The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: The Philosopher and the People 9789048556243

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The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Scientiae Studies The Scientiae Studies series is a forum ideally suited to innovative interdisciplinary discourses and strands of intellectual history pivoted around the circulation of knowledge. The series is deliberately global, so looks beyond, as well as within, European history. And since it confronts theories and practices in the early modern period that had yet to be separated into their modern ‘scientific’ configurations, the proposals we welcome study both learned societies and artisanal knowledge, as well as the history of universities and the birth and evolution of early modern collections. Thus we aim to bridge the gap between material culture and history of ideas. While natural philosophy and natural history remain central to its endeavours, the Scientiae Studies series addresses a wide range of related problems in the history of knowledge, which respond to the challenges posed by science and society in our changing environment. Series editors Stefano Gulizia, University of Milan (Editor-in-chief, 2020–2023) Vittoria Feola, University of Padova Christine Göttler, University of Bern Cassie Gorman, Anglia Ruskin University Karen Hollewand, Utrecht University Richard Raiswell, University of Prince Edward Island Cornelis Schilt, Linacre College, Oxford

The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy The Philosopher and the People

Marco Sgarbi

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Netherlandish Proverbs, 1559, Oil-on-panel, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 138 7 e-isbn 978 90 4855 624 3 doi 10.5117/9789463721387 nur 685 © M. Sgarbi / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2023 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

List of Figures

7

1. Introduction

9

2. Tug of War 19 3. Figures of Democratizers

47

4. Intentions for Democratizing

79

5. Tools of the Trade

119

6. Communities of Recipients

161

7. Epilogue 197 Appendix 1

209

Appendix 2

235

Acknowledgements 251 Bibliography 253 Index 277



List of Figures

Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2 Figure 3.1

Christ as the True Light by Hans Holbein the Younger Robert Estienne’s Pressmark Frontispiece of Alessandro Piccolomini’s La seconda partede la filosofia naturale, published “alla Bottega d’Erasmo” Figure 4.1 Frontispiece of Brucioli’s translation of Bible, attributed to Lorenzo Lotto Figure 4.2 Frontispiece of Agrippa’s De occulta philosophia with the motto Nihil est opertum, quod non reveletur, & occultum quod non sciatur Figure 5.1 Girolamo Catena’s Discorso sopra la traduttione delle scienze, & d’altre facultà (1581) Figure 6.1 Alessandro Piccolomini’s In mechanicas quaestiones Aristotelis paraphrasis (1547) Figure 6.2 Alessandro Piccolomini’s Parafrasi sopra le Mecaniche d’Aristotile (1582) Figure 6.3 Frangipane’s dedicatory letter to Giulia da Ponte, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, A: 60.9 Eth Figure 7.1 Vincenzo Citraedo’s Fisionomia naturale Figure 7.2 Giovanni Antonio Roffeni’s Discorso astrologico (1611) with the letter against Martin Hork in defense of Galileo Figure 8.1 Antonio Scaino’s La politica (1578) Figure 8.2 Antonio Brucioli’s Gli Otto libri della Repubblica (1547) Figure 8.3 Panfilo Persico’s Della filosofia Morale, & Politica d’Aristotele (1607) Figure 8.4 Galezzo Florimonte’s Ragionamenti (1567) Figure 8.5 Felice Figliucci’s Della filosofia morale (1551) Figure 8.6 Giulio Landi’s Le attioni morali (1584) Figure 8.7 Giulio Ballino’s La morale (1564) Figure 8.8 Alessandro Piccolomini L’instrumento della filosofia (1551) Figure 8.9 Alessandro Piccolomini’s La prima parte delle theoriche (1563) Figure 8.10 Bernardo Segni’s Rettorica et poetica (1549) Figure 8.11 Lodovico Castelvetro’s Poetica (1570)

27 39 60 82 113 146 163 164 177 202 204 210 211 212 213 215 216 218 220 223 225 226

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The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Figure 8.12 Angelico Buonriccio’s Paraphrasi sopra I tre libri dell’anima d’Aristotele (1565) Figure 8.13 Benedetto Dottori’s Trattato dei sogni (1575) Figure 8.14 Francesco Verino the Younger’s Trattato delle metheore (1573)

228 229 230

1. Introduction Abstract The introduction identif ies to what extent it is possible to speak of a democratization of knowledge in Renaissance Italy. It establishes the boundaries of the present investigation within the Aristotelian tradition, and outlines democratization as a process capable of assigning power to people. It anticipates how the democratization of knowledge historically is invested equally in ideas from religion and philosophy, involving the same democratizers, moved by similar intentions, employing identical techniques of vulgarization and targeting equivalent communities of recipients. Keywords: Democratization, Knowledge, Process, Philosophy

In a seminal contribution to the definition of the “history of knowledge,” the illustrious English historian Peter Burke writes that the second half the twentieth century was “the great age of the democratization of knowledges, thanks in part to radio lectures, televised science, open universities and online encyclopaedias.”1 Nothing on a similar level occurred, obviously, in the Renaissance. Nothing of the same magnitude or significance. However, something certainly occurred in the Renaissance, something that seems to point to a process of democratization of knowledge. New instruments and means of gathering, producing and disseminating knowledge – the printing press is but one example – emerged. New languages – vernacular ones – established themselves as languages of knowledge. New approaches to spirituality and religion were born with the Reformation and the spread of heterodox groups in Europe. Not irrelevant issues at the time, but central topics that historians have characterized – albeit in their very different interpretations – as foundational elements of the Renaissance.2 Yet, it is 1 Peter Burke, What is the History of Knowledge? (London: Wiley, 2015), 96. 2 Some scholars have seen in the printing press a silent revolution that gave a fundamental impulse to characterizing movements of the Renaissance such as the Reformation and the Scientif ic Revolution (See Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change

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The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

still legitimate to ask to what extent we are facing here a genuine process of democratization of knowledge. Many are the critical voices that have been raised against a too simplistic and indiscriminate acceptance of the idea of democratization of knowledge. In relation to idioms, for instance, as Burke himself asserts, “to write in a vernacular language was to widen access to many knowledges in one way, by making them available to social groups that had not learned Latin … however, writing in a vernacular narrowed access in another way, access for foreigners.”3 This is for instance the famous case of Galileo Galilei and his two major masterpieces mainly written in the vernacular, namely the Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo and the Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze, and only later translated in Latin.4 Concerning the printing press, then, one might question how in a period of generalized illiteracy this could have been a real and meaningful agent of change. And even where there was the capability of reading, one might posit functional illiteracy in understanding texts of varied and differing complexities. It may also be questioned as to whether the printing press actually increased the circulation of knowledge in comparison to the era of manuscripts, which survived for more than a century as the instrument of scholarly communication.5 So why are we dealing with democratization? Is it legitimate to talk of democratization? Is this perhaps an anachronistic historical label invented by scholars, or has it some historical foundation in the period under consideration? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Others considered as a peculiar element of the Renaissance the emergence of vernacular literatures, for the reason that the use that people make of a language for intellectual purposes represents not the whim of an individual, but the expression of a collective force that spontaneously generates its own culture, tradition and knowledge. Among the many studies on the relationship between Renaissance and vernacular languages, see Vittorio Rossi, Il Quattrocento (Milano: Vallardi, 1956); Eugenio Garin, La cultura del Rinascimento. Profilo storico (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1967). Finally, many historians have identified in the religious renovatio beginning with St Francis and Petrarch, and continuing up to the time of Erasmus and Luther, the true meaning of Renaissance, as rebirth, renewal, and new life, in which the individual is the main protagonist, unhinging religious authority from its role in mediating with God. Pertinent is the legacy of books like Henry Thode, Franz von Assisi und die Anfänge der Kunst der Renaissance in Italien (Berlin: Grote, 1885); Konrad Burdach, Reformation, Renaissance, Humanismus. Zwei Abhandlungen über die Grundlage moderner Bildung und Sprachkunst (Berlin: Paetel, 1918). 3 Burke, What is the History of Knowledge?, 96. 4 See Marco Bianchi, Galileo in Europa. La scelta del volgare e la traduzione latina del Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2020). 5 Brian Richardson, “Print or Pen? Modes of Written Publication in Sixteenth-Century Italy,” Italian Studies, 59 (2004): 39–64.

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Before facing these problems directly, allow me perhaps a trivial remark, which is nonetheless important. Democratization characterizes a process that derives its name from democracy, which means power to the people or power to the many. It is best described according to four elements: (1) Democratization is first of all a process and, as such, it is something in progress and not completed, but rather a tendency towards the accomplishment of something. Dealing with the democratization of knowledge, therefore, means working with an attempt at the expansion and spreading of knowledge to a wider number of people across multiple strata of society, an attempt that can be – to a greater or lesser degree – frustrated, achieved, or effective. This attempt should be assessed as such, that is as a process and according to its intentions, and not as a fait accompli. All too frequently, as I shall show in the pages of this essay, did vulgarizers themselves apologize – captatio benevolentiae – for the clumsiness of their attempt, for the language they employed, for their lack of adequate terminology, for the excesses in their imitation of and servility to Latin. Transposing a conceptuality related to a language is not an easy operation, for it is not easy to transpose different kinds of texts from one tradition into another idiom, in particular for authors who, as we shall see, were bilingual but mostly reasoned philosophically and scientifically in Latin.6 (2) The purpose of the process and attempt at democratization is to assign a power, a power which otherwise would not be available to people. This is the second fundamental aspect of democratization. Various kinds of knowledge manifest or detract from different types of power simultaneously. Indeed, unveiling religious mysteries diminished the authority of ecclesiastical institutions which had hitherto had control over society, tended to promote a private and immediate relationship with religion and spirituality. Equally, opening up philosophy and science broke the boundaries between high and low culture and fostered a more personal engagement and commitment to the advancement of knowledge. The process of democratization is not univocal even if it tends to produce, as we will see, common strategies. (3) The third aspect concerns the recipients of the democratization of knowledge. To whom was this knowledge and power made available? The most obvious answer, which is not so very evident as I shall show, is that it 6 Umberto Eco, Experiences in Translation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 17.

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was to the “many,” or to the “people.” The concept of “many” presupposes its correlative and antonym the “few,” and therefore, if applied to the concept of democratization, it implies the dissemination of knowledge to those beyond a narrow circle of intellectuals. Who are these people? And who is it that occupies the narrow circle? The boundaries are blurred. Here we come to the third aspect of this democratization. Without giving a very specific answer just yet, if we stick with the concept of democratization, we may say in broad terms that the first category is the common people. By the term “people” (Italian: volgo) I mean – coming at it from an intellectual and cultural standpoint – that cross-section of society that represents the majority and commanding the greatest anonymity, but also occupying the lowest levels of culture, and hence also containing the least qualified and influential in respect of economic and political life. It may be a synonym for the Italian word popolo, in being the part of society that is juxtaposed to the upper classes. The word “people” has a long and rich tradition, especially in medieval Italy, yet the historical and literary basis for the meaning adopted in this book can be found in many sixteenth-century authors, especially those orbiting the regions I consider in this book. Marin Sanudo writes that there are “three kinds of inhabitants: (1) nobles – who govern the state and the Republic … (2) citizens, (3) artisans, or the common people.”7 He was referring to the city of Venice, but by “people” he meant “artisans, workers, servants, marginal people, and numerous foreigners, who did not belong to the two higher categories.”8 According to Gasparo Contarini, by contrast, in Venice “the totality of the people is divided in two, so that some are of an honorable kind, and others are the lowest plebs.”9 Again, Donato Giannotti writes that by people (popolari) he meant plebeians (plebei) – that is, “those who practice the lowest arts to live, and have no status in the city.”10 The people is the great multitude (moltitudine) composed of different kinds of inhabitants, including low-level artisans or servants. Finally, in what may be considered the most important programmatic work of vernacular 7 Marin Sanudo, De origine, situ et magistratibus urbis Venetae (Milano: Centro di studi medioevali e rinascimentali E.A. Cicogna, 1980), 22. 8 Claire Judde de Larivière and Rosa M. Salzberg, “The People are the City: The Idea of the Popolo and the Condition of the Popolani in Renaissance Venice,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 68 (2013): 769. The authors offer a seminal reconstruction of what the idea of “people” meant from economic, social, political and legal standpoints, drawing fine distinctions between the terms popolo, popolani and popolari. 9 Gasparo Contarini, La Republica e i magistrati di Vinegia (Venice: Giglio, 1564), 148. 10 Donato Giannotti, Opere politiche (Milano: Marzorati, 1974), vol. 1, 46.

