these categories – grandi or nobili – but not the other.144 Popolo as a term was associated with trades and guilds; Florentine usage had lost its classical Latin identification with fighting on foot. Over the course of the formative thirteenth century it also acquired associations with governing, like Greek democrazia. Both grandi and popolo had subdivisions as well, he noted, the latter famously between popolo grasso and popolo minuto. And, of course, there was a lower social level as well, ciompi.145 He examined other terms too, such as contadino,146as well as those used for families such as casa. “Il terzo, che pare proprio dell’età nostra, e nostra chiamo in questo proposito … dalla rinovazione di quello seculo per l’inundazione dei Barbari in Italia e ruvina del vero imperio romano che indusse nuovi modi, nuove oppinioni, nuove regule e nuovi costumi, nostra, insomma, chiamo a differenza degli antichi romani. E questa è la cavalleria, che di sua natura è grado di nobiltà e per conseguente securo indizio …” ibid., 54. 143 Ibid., 13. 144 On usage of nobile versus grande, see ibid., 12. 145 Ibid., 39, statement 98. 146 Ibid., 64–66. 142

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Activities associated with noble status had some points of clarity and some of ambiguity. In some regions such as France, nobility was not compatible with engaging in trade.147 This underwent change in Florence, though not completely; earning money might not be a mortal enemy of noble life, he noted, but it is not a great friend either.148 Until about 1250 a person who was gentile was felt to be greatly blemished by engaging in trade; then a few guilds became acceptable, such as Cambio and Calimala. The professions of physician, lawyer, and at times notary became acceptable as well.149 Thus the labels for guilds had to develop to reflect this complexity. By the age of Boccaccio, Florentines had come to distinguish great guilds versus minor ones, and it is clear that some old noble families joined these great guilds simply in order to serve in government; 1348, the year of the plague, marked another point of change in this regard.150 Trade was not the only activity that became more complex. One might argue, suggested Borghini, that working with the hands was not noble; yet both fighting and hunting are manual but nonetheless associated with nobility. Both these activities call for the bearing of arms; indeed, the bearing of arms had come to be seen as an attribute of nobility. Yet citizens came to fight in militias, so they bore arms as well. Then citizen armies gave way in turn to condottieri and mercenaries. Changes in political structure also affected the term and closely related words, such that their valence and connotations changed. In the early years of the comune, the term nobile was associated with power; the nobili were the group that dominated the city. The term itself was vernacular; Latin terms often used for it were magnates et potentes. Then in 1250–1260, again in 1282, and permanently in 1293 the popolo was identified with political power, and the term nobile was not. Grande, sometimes used synonymously with nobile and sometimes not, had its own developments. The term grandi, says Borghini first referred to the city’s citizens, that is, those involved in communal rule in the earliest years.151 At that point the term had positive connotations. Yet over time these rulers fell into the corrupt and violent conduct that the primo popolo government

Ibid., 48–49. Ibid., 46. 149 Ibid., 17. 150 Ibid., 48. 151 Thus, as he notes, even in the second period, the families noted in sources were surely grandi; it is not clear that they were all nobili. Ibid., 6, 70. 147

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set out to oppose. At that point the label became a term of disapprobation: people would complain that “i grandi” had done this or that ­terrible thing. It became even more attached to the overbearing behavior than to the birth status of the actor. At that point people in the city began to prefer the contrary, popolano. They were willing to ignore the lower birth and the involvement with trade, and cared instead that this group stood for the public good.152 Thus, the political and military developments of the thirteenth century all played a role in these transitions in the connotations of the important distinction grandi and popolo; they also led to the ambiguities of the several terms used to refer to elites.153 The chronic violence of the Guelfs and Ghibellines was a factor; so was the development of the urban military in which popolani served. The next big change was the rise of mercenaries. In the early thirteenth century, fighting on horseback was an important feature that distinguished the nobility. A century later such fighting was conducted and led by men who engaged in that activity in a non-noble manner, that is, for pay. Borghini returned several times to the complexity of the terms. At one point he notes that as one examines these battles and disputes in the city – Guelf versus Ghibelline, grandi versus popolani – they did not in fact turn on questions about what one might call nobility of blood. To identify such families required different sources, though the very earliest citizens had been noble in this sense. Part of the confusion lies in the ways writers used these words; sometimes they were used to refer to social standing and other times to denote personal qualities.154 The individual families were also key parts of the story. Over time, noted Borghini, the families given these labels changed. New families rose to prominence and others declined or disappeared. He distinguished three main historical periods of elite families: those up to 1250; those who flourished at midcentury; and a more stable era from about 1250–1400.155 Malispini had identified sixteen leading families from the era of the primo popolo. Dante named more, and of course Villani was invaluable here as well. Borghini discussed other significant subsequent events as well, for example the expulsion of the duke of Athens in 1343.156 Ibid., 15. Ibid., 35, statement 70. 154 Ibid., 89–93. 155 Ibid., 6–7. 156 Ibid., 72–74. 152

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The priorista after 1293 also showed some of the complexities of identifying a family’s status. It includes some names from the old noble families, Borghini continues, but due to the Ordinances of Justice they had been made into popolani in order to serve; if their names were on that list, then they had joined a guild. Thus one might identify such families as both nobile and popolano at the same time. And those who behaved badly could find their punishment included as being classified among the grandi, a label that might accompany exile. There were further complications as well. Some of these families had died out over time; more importantly, the conventions of surnames had not remained entirely consistent during these centuries, so it was not always easy to identify continuities. Further, a number of families had deliberately changed their names on occasion. The most notable time had been 1293, when the noble families who wanted to participate in government joined a guild and changed their family name to disassociate themselves from their family’s past; yet this was not the only occasion. Borghini began assembling lists of all elite families, with their arms, noting the reasons why each merited inclusion and what information was available about them, including changes of name. The priorista offered a list of names that began with the establishment of the office in 1282. It served as an important source for Borghini, so at several points he discussed both its value and its limitations. It does indeed identify those who served the city as prior over many years. In addition, the holding of magistracies such as prior is generally accepted as a mark of high status. Nonetheless, he repeats several times, it is incomplete as a guide for identifying all the people of that rank.157 First, it misses the city’s early years. More important, priors were chosen by lot from a much longer list of qualified citizens; most of those who qualified were never actually selected, so they never served. Thus the list of priors only represented a small subset of the city’s elite. Further, because of the Ordinances of Justice, the city had more than one way to identify elites; and perhaps most importantly, they had attempted to ensure that the names on the priorista were not really the names of nobles at all in the earlier sense of the term. Rather, they were high status popolani. Further, the priorate was not the sole prominent position in the city.158 Florence’s major families had marked themselves out with surnames, though as Borghini noted repeatedly, not fully consistently. They also Ibid., 39. Ibid., 77.

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used visual symbols, with coats of arms or family crests. Borghini’s discussion of them fills half of the third volume of Discorsi. Again, he had both the goal of identifying particular arms and the changes in them over time, as well as the more general one of assessing the nature and significance of the practice. He began with Roman practices: the Roman clypeus or shield, Roman banners, and the use of battle standards, including Constantine’s famous insignia. Important though they had been, he concluded that ancient practices had significant differences from those used subsequently; Italian practices cannot be traced back to those of ancient Romans. The latter had not used surcoats or shields with painted insignia, and these were the most important places for displaying arms.159 The visual devices that identified families had developed with chivalry, that is, the fighting on horseback that was a marker of the postclassical era. Borghini quotes from Guido Monaldi’s chronicle a description of a funeral observance from 1381 to show the use of family arms on such occasions.160 Borghini himself recalls the old custom, now in disuse, he says, of attaching a shield with the family arms at funerals. These shields marked out chapels and burials by family, but with the passage of time and the remodeling of churches, he notes, these are mostly now gone. He identifies a few that could still be seen around the city, such as the Sassetti chapel in Santa Trinita.161 In Florence, the use of coats of arms was very closely linked with the bearing of actual arms. The era around 1300 was the great age of citizen military service; at that time these emblems were very much in use. The roster of great families was so stable that only a few, he notes, have risen subsequently. The early emblems in particular are similar to those on the city’s gonfaloni or flags of the neighborhood militias and army. Here as in other instances in this treatise, the term nobile is used in a manner perhaps more familiar to his contemporaries for the leading families of the city; he refers to “the insignia of the noble families, both grandi and popolane …”162 When they first established these emblems, some Ibid., 6, 18. Ibid., 22. Istorie pistolesi, ovvero delle cose avvenute in Toscana dall’ anno MCCC al MCCCXLVIII e Diario del Monaldi, ed. Antonio Maria Biscioni (Milan: G. Silvestri, 1845). 161 Borghini, Storia della nobiltà, 45. 162 “… queste insegne delle nobil Famiglie, e grandi, e popolane eran già di gran pezza di tal maniera ferme, e stabilite, che poche poi se ne veggono venute su di nuovo di quelle famiglie, che oggi si tengono per tali, e molti, e molti e molti anni appresso, …” Borghini, Discorsi, 2.24. 159