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humanism in the sixteenth century, Pietro Bembo’s Prose della volgar lingua (1525), “people” is synonymous with the “masses” (volgo), “commoners” (popolani), “populace” (genti), “multitude” (moltitudine), “uneducated” (non dotti), and also “peasants” (contadini). Unlike many vulgarizers that we will encounter in this book, however, Pietro Bembo uses the term “people” in a derogatory sense, and advances a restricted conception of culture in which “very few men in each century” have knowledge.11 I call this conception the aristocratic idea of knowledge. Nonetheless, “people” was also a general term used to designate low social classes or indistinct masses: “men and women, young and old, rich and poor, master artisans with their own workshops, merchants, shopkeepers and street sellers, laborers, apprentices and journeymen, shipbuilders and sailors, porters, fishermen, artists and performers, school teachers, prostitutes, domestic servants and gondoliers, barbers and doctors, policemen and town criers, beggars and vagabonds.”12 As Claire Judde de Larivière and Rosa M. Salzberg have written, the “people” was “not simply the poor or the marginal,”13 but sometimes embraced king and prince, noblewomen, statesmen and intellectuals.14 (4) This very same word “people” should characterize or should be contained in the last important element of the democratization of knowledge – that is, the particular aspect from which the process derives its name, namely the idea of democracy itself. In order to assess whether there was a 11 See Pietro Bembo, Prose della volgar lingua, ed. Carlo Dionisotti (Torino: UTET, 1931), 31–2. See Antonio Montefusco, “Scrittori, Popolo, Italian Thought,” in Italia senza nazione. Lingue, culture conflitti tra Medioevo ed età contemporanea (Perugia: Quodlibet, 2019), 73–98. 12 Judde de Larivière and Salzberg, “The People are the City,” 773–4. 13 Ibid., 774. 14 According to Andrea Zorzi, the “people” included “groups at the bottom, or on the margins, such as unskilled workers, hired labourers, peasants, or the poor,” and not only the “self-employed artisans organized in occupational guilds, skilled workers, masters and foremen, small traders and entrepreneurs, small property owners, notaries, teachers, and doctors,” all of whom established themselves in opposition to the “nobles” and “knightly aristocracy.” Andrea Zorzi, “The Popolo,” in Italy in the Age of the Renaissance 1300–1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 145. According to Roger Chartier, the term relates to “readers who did not belong to ‘the three robes’ …: the black robe of the clerics; the short robe of the nobility; and the long robe of a varied group of low- or high-grade officials, lawyers, and attorneys, to which must be added the medical profession. Thus I identify the following as belonging to the ‘popular’ class: peasants, master craftsmen and their journeymen, and merchants, including those who have retired from business and style themselves ‘bourgeois’.” See Roger Chartier, “Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Modern France,” in Understanding Popular Culture: Europe from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century (Berlin-New York-Amsterdam: Mouton, 1984), 237–8.

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process of democratization at that time – a process that in this sense is not only a mere historiographical hypothesis or label at best – it is necessary to understand what the concept of democracy at that time entailed, and also the contemporary evaluation of it. If we look at historical dictionaries of the Italian language, it is clear that both the noun “democracy” and the adjective “democratic” were related to the concept of “people” or the popular character of something – typically a form of government or administration.15 The word “democracy” in itself did not enjoy the same positive connotation of today, but rather most of the time it was related to a taking of power by the people that led to turmoil and political instability because of their incapacity to govern and rule. What was democratic or popular was not positive, at least for the elite that at that time defined and characterized the concept. The term democracy coincided with a negative image that came essentially from the Greek classical tradition, and from a culture that was an expression of an aristocratic hegemony. A democratization of knowledge – if there was such a thing, therefore – had to do intellectual battle with this negative judgement. Indeed, as we shall see, religious and political authorities were afraid of, and had many concerns about, the democratization of knowledge, and they reacted with an attempt to close off access to knowledge, especially in CounterReformation Italy, legitimatizing their interventions on a religious basis. For this reason also, the focus on Italy is extremely important.

In this essay I want to provide some food for thought for understanding this process and to problematize it better, leaving to other scholars, undoubtedly much more qualified than me, to solve the problems that have worried generations of historians. In particular, this volume is about the process of democratization of knowledge that links the “Philosopher” par excellence – Aristotle from Stagira – and the people in Renaissance Italy. Whoever approaches the reading of these pages hoping to find a history of the magnificent triumph of the democratization of knowledge will be disappointed. This essay concerns rather the limits of democratization and its attempt to overcome them. I will focus on the Italian case because it falls more within my competence and expertise, even if I am perfectly aware that in other religious, cultural, social and geographical conditions the situation could be somewhat different.16 15 GDLI, vol. 4, 168–9. 16 See the illuminating reflections of Luca Bianchi in Luca Bianchi, “La ‘specificità italiana’: note sulla filosofia in Italia fra Medioevo e Rinascimento,” Rivista di filosofia, 111 (2020): 3–31.

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I will dwell particularly on two aspects of what a process of democratization should entail. First of all, I will look at the process of democratization of knowledge from the standpoint of language. My conviction is that in this period this process always implies a linguistic practice – that is, the transposition of texts from the Classical languages into the vernaculars, which expands the category of recipients to include those ignorant of Greek or Latin. The expansion is not only in terms of quantity, therefore, but first and foremost of quality. Indeed, writing in Latin could have guaranteed a wider dissemination of knowledge in terms of numbers across the various countries. Democratization, however, concerns also the opening up of access to knowledge for people with different levels of linguistic register and cultural background. In other words, the democratization of knowledge entails various forms of vulgarization. It is therefore a movement which is at one and the same time a process of extension and fragmentation with regard to knowledge. This is not, however, the only way of investigating democratization. Indeed, there are many ways of making knowledge more accessible, approaches and practices which can be applied even within the same language. A typical example is the reconfiguration of complex texts that employs technical and difficult terminology in easier and simpler works, omitting the most complex parts and using paratextual systems such as tables or diagrams to make the content more understandable. However, in the period I am considering, the debate concerning democratization of knowledge revolves around, or is at least strictly related to, linguistic problems. Second, I have considered a specific case of knowledge – that of philosophy and, in particular, Aristotelian philosophy – because it has constituted for centuries the intellectual heritage of the cultural hegemonic class. Furthermore, Aristotelian philosophy, in its many and multiple versions, covers all branches of knowledge at the time. Understanding how and why such a wealth of knowledge was vulgarized helps to characterize and contextualize the putative process of democratization. My approach therefore will be limited and circumscribed, and will offer only a partial vision of the process of democratization of knowledge, without being so bold as to generalize further. This essay has been written in order to address some specific questions: – – – –

What was the framework of this process of democratization? Who democratizes? With what intentions? With what strategies, and in what manner?

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– For whom was democratizing undertaken? – What were the consequences?17 Chapter 1 reconstructs the context and theoretical framework within which a democratization of knowledge in Renaissance Italy emerged. It highlights the fundamental role played by Erasmus of Rotterdam in the development of an idea of democratic access to knowledge, in particular to gospel philosophy and Holy Scripture. The fundamental move that Erasmus made was to consider Holy Scripture and sacred books just like any other kind of lay knowledge or pagan philosophy – that is, as constituted by a set of ideas, concepts, and doctrines, by no means different from that of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Lorenzo Valla or Marsilius Ficinus. No doubt gospel philosophy had divine origin, and for this reason it was the most praiseworthy and the most truthful. It was also the most powerful and the most diff icult to understand and interpret because it was full of mysteries. But like any other form of knowledge, it could be gathered, analysed, disseminated and employed, especially for the purpose of the education of a human being. In so doing, in promoting the access to gospel philosophy and sacred knowledge, Erasmus elaborated arguments for the democratization of any other kind of knowledge. His move is crucial in understanding the continuous passage and transition at that time of ideas from philosophical works into religious thinking and texts, and also the other way round. Erasmus’s ecosystem influenced the debate around a democratic vs aristocratic conception of knowledge, informing the generation of intellectuals who were the protagonists of the democratization of knowledge. In the Quattrocento, the vernacular language was used mainly for practical or religious purposes in everyday life. There were, of course, literary and poetic texts, but scientific and philosophical works were sparse. Erasmus provided theoretical grounds, educational intents and moral values for the processes of democratization and vulgarization to intellectuals who, at least since the beginning of the sixteenth century had been principally attached to the superiority of the Latin language and the culture of Humanism. As will become clear, historically speaking this process of knowledge democratization invests religion and philosophy on equal terms: (1) summoning the same individuals; (2) being moved by similar intentions; (3) 17 There is at least one other important question, which I do not address in its entirety, but which I prefer to streamline from the very beginning – that is, what was democratized. As I have mentioned, the focus is the Aristotelian philosophy in Renaissance Italy.

Introduc tion

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employing identical techniques; and (4) targeting equivalent communities of recipients. Starting from Erasmus’s platform, the central chapters of this book explore these four aspects. Chapter 3 reconstructs the identity of the democratizers of knowledge, examining their main intellectual characteristics, their philosophical interests, their professions, and their religious attitudes. Chapter 4 outlines the intention to democratize, which reveals not only a reaction to, and subversion of, the closing-off of access to knowledge and the closing-in of the authorities, but also an educational drive towards the progress of science and betterment of morality. Furthermore, it shows how not all intentions were fulfilled, pointing out the limits of knowledge democratization. Chapter 5 analyses the tools of the trade of these democratizers, – that is, the instruments through which they aimed to realize their intentions. These tools comprised mainly the vernacular as a “language of knowledge,” and techniques for making a text more accessible, whether by translation or by simplification. Chapter 6, in contrast, addresses the question as to who were the recipients of this knowledge democratization. Following Natalie Zemon Davis’s suggestion, the chapter distinguishes between an intended public – towards which works were directed – and the real audience – those who actually read and benefited from this knowledge.18 This distinction is helpful in assessing the various stages of the realization of the process of knowledge democratization. The epilogue is an open conclusion, which ventures to shed some light on the consequences of the process of democratization of knowledge and indicates a possible future thread of research.

References a. Primary Sources Bembo, Pietro. Prose della volgar lingua, ed. Carlo Dionisotti (Torino: UTET, 1931). Contarini, Gasparo. La Republica e i magistrati di Vinegia (Venice: Giglio, 1564). Giannotti, Donato. Opere politiche (Milano: Marzorati, 1974). Sanudo, Marin. De origine, situ et magistratibus urbis Venetae (Milano: Centro di studi medioevali e rinascimentali E.A. Cicogna, 1980).

18 Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays (Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press, 1975), 192–3.

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b. Secondary Literature Bianchi, Luca. “La ‘specificità italiana’: note sulla filosofia in Italia fra Medioevo e Rinascimento,” Rivista di filosofia, 111 (2020): 3–31. Bianchi, Marco. Galileo in Europa. La scelta del volgare e la traduzione latina del Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2020). Burke, Peter. What is the History of Knowledge? (London: Wiley, 2015). Chartier, Roger. “Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Modern France,” in Understanding Popular Culture: Europe from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century (Berlin-New York-Amsterdam: Mouton, 1984), 229–53. Davis, Natalie Zemon. Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays (Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press, 1975). Eco, Umberto. Experiences in Translation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001). Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Garin, Eugenio. La cultura del Rinascimento. Profilo storico (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1967). Judde de Larivière, Claire and Salzberg, Rosa M. “The People are the City: The Idea of the Popolo and the Condition of the Popolani in Renaissance Venice,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 68 (2013): 769–96. Montefusco, Antonio. “Scrittori, Popolo, Italian Thought,” in Italia senza nazione. Lingue, culture conflitti tra Medioevo ed età contemporanea (Perugia: Quodlibet, 2019), 73–98. Richardson, Brian. “Print or Pen? Modes of Written Publication in Sixteenth-Century Italy,” Italian Studies, 59 (2004): 39–64. Rossi, Vittorio. Il Quattrocento (Milano: Vallardi, 1956). Zorzi, Andrea. “The Popolo,” in Italy in the Age of The Renaissance 1300–1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 145–64.

2.

Tug of War Abstract Chapter 2 describes the tug of war between a democratic vs an aristocratic conception of knowledge. The champion of democratization is Erasmus of Rotterdam. By examining fundamental texts like the Paraclesis and the Exhortatio ad studium Evangelicae lectionis, the chapter shows how Erasmus promotes a process of democratization from the perspective of both content and language. His idea fosters the transition from religion to any other form of philosophy. Against Erasmus, Alberto Pio from Carpi defends the closing-off of knowledge. Their struggle illuminates fundamental aspects of the democratization of knowledge that will set the agenda for sixteenth-century intellectuals. Keywords: Erasmus, Alberto Pio, democratization, evangelical philosophy

2.1

Casting Pearls

The process of democratization of knowledge in Renaissance Italy can be helpfully illuminated by reflecting on two important passages in the New Testament that had legitimatized until then a substantially aristocratic approach to knowledge. The first passage is the Gospel according to Matthew 7:6, in which Christ peremptorily asserts Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.1

After the Sermon on the Mount, Christ summons his disciples, telling them not to waste things of value, especially holy things like the evangelical word 1 Gospel according to Matthew 7:6: “Nolite dare sanctum canibus, neque mittatis margaritas vestras ante porcos, ne forte conculcent eas pedibus suis, et conversi dirumpant vos.” On the symbolic image of the pearls see Friedrich Ohly, Die Perle des Wortes: Zur Geschichte eines Bildes für Dichtung (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 2002).

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by giving it to those unable to appreciate its message and who will only make dirty them. The idea suggests that knowledge should be kept as the prerogative of a limited group of people able to value the Bible’s message and understand its depth and mysteries. Not all knowledge should be shared. The second passage is Epistle to the Romans 11:20, in which according to the Vulgate St Paul wrote Be not high-minded, but fear.2

This Pauline sentence too would have led the ecclesiastical authorities to inhibit and quench the thirst for wisdom, and also the process of the democratization of knowledge, by binding the most important questions of life to matters of faith and religion. In general, these two evangelical messages have been consistently taken in the history of elite as an imperative not to disseminate or dissipate wisdom, as a sign that knowledge should be sealed off, allowed to circulate only within a narrow circle of intellectuals, or else the dignity of their ideas and doctrines will be lost and dispersed. A discordant voice – and perhaps the most striking case – which marks a turning point for the understanding of the process of democratizing knowledge, is represented by Erasmus of Rotterdam, who completely subverts the meaning of these two passages. His radical thought constitutes a dynamic platform – Paolo Simoncelli called it a “well-defined methodology” – on which the democratizers could operate, articulating or realizing their multiple educational and cultural ambitions and their diverse projects for spiritual and religious renewal.3 In his Paraphrasis in Evangelium Matthaei (1520, 1522), Erasmus offers a detailed explanation of the evangelical passage. At first glance, his position seems to be traditional. Erasmus asserts that the mystery of the Gospel should not be revealed without distinction both to the worthy and the unworthy. To explain this thinking, he refers to Matthew’s passage to the Jews or to rich persons. Just as the Jews keep dogs that are considered impure away from holy things, and rich men keep hold of their pearls and do not cast them before swine – for otherwise they would be fools – Jesus admonished 2 Epistle to the Romans 11:20: “Noli altum sapere, sed time.” See Carlo Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 54–69. 3 Paolo Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento. Questione religiosa e nicodemismo politico (Roma: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1979), 306. Erasmus’s platform is transversal to the issue of democratization because it tackles the problem from both sides, that of esoteric vs exoteric knowledge, and that of the language through which this knowledge is conveyed.