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of the families took up a sign from a ruler with whom they had fought. Other emblems were signs of trades, and not all of them were particularly high-status trades. When some families changed their coats of arms over time, the hope of forgetting this aspect of their pasts seems to have been behind some of their decisions. These efforts at raising one’s standing were familiar to many, and might be the subject of humor; once again Borghini repeats the tale from Sacchetti of Giotto and the shield.163 Colors are also crucial in distinguishing one family’s arms from another, and both their use and the changes in family colors have had a complicated past. As he turns to this part of his topic, Borghini offers a more general observation about changes in social practices over time, comparing such practices to language practices. Many customs develop gradually; they go from being actions that are general in nature and almost randomly chosen, to those that are more specific, detailed, and rule-like. One may identify those rules through examining cases of their use, just as one might draw out the rules of speaking from analyzing the words of a good speaker: I see that generally things tend gradually to become more refined over time, sometimes by chance also improving as well; and those things that in their beginnings are handled very broadly, perhaps too much so, start to become refined towards some sort of rule. And just as from the style of good speakers one can find the rules of good speaking, so I would like to believe that by considering some and comparing together many of these arms of our ancestors … we can discover these rules …164

The use of colors arose from the need to identify fighters easily from a distance; accordingly, many early distinctions in these coats of arms are mainly just light versus dark colors. Family and factional alliances and Ibid., 30–35. “lo veggo bene, che generalmente le cose si vanno col tempo sempre assottigliando, ed anche per avventura tal volta migliorando, e quelle cose, che ne’ loro principi con molta, e forse troppa larghezza si maneggiano, si vengono ristrignendo ad alcuna forma di regola, e come dalle maniere de’buoni dicitori si cavarono già le regole del ben dire, così vo credere che considerando alcuni, e comparando insieme molte di quest’ Arme de’ nostri antichi, e considerando la grazia, e disgrazia delle più, e men vagamente compartite, e come dire facendone un certo gusto, e come maniera generale nell’ animo loro, ne cavassero queste regole, in vero non cattive, ne fuor d’una cotal ragionata considerazione…” Ibid., 2.36.

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differences could lead to changes or even reversals in colors between the groups within a family; thus a family divided between Guelf and Ghibelline might use the same arms, but in reversed colors. As Borghini works through the various customs and practices of arms and their chivalric associations, he is brought to considerations of the value of different types of sources. He had already praised the use of contracts for research. For the study of coats of arms his interest also moves in a very different direction, to chivalric literature. Although the events in these works are fictitious, Arthurian legends and other similar literary works try to describe accurately the practices and customs of this courtly world: It may seem to be less than serious to recall here what one learns from the Round Table and from other ancient romances that are considered fables and fictions of our modern poetry, and not established and certain history. But if one considers the subjects of arms and emblems, and the customs of this chivalry that after the Roman era one seem to have arisen de novo, having its origin in the new military of those people, it will not seem so out of place, indeed in a certain way necessary, remembering especially that in their tales the troubadours retained all the practices and customs of the times and of persons; so particularly in this matter, they cannot be called fiction but rather history.165

These general rules and traditions ran up nonetheless against the developments of urban life with its guild governments and citizen militias; Florence developed distinctive features. When Borghini returns once again to the fact that Florentines chose their particular arms at their pleasure, he notes that some people have claimed that arms are exclusive to lords. That is not the case in urban republics: “Whoever holds this opinion must have been born in a land where there was little or no form of “Parrà peravventura cosa leggiera ricordar quì quel, che dalla Tavola ritonda, e da altri antichi Romanzi si cava, che si tengono per favole, e liberi trovati di questa nostra nuova poesia, e non istoria fondata, e certa. Ma chi considererà la cosa dell’Arme e dell’insegne, e i costumi di questa Cavallerìa, che dopo il secolo Romano si vede di nuovo venuta sù l’aver l’origine della nuova milizia di quelle nazioni, non l’harà per cosa molto aliena da questo luogo, anzi in un certo modo debita e necessaria, ricordandosi massimamente che in quelle così fatte novelle ritenevano pure i Trovatori tutta la proprietà, e gli stessi costumi de’tempi, e delle persone, sichè in questa parte tanto; non si possono dir favole, ma verace Istoria.” Ibid., 2.53.

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republic or citizenship, but all, so to speak, vassals, and serfs, not citizens and absolutely free.”166 In Florence as in other cities, there are some who have received their arms from a prince, but that is hardly a general rule. Of those who did, some received them as a particular privilege just for themselves, others for the family; the practice was not consistent. Nor do Florentines practice the habit of dividing arms to show family lineage as one sees in some regions.167 Borghini had collected many examples. He devoted considerable attention to assembling lists of prominent families, the changes in their names over time, the arms associated with those families, and the variations and changes in those arms over time as well. He made particular note of points in time that saw many such changes, such as 1293 or 1348. He included pages of color illustrations, and notes about where examples might still be found in the city. The Deputati published them as black and white woodcut illustrations with descriptions of colors. [Fig. 7.9]Like most of the other discourses, the published text ends without a real conclusion, another reminder that Borghini had not lived to finish his work. The Discorsi remain both impressive in their scope and creativity, and frustrating in their incompleteness. Although they were the main means of transmitting Borghini’s ideas to later scholars, Borghini communicated his work to others by a variety of means during his lifetime. Most were informal and based on his personal connections. Unlike his mentor Piero Vettori, he was not a university professor with rooms full of students; nor was he, like Varchi, a member of the Accademia Fiorentina delivering lectures and engaging in weekly meetings and debates. Yet his biggest projects were very much in the public eye. He engaged in major collaborative projects of research and publication; he worked closely for years with Cosimo and his closest advisors; and a committee worked to edit and publish as much as possible of his scholarship within a few years of his death. Thus his impact on contemporary Florentine cultural and intellectual life was considerable. Borghini developed a persuasive historical narrative, supported by years of scholarship. The decline of Rome and the invasions of Goths and Lombards had generated a new era, an era that was not of Rome but of “E forse chi tenne questa opinione dovea essere natio di paese, ove era poca, o nulla forma di Republica o di cittadinanza, ma tutti, come si chiamano propriamente, vassalli e Coloni, non Cittadini, & assolutamente liberi.” Ibid., 2.64. 167 Ibid., 70. 166

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Fig 7.9  Arms of Florentine families. Vincenzio Borghini, “Dell’arme delle famiglie fiorentine.” Discorsi (Florence: Giunti, 1584), 2.90. Photo: Getty Research Institute.

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Italy. After the first stirrings of new life in the eleventh century, Florence rose to prominence as a city of merchants and the rule of law amid conflicts between pope and emperor. It gave rise to Dante, Giotto, and more, who rivalled and even surpassed the ancients. Its greatest achievements were not merely, or even primarily, political or military. They were rather linguistic, literary, artistic, architectural, and more. Florence had produced a language that others sought to speak, a literature that others sought to emulate, and arts that others admired, copied, and tried to acquire. Its traditions and customs were uniquely its own, distinct not only from antiquity but also from other regions of Europe. Borghini also developed tools for the study of those achievements and traditions. He brought his humanistic training in the study of Latin, Greek, and the ancient world to the study not just of his own day, but especially of the era that formed it, the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The humanist tradition in which he worked, progressing from the days of Leonardo Bruni to Angelo Poliziano and then to Piero Vettori, was itself a particularly Florentine achievement. His tools for examining that Florentine past began with the study of its language; its grammar and other practices could be studied as systematically as Latin, and it was already on its way to establishing a scholarly tradition of its own. He distinguished, as had Varchi, between art and nature, letters and language. As part of nature, language might be studied with observation and analyzed with logic. Like a living creature, it changes over time, changes that are themselves regular and follow rules that can be observed and learned. This model for studying language could be used productively in turn to study customs and traditional practices that, like languages, were shared among people. Just as language norms from the past can be deduced by examining many examples, so too the habits of color use in coats of arms, or the ways Florentines used surnames, or the concepts of social elites could be examined and understood. Indeed, some significant clusters of behaviors seemed to develop and change at about the same time; the Florentine language began to take shape as Florentines began to produce new buildings, artists, and even new leading families. To study these phenomena required the use of new sources of information about the past, and more thoughtful approaches to building arguments. Borghini used traditional histories and chronicles; but he also turned to legal writings, ranging from laws and legal texts such as Gratian’s Decretals, the Justinian Code, or Bartolo, to contracts and similar legal documents, ecclesiastical or private. Even literary texts might be

Urban Culture: Money and Elites

valuable sources. And in nearly all cases, it was important to work comparatively and across disciplines. That led to a more nuanced assessment and understanding of what was likely or probable about the past, and what was not. Borghini left his colleagues with a path for taking the tools of humanist textual scholarship into the study of society. He also left them with a very durable narrative that both explained and celebrated his city’s people and achievements.

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T

  he

learned community that had reestablished itself in Florence

  under Cosimo continued to thrive in the years that followed. Many

of that generation of scholars predeceased him. A few survived; Borghini died in 1580, Vettori in 1585, and Mei continued to live in Rome until 1594. Cosimo himself died at the age of fifty-five in April 1574. The ceremonies for Cosimo took place nearly a month after his death, and were modeled on those held for Charles V in 1558.1 The service was held at San Lorenzo. Borghini was involved in planning along with three colleagues, though they worked with Alessandro Allori rather than Vasari.2 Vasari was still working, overseeing the frescoes of the dome of the Duomo, a project on which he had collaborated with Borghini. Yet by then he was too frail to climb the scaffolding, and he died just two months later, in late June.3 In the meantime, within two days of Cosimo’s passing, the Quarantotto met and ratified unanimously the succession of Francesco.4 The transition was smooth, as planned; Cosimo had gradually been handing over tasks to Francesco since 1564, and had been unable to work since his stroke the previous July.5 Gino Ginori, Descritione della pompa funerale fatta nelle essequie del Ser.mo Sig. Cosimo de’ Medici, gran duca di Toscana: nell’ alma città di Fiorenza il giorno xvij di Maggio dell’ anno MDLXXIIII (Florence: Giunti, 1574). 2 Eve Borsook, “Art and Politics at the Medici Court I: The Funeral of Cosimo I de’ Medici,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instutes in Florenz 12 (1965): 31–54; Gaeta Bertelà and Petrioli Tofani, Feste e apparati medicei da Cosimo I a Cosimo II, Mostra di disegni e incisioni, 30–37. 3 Boase, Giorgio Vasari, 330–31. 4 Borsook, “Art and Politics,” 36–37. 5 Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 92. 1

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Vettori gave the Latin funeral oration at San Lorenzo, as he had for Eleonora; it was quickly published both in the original and in a vernacular translation by Francesco Bocchi. Vettori had been one of Cosimo’s early university appointments, and he would continue to teach into his eighties. About a fifth of Vettori’s oration summarizes Cosimo’s many successes in promoting scholarship and the arts during those years. Vettori’s list includes the university, its faculty, and the college for poor students; the Accademia Fiorentina; his library of Greek and Latin manuscripts, including the Pandects; and the Accademia del Disegno. Vettori described the ceiling of the great hall; the remodeling of churches, and especially the removal of the tramezzi; the building of the Uffizi, the Vasari corridor and Archive, the gardens; the bridge at Santa Trinita; the various ornaments around the city in sculptures, columns, fountains, and more; and the establishment of entirely new cities and fortifications in the region of Tuscany. Over two dozen funeral orations in Cosimo’s honor were eventually delivered and published in Florence and elsewhere.6

Transitions The city that Francesco inherited differed considerably from the one his father had taken charge of at the death of Alessandro a generation earlier, and in nearly all cases for the better. The instability and interruptions of earlier decades had faded in favor of more gradual and regular changes and developments. The Accademia Fiorentina had dominated the city’s community of letters for most of Cosimo’s years; it was matched by the university in Pisa and eventually, joined by the new Accademia del Disegno in the visual arts. Eventually that community would grow more complex. It expanded to include a second Tuscan university when the university at Siena came under ducal control as part of the new administrative region. In addition, the city itself began to add new learned academies, one at the end of the decade, another in 1583. These groups became additional centers of literary and intellectual activity in the city, though many members of one group were also members of another. The goals and interests of the midcentury scholars would continue to shape the intellectual life For a list, as well as a discussion and editions of three unpublished lives of Cosimo, see Carmen Menchini, I panegirici di Cosimo I de’ Medici tra retorica e storia (Florence: Olschki, 2005), list at 16–18.

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of the generation that followed. These later scholars would look back to the writings and careers of their predecessors even as they moved forward with new developments in letters and learning. The Accademia degli Alterati began in 1569 with a group of seven young members of the Accademia Fiorentina. Thus it marks something of a generational change. The group met at the home of one of the members, Tommaso del Nero. After his death they met in several locations, eventually settling at the residence of Giovambattista Strozzi.7 The Alterati strove for learned self-improvement, particularly in their ability to speak and debate with their more senior colleagues. They became a very organized group, with meetings twice a week and agendas set well in advance. They read, discussed, and critiqued one another’s work; they also conducted debates, often on current literary or scholarly issues, with particular members assigned to opposing positions; and they dined together. The group’s members wanted an organization with more emphasis on sociability and conviviality than the Accademia Fiorentina. They were not alone in that wish; the Accademia del Piano had already appeared in 1555, though the Pianigiani were devoted to carnivalesque parody rather than scholarly criticism and therefore had never presented an alternative to the Accademia Fiorentina.8 The Alterati were an active group for some time, though in the end, like many such private societies, the academy did not survive the death of their host Strozzi in 1634. The other group, the Accademia della Crusca, was also founded by some of the members of the Accademia Fiorentina. Chief among them was Anton Francesco Grazzini; he had been one of the founders of the Umidi who had never favored the early transition to the Accademia Fiorentina. He was among the members removed from the group in On the Alterati, see Henk Th. van Veen, “The Accademia degli Alterati and Civic Virtue,” in The Reach of the Republic of Letters: Literary and Learned Societies in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Arjan Van Dixhoorn and Susie Sutch (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 2.285–308, Claude V. Palisca, “The Alterati of Florence, Pioneers in the Theory of Dramatic Music,” in Studies in the History of Italian Music and Music Theory (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1994), 408–31; Bernard Weinberg, “The Accademia degli Alterati and Literary Taste from 1570 to 1600,” Italica 31, no. 4 (1954): 207–14; “Argomenti di discussione letteraria nell’Accademia degli Alterati (1570–1600),” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 131 (1954): 175–94. 8 Domenico Zanrè, “Ritual and Parody in Mid-Cinquecento Florence: Cosimo de’ Medici and the Accademia del Piano,” in The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, ed. Eisenbichler, 189–204. Mei was a member of this group, though in absentia. 7

Transitions

its 1547 reorganization, and rejoined it in 1566 under the consulship of Lionardo Salviati.9 At some point in the next decade, perhaps 1572, Grazzini began hosting meetings of friends for pleasant and witty conversations and lectures, or cruscate. In 1582 he invited Salviati to join the group; Salviati persuaded them to organize themselves as an academy in 1583. Their first publication of a lecture appeared the same year. The Accademia della Crusca would go on to produce their landmark dictionary, the Vocabulario, in 1612, and to enjoy long-term success as an organization. The study of Florentine letters and language remained at the heart of the city’s intellectual life through the last decades of the century and beyond. Not only did lectures on Dante and Petrarch continue, but Florentines honored their great men of letters in other ways as well. When Baccio Valori served, for the second time, as consul of the Accademia Fiorentina in 1587–1588, he had a bust of Dante placed over the entrance door to the Studio Fiorentino. Some of the scholars of Cosimo’s generation were also honored at nearly the same time; portraits were placed in the Accademia of Piero Vettori, Benedetto Varchi, and Francesco Verino il Vecchio.10 It would seem reasonable to expect this continuing overlap between academic and university scholarship to extend, eventually, to the university itself. The vernacular language began to make significant inroads into Tuscan university life by the end of the century. Yet it happened not at Pisa but at Siena, with a new chair in vernacular language. Its original Woodhouse, “Borghini and the Foundation,” 165–67. For early documentation and discussion, see Severina Parodi ed., Quattro secoli di Crusca 1583–1983 (Florence: Accademia della Crusca, 1983); See also G. A. Padley, Grammatical Theory in Western Europe, 1500–1700: Trends in Vernacular Grammar II (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 2.142–53. 10 “Considerando finalmente il nostro Consolo l’utilità grandissima alla materna Lingua arrecata dal nostro immortal Cittadino Dante Alighieri … stimò bene di far collocare sulla maggior Porta del nostro Studio, ove per lungo tempo il Poema di Dante pubblicamente fu letto, l’Immagina sua scolpita in un Busto di marmo il che si mandò ad effetto per Partito del dì 7. Gennaio.” Though they could not be honored at the same level, portraits were placed as of February 23 in the accademia of Piero Vettori, Benedetto Varchi, and Francesco Verino il Vecchio. This custom was already being practiced in the Accademia della Crusca. Salvini, Fasti consolari dell’Accademia Fiorentina, 286–87. See also Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana A.CXI. Giuseppe Pelli, Memorie per servire alla vita di Dante Alighieri, 2nd ed. (Florence: Guglielmo Piatti, 1823), 151. 9