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not to cast the evangelical message or secrets of celestial doctrines to everyone, especially those who show their contempt for sounder doctrine so manifestly that this would seem to be fruitless. Indeed, the result would likely be contrary to what was expected. As dogs do not become holier through holy things, but desecrate them, and the swine do not become more beautiful through wearing jewels, but defile their purity, similarly human beings of hopeless malice and arrogance would deride holy doctrine as foolish on acquiring it. In this paraphrase Erasmus seems to maintain the idea of keeping knowledge restricted to a narrow circle of virtuous persons capable of understanding the holy message. Only to the few, eager for knowledge (avidis) of the gospel philosophy, should it be taught, though not indiscriminately, but rather according to each’s level of development, because only in this way can abstruse ideas be really made manifest, open and more comprehensible. 4 The tone is completely different in Erasmus’s letter to the pious reader entitled Exhortatio ad studium Evangelicae lectionis (1522). From this letter there emerges that philanthropic aspect typical of Erasmus’s Christian humanism, already advanced in one of his most famous works, the Paraclesis, which is thus an essential document for understanding his way of thinking.5 The Paraclesis is an exhortation that constitutes one of the three programmatic essays for the Novum instrumentum (1516), and it is a call to arms for intellectuals, philosophers and theologians, with the aim of putting back 4 LB, VII, 43; CWE, XLV, 130: “… nolim tamen Evangelicae sapientiae mysteria sine delectu prodi dignis et indignis. Etenim si Iudaei tanti faciunt sua sacra, ut ab his araeant canes animal impurum, si divites tanti faciunt suous uniones, ut non proijciant eos porcis, alioqui insani habendi qui id faciant, vos qui possidetis ea quae vere sancata sunt, quaeque superant omnes baccas quamlibet pretiosas, cavete ne opes Evangelicas proijciatis indignis. Canes enim sunt, qui toto pectore dediti prophanis rebus abhorrent ab ijs quae sapiunt sanctimoniam. Sue sunt, qui toti immersi voluptatibus obscoenis, execrantur puram castamque Evangelij doctrinam. … His igitur qui sic palam praese ferunt contemptum sanioris doctrinae, ut nulla spes fructus videatur, non opertet ingerere secreta doctrinae coelestis, ne provocati per occasionem, sceleratiores etiam evadant quam anntea fuerant. Et idem eveniat, quod eventurum sit, si quis margaritas procis obijciat, aut canibus id quod sanctum est. Nam canes non solum non reverebuntur rem sacram, verumetiam irritati iactu insilient in vos, ac dilacerabunt dentibus. Et sues pretiosos lapillos ceu rudera pedibus suis conculcababunt. Ita nec canis re sancta fit sanctior, sed rem sanctam prophanat, & sus non f it ornatior gemmis, sed illarum putritatem conspurcat. Sic homines deploratae malitiae doctrinam sacram ut stultam irrident, ubi cognorint … Avids igitur, aut certe sanabilibus communicanda est Evangelica philosophia. Nec statim credenda sunt omnibus, sed ut quisque specimen sui profectus praebuerit, ita sunt abstrusiora quaedam aperienda.” 5 Paul Mesnard, “La Paraclesis d’Erasme,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 13 (1951): 26–42.

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on their agendas the philosophy of Christ (philosophia Christi). It is a call that will find acolytes in orthodox Italian preachers like Cornelio Musso, but also in freethinkers considered heretical, like Antonio Brucioli.6 The Paraclesis – written as a letter to the pious reader exactly like the Exhortatio – introduces the Paraphrasis in Evangelium Matthaei, beginning with strong criticism of Ciceronian eloquence. This is a topic that Erasmus will develop fully in his Ciceronianus (1528), tracing thereby a fil rouge between the process of vulgarization and that of anti-Ciceronianism.7 In the Ciceronianus Erasmus criticizes a particular form of madness, that of Ciceronians who spend all their lives imitating Cicero without really understanding him: “Torturing oneself to reproduce Cicero in his entirety by your sort of method is to behave like a fool.”8 This madness and foolish behaviour recalls that kind of folly associated with the Encomium moriae which characterizes grammarians. The personification of such Ciceronians is Nosoponus, who for seven years touched no books but Cicero.9 The aim was to become a perfect Ciceronian. Bulephorus, who speaks for Erasmus, seeks every way to dissuade him because his goal is not only impossible to achieve, but also harmful. There are many reasons for this. First of all, he claims that it is impossible to use Ciceronian language and style for speaking, but that it should be confined to writing.10 Second, Cicero became the greatest of orators by imitating not just one author, nor all authors, but selecting from among the best of them.11 He had not just one source for his eloquence; rather, he scrutinized historians, philosophers, poets, rhetoricians, Greek as well as Roman.12 Why should the focus only be on Cicero then, if Cicero himself acquired his language, style and knowledge from many authors? According to Bulephorus, anyone who only wants to follow Cicero is a Ciceronian ape, who effectively endorses an anti-Ciceronian line. These are all of course major problems, but not the most important one. 6 Antonino Poppi, La filosofia nello studio francescano del Santo a Padova (Padova: Centro Studi Antoniani, 1989), 127–42. There is no specific study on Brucioli’s idea of the philosophy of Christ, but for a general overview, see Massimo Firpo, “La riforma italiana,” in Élise Boillet (ed.), Antonio Brucioli. Humanisme et Évangelisme entre Réforme et Contre-Réforme (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008), 7–20. 7 Alessio Cotugno has the merit of having identify the impact of Erasmus on the theory of vulgarizations in Alessio Cotugno, La scienza della parola. Retorica e linguistica di Sperone Speroni (Bologna: il Mulino, 2018). 8 LB, I, 1001A; CWE, XXVIII, 399. 9 LB, I, 974E; CWE, XXVIII, 346. 10 LB, I, 978F; CWE, XXVIII, 355. 11 LB, I, 981E; CWE, XXVIII, 361. 12 LB, I, 985B; CWE, XXVIII, 368.

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The fundamental issue is about the relation between res and verba, content and words. Could someone be a good Ciceronian only by virtue of his knowledge of language and style, or should he be an expert in what he says or writes? It would be very difficult, according to Bulephorus, to use the term Ciceronian “of a man who speaks in the best possible way, if he talks about subjects he does not thoroughly understand.”13 Such an attitude would be extremely dangerous for religion, and in general for the fulfilment of human life. Erasmus, through Bulephorus, accuses Ciceronians of blatant paganism, and for this reason “the first concern of the Ciceronians should have been to understand the mysteries of the Christian religion, and to turn the pages of sacred books.”14 The problem is not only religious, but also linguistic, because in Cicero many “Christian” terms – “Holy Spirit,” “Trinity,” “Eucharist,” “Jesus Christ” – were missing and therefore his language lacks the capacity to express the sacred religion. In advancing such criticism on a religious level, Erasmus was arguing also against the idea of the existence of an ideal and perfect language, and claiming rather that every language and every word has its own history. If the limits of Cicero’s language are so evident in the field of religion, why should not one think the same with regard to other fields? Bulephorus suggests, therefore, that if something is missing in Cicero, one could find it somewhere else. Just because it is missing from Cicero’s language does not mean that it is barbarous or that it must be rejected: “This idea that everything that diverges from Cicero is a disgusting example of bad Latin is a pernicious hallucination, which we must banish from our minds.”15 Indeed, “if whatever is new and recently come into the world is considered barbarous, every word must have been at one time barbarous.”16 Erasmus is clearly assessing the problem of the introduction of new terms, which is impossible in the case of a fixed and ideal language such as the Ciceronians wished for. Though Erasmus does not relate this idea to vernacular language, he does associate it with the problem of translation.17 Indeed, facing the problem of words either hitherto unknown in Latin or newly invented, Erasmus asserts that “Cicero was not afraid to do this [that is coining new words] when passing on the doctrines of Greek philosophers to a Latin-speaking audience.”18 13 LB, I, 994D; CWE, XXVIII, 387. 14 LB, I, 994D; CWE, XXVIII, 387. 15 LB, I, 1002A; CWE, XXVIII, 401. 16 LB, I, 996B; CWE, XXVIII, 390. 17 See Alessio Cotugno, “Dall’imitazione alla traduzione. Sperone Speroni fra Erasmo, Bembo e Pomponazzi,” Lingua e stile, 52 (2017): 199–239. 18 LB, I, 996E; CWE, XXVIII, 391.

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The importance of the conception of the introduction of new words in counteracting Ciceronian pedantry moved to an altogether different level when Erasmus came to deal with new knowledge and disciplines. Every sphere of human activity historically generated and conditioned is allowed the right to introduce and use its own technical terms. The core message is that the words should fit the subject or the content of knowledge. Against the Ciceronians of his time, Erasmus reverses the priority of eloquence over knowledge, stating that if one wants to follow Cicero in his real practice: let us make sure our minds are thoroughly equipped with the necessary knowledge; let us first take care of what to say and only then of how to say it, and let us fit words to matter, not the other way around; and while we are speaking let us never lose sight of what is appropriate to the subject.19

This idea leads Bulephorus to establish the importance of adapting language and style to recipients and concepts, and not the other way around.20 In Erasmus there is a new way of understanding eloquence, which is not only a source of delight, but also an instrument that fulfils the specific purpose of educating and persuading people in well-living. If the aim is not to learn how to speak effectively in order to give pleasure, but to persuade people into honourable and ethical conduct, then it is better “to write books that people will constantly be thumbing.”21 Erasmus clearly sees the limits of Ciceronianism. In the first place, Ciceronian language does not suit every cast of mind, and so any attempt to imitate it is destined to fail. Second, but no less importantly, not everyone has the natural gift of being able to achieve such a perfection of ideal style, and therefore imitation is only possible if not contrary to the natural genius.22 These observations will prove highly disruptive in giving vulgarizations a legitimate way to democratize knowledge, and one that could be set against the idea of knowledge production only in Latin and according to a set rhetoric.23 19 LB, I, 1002D; CWE, XXVIII, 402: “Sin haec dissident plurimum ab exemplo Ciceronis, illius exemplo pectus supellectile rerum cognitu necessarium expleamus, ac prima sit sententiarum cura, deinde verborum, & verba rebus aptemus, non contra; nec inter dicendum usquam oculosa decoro demoveamus.” 20 LB, I, 992F; CWE, XXVIII, 384. 21 LB, I, 1021C; CWE, XXVIII, 440. 22 LB, I, 1020F; CWE, XXVIII, 439. 23 See Marco Sgarbi, “The Instatement of the Vernacular as Language of Culture: A New Aristotelian Paradigm in Sixteenth-Century Italy,” Intersezioni, 36 (2016): 319–43; Marco Sgarbi, “What was Meant by Vulgarizing in the Italian Renaissance?,” Intellectual History Review, (2019): 1–28.

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To sum up, in the Paraclesis, Erasmus acknowledges the perfection of Ciceronian eloquence and that it is an insuperable model, yet he believes that this kind of rhetoric is not necessary when the intention is to exhort “all mortals to the holy and healing study of the philosophy of Christ and in summoning them as with a clarion call.”24 In order to convey the philosophy of Christ’s message, such eloquence is superfluous, and it would only act as an obstacle to the communication of the evangelical word. Indeed, preoccupation with this eloquence led to the true philosophy of Christ being forgotten. It would be “neglected by most, and discussed by few.”25 Indeed, “in all the other branches of knowledge that human industry has produced,” according to Erasmus, “there is nothing so hidden, so recondite that keen minds have not investigated it.”26 Erasmus’s message is that the study of the Pythagorean, Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic schools be relegated, and the philosophy of Christ embraced with enthusiasm. It would be foolish to ignore the philosophy of the Gospel, but to profess all that Aristotelian philosophy teaches “about the origin of thunderbolts, about prime matter, about the infinite, matters that do not make one happy if known, or unhappy if unknown.”27 Erasmus argues for the need to downgrade the claims of these presumptuous assertions of knowledge in favour of the re-evaluation of the practical aspects of human life that leads to happiness – indeed, “the philosophy of Christ lies more in the inclinations and intentions of the heart than in syllogisms … it is a way of life rather than a form of argument.”28 This relegation of cognitive claims will be typical of a particular Aristotelian tradition led by Pietro Pomponazzi, and many of the democratizers and vulgarizers of knowledge will find a striking convergence between this Aristotelianism and Erasmian thought. 24 LB, V, 137D; CWE, XLI, 405: “At ego sane, si quid hujusmodi votis proficitur, tantiper dum ortales omneis ad sanctissimum ac saluberrimum Christianae Philosophiae studium adhortor.” 25 LB, V, 139B; CWE, XLI, 407: “a plerisque negligi, a paucis tractari.” 26 LB, V, 1339B; CWE, XLI, 407: “At in caeteris disciplinis omnibus, quas humana prodidit industria, nihil est tam abditum ac retrusum, quod non pervestigarit ingenii sagacitas.” 27 LB, V, 139C; CWE, XLI, 408: “Platonici, Pythagorici, Academici, Stoici, Cynici, Peripatetici, Epicurei, suae quisque sectae dogmata, tum penitus habent cognita, tum memoriter tenent, pro his digladiantur illi, vel emorituri citius quam autoris sui patrocinium desertant. At cur non multo magis tales animos praestamus autori nostro principique Christo? Quis non vehementer foedum censeat Aristotelicam profitenti Philosophiam, nescire quid vir ille senserit de causis fulminum, de prima materia, de inf inito? Quae nec cognita felicem, nec ignorata reddunt infelicem? Et nos tot modis initiati, tot sacramentis adacti Christo, non foedum ac turpe putamus illius nescire dogmata, quae certissimam omnibus praestent felicitatem?” 28 LB, V, 141E; CWE, XLI, 415: “Hoc Philosophiae genus affectibus situm verius, quam in syllogismis, vita est magis quam disputatio, afflatus potius quam eruditio, transformatio magis quam ratio.”

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There was no other route to this wisdom leading to happiness except for evangelical philosophy (philosophia evangelica),29 which is easily accessible “with far less trouble than the teaching of Aristotle, preserved in so many thorny volumes, with all the long and contradictory commentaries of his interpreters.”30 Erasmus’s criticism is targeted at the theology and philosophy of university professors, who he met in his peregrinations around Europe and who left the true philosophy of Christ far behind with their convoluted philosophical quibbling. In this exaltation to evangelical philosophy, Erasmus writes that this knowledge should be known by all, following what Christ himself preached both on Mount Tabor and at the River Jordan,31 indeed this philosophy accommodates itself equally to all. It lowers itself to infants, adjusting to their need. It nourishes them with milk, carries them, cherishes and supports them, does everything necessary until we grow strong in Christ. … This philosophy rejects no age, no sex, no rank, no condition. The sun above is not so universal and accessible to all as is the teaching of Christ. It keeps no one at a distance except the person who distances himself, to his own detriment.32

Erasmus defends the idea that the philosophy and knowledge of Christ is for all and that it can be made understandable to all. It nourishes and makes the human being grow without distinction of age, sex or social condition. It is a 29 Concerning this wisdom, Erasmus states that it is “so remarkable that is has rendered foolish once and for all the entire wisdom of this world,” with a clear reference to his Encomium moriae. See LB V 139E, CWE, XLI, 409: “Cur non hic pia curiositate singula cognoscimus, disquirimus, excutimus? Praesertim cum hoc sapientiae genus, tam eximium, ut semel stultam reddiderit universam hujus mundi sapientiam.” 30 LB, V, 139F; CWE, XLI, 409: “… ex paucis hisce libris, velut e limpidissmis fontibus, haurire liceat, longe minore negotio, quam ex tot voluminibus spinosis, ex tam immensis, iisque inter se pugnantibus Interpretum commentariis, Aristotelicam doctrinam, ut ne addam, quanto majore cum fructu.” 31 LB, V, 135 B–C: “Hunc autorem nobis non schola Theologorum, sed ipse Pater coelestis, divinae vocis testimonio comprobavit, idque bis, primum ad Jordanem in baptismo, deinde in monte Thabor in transfiguratione: Hic, inquit, est Filius meus dilectus, in quo mihi complacitum est, ipsum audite. O solidam auctoritatem, vereque (ut isti vocant) irrefragabilem.” 32 LB, V, 140A–B; CWE, XLI, 409–10: “Haec omnibus ex aequo sese accommodat, submittit se parvulis, ad illorum modulum sese attemperat, lacte illos alens, ferens, confovens, sustinens, omnia faciens, donec grandescamus in Christo … Nullam haec aetatem, nullum sexum, nullam fortunam, nullam rejicit conditionem. Sol hic non perinde communis & expositus est omnibus atque Christi doctrina. Non arcet omnino quemquam, nisi quis semet arceat, ipse sibi invidens.”

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Figure 2.1: Christ as the True Light by Hans Holbein the Younger

universal form of knowledge – so universal that the sun cannot illuminate more human minds. The light of Christ is stronger than any philosophy, and it is for all, with the exception of whoever refutes it, or is unwilling to accept it. The link to the passage in the Paraphrasis of St Matthew’s Gospel becomes evident. This wisdom is for anyone who has “a pious and ready mind … endowed with a sincere and pure faith … willing to learn.”33 Indeed, to whoever has a dishonest mind, the pearls of the philosophy of Christ must not be cast. Within this framework, Erasmus delivers his famous words on the vulgarization of Holy Scripture: I disagree entirely with those who do not want divine literature to be translated into the vernacular tongues and read by ordinary people, as if Christ taught such a convoluted doctrine that it could be understood only by a handful of theologians, and then with difficulty … I would like every woman to read the Gospel, to read the Epistles of Paul. And oh, that these books were translated into every tongue of every land so that not only the Scots and the Irish but Turks and Saracens too could read and get to know them. … I wish that the farmer at his plough would chant some passage from these books, that the weaver at his shuttles would sing something from them; that the traveller would relieve the tedium of his journey with stories of this kind; that all the discussions of all Christians would start from these books … Let each person understand what he can; let each express what he can. Let the one who comes after not envy the one who goes before.34 33 LB, V, 140A; CWE, XLI, 409: “Tantum esto docilis, & multum in hac Philosophia promovisti.” 34 LB, V, 140B–C; CWE, XLI, 410–2: “Vehementer enim ab istis dissentio, qui nolint ab idiotis legi Divinas litteras, in vulgi linguam transfusas, sive quasi Christus tam involuta docuerit, ut vix a pauculis Theologis possint intelligi … Optarem ut omnes mulierculae legant Evangelium,

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What is remarkable in this glorious statement is that Erasmus does not make a heartfelt plea that the Holy Scriptures be translated simply because they are religious and sacred books, but rather on the grounds that they convey a specific philosophy or doctrine. Christ’s words can be a matter of knowledge, of philosophical knowledge, of wisdom, without involving questions of faith. Christ’s message is a source of thought, not simply a matter of faith. Erasmus frequently insists on this idea, always using the same terminology throughout his work: he deals mainly with wisdom (sapientia), philosophy (philosophia) and doctrine (doctrina). His view was that philosophy in becoming Christian did not transform itself into a religious faith. There is no contradiction between being a knowledge-seeking activity – as philosophy is – and being based on the absolute truth revealed by God. Indeed, according to Erasmus, as for many other Renaissance intellectuals, philosophy was, first and foremost, a kind of wisdom or moral way of thinking. In considering the evangelical message as a source of explanation for the meaning of human existence in the world, it becomes a philosophical and ethical system capable of leading to happiness. In the Institutio principis christiani (1516) Erasmus writes that he aims at kind of wisdom (sapientia) or philosophy (philosophia), but not that philosophy, I mean, which argues about elements and prime matter and motion and the infinite, but that which frees the mind from the false opinions of the multitude and from wrong desires, and demonstrates the principles of right government with reference to the example set by the eternal power.35

Thus a philosopher is not someone who is “clever at dialectics or physics,” but someone who “rejects illusory appearance and undauntedly seeks out and follows what is true and good.”36 What must be translated is this kind of knowledge, and this knowledge can be accommodated, arranged and legant Paulinas Epistolas. Atque, utinam! Haec in omnes omnium linguas essent transfusa, ut non solum a Scotis & Hybernis, sed a Turcis quoque & Sarracenis legi cognoscique possint. … Utinam hinc ad stivam aliquid decantet agricola, hinc nonnihil ad radios suos moduletur textor, hujusmodi fabulis itineris taedium levet viator. Ex his sint omnia Christianorum omnium colloquia. … Adsequatur quisque quod potest, exprimat quisque quod potest.” 35 LV, IV, 559–60; CWE, XXVII, 203: “Philosophiam, inquam, non istam, quae de principiis, de prima materia, de motu aut infinito disputat, sed quae falsis vulgi opinionibus, ac vitiosis affectibus animum liberans, ad aeterni Numinis exemplar recte gubernandi rationem commonstrat.” 36 LV, IV, 566A; CWE, XXVII, 214: “Porro Philosophus is est, non qui Dialecticen aut Physice calleat: sed qui contemptis falsis rerum simulacris, infracto pectore, vera bona & perspicit & sequitur.”

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paraphrased in such a way that everyone may understand it. He treats the message of Christ in the same way as any other kind of philosophy and knowledge, but of course as ultimately more important because it comes from God’s son. Erasmus, therefore, is not simply speaking of the translation of the Old and New Testaments, which was not a new practice, being common in the Devotio moderna.37 Erasmus goes far beyond this idea of translation, or so this was understood by the sixteenth-century intellectuals educated on his books. He is discussing the possibility of vulgarizing and democratizing the philosophy of Christ: not of a religion, not of a faith, but knowledge or philosophy. In this sense, Erasmus leads and becomes the inspiration for a generation of intellectuals, who will undertake the enterprise of vulgarizing philosophical knowledge. Not by chance – as we shall see – did the individuals concerned with vulgarization manifest underlying echoes of Erasmus. The vulgarizations of philosophical and scientific thought developed concomitantly and on the initiative of the same vulgarizers as religious texts. To give an explicit example of this crossover, the exhortation to translate philosophy and science into the vernacular in the character of Pietro Pomponazzi in Sperone Speroni’s Dialogo delle lingue (1542) has very clear Erasmian undertones, both in its form and its content.38 Erasmus provides a concrete theoretical framework. For Erasmus, all this knowledge must be available, or be made available, to everyone. He states that “it is expedient to conceal the secrets of kings,”39 with an explicit reference to the pseudo-Aristotelian Secreta Secretorum – that is, a collection of topics offered by Aristotle for the exclusive use of Alexander the Great. 40 It is an interesting reference because it was exactly this conception of the secrecy of knowledge relating to the story of King Alexander that was contested and opposed by those who pursued the endeavour of democratizing knowledge. It is also remarkable because it will be a prince – as we shall see in due course – that will argue against 37 Craig R. Thomson, Scripture for the Ploughboy and Some Others, in Studies in the Continental Background of Renaissance English (Durham: Duke University Press, 1977), 3–28; Cornelis Augustijn, Erasmus. Der Humanist als Theologe und Kirchenreformer (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 26–37; Anton G. Weiler, The Dutch Brethren of the Common Life, Critical Theology, Northern Humanism and Reformation, in Northern Humanism in European Context, 1469–1625 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 325–329. 38 See Vittorio Coletti, Parole dal pulpito. Chiesa e movimenti religiosi tra latino e volgare (Casale Monferrato: Marietti, 1983), 147; Cotugno, La scienza della parola, 23–116. 39 LB, V, 140B; CWE, XLI, 410: “Regum mysteria celare fortasse satius est.” 40 On the tradition of Secreta secretorum see Steven J. Williams, “The Vernacular Tradition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets in the Middle Ages: Translations, Manuscripts, Readers,” in Loris Sturlese (ed.), Filosofia in volgare nel Medioevo (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 451–82.

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Erasmus in opposition to this idea – an evident sign that Erasmus’s attempt was considered harmful and dangerous for the intellectual and political elite. As much as it might be expedient to keep knowledge hidden, “Christ desires his mysteries to be known as widely as possible.”41 Indeed, as Erasmus wrote to Johann von Botzheim, Christ’s apostles spoke the language of “cobblers, sailors, weavers both male and female, and indeed, of pimps and madams.”42 For this reason – Erasmus explains – whoever teaches the precepts of the philosophy of Christ, inviting and inspiring others to accept them, “he is indeed a true theologian, even though a ditch-digger or weaver.”43 Such a statement could only arouse certain dismay among professional theologians, who at a stroke seemed deprived of any authority. And thus, will be the case for many movements, both heterodox and heretical, as has been well demonstrated: persons of every rank, age, and of both sexes became preachers of what they believed to be the evangelical message, considering themselves to be good Christians. 44 Indeed, according to Erasmus, theologians cannot exert exclusive control and power over knowledge, because knowledge descends directly from God.45 And with a series of pressing questions directed at those theologians and university professors who divided their chairs in via Scoti and in via Thomae 41 LB, V, 140B–C; CWE, XLI, 410–411: “At Christus sua mysteria quam maxime cupit evulgari.” 42 Ep 2206: “sutoribus, nautis, textoribus ac textricibus, atque adeo leonibus et lenis.” 43 LB, V, 140F; CWE, XLI, 413: “ad haec hortetur, invitet, animet, is demum vere Theologus est, etiam si fossor fuerit aut textor.” 44 This is the case with the carpenter Antonio da Rialto, who was subjected to a trial for heresy by Gerolamo Aleandro, former contubernal of Erasmus. The battlef ields of Antonio’s ideas and thoughts were barbershops, smitheries, bookshops, his parish, his house, his carpentry and the calli of Venice. He debated with artisans, priests, friars and friends without distinction. He was the head of a small group composed of poulterers, luthiers, grinders, notaries, tailors – some of them native to Venice, others coming from Tuscany, and others again from Germany. They stirred up the common people, attracting to their cause even schoolteachers, who were able to inculcate seditious ideas in the young Venetians. But what kind of ideas? They showed a perfect understanding of even very complex topics like free will, salvation, the nature of virtue, transubstantiation, predestination, foreknowledge, the destiny of the soul after death, the conjunction between mind and body, and the role of authority. See Franco Gaeta, “Documenti da codici vaticani per la storia della Riforma in Venezia. Appunti e documenti,” Annuario dell’Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 7 (1955), 5–53. Even a carpenter could understand and become a teacher of difficult philosophical and religious ideas. Under interrogation, Antonio Spiti, prosecution witness of the carpenter’s unbecoming behaviour, allegedly said: “I said to him: you are heretical, schismatic and excommunicated, damned and a Lutheran. He answered me: I am a good Christian.” See Gaeta, “Documenti da codici vaticani per la storia della Riforma in Venezia. Appunti e documenti,” 33. 45 LB, V, 143B; CWE, XLI, 420: “Hunc auctorem nobis non schola Theologorum, sed ipse Pater coelestis, divinae vocis testmonio comprobavit.”