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purpose was less scholarly than practical.11 Siena attracted a significant number of German students. They requested the position from Duke Ferdinando so that they could acquire better fluency in speaking and writing; he complied with their request in 1588. The first appointment was Diomede Borghesi.12 As of 1589 the lectures in anatomy, simples, and mathematics could be presented in vernacular as well. Others at Siena also took an interest in studies of the vernacular; the professor of Umanità from 1598, Orazio Lombardelli, published both an elementary work, Le eleganze latine e volgari, and a more advanced one, I Fonti. Borghesi was followed by Celso Cittadini, who was named to the chair of Tuscan language in 1598. Despite the practical goals behind the original establishment of the chair, Cittadini devoted himself to philological scholarship. From there, university scholarship in vernacular letters also established itself at Pisa and beyond in the early decades of the next century.

Florentine Studies Cosimo’s role in the intellectual life of the era has been the subject of significant debate and discussion over several decades. Those arguments have developed and changed along with historians’ understanding of the nature of the state and its political culture. One extreme had posed a sharp dichotomy between the culture of the previous era of republican government and that which followed. In this view, Cosimo tended to appear a tyrant, his oversight of intellectual and cultural activities aggressive, and those who supported him weak or corrupt. More recent scholarship has altered this vision in several ways. Florentines themselves wrote often about the value of “mixed” governmental forms, a category that for many of them included Florence and Tuscany; they did not divide themselves into simple factions for or against republics. It has also become more apparent that the pressing issues of the late 1520s and beyond were threats of domination by foreign powers; Florence might well lose its independence altogether and become Nicoletta Maraschio and Teresa Poggi Salani, “L’insegnamento della lingua toscana,” in L’Università di Siena: 750 anni di storia (Milan: Silvana, 1991), 241–54; Giovanni Cascio Pratilli, L’Università e il principe: gli studi di Siena e di Pisa tra rinascimento e controriforma (Florence: Olschki, 1975), 79–85, 88, 91. 12 Roberto Weiss, “Henry Wotton and Orazio Lombardelli,” The Review of English Studies 19 (1943): 285–89, at 288. See also Pietro Rossi, “La prima cattedra di lingua toscana (dai ruoli dello Studio senese 1588–1743),” Studi senesi 27 (1911): 345–94. 11

Florentine Studies

a subject state. That concern took priority over preferences for one or another type of government. Further, closer study of Florence’s elites during and after the tumultuous decades of the early sixteenth century has shown the strength of their interest in maintaining roles of significance in the city, and the ways in which they managed to do so. The transition to the ducal governance, first with Alessandro and then again with Cosimo, involved negotiation and consensus building with, and indeed within the office holding class. As Nicholas Scott Baker has argued, “they sacrificed the internal political freedoms of the republic for the external freedom from foreign rule.” The administration of Duke Cosimo seemed to strike an effective balance; it maintained the city’s independence to a significant degree and preserved their own social and economic roles in the city, and hence offered them sufficient continuity.13 Contemporary observers and city records agree that Cosimo and his advisors understood early on the importance of restoring universities, learning, and scholarly life in Florence and Tuscany. That restoration was vital not only to the functioning of the city and the region, but also to its international standing. The city’s reputation had long rested on its role as a center for learning and arts. Cosimo’s secretaries and close advisors were themselves serious scholars who sought and enjoyed a lively cultural world. They seem generally to have offered sound advice and counsel over many years, and Cosimo evidently listened. Their overall goal seems to have been to promote excellence in letters, learning, and the arts, and to avail themselves of opportunities to do so when they appeared. The foundation of the Accademia Fiorentina was an early example. The initial energy came from educated Florentines who started the group and then went to Cosimo as the organization grew. Cosimo’s great contribution was to recognize that their plans were consistent with his own goals of restoring the university and learning, and to assist them accordingly. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, the great Florentine authors of the past who interested the group’s founders, did not need help from Cosimo to establish their reputations; they were already celebrated across Italy. In order for the city to benefit from the new society, all Cosimo needed to offer was support for the organization itself. So too, the incentive to create the Accademia del Disegno came from its founders, who then took their plan to Cosimo. In this case as well, he was able to reap the benefits of their initiative; his support of their proposal benefited himself as Baker, Fruit of Liberty, 232.

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it benefited the artists and the city. The plan to implement the teaching of Tuscan grammar in the schools also began elsewhere, with Borghini. Cosimo’s own statements on the matter followed Borghini’s original wording closely. Cosimo demonstrated a strong interest in continuing to promote excellence in all the fields in which Florentines distinguished themselves. That included university disciplines, witnessed by his ongoing efforts to hire excellent faculty and offer financial aid to students. It also included the writing of history; he supported Paolo Giovio as well as Benedetto Varchi. Cosimo seems nonetheless not to have gotten involved at the level of supporting particular positions in scholarly or literary disputes. One case in point was the debate over the Aramaic origins of Etruscan. Early on, Giambullari had incorporated his Arameian theories into Cosimo and Eleonora’s wedding celebrations. When those theories were later attacked and then rejected by members of the Accademia Fiorentina, Cosimo was not part of the debate. The theories themselves were no longer invoked in public celebrations; the Janus who ended the parade of the “genealogy of the gods” at the wedding of Francesco and Giovanna was the regular Roman divinity, without the Noachic associations that had been visible on the earlier occasion. Yet throughout these years Giambullari retained his standing as a respected scholar who served on important committees at the Accademia Fiorentina, and who also became librarian of the Medici book collection. So too, Cosimo highlighted his commitment to disinterested historical scholarship when he defended Giovio against Charles V, who seemed resigned to that position on Cosimo’s part. When planning the historical paintings in the Great Hall with Vasari and Borghini, Cosimo assumed, like any ruler, that the topics selected would reflect positively on the city and his own role. Yet his particular concern lay with the historical accuracy of those topics. Further, Cosimo’s support for Borghini’s arguments about the early city also required that he disagree with those that Varchi had recently made in his history and read to him; that seems to have caused no particular problem for Varchi. When Mei’s little treatise circulated and created a stir, Cosimo reacted by telling Borghini to get to work at a defense of the historical accuracy of the paintings. Such concerns seem consistent and genuine. It also seems reasonable that Cosimo would have little reason – and even less time – to take one side or another in the numerous debates that were both characteristic and constant within the Accademia Fiorentina over the years.

Florentine Studies

When his intervention was requested, as in the case of papal censors and the Decameron edition, he could have confidence in the quality of the Florentine scholarship he helped to defend, and the strength of the cases they presented. By no means all of that Florentine scholarship had the city and its culture as its subject. Yet Florence was a subject of recurring interest, and the principal interest of many. This focus arose not out of a provincial vision but out of a more general recognition of the value of Florentine achievements. Dante, Giotto, or Michelangelo were praised not just in Florence but across Italy and beyond. The Florentine vernacular had standing across Europe as a language that merited study. Florentines had long excelled at the study of the ancients. As consensus grew that their own achievements might compare with those of Greece or Rome, it is not surprising that Florentine scholars took the tools they developed for the study of antiquity and used them to examine and interpret their own cultural world as well. Many of the tools of humanist scholarship, typically focused on antiquity, needed some modification. The work of editing and commenting on texts was an established humanistic practice. To edit early Florentine texts with serious attention to manuscript transmission was similar in many ways, but it raised questions about linguistic norms and practice that called for serious attention to the language of fourteenth-century Florentines. So too the writing of history. Florentines made great strides in the use of documentary evidence in the writing of history; Cosimo established and staffed an archive intended for both preservation and access. Yet Florentine historical writers came increasingly to feel the need to move beyond traditional practices to include broader matters, whether it be the study of factions and other social groups in order to explain historical action, or to examine customs and practices that had not typically received much attention from ancient writers of history. Thus, developments in historical scholarship contributed to an interest in writing historically about topics that were not part of the subject matter of traditional histories. Vasari’s great project arose not only from an interest in examining the developments in art over time, but also from an interest in writing about the lives of men who had achieved great things, including great art. The size of the project brought together many Florentine men of letters to ponder questions of how best to understand and to present the changes over time that could be seen in the works that surrounded them.