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in discussing Averroistic theses, he wrote “What, I ask you, is like this in Scotus? … What is like this in Thomas? … Why devote a greater part of life to Averroes than to the Gospels?”46 What is at stake is not an interpretation of a philosopher or of a sect, but the truth. If we are correct in understanding that Erasmus’ intention was to spread knowledge and philosophy, and not matters of faith or to translate Holy Scriptures with a view to imposing religious power and control, then it is possible to appreciate the magnitude of his conception of the democratization of knowledge and of its effects. 47 These go well beyond a mere resumption of themes already present in Devotio moderna, extending the philosophy of Christ not only to the laici spirituales or laici devociores but – as Wim François brilliantly puts it – to “all lay people living in the world.”48 However, the expression “all lay people living in the world” must also be qualified, and the nature of this qualification becomes understandable through considering the Exhortatio ad studium Evangelicae lectionis, which represents a second stage in Erasmus’ reflections on the democratization of knowledge and of its limits. 49 This 1522 exhortation is directly reminiscent of the 1516 Paraclesis, voicing strong disagreement with those who think that lay and uneducated people must be entirely kept from reading the sacred volumes, and that only the few, who over many years have been worn out by Aristotelian philosophy and scholastic theology, should be admitted to these inner sanctuaries. … I do not see why the uneducated must be kept away from the words of the Gospel particularly, like the profane from the holy, since these books were produced for learned and unlearned alike, for Greek and Scythian equally, for slave as well as free, for women along with men, for plebeians no less than kings. Their teaching pertains to everyone equally, what they promise 46 LB, V, 143D–144A; CWE, XLI, 420–1: “Quid, quaeso, simile in Scoto? … quid simile in Thoma? Cur major vitae portio datur Averroi, quam Evangeliis?” See Craig R. Thompson, “Better Teachers than Scotus or Aquinas,” in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 1968), 114–45. 47 Wim François, “La condamnation par les théologiens parisiens du plaidoyer d’Érasme pour la traduction de la Bible dans la langue vulgaire (1527–1531),” Augustiniana, 55 (2005): 355–77. 48 Wim François, “Erasmus’ Plea for bible Reading in the Vernacular: The Legacy of the Devotio Moderna?,” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook, 28 (2008), 119. 49 For a general introduction: François Cottier, “Érasme paraphraste et son lecteur,” in Exhortation à la lecture de l’Évangile (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 13–31. For an overview: Gerhard B. Winkler, Erasmus von Rotterdam und die Einleitungsschfriften zum Neuen Testament (Münster: Aschendorff, 1974).

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pertains to everyone equally. They have been set forth in a manner to be understood by an uneducated person who is pious and modest, more quickly than by an arrogant philosopher.50

With these words Erasmus repeats what he has already said in his previous works. Here he points out, however, that he did not aim either to diminish the authority of good teachers, or to exhort uneducated people to claim an elusive knowledge of the mysteries of the Gospel, relying only on their own understanding, and thereby to spurn the masters of the church. Indeed “what is more arrogant than for a man to profess that he is a teacher of divine things?”51 Erasmus’s position is close to that of St Jerome, who encouraged virgins and widows and wives to read the Bible, but at the same time complained about those who were unfit to profess this knowledge, like the garrulous hag, the delirious old man or the loquacious sophist.52 He believed that everyone must be allowed to inquire into those things that render life better, and Christ’s words were the best of these things: Let us reflect on what sort of hearers Christ himself had. Were they not the indiscriminate crowd including the blind, the lame, beggars, tax collectors, centurions, craftsmen, women, and children? Would he be vexed if he were read by those he wanted to hear him? Indeed, if I have my way, the farmer, the smith, the stone-cutter will read him, prostitutes and pimps will read him, even Turks will read him.53 50 LB, VII, **2v; CWE, XLV, 7–8: “Memini, Lector optime, & alias alicubi testificatum esse, me plurimum dissentire ab iss, qui laicos & illetteratos in totum putant submovendos a lectione Sacrorum Voluminum: nec admittendos ad haec adyta, nisi paucos Aristotelica Philosophia, Scholasticaque Theologia multis annis detritos. … non video tamen cur idiotae sint ab Evangelicis praecipue litteris, ceu profani a sacris, submovendi, quae doctis pariter & indoctis, quae Graecis aeque Scythis, quae servis itidem ut liberis, quae foeminis simul & viris, quae plebejis non minus atque Regibus proditae sunt, ut citius intelligantur ab idiota pio modestoque, quam ab arrogante Philosopho.” See Antonio Brucioli’s vulgarization in Antonio Brucioli, Biblia (Venezia: Giunti, 1532), dedicatory letter to Francis. 51 LB, VII, **2v; CWE, XLV, 10: “Quid enim arrogantius, quam ut homo se profiteatur doctorem rerum divinarum?” 52 See LB, VII, **2v; CWE, XLV, 10: “Hanc, inquit, garrula anus, hanc delirus senex, hanc sophista verbosus, hanc universi praesumunt, lacerant, docent antequam discant.” 53 LB, VII, **2v; CWE, XLV, 10: “Consideremus quos auditores habuerit ipse Christus, nonne promiscuam multitudinem, & in hac caecos, claudos, mendicos, publicanos, centuriones, opifices, mulieres ac pueros? An gravetur ab iis legi, a quibus voluit audiri? Me quidem auctore leget agricola, leget faber, leget latomus, legent & meretrices & lenones, denique legent & Turcae.” See the vulgarization of Antonio Brucioli, Biblia (Venezia: Giunti, 1532), dedicatory letter to Francis.

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Understanding the philosophy of Christ is not easy, especially where the aim is to spread it among the largest number of people – indeed, most of the time “the sheep are uneducated.”54 If the success does not come quickly, Erasmus suggests to “ask, seek, knock … the one who searches will find … ask someone nearby for help if you do not understand something … let there be no rashness, let there be no hasty and stubborn claim into indisputable knowledge.”55 In this exhortation, Erasmus professes intellectual humility in relation to the narrow cognitive capacities of the mind, and urges dismissal of “frivolous little questions, or ones that arise from impious curiosity.”56 Rather, one should temper all opinions and forge a way of life according to the Gospel, without twisting the holy words to one’s own desires. This attitude – based on Aristotelian premises – will come to be adopted by intellectuals like Sperone Speroni and Benedetto Varchi. The main aim is to educate and build ethical behaviour. In the Pueris statim ac liberaliter institudendis (1529), Erasmus writes that the goal should be to educate human beings in a liberal way, and in order to realize this pedagogic intention in terms of the mass of people the teaching should be public and open. Erasmus’s conception of the democratization of knowledge becomes evident in the motto: “the school must be public or it is nothing.”57 Erasmus then adds a defence of the vulgarizations which will be typical and common to many scholars that I will examine in this essay – for instance, Giovan Battista Gelli and Sperone Speroni. Idiots or uneducated people should not be kept from knowing the lesson of the Gospel just because they can fall into error: “that is not the fault of reading, but the fault of the man … bees are not kept from flowers because a spider sometimes sucks poison from them.”58 Christ also – Erasmus points out – had his Jews, who do not permit his light to cast a shadow over their Moses … he has scribes and Pharisees to lay snares – if only he did not have more than the two, Annas and Caiaphas! He has his Iscariot who sells innocent 54 LB, VII, **3r; CWE, XLV, 13: “Oves sunt idiota.” 55 LB, VII, **3r; CWE, XLV, 14–5: “quare, pete, pulsa … sic claudit, ut nemo aperiat … Consule proximum, si quid non assequeris … Adsit quidem pia curiositas, & curiosa pietas, sed absit temeritas, absit praeceps & pervicas scientiae persuasio.” 56 LB VII **3r, CWE, 15: “Frivolas quaestiunculas, aut impie curiosas dispelle, si fors aboriantur animo.” 57 LB, I, 504 D: “Oportet scholam aut nullam esse, aut publicam.” 58 LB, VII, **3r; CWE, XLV, 15: “Nec ideo prohibentur apes a floribus, quod ex iis aliquando venenum sugat aranea.”

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blood for money. Nor is Pilate missing and the company of soldiers who flog, spit upon, crucify him.59

Anyway “to be engaged with such philosophy will be profitable for everyone, however uneducated or unlearned.”60 Once more Erasmus uses the term “philosophy” as a synonym for wisdom or doctrine, emphasizing the nature of this knowledge in contrast to the mysteries of religion. For this reason, he “would like Scripture translated into every language,” but the language is not nearly so important as the knowledge and its content. Erasmus does not support the need for translation in itself, but he maintains the idea that the philosophy of Christ should be available to everyone as much as possible: “Christ wants his philosophy to be propagated as widely as possible. He died for all, he wants to be known by all.”61 It will serve this end, therefore, “if either the books of Christ are translated into all the languages of the nations,”62 or, alternatively, “if rulers take care that the three languages to which divine wisdom has been especially entrusted are known by all.”63 More specifically: If, through the diligence of the Roman emperors, Gauls, Germans, Spaniards, Africans, Egyptians, Asians, Cilicians, and Palestinians within a few years spoke Latin and Greek, even in their everyday lives, and for no other reason than to propagate more advantageously by common languages an empire that was not to last long, how much more justly must we pay heed to this in order that the kingdom of Christ, which will continue on without end, might be extended throughout every region of the world?64 59 LB, VII, **3r; CWE, XLV, 16: “Habet & nunc Judaeos suos, qui non ferunt illius luce obscurari suum Mosen. Habet Scribas & Phariseos, qui insidientur Et utinam non habeat plures quam duos, Annam & Caiapham. Habet Iscariotas suos, qui sanguinem innoxium pecuniam vendat. Nec deest Pilatus & cohors, per quam flagelletur, conspuatur, & crucifigatur.” 60 LB, VII, **3r; CWE, XLV, 16: “In hujusmodi Philosophia profuerit omnibus versaris, quamlibet idiotis aut illiteratis.” 61 LB, VII, **3v; CWE, XLV, 17: “Cupit Christus suam Philosophiam quam latissime propagari.” 62 LB, VII, **3v; CWE, XLV, 17: “Ad id conducet, si aut illius libri vertantur in omnes omnius gentium linguas.” 63 LB, VII, **3v; CWE, XLV, 17: “… aut Principum opera fiat, ui tres linguae, quibus potissimum credita est divina Philosophia, discantur a populis omnibus.” 64 LB, VII, **3v; CWE, XLV, 17: “Hoc si paucis annis potuit Romanorum Principum industria, ut Galli, Germani, Hispani, Afri Aegyptii, Asiani, Cilices, Palaestini, Latine Graeceque loquerentur, etiam vulgo: nec ob aliud, nisi ut commercio linguarum commodius propagaretur imperium non diu duraturum: quanto justius hoc nobis curandum est, quo Christi imperium, sine fine mansurum, per omnes orbis regiones proferatur?”

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Language takes a backseat to doctrine. Erasmus, however, expert as he is, who had travelled all around Europe, knew the political fragmentation of his time, and therefore it was necessary that “someone sound forth the gospel in his native language, the language he understands – the French in French, the English in English, the German in German, the Indian in the language of India.”65 Indeed, he argues that it is totally inappropriate and ridiculous that “the uneducated and women, like parrots, mumble their psalms and the Lord’s Prayer in Latin,” when “they do not understand what they themselves are uttering.”66 For this reason the philosophy of Christ should be “proclaimed in every language, by every race of human beings.”67 Access to knowledge must be open to everyone. This, however, is not tantamount to advancing a generic and generalized idea of the democratization of knowledge. Erasmus is far removed from maintaining such a naïve conception. Yet what his conception undoubtedly undermined – perhaps not directly, but at least indirectly – was the idea of control or of an authority over knowledge, and in particular in relation to the philosophy of Christ. It could not remain in the hands of a few theologians or university professors, but should be made accessible to everyone, and to the extent that the evangelical message could offer a form of education. Blocking access to knowledge was the specific attitude of the Jews who, Erasmus maintained, aimed “to keep the people and their mysteries apart.”68

2.2

Noli altum sapere

Erasmus’s message could not be ignored. His criticism against authority was immediately perceived by ecclesiastical institutions and universities with a rich texture of response that Erika Rummel has marvellously portrayed.69 One stands out particularly among the many critical voices, that of the prince Alberto Pio from Carpi (1475–1531), because more than any other he 65 LB, VII, **3v; CWE, XLV, 18: “… si quisquam sonet Evangelium ea lingua qua natus est & quam intelligit: Gallus Gallica, Britannus Britannica, Germanus Germanica, Indus Indica.” 66 LB, VII, **3v; CWE, XLV, 18: “Mihi magis indecorum vel ridiculum potius videtur, quod idiotae & mulierculae, psitaci exemplo, Psalmos suos & precationem Dominicam Latine murmurant, quum ipsi quod sonant, non intelligant.” See the vulgarization of Antonio Brucioli, Biblia (Venezia: Giunti, 1532), dedicatory letter to Francis I. 67 LB, VII, **3v; CWE, XLV, 18: “… si linguis omnibus ab omni hominum genere celebretur.” 68 LB, VII, **2v; CWE, XLV, 8: “Judaeorum est populum celare sua mysteria, qui in umbris versabantur. Evangelica lux premi non sustinet.” See the vulgarization of Antonio Brucioli, Biblia (Venezia: Giunti, 1532), dedicatory letter to Francis I. 69 Erika Rummel, Erasmus and his Catholic Critics, 1515–1536 (Leiden: Brill, 1989).

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attacks Erasmus’s conception of the democratization of knowledge.70 Alberto Pio’s criticism is also important because it paved the way for a Lutheran interpretation of Erasmus, which gained currency especially after the Diet of Regensburg (1541) in Counter-Reformation Italy.71 Erasmus was charged with Lutheran heresy, even though he had already adopted a contrary position to Luther in relation to free will and the value of the Eucharist.72 This controversy is also significant because, as Myron P. Gilmore has pointed out, it provides the most comprehensive and detailed justification of Erasmus against his critics.73 The controversy started in 1525 when Erasmus got wind of some criticisms and charges of Lutheranism that Alberto Pio was advancing in intellectual circles in Rome. In October 1525 Erasmus decided to write a long letter to Alberto Pio to explain his position, a letter which did not receive an immediate reply. The private answer reached Erasmus only in 1526 and became what will be known as the Responsio paraenetica.74 70 On the controversy between Alberto Pio and Erasmus in general, see Nelson H. Minnich, “Introduction,” in Collected Works of Erasmus: Controversies, vol. 84 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2005), xv–cxli, which, however, does not consider the critical edition of Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem responsio accurata et paraenetica. I. Edizione e traduzione. II. Commento, appendice e indici, edited by Fabio Forner (Firenze: Olschki, 2002). Equally important, but less theoretically committed, is Battista Casali, In Desiderium Erasmum Roterodamum Invectiva (1518–1519). On the same topic, see Monfasani’s seminal essay John Monfasani, “Erasmus, the Roman Academy, and Ciceronianism: Battista Casali’s Invective,” Ersamus Studies, 17 (1997): 19–54. 71 Silvana Seidel Menchi, Erasmo in Italia 1520–1580 (Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1987), 41–67. 72 “I have published several books in which I made it clear that I have never had, and never would have, any truck with Luther.” Ep 1634: “ego libellis editis professus sum mihi nihil esse rei cum Luthero, nec unquam fore.” 73 Myron Gilmore, “Erasmus and Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi,” in Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 313. 74 In the meantime, however, and rather curiously, Erasmus attacked Alberto Pio in the Ciceronianus by saying that he came “closer to Cicero’s style of expression” even if “he has not published anything yet.” Erasmus adds “… oh, there is one book I have seen, though it might be better to call it a very long letter, written in response to Erasmus – but it is said by some to be a known fact that the work was shaped by another’s hand.” LB, I, 1011B; CWE, LXXXIV, 420: “Equidem arbitror Albertum Carporum principem, proprius ad Tullianam phrasim accedere quam Aleandrum. Nihil hic aedidit hactenus, quod equidem sciam, unicum duntax at librum, aut si mavis prolixam epistolam, ab illo scriptam vidi.” Erasmus clearly refers to the Responsio and discusses it as being written in a Ciceronian style, a style that was under attack in the Ciceronianus. Furthermore, ironically, Erasmus stated that Alberto Pio had not published anything yet, pushing the prince to come out of the shadows and to publish the Responsio. He also pointedly alleges that the writing had been styled by another’s hand, arguably Ginès de Sepúlveda. This charge is included in the third edition of Ciceronianus in 1529, after the publication of the Responsio.

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The Responsio was finally published in 1529, three years after the initial letter to Erasmus. It contains many charges, in particular attacks on some allegedly Lutheran theses with which Erasmus’s works would have been impregnated. One of the aspects on which Alberto Pio focused his criticism was that it was impossible to vulgarize or make Holy Scripture more accessible or popular. Alberto Pio’s assault was tightly put together, yet it missed its target because what Erasmus was aiming at was the transmission of a philosophy, that of Christ. It was not a rhetorical exercise – if we may put it like that – in translating the biblical message to promote a personal approach to God without the mediation of the ecclesiastical authorities, as the Lutherans wished: this was only a secondary consequence. Alberto Pio is convinced that the Holy Scriptures cannot be accommodated in paraphrases or comments, especially if one wants to “save its dignity.”75 In other words, one does not want to abase its nature as a sacred text. By means of paraphrases and comments or by making the text more elegant and clear, this dignity is lost. Indeed, “the divine Spirit has expressed the secrets of its wisdom with those words it has approved, with that order and with that style that suits it.”76 It is forbidden, therefore, to change the sacred text, or elucidate, paraphrase, comment, or put them differently or using another language because “in the text of the Holy Scripture every word is a sacrament.”77 In particular, Alberto Pio places great emphasis on the secrets of wisdom and the mysteries in these texts – secrets and mysteries that were concealed and kept at a safe distance primarily by the words. Alberto is clearly defending an aristocratic and elitist conception of access to the reading of biblical texts. He explicitly declares: I disagree with whoever considers that Holy Scripture has to be read and desecrated in its entirety to everyone without distinction, to be explained in all modern languages and even in that of non-Latin origin, because it can be useful for the ignorant and the stupid as well as for the learned 75 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica (Firenze: Olschki, 2002), vol. 1, 40: “sacras scripturas non pati parafrasim, quae vix ommentaria admittant salva sua maiestate.” 76 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 40: “… cui mirum est quantum detrahatur cum quicquam immutas ut oratio elegantior aut dilucidior existat, quod in paraphrasibus fieri consuevit. Aiunt enim nefas esse qunquam hominem vices Spiritus Sancti supplere velle, ut quo ille parcior esse voluit, paraphrastes prolixior sit, quo ille diffusior et amplior, hic brevior et pressior, asservantes divinum spiritum arcana sua sapientiae iis verbis quae probavit, eo ordine, ea phrasi qua maxime decuit expressisse.” 77 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 40–2: “qua in dictione quot numerabis verba, tot recensebis sacramentas.”

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and the wise, in such a way that they can tap into the true doctrine of the Gospel and be educated in the true religion.78

The passage is a clear overturning of the Erasmian exhortations, but is clearly based on a misunderstanding of Erasmus. According to Alberto Pio, one should make careful distinctions, but it was no less so with Erasmus. While for Erasmus, however, the distinction was not based on the knowledge or social ranking of a person, but rather on their worth character, according to Alberto Pio it is the inadequacy of their cognitive faculties and lack of knowledge that prevents the ignorant from having a real understanding of the sacred texts. From these ideas Erasmus conjures a new interpretation of the Pauline warning “be not high-minded, but fear.” As Carlo Ginzburg has brilliantly shown, the passage “μὴ ὑψηλὰφρόνει, ἀλλἀ φοβοῦ” was translated in the Vulgate with the Latin words “noli altum sapere, sed time,” transforming St Paul’s condemnation of moral pride into “a rebuke of intellectual curiosity.”79 It was Erasmus that “observed that the target of Saint Paul’s words had been a moral, not intellectual, vice,”80 proposing thus the Latin translation “ne efferaris animo, sed timeas.”81 Erasmus articulates his thought in a fully developed way in the Antibarbarorum liber (1520). Here he considers St Paul’s first intention as being to condemn whoever was arrogant and proud of his own knowledge, who believed that his own wisdom was sufficient, who was immoderate and who made bad use of sciences and letters. Nothing is more harmful for Erasmus than an impious, arrogant and immodest use of knowledge. He adds that according to St Paul “the more learned man yields of his own accord to the uneducated”82 in order to teach and spread knowledge. It is a moral duty to improve the knowledge of uneducated people. Indeed, “with people whose intelligence promises to be good, what is it but ‘quenching the spirit,’ as Paul says, if you deter them from valuable efforts” to acquire 78 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 104: “Quapropter mihi nec sententia eorum probatur qui putant sacras literas in universum cunctis passim communicandas ac prophanandas esse, explicatas quocunque idiomate plebeio etiam et barbarico, ut habeat tam rudis et idiota quam prudens et doctus unde illas legere possit, a quibus vera doctrinam evangelicam addiscat et sincera religione imbuatur.” 79 Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, 60. 80 Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, 60. 81 Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, friend and correspondent of Erasmus, translated the passage as “noli superbe sentire, sed time.” See Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, Commentarii in Epistolas D. Pauli (Paris: Estienne, 1512), 11r. 82 LB, X, 1719A; CWE, XXIII, 73.

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Figure 2.2: Robert Estienne’s Pressmark

knowledge even of “difficult subjects of study.”83 These reflections lay the foundation for the democratization of knowledge – of course within those limits that Erasmus had already outlined in the Exhortatio. Erasmus argues for the importance of epistemic humility, and denounces the arrogant attitude in relation to knowledge of the faculties of theology, of university professors and high members of the Church, whom Erasmus criticized in many of his writings and from whom he received a number of attacks. Erasmus states that knowledge in itself is not problematic; rather, its use can be morally questionable, and morality pertains to people and not to knowledge. Therefore, according to Erasmus, St Paul’s precept is inapplicable to uneducated people because “what has all this to do with the ignorant, who have learnt hardly anything … no one can be blamed 83 LB, X, 1721A; CWE, XXIII, 76–7.

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for mismanaging a property, who never had any property at all.”84 Who is blameworthy is whoever has access to knowledge and uses it in the wrong way, often – Erasmus adds – because of wealth, which produces arrogance: indeed, Paul “was talking to the wealthy, not to the studious, when he spoke of minding high things.”85 Erasmus therefore is against whoever uses knowledge immorally, and not against its spread or against intellectual curiosity. There is no aristocratic or elitist conception of knowledge here. In this sense Erasmus distanced himself from the Devotio moderna and from authors like Thomas à Kempis, who urged that one should “not take pride in the arts or sciences; rather, fear the knowledge that has been taught to you.… noli altum sapere (Rom. 11:20), but confess your ignorance.”86 Erasmus’s criticism, unlike Alberto Pio, is not on the cognitive level, but on the moral one.87 Erasmus lays the foundations for a new moral philosophy of knowledge based on Christ’s message. By means of knowledge, Erasmus admitted a kind of redemption and elevation of the human being, a redemption which Alberto Pio was unwilling to concede. Alberto Pio believed in wisdom and theology, but acquired through great effort and commitment, and not by means of a simple reading. Erasmus believed in a process of democratization of knowledge that led to elevation, despite all the problems and complexities that this process encountered. Alberto Pio did not believe in such a process: only the few, educated from early youth, had access through their acquisition of knowledge to the secret mysteries of religion. Thus, Alberto Pio’s implacable arguments lead him to conclude that there are passages that can be understood by all children and ignorants, at least with coarse common sense, and that can be taught and can summon the spirits. There are, however, many abstruse parts, too complex and implicit that touch great mysteries, as there are also some dubious and uncertain passages, which are expressed in a set of words that if they 84 LB, X, 1726C, CWE, XXIII, 86: “neque enim reprehendi potest, quod male rem administret, cui nihil unquam rei fuit.” 85 LB, X, 1726C, CWE, XXIII, 86: “Non studiosis, sed divitibus, inquit Paulus, non altum sapere.” 86 Thomas à Kempis, De imitatione Christi libri quattuor (Roma: Tipografia poliglotta vaticana, 1925), 6: “Noli ergo extolli de ulla arte vel scientia, sed potius time de data tibi notitia. Si tibi videtur, quod multa scias, et satis bene intelligas, scito tamen, quia sunt multo plura, quae nescis. Noli sapere altum, sed ingorantiam tuam magis fatere.” Ginzburg has particularly emphasized this aspect. See Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, 64. 87 Ginzburg remarks how Erasmus uses more willingly the Socratic motto “what is above us, pertains not to us,” to allude to the limits of human knowledge, an attitude that we have already seen in the Paraclesis. See Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, 64.