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The mixed methods involved in the study of buildings, works of art, and the people who produced them contributed as well to questions about ruins and other ancient objects. The problems of documentation these scholars encountered pertained not just to Florence or Tuscany in antiquity, but also to the postclassical era. Comparative antiquarian scholarship began to offer some productive solutions. As Borghini demonstrated, the most effective means of answering local questions might well involve a wider vision, not a narrow one. Many features of early Florence’s layout and its early buildings were not unique to Florence; rather, they had been shared with other regional cities. So too the contents and features related to inscriptions were practices common across large regions. That knowledge could help construct reasonable conclusions from imperfect Florentine evidence, or conversely, could help to authenticate it. Nonetheless, as the exchange between Borghini and Mei makes clear, many Florentines retained their strong preference for textual evidence with its apparently greater precision and certainty. Central to their concerns was the study of language. When Gelli and Giambullari set off debates about the city’s early past, it was the Florentine vernacular that was their primary interest. Those who were most successful in building arguments about the modern language that others found persuasive were those with the best humanist training in classical ones. Yet a humanistic search for eloquence or rules for composition was inadequate to their task. Adopting two fundamental distinctions was vital. The first was between a living language and a dead one. Like a living thing, a living language is impermanent and subject to change. The fixed, absolute standards used for dead languages needed modification. This distinction would also bring new approaches to the study of ancient languages themselves with the recognition that they had once been living languages and underwent changes in their own era. The second was a distinction between the study of letters and the study of language. Whatever their differences, they agreed that language, a collective practice that could be seen to change over time while yet remaining intelligible to those who used it at any given point, was natural to humans. They also agreed that no particular language was natural. As a part of nature, it could become a subject for study by Varchi, Borghini, and their colleagues using analytic tools from natural philosophy. They could assume that it would follow regular rules that they and others might observe and record. The study of modern usage across social levels or professions, as well as efforts to describe such features of speech as cadence

Florentine Studies

and pronunciation, gained thereby a clearer definition. This distinction also clarified the task of those who did wish to debate the standards for literary composition. Further, it seemed that other collective practices and customs might be studied in similar ways; in fact, the eras of major change in one also marked major changes in the others. Both the topics they studied and the methods they used were mixed in nature and overlapping in practice. The proper understanding and interpretation of Tuscan authors who had written a good two centuries earlier required an understanding of the world to which they referred, from politics to place names to the names of articles of clothing. Florentines became increasingly interested in the era that had produced these great writers, the world about which they had written. This world seemed in many ways less advanced than their own. Yet not only had it produced writers whose works were read and valued across Italy and even the rest of Europe; it had also produced the buildings, the paintings, and the sculpture that had won equally far-flung admiration, and with which they still lived. To celebrate Petrarch or Giotto, Bruni or Brunelleschi all involved praising their city for achievements that rivaled the ancients and yet were distinct from them. As their praise and study acquired depth and detail, so too did their sense of that distinctiveness. These Florentines sought ways to discuss with more precision and understanding how it was that the beauty of Florentine or Tuscan writing differed in key features from the ways that Latin writing was beautiful; how modern art and architecture served new ends; and even how the popolo minuto might bear some similarity to the Roman plebs while being a distinctly different social group. Of this group of colleagues, Vincenzio Borghini lived the longest; these issues particularly engaged the attention and efforts of his later years. It is in his later writings that these findings took on increasing shape as a narrative of the creation of Italy – at least, of Florence, and implied of other regions – from the end of the Roman Empire and the barbarian invasions. Not only had the political structures and language of the ancient world ended, but so had the ways of life, the great families, and social organization. For Borghini, the new shape seemed nascent in the age of Charlemagne, but showed clearer outlines in the eleventh century. That is the era he refers to as the age of rebirth. Other important turning points followed, especially the turmoil around and after Frederick II that led to the formation of the city’s government, the birth of Dante as well as

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Giotto, the development of the city’s major families, and the city’s rise to achievements that made it the equal of the ancients. The shape they gave to their Florentine past has been so convincing as itself to seem almost natural. A rebirth had its origins in the first stirrings of Italian cities and then began to flower in the era of Giotto, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio; it continued on a winding path to the greatness of the age of Michelangelo, an age that both revived the ancients and came to rival them. The Florentine studies of this generation helped craft the humanist-inspired tools for the studies of language, society, and custom. They also shaped the lasting story of their own Renaissance.

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Index

Accademia degli Alterati, 80, 116, 205, 216, 344 Accademia degli Infiammati, 16, 18, 24, 169, 186 Accademia degli Umidi, 16, 23, 30, 64, 80, 83, 125, 135, 137, 139, 163, 179, 256, 344, See also Accademia Fiorentina Accademia del Disegno, 1, 27, 237, 252–261, 262, 274–276, 278, 283, 343, 347 Accademia del Piano, 344 Accademia della Crusca, 345 Accademia Fiorentina, x, 1–2, 17–19, 20, 21, 23, 24–26, 29, 56, 61, 63–65, 69, 80, 83, 94, 99, 100, 125, 133, 135, 139, 147, 153, 154, 156, 160, 162, 163, 168, 174, 178, 181, 183, 186, 187, 205, 209, 214, 215, 216, 218, 235, 237, 241, 243, 251, 253, 256, 267, 274, 276, 303, 338, 343–345, 347–348 Adamic language, 44, 61, 63, 192 Adriani, Giovanni Battista, 102, 209, 212, 271, 273 Aeschylus, 179 Agustin, Antonio, 62, 68, 323 Alamanni, Vincenzio, 216 Alberti, Antonio, 133 Alberti, Leon Battista, 234, 235, 241, 243, 245, 246, 252, 268 Alciato, Andrea, 24

378

Aldobrandini, Ippolito, 180 See also Clement VIII, Pope Alighieri, Dante, 2, 27, 35, 45, 81, 83, 109, 111, 117, 125, 138–139, 146, 154, 164, 165, 168, 169, 197, 199, 201, 206, 217, 222, 266, 280, 283, 329, 333, 340, 345, 349 Convivio, 157 De vulgari eloquentia, 126–127, 132, 192 lectures on, 1, 19, 23, 61, 123, 142, 266, 267, 345 Allori, Alessandro, 342 Ambrose, St., 288, 298, 301, 315, 316 Amelonghi, Girolamo, 64 Ammirato, Scipione, 102 Annius of Viterbo (Giovanni Nanni), 37–42, 44–45, 47–50, 58, 61–64, 66, 68, 142, 174, 246 Desiderius Inscription, 290, 302–305 Antinori, Bastiano, 209 Antoninus of Florence (Antonio Pierozzi), 78, 79 Antwerp, 237 Apelles, 259, 271 Aramaic, 27, 29, 30, 44, 48, 49–50, 52, 57, 148, 152 Aramei, 63–65, 70, 124, 136, 154, 174 Arditi, Bastiano, 85, 86

Index Arezzo, 13, 42, 58, 60, 205, 239, 241, 242, 245, 297 Aristides Quintilianus, 183 Aristotle, 24, 45, 57, 112, 159, 177, 182, 187, 189, 190, 196, 221, 226, 286 De interpretatione, 191 Ethics, 18, 241 Poetics, 168, 172, 179, 181 Politics, 179 Aristoxenus of Taranto, 177, 182, 183 Arringatore (Aulus Metellus), 14 Atanagi, Dionisio, 115, 205 Attila. See Totila Baldini, Baccio, 209, 214–216, 286 Bandinelli, Baccio, 239, 256 Baptistery (S. Giovanni), 31, 43, 45, 47, 54, 272, 289, 302, 316 Barbadori, Baccio, 216 Bartoli, Cosimo, 29, 61, 65, 79, 92, 100, 104, 118, 120, 124, 136, 146, 154, 155, 159, 163–164, 173, 174, 205, 235, 240–243, 244, 245–246, 252, 255, 261, 265 Life of Frederick I Barbarossa, 108 Bartolomeo Barbadori, 179 Beato, Giovanni Francesco, 164, 169, 172, 183 Beatus Rhenanus, 105 Bembo, Pietro, 23, 100, 111, 130–131, 132, 135, 139, 150, 151, 164, 165, 168, 170, 184, 185–186, 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 215, 219–220, 221, 229 Benci, Tommaso, 163 Benivieni, Antonio, 80, 209 Berosus, 41, 45, 47, 48, 57, 62, 66 Boccaccio, Giovanni, x, 2, 45, 111–112, 124, 125, 130, 139, 166, 167, 172, 173, 176, 199, 206–207, 214, 224, 266, 268, 275, 283, 329 Decameron, 208–212 Geneologia deorum gentilium, 286–287