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weren’t diligently pondered, considered with wisdom and doctrine, they could do more harm than good to the ignorant and uneducated people who read them.88

In contrast, Erasmus imagined explaining – by means of suitable textual devices like analysis and comment – the difficulties of the text, and therefore making the message more understandable and evident to all. Alberto Pio rejects this approach, and argues against and in favour of what the ancient Jews prescribed – that is, “to allow to young people only the reading of some parts of the Holy Scripture.”89 Alberto Pio finds comfort and support for his opinion in a number of passages of the New Testament. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, St Paul aff irmed that “as infants in Christ I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food,”90 and in these words Alberto Pio clearly perceives the warning that “not all Christians should eat the same spiritual food.”91 Christ reiterated the same message by talking to the crowd and the humblest people by means of simple words, while to disciples and apostles he adopted a more explicit manner.92 Or again, in the Gospel according to John, Christ talked to the people by means of similitudes, because the great multitude were not able to carry the burden of knowledge, though one day he would reveal the secrets more openly.93 On the basis of all these passages, Alberto Pio infers that it is inappropriate to let the crude rabble, uneducated people and women read Holy Scripture without distinction, because they are “completely ignorant and absolutely unable to understand divine mysteries.”94 He denies that there 88 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 106: “Quamvis enim plurima sint in sacris literis quae cuicunque ordini non nisi commoda esse possunt …, sunt tamen in illis et pleraque alia abstrusa et nimis involuta atque implicita, quae lubrica et verborum quodam involucro perplexa quae quidem nisi diligenter perpendantur, nisi scite et docte conferantur et explicentur, longe plus obfuerint indoctis et ineptis quam prodesse valeant si ab ipsis legantur.” 89 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 106: “… quod animadvertentes antiquissimi Hebraei, penes quos solos sacras literas fuisse certum est, eas, habita aetatis hominum et perinde iudicii ratione, distinxerunt, portionem quandam duntaxat permittentes imbecilliori aetati legendeam quam illi videlicet congruere iudicarunt, cum alia prohiberent quae tantum perfectis legere permittebant.” 90 1 Corinthians 3:1. 91 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 108: “Quam expresse his verbis docet non eodem cibo spirituali alendos esse omnes christianos!” 92 Gospel of Matthew 13:10–17. 93 Gospel of John 16:23–30. 94 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 110: “Quae cum ita sint, putabimus nos omnem sacrarum literarum sapientiam rudi plebeculae, morionibus et

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is any chance of education coming about through knowledge, and rejects the possibility of elevation by means of a democratic access to knowledge. Thus, he points out that even if – hypothetically – someone could benefit from the dissemination of knowledge, “the majority of uncouth human beings would be damaged.”95 It would be like sailing without knowing the science of navigation. Conversely, It is therefore worthwhile that people be satisfied with those parts [that they can understand]. It is more appropriate for the people to frequent sacred oratories … where parts of the Holy Scripture are explained, rather than reading without criteria the Bible translated in their own language. What good can the ignorant and educated person, the old sclerotic, and the gossip women get from the reading for instance of John’s Apocalypse or the first chapter of his Gospel…?96

Alberto Pio also contests the idea that the vernacular might be a language capable of expressing scientif ic and philosophical knowledge. He is willing to concede that some knowledge can be read, listened to and understood by all, “but not for this is it appropriate that all the passages of the Holy Scripture must be accessible to people without distinction, neither must pearls be cast before swine, nor what is holy given to dogs.”97 Here Alberto Pio resumes the teaching of the Gospel according to Matthew, and he interprets it according to his own needs. In this re-appraisal Alberto Pio shifts from divine and holy things to profane matters, stating that: mulierculis passim legendam convenire tradi? Quam si legerint, quomodo portare valebunt, cum prorsus ignari sint et ineptissimi ad divina mysteria intelligenda, cum apostoli, antequam dono scientiae et intellectus illustrarentur, illa capere non valuerint a tam perito doctore?” 95 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 110: “Ex quo rudium hominum genere, etsi quidam peculiari dono proficere quoquomodo possent, perspicuum tamen quod quam plurimi laederentur proterea quod tam dispar cibus ab eis concoqui non valerent, quamobrem plurimi cruditate perirent.” 96 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 110: “Quibus vulgus convenit esse contentum, cui magis expedire videtur sacros concionatores frequenter audire sanctorumque commentaria quaedam permoventia affectum et quibus aliquid scripturarum explicatur videre, quam sacras literas in eorum idioma versas sine delectu legere. Quid enim commodi capiet rudis et expers literarum homo, delirus senex aut garrula mulier ex lectione, exempli gratia, Apocalipsis Ioannis aut primi capitis evangelii ipsius …?” 97 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 112: “Sed nec ob id universum scripturarum genus vulgo videtur esse disseminandum, nec margaritas porcis spargendas, nec sanctum, ut Dominus ait, dandum canibus.”

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If the earliest interpreters of nature, and the founders of the human wisdoms for not desecrating it and the secrets of nature, conveyed knowledge concealed in the form of stories or calculus or metaphors and enigmas or in very difficult expressions, so that only persons of great mind could be busy with it, while weak minds must be kept away … since it is evident that the ignorant people are not suited for this task, none should doubt whether the Holy Scripture could be read by people.98

Alberto Pio defends a very distinct conception of the closing-off of knowledge that finds its roots in Pythagorean, Platonic and Hermetic traditions, and is applied to the sacred texts. An aversion for a specific kind of idea of democratization of knowledge then assumes tones that are very similar to the abhorrence that princes and statesmen of that time had for democracy as a political order. If it [Holy Scripture] was to be divulged entering every house as an object of daily use, its content would be despised, and everyone would dare to have his say following his own judgement. Many men of judgement are used to claim this, more than is right. The recklessness of the people is great, the arrogance of human beings is huge. For this reason, they will think they can discuss and draw conclusions in matters of divine doctrine – even the peasant and the cook, or the old fool woman and the journeyman, in the same manner as the very learned theologian, because they poorly read the Scripture.99

In Alberto Pio there is no trust in the people’s potential, and his aim is more to preserve the authority that comes from erudition and knowledge. He is aware that an opening-up of knowledge will entail a loss of control over people, a control that was judged particularly decisive in those tumultuous years of political, religious and social upheavals. He believes in the 98 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 112: “Quod si primi naturae interpretes et sapientiae humanitus repertae inventores ne ipsam secretaque naturae prophanarent, illam fabularum involucris vel numerorum rationibus aut metaphoris et aenigmatis, aut dictione abstrussissima tradiderunt, ut iis tantum quibus magnum ingenium contigisset in illa versari liceret, tradiores autem arcerentur …” 99 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 114: “Domestico enim usu et familiaritate ipsa divulgata doctrina contemneretur ab istis et de illis pro suo quisque sensu, quo multi plus aequo abundare sibi videri solent, iudicare auderet: permagna est quippe vulgi temeritas, ingens imperitorum arrogantia. Quapropter aeque disserere, aeque statuere de divinis dogmatibus putabit agricola et coquus sibi licere modo scripturas lectitaverit, aeque stupida anus et cerdo ac doctissimus theologus.”

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necessity to “protect and conceal many things from the eyes of those who are unworthy, rather than giving everything to everyone.”100 To many of these charges and attacks, Erasmus had already responded in his reply to Noel Beda, Petrus Sutor and Iacobus Stunica. However, Alberto Pio’s criticism must have particularly impressed Erasmus – coming not from theologians, but from a prince, who was the friend of many powerful men. Erasmus did not answer directly on this issue of the democratization of knowledge, but his controversy with Alberto Pio is extremely important because it stages what Peter Burke calls a “tug of war, a conflict between forces for widening and the forces for narrowing access” in the history of knowledges.101 The diatribe between Erasmus and Alberto Pio that I have examined, as well as Erasmus’s conception of the vulgarization and democratization of knowledge, are not mere anecdotes in the history of knowledge. Rather, they are discussions that informed and shaped generations of intellectuals who, in the face of the crisis of Humanism and Ciceronianism, were looking for a way out – a way that did not necessarily embrace the radical position of the Reformation. Erasmus represented for these intellectuals – many of whom will be the protagonists of this essay – one of the possible alternatives for building a new culture and a new concept of humanitas. Needless to say, even if Erasmus was their source of inspiration, it was essential that he remained covert and hidden from view because his opponents associated his name very early on, and especially in Italy, with that of Luther.102

References a. Primary Sources Brucioli, Antonio. La Biblia (Venezia: Giunti, 1532). Kempis, Thomas à. De imitatione Christi libri quattuor (Roma: Tipografia poliglotta vaticana, 1925). Lefèvre d’Étaples, Jacques. Commentarii in Epistolas D. Pauli. (Paris: Estienne, 1512). Pio, Alberto. Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica (Firenze: Olschki, 2002). 100 Alberto Pio, Ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem res paraenetica, 114: “Quae si quis alta mente consideraverit, is potius statuet multa esse tegenda et indignis occultanda quam cuncta cunctis propalanda.” 101 Burke, What is the History of Knowledge?, 96. 102 Fabio Forner, “Gli erasmiani, gli antierasmiani e la Bibbia,” in Pietro Gibellini (ed.), La Bibbia nella letteratura italiana. V. Dal Medioevo al Rinascimento (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2013), 424.

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b. Secondary Literature Augustijn, Cornelis. Erasmus. Der Humanist als Theologe und Kirchenreformer (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 26–37. Burke, Peter. What is the History of Knowledge? (London: Wiley, 2015). Coletti, Vittorio. Parole dal pulpito. Chiesa e movimenti religiosi tra latino e volgare (Casale Monferrato: Marietti, 1983). Cottier, François. “Érasme paraphraste et son lecteur,” in Exhortation à la lecture de l’Évangile (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 13–31. Cotugno, Alessio. “Dall’imitazione alla traduzione. Sperone Speroni fra Erasmo, Bembo e Pomponazzi,” Lingua e stile, 52 (2017): 199–239. Cotugno, Alessio. La scienza della parola. Retorica e linguistica di Sperone Speroni (Bologna: il Mulino, 2018). Firpo, Massimo. “La riforma italiana,” in Élise Boillet (ed.), Antonio Brucioli. Humanisme et Évangelisme entre Réforme et Contre-Réforme (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008), 7–20. Forner, Fabio. “Gli erasmiani, gli antierasmiani e la Bibbia,” in Pietro Gibellini (ed.), La Bibbia nella letteratura italiana. V. Dal Medioevo al Rinascimento (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2013), 415–34. François, Wim. “Erasmus’ Plea for bible Reading in the Vernacular: The Legacy of the Devotio Moderna?,” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook, 28 (2008), 91–120. François, Wim. “La condamnation par les théologiens parisiens du plaidoyer d’Érasme pour la traduction de la Bible dans la langue vulgaire (1527–1531),” Augustiniana, 55 (2005): 355–77. Gaeta, Franco. “Documenti da codici vaticani per la storia della Riforma in Venezia. Appunti e documenti,” Annuario dell’Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 7 (1955), 5–53. Gilmore, Myron. “Erasmus and Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi,” in Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 299–318. Ginzburg, Carlo. Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). Mesnard, Paul. “La Paraclesis d’Erasme,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 13 (1951): 26–42. Minnich, Nelson H. “Introduction,” in Collected Works of Erasmus: Controversies, vol. 84 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2005), xv–cxli. Monfasani, John. “Erasmus, the Roman Academy, and Ciceronianism: Battista Casali’s Invective,” Ersamus Studies, 17 (1997): 19–54. Ohly, Friedrich. Die Perle des Wortes: Zur Geschichte eines Bildes für Dichtung (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 2002).

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Poppi, Antonino. La filosofia nello studio francescano del Santo a Padova (Padova: Centro Studi Antoniani, 1989). Rummel, Erika. Erasmus and his Catholic Critics, 1515–1536 (Leiden: Brill, 1989). Sgarbi, Marco. “The Instatement of the Vernacular as Language of Culture: A New Aristotelian Paradigm in Sixteenth-Century Italy,” Intersezioni, 36 (2016): 319–43. Sgarbi, Marco. “What was Meant by Vulgarizing in the Italian Renaissance?,” Intellectual History Review, (2019): 1–28. Simoncelli, Paolo. Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento. Questione religiosa e nicodemismo politico (Roma: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1979). Thomson, Craig R. “Scripture for the Ploughboy and Some Others,” in Studies in the Continental Background of Renaissance English (Durham: Duke University Press, 1977). Weiler, Anton G. “The Dutch Brethren of the Common Life, Critical Theology, Northern Humanism and Reformation,” in Northern Humanism in European Context, 1469–1625 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 325–329. Williams, Steven J. “The Vernacular Tradition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets in the Middle Ages: Translations, Manuscripts, Readers,” in Loris Sturlese (ed.), Filosofia in volgare nel Medioevo (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 451–82. Winkler, Gerhard B. Erasmus von Rotterdam und die Einleitungsschriften zum Neuen Testament (Münster: Aschendorff, 1974).

3.

Figures of Democratizers Abstract Chapter 3 outlines the intellectual figures that comprised the democratizers of knowledge in sixteenth-century Italy, with a specific focus on authors like Antonio Brucioli, Sperone Speroni, Benedetto Varchi, Lodovico Castelvetro, Bernardo Segni, Alessandro Piccolomini, and Felice Figliucci. After a brief description of their main characteristics in the first part, the chapter focuses on their classical education. The second part reconstructs the important role that the “Venetian moment” played in their intellectual life in three important respects: knowledge of Aristotelianism, development of linguistic theories, and availability of printing presses. The last part deals with the religious background of the democratizers and their connections with movements of spiritual renewal. Keywords: Democratizers, Vulgarizers, Venetian moment, Aristotelianism

3.1

Models of Vulgarizer

Facing the question of democratization of knowledge in Renaissance Italy is such a vast task, and one that comprises so many disciplines, that achieving solid conclusion would seem an elusive prospect. For this reason – as I have outlined in the Introduction – I focus in this essay on the democratization of knowledge in connection with Aristotelian philosophy.1 In particular, I will consider democratization in the light of the concomitant phenomenon of 1 For an earlier attempt see Eugenio Refini, The Vernacular Aristotle: Translation as Reception in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). On this point, see Luca Bianchi, “Per una storia dell’aristotelismo volgare nel Rinascimento: problemi e prospettive di ricerca,” Bruniana & Campanelliana 15 (2009): 367–85. For an exhaustive overview on studies of vernacular Aristotelianism, see David A. Lines, “Beyond Latin in Renaissance Philosophy: A Plea for New Critical Perspectives,” Intellectual History Review, 4 (2015), 1–17; David A. Lines, “Introduzione,” in David A. Lines and Eugenio Refini (eds.), “Aristotele fatto volgare”: Tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 1–10.