379 Boethius (Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius), 100, 164, 168–169, 171–173, 183–184, 187 Bohemia, 106 Bologna, 11, 19, 23, 24, 92, 186, 190, 239 Borghesi, Diomede, 346 Borghini, Agnolo, 205 Borghini, Vincenzio, x, xi, 1, 3, 64, 65, 67, 68, 77, 80, 95, 115, 118, 125, 175–177, 185, 188, 201, 203, 204–232, 237, 239, 241, 259, 342, 350, 351 Accademia del Disegno, 205, 254, 257 Annotations on Villani, 116 Decameron edition, 207, 209–214 Discorsi, 110, 217, 278–279, 306, 334–335 dispute with Mei, 78, 278, 306, 348 Florentine grammar instruction, 214, 348 nobility, 329–330 Novellino edition, 207–209 Sala dei Cinquecento, 277, 348 Vasari’s Lives, 242, 250, 261, 267, 271, 274, 276 wedding of Francesco and Giovanna, 278, 280 Bossi, Donato, 108 Bovelles, Charles de, 197 Bracciolini, Poggio, 2, 45, 71, 78, 79, 81, 91 Bronzino, Agnolo, 244, 251, 274 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 235, 238, 267, 269, 351 Bruni, Leonardo, ix, xii, 2, 12, 33, 35–37, 42, 44, 45, 55, 66, 67, 69, 71, 78–79, 81, 83, 91, 234, 289, 290, 308, 340, 351 Budé, Guillaume, 217, 240 Buonaccorsi, Biagio, 76, 78, 86, 117 Buonarroti, Lionardo, 257 Buonarroti, Michelangelo, xii, 86, 164, 165, 173, 235, 237, 238, 243, 251, 255, 273–274, 275, 283, 349 memorial service, 27, 205, 257–261, 262, 288

380

Index Buoninsegni, Domenico, 83 Buonsignori, Francesco di Andrea, 85 Buschetto, 248, 273 Busini, Giambattista, 90, 91 Busini, Noferi, 83 Caccini, Giovanni, 284–285 Cambi, Giovanni, 75, 85 Cano, Melchior, 303 Caro, Annibale, 187–189, 201, 250 Carolingians, 4, 35, 104, 106, 107, 131, 152, 248, 272, 304, 309, 317, 318, 324 Castelvetro, Ludovico, 116, 188–189, 197, 217 Cathedral (Florence). See Duomo Cattani da Diacceto, Francesco, 21 Cavallini de Cerronibus, Giovanni, 40 Cellini, Benvenuto, 14, 256, 258 Celsus, 164, 169 Centonovelle. See Novellino Cerretani, Agnolo, 82 Cerretani, Bartolomeo, 32, 33, 76, 78, 79 Chaldean. See Aramaic Charlemagne, 34, 54, 78, 104, 195, 272, 289–291, 310, 314, 315, 328, 351 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 60, 93, 100, 239, 342, 348 chimera of Arezzo, 13, 114–115 Chronica de origine civitatis, 35 Cibo, Innocenzo, 8 Cicero, x, 23, 90, 108, 112, 116, 118, 119, 127, 146, 156, 157, 163, 170, 172, 179, 185, 186, 190, 195, 197, 210, 220, 223, 247, 271, 329 Cimabue, 240, 246, 248, 251, 266, 267, 268–269, 273, 275, 280 Cini, Giovan Battista, 216, 274, 280–283, 285, 286 Cino da Pistoia, 151 Ciriaco of Ancona, 62 Citolini, Alessandro, 131 Cittadini, Celso, 346 Claudian (Claudius Claudianus), 286

Clement IV, Pope, 288 Clement VII, Pope, 5, 8, 77, 87, 91, 92, 97, 103, 258 Clement VIII, Pope. See also Ippolito Aldobrandini Colodi, Angelo, 62 Columella (Lucius Junius Columella), 164 Compagni, Dino, 83–84 Compagnia di San Luca, 253 Concini, Bartolomeo, 95 Condivi, Ascanio, 273 Constantine, Emperor, 105, 246, 247, 289, 315, 335 Contarini, Jacopo, 80 Costabili, Paolo, 211 Cresci, Migliore di Lorenzo, 85 Crivello, Paolo, 153, 164 d’Ambra, Francesco, 155, 285 Danti, Egnazio, 299 Dardanus, 34, 49 Dati, Goro, 81 Davanzati, Bernardo, 80, 216 Dazzi, Andrea, 21 Dei, Andrea, 265 Dei, Benedetto, 103 del Migliore, Filippo, 15, 16, 22, 24 del Nero, Niccolò, 290 del Nero, Tommaso, 344 Desiderius, King of Lombards, 290, 302, 303, 304 Diodorus Siculus, 41, 246, 271 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 36, 150 diphthongs, 137–138 Dolce, Ludovico, 154, 164, 184, 200 Domenichi, Ludovico, 19, 100, 113, 120 Donatello (Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi), 238, 258, 269 Doni, Anton Francesco, 19, 141, 240 Donizone, 109–110 Dortelata, Neri, 143, 163, 167, 170, 241 Drusi, Agatone, 151 Du Bois, Jacques, 197

Index Dugento (Council of Two Hundred), 7, 17 Duomo, 60, 85, 262, 288, 315, 316, 317, 318, 342 Eleonora di Toledo, 9, 12, 59, 100, 261, 343, 348 Etruscan language, 29, 30, 37, 44, 47–48, 49–52, 56–58, 69, 70, 125, 148–150, 151, 152, 194, 198, 348 Etruscans, 13, 27, 30, 32, 33, 35, 37, 39, 42, 45, 49, 51, 57, 63, 303 Eusebius of Caesarea, 286 Farnese, Alessandro, 239, 244 Farnese, Ottavio, 9 Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, 20, 259, 277 Ficino, Marsilio, 41, 76, 85, 143, 144, 163, 170, 234 Fiesole, 32, 33–35, 39, 44, 49, 51, 60, 96, 288, 295, 298, 304, 308, 309, 319 Filelfo, Francesco, 81 Flavio, Biondo, 108, 109, 325 florin, 323–325 Florus, Lucius Annaeus, 296–298 Fortezza da Basso, 8, 9, 46 Fortunio, Giovan Francesco, 128, 129 Forty-Eight (Florentine Senate). See Quarantotto Franks, 34, 195, 303 Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (Barbaross), 108 Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (Barbarossa), 317 Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, 131, 151, 153, 280, 317, 320, 323, 328, 351 Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, 36 Frontinus, Sextus Julius, 36, 62, 78, 294–295 Gaddi, Francesco, 75 Galilei, Vincenzo, 173, 182

381 Gauls, 34, 49, 303 Gelli, Giovan Battista, 21, 22–23, 24, 27, 29, 37, 41, 57, 59, 60, 63, 65, 67, 68–70, 92, 95, 104, 124, 133, 136, 153, 154, 177, 197, 198, 203, 251, 350 Dante lectures, 19, 61 Dell’origine di Firenze, 46, 54, 64, 149 Ragionamento, 154–159 Genoa, 40, 242, 305 Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 240, 249, 269 Ghirlandaio, Domenico da, 249 Giambullari, Pierfrancesco, x, 3, 24, 27, 29, 37, 41, 56, 57, 61–66, 118, 124, 136–137, 139, 142, 146, 174, 175, 177, 181, 197, 198, 202, 203, 205, 227, 241, 246, 252, 300, 348, 350 Apparato et feste, 59–61 De la lingua, 154–156, 163 Il Gello, 46–55, 58, 67–70, 147–154, 184 In difesa della lingua (Lenzoni), 164, 168–170, 171 Istoria dell’Europa, 108, 120 Giannotti, Donato, 23, 95, 98 Giles of Viterbo (Egidio Antonini), 41 Giotto di Bondone, x, 27, 165, 173, 237, 238, 251, 266–269, 270, 271, 275, 280, 336, 340, 349, 351 Giovanna of Austria, 10, 27, 65, 100, 205, 261, 262, 274, 277, 280, 285, 326, 348 Giovio, Paolo, 71, 88, 89, 90, 92–94, 95, 239–240, 252, 348 Giunta, Bernardo, 19, 133 Giunta, Filippo, 22, 115, 201, 209, 212 Giunta, Jacopo, 118, 201, 212 Giunta, Tommaso, 98 Giunti Press, 11, 19, 20, 78, 86, 98, 113, 115, 116, 117, 133, 180, 185, 189, 202, 207, 211, 252, 285 Godfrey of Viterbo, 40 Goths, 52, 57, 150, 156, 195, 230, 245, 288, 315, 324, 325, 338 Graphia aurea urbis Romae, 39, 40

382

Index Gratian, 314, 315, 340 Grazzini, Anton Francesco (“Il Lasca”), 18, 64, 67, 286, 344 Greek, 16, 19, 21, 22, 25, 29, 30, 38, 44, 45, 51, 52, 57–58, 116, 123, 128, 132, 137, 144, 148–150, 157, 166, 167–168, 171, 177, 181–184, 192, 194, 198, 200, 201, 204, 210, 214, 217, 221, 225, 227, 300, 331 Gregory I, Pope, 304, 315 Gregory VII, Pope, 317 Gualdrada, 82, 305 Guelfs, 4, 96, 120, 288, 328, 329, 333, 337 Guicciardini, Agnolo, 81, 216 Guicciardini, Francesco, 74, 76, 78, 90, 92, 94–96, 97, 101, 119, 159 History of Italy, 71, 77, 88, 99, 114 Guicciardini, Luigi, 159, 232–233 Guidetti, Francesco, 133, 155 Hebrew, 30, 44, 46, 47, 49–53, 55–59, 62, 70, 147–150, 151, 152, 156 Henry I, Holy Roman Emperor, 150 Henry II, King of France, 157 Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor, 109, 305 Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, 320 Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor, 325 Hercules, 39, 40, 44, 49, 59, 60, 214 Hesiod, 286 Horace, 36, 54 Index of Forbidden Books, 77, 87, 95, 176, 206 Innocenti, Ospedale degli, 205, 261 Janus, 34, 38, 40, 44, 46, 48, 49, 57, 58, 60, 65, 142, 286, 348 Japheth, 34, 40, 44, 60 Josephus, Titus Flavius, 40, 45, 48, 193 Julius II, Pope, 259 Julius III, Pope, 259 Justinian Code, 61, 118, 314, 340

Krantz, Albert, 108 Lactantius, 246 Landino, Cristoforo, 91, 267, 276 Landucci, Luca, 75, 77 Latini, Brunetto, 131, 197 Laurenziana Library, 29, 82, 83, 105, 116, 133 Lenzoni, Carlo, 47, 124, 136, 153, 154–155, 159, 163–174, 181, 183, 184, 200, 203, 241, 252 Leo III, Pope, 105 Leo X, Pope, 5, 42, 54, 55, 92, 94 Leoni, Giovanni Battista, 96 Liber coloniarum, 36, 54, 295 Ligorio, Pirro, 14 Linacre, Thomas, 159 Liutprand of Cremona, 105, 106 Livorno, 60, 86, 299 Livy, 36, 78, 97, 101, 132 Lombardelli, Orazio, 346 Lombards, 57, 195, 196, 202, 226, 230, 247, 272, 288, 293, 303, 304, 309, 315, 317, 321, 325, 328, 338 Lucca, 272, 305, 324 Luchino, Benedetto, 109 Lucidus, Joannes, 49 Lyon, 11, 55, 88, 99, 105, 179, 180, 325 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 71, 72, 76, 78, 79, 87, 91, 94, 96, 102, 112, 120, 133, 176, 206, 265, 275 Maffei, Raffaele (Volterrano), 51, 305 Malispini, Ricordano, x, 66, 71, 78, 117–118, 124, 333 Manetti, Antonio, 267 Manetti, Giannozzo, 80, 81, 265 Manrique, Tommaso, 209–211 Manuzio, Aldo, 170 Manuzio, Paolo, 68 Marchionne da Coppo Stefani, 78, 83 Marescotti, Giorgio, 20

Index Margarita di Parma, 8, 9, 13 Marmochino, Santi, 55–58, 61, 63, 65, 67, 70 Martelli, Ludovico, 193, 200, 209, 216 Martini, Luca, 24 Martinus Polonus (Martin of Troppau), 40 Masaccio (Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone), 263, 268, 269–270, 275 Matal, Jean, 61 Matilda of Canossa, Countess of Tuscany, x, 109–110, 120 Mazzuoli, Giovanni (“Lo Stradino”), 16, 80, 83, 84 Medici, Alessandro Ottaviano, 180, 314 Medici, Alessandro, Duke, 5, 7–9, 23, 85, 87, 89, 90, 91, 94, 99, 100, 120, 185, 239, 323, 343, 347 Medici, Ansovino, 62 Medici, Bernardo (Bishop of Forlì)., 93 Medici, Cosimo (il Vecchio), 13, 97 Medici, Cosimo I, Grand Duke, 4, 5, 8–11–21, 24, 26–28, 48, 56, 63, 87, 89, 92–93, 94, 97, 98–100, 108, 114, 116, 118, 154, 164, 185, 186, 189, 204–205, 209, 212–216, 229, 237, 241, 252, 261, 273, 274, 283, 284, 299, 306, 321, 338, 342, 347–349 Accademia del Disegno, 253–255, 256, 257–258 Etruscans, 61 Sala dei Cinquecento, 287–289, 292 Medici, Ferdinando, Grand Duke, 346 Medici, Francesco, Grand Duke, 10, 27, 65, 69, 100, 117, 156, 189, 205, 238, 258, 259, 260, 262, 274, 277, 283, 326, 342, 343, 348 Medici, Garzia, 9, 261 Medici, GIovanni. See Leo X, Pope Medici, Giovanni (di Cosimo), 261 Medici, Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, 5 Medici, Ippolito, 8, 239 Medici, Lodovico (Giovanni dalle Bande Nere), 60

383 Medici, Lorenzino (Lorenzaccio), 8, 91, 101, 120 Medici, Lorenzo (il Magnifico), 5, 13, 29, 42, 117, 256 Medici, Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, 5 Medici, Piero, 5, 29 Mei, Girolamo, 175 Mellini, Domenico, 109, 280–283, 285–286 Mercator, Gherard, 303 Merula, Giorgio, 42 Metasthenes, 62 Michelozzo (Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi), 251, 265 Mini, Paolo, 84 Miniato, St., 75, 85, 319 Mirabilia urbis Romae, 39, 302 Montemurlo, 9, 10, 24, 89, 97, 99 Montorsoli, Giovann’ Agnolo, 235, 252, 254, 259 Münster, Sebastian, 148, 149 Muzio, Girolamo, 196, 200, 217, 225, 228 Nannini, Remigio, 95, 96, 99, 113–115, 116 Nardi, Jacopo, 71, 88, 90, 91, 94, 96, 97–99, 100, 120, 131, 159 Navager, Andrea, 265 Nerli, Filippo, 74, 88, 90–92, 94, 95, 96, 100, 102, 120, 159 Noah, 33, 36, 38–40, 41–42, 44, 46, 47, 48–50, 57, 58, 60, 62, 64, 65, 66, 142 Norchiati, Giovanni, 124, 137–142, 158, 162, 169, 174, 193, 235, 252 Novellino, 207–211, 224, 268 Order of Santo Stefano, 73, 327 Ordinances of Justice, 280, 283, 322, 329, 334 Orsilago, Piero, 151, 154 Orsini, Alfonsina, 29 Orti Oricellari, 22, 112, 133, 161 Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, 324 Otto of Freising, 108

384

Index Ottonians, 4, 131, 317, 324 Ovid, 114, 140, 286 Padua, 11, 16, 18, 23–24, 34, 139, 179, 180, 185, 186, 190 Pagnini, Santi, 50, 55, 112 Palazzo degli Uffizi, 11, 343 Palazzo Medici, 9, 13, 60 Palazzo Pitti, 9, 12, 14, 273 Palazzo Vecchio (Palazzo della Signoria), 9, 12, 13–15, 17, 262, 299, 305 Sala dei Cinquecento, 205, 261, 277, 278, 287 Palmieri, Matteo, 78, 80 Panvinio, Onofrio, 303, 304, 323 Parenti, Piero, 75 Passerini, Silvio, 5, 239 Paul III, Pope, 13 Paul IV, Pope, 95 Paulinus (of Milan), 288, 298, 301 Pazzi, Alfonso, 63 Perugino, Pietro, 263 Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca), x, 1, 2, 4, 16, 19, 81, 83, 114, 123, 125, 130, 134, 136, 163, 165, 172, 197, 199, 224, 266, 283, 345, 351 Philip II of Spain, 237, 256 Piacenza, 40 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 41 Piero di Cosimo, 270 Pisa, 9, 60, 80, 92, 205, 239, 261, 272, 288 cathedral, 248, 273 university, 2, 11, 15–16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 135, 158, 253, 343, 345 Pitti, Jacopo, 86, 90 Pius V, Pope, 15, 180 Platina (Bartolomeo Sacchi), 109, 325 Pliny the Elder, 36, 45, 50, 51, 54, 78, 112, 233, 240, 245, 246, 271, 290, 294, 295–297, 305 Plutarch, 36, 101, 240, 263

Poliziano, Angelo, xi, 2, 21, 36, 37, 43, 53, 69, 159, 175, 184, 288, 290, 296, 340 Polverini, Jacopo, 100 Pomponazzi, Pietro, 187, 190, 191 Pontormo (Jacopo Carucci), 244, 253, 264 popolo grasso, 98, 120, 331 popolo minuto, 98, 120, 229, 331 Porta al Prato, 60, 277, 280 Porzio, Simone, 23 Postel, Guillaume, 62–63, 70, 197 primo popolo, 322, 328, 332, 333 priorista, 73, 75, 82, 87, 327, 334 priors, xi, 9, 73, 280, 322, 327, 329, 334 Provencal language, 53, 69, 130, 150–151, 184, 197–198, 212, 214, 221, 228, 231 Ptolemy, 78, 233, 290, 294, 298–299, 301, 309 Quarantotto (Forty-Eight, Florentine Senate), 7, 8, 73, 327, 342 questione della lingua, 123, 125, 163, 176, 189 Quintilian, 146, 163, 170, 197, 247 Radagaisus, King of Goths, 292 Rahewin, 108 Raphael (Raffaele Sanzio), 81, 165, 263, 265 Razzi, Silvano, 99, 109, 189, 201, 261, 265 Regino of Prüm, 54 Reparata, St., 288, 316, 319 Reuchlin, Johan, 45 Rhenanus, Beatus, 105 Ricasoli, Braccio, 209 Ricci, Giovanni, 179 Ricci, Giuliano, 81, 87, 116, 121, 212 Ridolfi, Niccolò, 95 Rome, 6, 11, 12, 13, 35, 62, 92, 96, 134, 151, 179–181, 182, 188, 189, 208, 209, 210, 212, 214, 239, 242, 244, 245, 256, 257, 267, 277, 278, 289, 294, 302, 303, 342 Sack, 5, 88, 99

Index Rome and Romans (ancient), x, xii, 27, 30, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, 44, 46, 57, 67, 103, 105, 115, 120, 124, 150, 157, 195, 198, 205, 221, 279, 294, 300, 301, 308, 309–313, 321, 324, 325, 330, 335, 338, 349 art and antiquities, 15, 246–248, 309 Rossi, Azariah de’, 58 Rossi, Giovanni Girolamo, 99 Rucellai Gardens. See Orti Oricellari Rucellai, Bernardo, 75 S. Croce, 257, 259, 264, 274, 300, 310 S. Lorenzo, 29, 47, 62, 137, 258, 259, 342 S. Marco, 55, 60 S. Maria degli Angeli, 254, 261, 265 S. Maria Novella, 17, 55, 269 S. Miniato, 248, 258, 272, 319, 322 Sabellico, Marcantonio, 108 Sacchetti, Franco, x, 266, 268, 271, 336 Sallust, 32, 78 Salutati, Coluccio, 266 Salviati, Lionardo, 212, 259, 261, 345 Sangallo, Franceso da, 244, 251 Sanudo, Marin, 41, 265 Sanzanome, 81 Savonarola, Girolamo, 6, 55, 76, 88 Saxo Grammaticus, 45 Scala, Bartolomeo, 78, 79 Segni, Bernardo, 20–21, 22, 86, 90, 92, 96, 159 Seneca, 100, 187 Siena, 10, 77, 89, 151, 288 university, 343, 345 Signa, 290, 300 Sirleto, Guglielmo, 212 Solinus, Gaius Julius, 48, 50 Speroni, Sperone, 18, 186, 191 SS. Annunziata, 252, 254 Steuco, Agostino, 53 Strozzi Luigi, 77

385 Strozzi, Carlo, 24 Strozzi, Carlo di Tommaso, 82, 84 Strozzi, Chirico, 204 Strozzi, Filippo, 9, 24 Strozzi, Giovambattista, 344 Strozzi, Piero, 24 Strozzi, Ruberto di Filippo, 24 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius, 35 Tacitus, 78, 80, 295, 298, 308 Tarsia, Giovan Maria, 259, 261 Tolomei, Bartolomeo, 158 Tolomei, Claudio, 131, 153, 197, 200 Torelli, Francesco, 155 Torelli, Lelio, 15, 16, 19, 61, 95, 118, 205, 254 Torrentino Press, 19, 23, 61, 63, 92, 95, 113, 155, 160, 163, 186, 240, 242, 243, 251, 252 Totila, 54, 78, 195, 196, 288, 289 Trent, Council of, 12, 205, 212, 319 Tribolo (Niccolò Pericoli), 60, 103, 244, 251 Trissino, Gian Giorgio, 132, 144, 193, 200 Troy, 34, 46 Tubal, 62 Uccello, Paolo, 269 Ughi della Cavallina, Giuliano, 85 Valeriano, Pierio, 239, 286 Valla, Lorenzo, 127, 240, 303 Valori, Baccio, 64, 68, 81, 116, 216, 306, 327, 345 Valori, Niccolò, 117 Varchi, Benedetto, x, xi, 1, 3, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 47, 71, 89, 90, 92, 95, 109, 125, 129, 133, 139, 146, 155, 175, 177, 178, 187, 218, 225, 231, 234, 235, 257, 258, 259, 261, 289, 338, 340, 345, 348, 350 Consolation of Philosophy (Borthius), 100

386

Index Varchi, Benedetto (cont.) Ercolano, 142, 174, 176, 187–204, 206 Paragone, 241, 243–244, 251 Storia fiorentina, 80, 85, 88, 91, 98–102–103, 105, 120, 121, 287 Vasari, Giorgio, x, 1, 15, 27, 120, 204–205, 223, 231, 237–239, 256, 257, 277, 278, 280, 319, 342, 349 Accademia del Disegno, 252–254 Lives 1550, 3, 165, 173, 251 Lives 1568, 15, 261–276, 280 Sala dei Cinquecento, 290, 302, 348 Venice, 6, 11, 19, 20, 24, 34, 97, 113, 128, 131, 136, 153, 185, 186, 195, 205, 252, 255, 265, 272, 301, 316 Vergil, 36, 150, 170, 190 Vergil, Polydore, 105 Verino, Francesco (Il Vecchio), 16, 17, 22, 23, 187, 204, 345 Verona, 41 Vettori, Francesco, 16, 76

Vettori, Piero, 1, 16, 19, 21–22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 86, 92, 116, 118, 133, 175, 178–180, 181, 182, 185, 187, 204, 205, 216, 230, 241, 258, 261, 284, 290, 296, 338, 340, 342, 345 Vicentino, Valerio, 245 Villani, Filippo, 31, 80, 81, 87, 113, 266–267, 276 Villani, Giovanni, x, 31, 32, 33–35, 36, 39, 43, 46, 49, 51, 54, 61, 66, 67, 71, 78, 80–83, 103, 108, 109, 111–116, 117, 124, 125, 127, 150, 176, 195, 196, 206, 216, 225, 266, 288, 289, 300, 305, 308, 316, 317, 331 Villani, Matteo, 31, 78, 80, 81, 87, 113, 115, 205, 266 Vitruvius, 235, 243, 245, 249, 310 Volpaia, Benvenuto della, 103 Volterra, 51, 58, 60, 65, 261 Zeffi, Francesco, 204 Zenobius, St., 237, 315, 316