Sgarbi, M., The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: The Philosopher and the People. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463721387_ch03

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vulgarizations, which – even though they do not necessarily entail forms of popularization2 – are nonetheless concerned with the process of extending knowledge to a large number of people of different cultural extractions. In order to understand the nature of these vulgarizations and to what extent they contributed to the democratization of knowledge in this special period of Italian history, I will start by examining the figures of the democratizers and vulgarizers of knowledge themselves. I will focus on those who conceived a project of vulgarization of a certain magnitude because I believe that the biographical context within which these enterprises of democratization of knowledge were undertaken may offer a contribution to understanding the entire phenomenon. From the detail of their lives I will emphasize those common patterns which allow us to assess the intellectual framework within which the idea of democratization of knowledge emerged. In the “Vernacular Aristotelianism in Renaissance Italy, c. 1400–1650 Database” there are currently listed more than 120 vulgarizers: 3 in the thirteenth century, 2 in the fourteenth century, 5 in the fifteenth century, and all the remaining in the sixteenth century. These numbers give a clear idea of the temporal dimension of the phenomenon of vulgarization in relation to these works. If we consider the vulgarizers working before the sixteenth century, from Luca Manelli to Antonio Colombella, from Jacopo Campora to Lazzaro Gallineta, and continuing as far as Girolamo Manfredi, almost all belonged to religious orders.3 This is not surprising, considering that philosophical knowledge and education were mainly confined to those who pursued an ecclesiastical career. It is however a significant piece of evidence – especially in opposition to what happened in the sixteenth century – that, taken as a percentage, very few clerics dealt with vulgarizations of philosophical texts. Among the hundreds of vulgarizers active in the sixteenth century, only around twenty produced more than one vulgarization in all its possible conf igurations. Among them we can find Antonio Brucioli (1487/1498ca.–1566), Sperone Speroni (1500–1588), Benedetto Varchi (1503–1565), Bernardo Segni (1504–1558), Paolo Del Rosso (1505–1569), Alessandro Piccolomini (1508–1579), Felice Figliucci 2 On the fact that vulgarization is not always a process of popularization or trivialization, see Luca Bianchi, “Volgarizzare Aristotele: per chi?,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, 59 (2012): 480–95; Sgarbi, “What was Meant by Vulgarizing in the Italian Renaissance?,” Intellectual History Review, (2019): 1–28; David A. Lines, “When is a Translation Not a Translation? Girolamo Manfredi’s De homine (1474),” Rivista di storia della filosofia, 2 (2019), 287–308. 3 Antonio Montefusco, “A mo’ d’introduzione. Elementi di una storia sociale dell’attività del tradurre nella Toscana medievale (1260–1430),” in Antonio Montefusco (ed.), Toscana Bilingue (1260ca–1430ca.) (Berlin-New York: De Gruyter, 2020), 1–23.

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(1518–1595), Orazio Toscanella (1520–1580), Stefano Breventano (1522–1577), Francesco de’ Vieri (1524–1591), Antonio Scaino (1524–1612), Giason Denores (1530–1590), Ercole Bottrigari (1531–1612), Pomponio Torelli (1539–1608), Pompeo Vizzani (1540–1607), Cesare Crivellati (1543–1640), Nicolò Vito di Gozze (1549–1610), Camillo Baldi (1550–1637), and Francesco Venier. 4 Five of these scholars left their vulgarizations in manuscript form. These individuals come from all over Italy, in particular from 1 from Ancona, 1 from Belluno, 1 from Bergamo, 9 from Bologna, 2 from Brescia, 2 from Caserta, 1 from Cosenza, 1 from Cremona, 2 from Dubrovnik, 1 from Faenza, 2 from Ferrara, 28 from Flornce, 3 from Naples, 2 from Genoa, 3 from Mantua, 1 from Milan, 1 from Modena, 7 from Padua, 2 from Parma, 2 from Pavia, 2 from Pisa, 1 from Reggio Emilia, 2 from Rome 1 Rovigo, 1 from Arezzo, 1 from Cesena, 9 from Siena, 1 from Spoleto, 1 from Treviso, 4 from Urbino, 4 from Verona, 8 from Venice, 1 from Vicenza, 1 from Viterbo. Almost 34% are Tuscan, while 18% come from the Veneto region, establishing these two areas as the two main cultural centres of the time. Alessio Cotugno has identified five essential features that characterize vulgarizers, and in particular those who dealt with Aristotelian philosophy.5 (1) The first characteristic, perhaps obvious, is that the vulgarizer had full mastery of the original and the target language. The vulgarizer typically had a classical education and a perfect knowledge of Greek and Latin, or at least of the latter. Furthermore, the vulgarizer needed to know the best language in which the relevant works were to be translated. This aspect is fundamental whether the vulgarizations are to be understood as translations or as original productions written in the vernacular. The language that became the standard one in this period – also for typographical normalization – was Tuscan. Tuscans therefore were at an advantage in comparison to other vulgarizers. It is not by chance that one third of the vulgarizers came from Tuscany, where – not coincidentally – there was a strong humanistic culture related to the cult of antiquity. 4 The life and the figure of Francesco Venier, not to be confused with the doge, is unknown. On Venier, see the outstanding essay by Luca Bianchi: “Uses of Latin Sources in Renaissance Vernacularizations of Aristotle: The Cases of Galeazzo Florimonte, Francesco Venier and Francesco Pona,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 31–54. 5 Alessio Cotugno, “Volgarizzare Aristotele. Varchi tra Speroni e Piccolomini,” L’Ellisse, 13 (2018): 67–82; Alessio Cotugno, “Aristotile fatto volgare. Una questione linguistica dalla teoria alla prassi (parte II),” La lingua italiana, 13 (2018): 61–81. These five points are a summary of his investigation.

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(2) The second characteristic, connected to the first one, concerns the capacity of the vulgarizer to manage the process of standardization and normalization of language necessary for the printing press. The vulgarizer has a privileged position if he is familiar with its technology and if has an “esprit de imprimeur,” to borrow a felicitous expression coined by Roger Chartier.6 It is no coincidence that a good percentage of vulgarizers came from the Veneto, a place richly stocked with printing presses, or that many vulgarizers found an accommodating base in this region for their editorial work. (3) The third characteristic, no less important than the former two, is the capacity of the vulgarizer to distance himself from the original text in order to produce a vulgarization that would adequately address the theoretical problems of translation, transposition and simplification. In brief, this concerns the culture of mediation, which involves an awareness of the process of the vulgarization and of its consequences, and a willingness to enter into a negotiation – that is, a coming to terms with the text by the vulgarizer.7 (4) The fourth element, strictly correlated with the preceding one, relates specifically to the lexical dimension, – that is, the capacity to reconstruct in another language terminology developed in a specif ic context of knowledge, which can vary in relation to physical places (academia, court, pulpit, etc.), recipients (illiterate, semi-illiterate, literate), and disciplines (ethics, natural sciences, mechanics and theology). In other words, a vulgarizer requires a kind of linguistic sensitivity that can extend to different formal and informal contexts. This characteristic concerns an ability to broaden the established lexical horizon – that is, to introduce terms previously absent from the target language. (5) The fifth and last characteristic is the capacity to engage in methodological reflection – that is, in theories about a process of vulgarization which is more than translation, and which allows vulgarizers to work

6 Roger Chartier, La main de l’auteur et l’esprit de l’imprimeur: XVIe-XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 2015). 7 See Anthony Pym, “Negotiation Theory as an Approach to Translation History: An Inductive Lesson from 15th-Century Castille,” in Yves Gambier and Jorma Tommola (eds.), Knowledge and Translation (Turku: Graf ia Oy, 1993), 27–39; Umberto Eco, Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation (London: Orion Publishing, 2004).

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on texts in a very different manner, adopting highly innovative and original solutions.

A biographical census, albeit cursory, of all vulgarizers is not the purpose of this essay.8 It is more pertinent to focus on a specific group of intellectuals, who made a sizeable contribution to the Aristotelian vulgarizations of the sixteenth century. These scholars are as follows: Antonio Brucioli, Sperone Speroni, Benedetto Varchi, Bernardo Segni, Lodovico Castelvetro, Alessandro Piccolomini and Felice Figliucci. All of these intellectuals, beyond sharing the above-mentioned f ive characteristics, present a number of other common features that permit us to outline in a more detailed way the figure of the vulgarizer, and to understand more precisely the instigation of the process of vulgarization, which is at the basis of the democratization of knowledge. At a mere chronological level, almost all of these vulgarizers were born within the short span of a decade, between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. Furthermore, their focus for vulgarization was the work of Aristotle, beginning in the ‘40s: Sperone Speroni (1539–1542), Alessandro Piccolomini (1540–1575), Benedetto Varchi (1542), Lodovico Castelvetro (1543–1570), Antonio Brucioli (1545–1557), Felice Figliucci (1548–1583) and Bernardo Segni (1549–1583).9 Five of the seven are Tuscans. Almost all of them received a humanistic education, acquiring a profound knowledge of classical languages, and were also involved in reflection on the theory of language or the vernacular. All pursued or refined their studies between Padua and Venice. Almost all had a strong relationship with the printing press, and were involved directly or indirectly in movements of spiritual and religious renewal.

3.2

Classical Education

All vulgarizers – some more, some less – received a solid classical education, heir to the best humanism.10 There is one exception perhaps in Sperone Speroni, who can only improperly be called a vulgarizer because of his 8 This was the purpose of Filippo Argelati with his Biblioteca degli volgarizzatori, o sia Notizia dall’opere volgarizzate d’autori che scrissero in lingue morte prima del secolo 15 (Milano: Agnelli, 1767). 9 The dates refer to their period of activity. 10 Eugenio Garin, L’umanesimo italiano. Filosofia e vita civile nel Rinascimento (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1994); Paul O. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and its Sources (New York: Columbia

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theories of vulgarizations and because in his works he re-elaborated ancient philosophical doctrines. However, he never vulgarized a philosophical or scientific work. Speroni was born in Padua in a very unfortunate period in which schools and the university had to close because of the war of the League of Cambrai. He was educated at home by his father, professor at the university, and by a private preceptor. He graduated in 1518 at the University of Padua, and already in 1520 he was teaching logic in primo loco in the same athenaeum. With the aim of improving his Aristotelian knowledge, he spent two years (1523–1525) at the University of Bologna following Pietro Pomponazzi’s lectures and became a friend of the future cardinal Gasparo Contarini. Antonio Brucioli was the oldest among the vulgarizers, but we have no certain information about his earliest education. He frequented the school of Francesco Cattani da Diacceto (1466–1522) and the circle of the Orti Oricellari.11 Cattani da Diacceto was the last exponent of Marsilius Ficinus’s Platonic Academy.12 He was professor at the Florentine studium at the beginning of the sixteenth century and, unlike his master Ficinus, developed an eclectic philosophy, which mixed Aristotelianism and Platonism with a style that is recognizable in Brucioli’s Dialogi (1526–1529, 1537–1538, 1544–1545).13 The flower of Florence’s youth attended Diacceto’s lectures on Greek and Latin philosophy. Among them we find names of the calibre of Giovanni Corsi, Palla and Giovanni Rucellai, Lorenzo and Filippo Strozzi, Alessandro de’ Pazzi and Luigi Alamanni. With Alamanni, Brucioli sealed a lifetime friendship. At the meetings of the Orti Oricellari – the intellectual circle of the Rucellais’ gardens – Brucioli had the opportunity to meet figures like Nicolò Machiavelli, Tommaso Alamanni, Antonio Francini da Montevarchi, University Press, 1979); Jill Kraye, “Beyond Moral Philosophy: Renaissance Humanism and the Philosophical Canon,” Rinascimento, 56 (2016): 3–22. 11 Carlo Dionisotti, Machiavellerie (Torino: Einaudi, 1980), 173–224. 12 Paul O. Kristeller, “Francesco Cattani da Diacceto and Florentine Platonism in the Sixteenth Century,” in Miscellanea Giuseppe Mercati (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1946), 260–304. On Diacceto’s language see Eva Del Soldato, “The Elitist Vernacular of Francesco Cattani da Diacceto and its Afterlife,” I Tatti Studies, 16 (2013): 343–62. 13 On the Aristotelian influences in Brucioli’s dialogues, see Reiner Leushuius, “Dialogical Strategies, volgarizzamento, and Ciceronian Ethos in Antonio Brucioli’s Dialogi della morale filosofia,” Quaderni d’italianistica, 30 (2009): 39–66; Grace Allen, “Aristotle’s Politics in the Dialogi della morale filosofia of Antonio Brucioli,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 109–22; Eva Del Soldato, “The Best Works of Aristotle: Antonio Brucioli as a Translator of Natural Philosophy,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 123–38.

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Pierfrancesco Portinari, Iacopo da Diacceto, Luigi Zanobi Buondelmonti and Benedetto Varchi. During these years Brucioli improved his knowledge of Greek and Latin, to which he later added Hebrew, thanks to the interest of Lucantonio Giunti. The destiny of the Orti Oricellari and some of its members – charged with conspiracy in 1522 against the cardinal Giuliano de’ Medici – had repercussions also for Brucioli, who was obliged to flee to Venice, where he arrived in 1523 under the protection of Carlo Cappello. Benedetto Varchi’s education is similar to that Brucioli, even though he was younger. He studied at the abacus school in order to work in the family workshop, but his propensity towards classical studies emerged relatively early. The first rudiments of a classical education were given him by Gaspare Marescotti, a very rigorous and pious teacher of grammar. In this period he became friends with Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, translator of Aristotle’s Rhetorica.14 He learned Latin with Francesco Priscianese, author of very popular handbooks of Latin grammar written in the vernacular. In Pisa he studied poetics, rhetoric and classical culture with Donato Giannotti, and law with Bardo Altoviti. He started his philosophical training also in Pisa with Francesco Verino the Elder, and completed it in Bologna under the aegis of Ludovico Boccadiferro, a natural philosopher and former student of Alessandro Achillini and Pietro Pomponazzi. Bernardo Segni had a similar educational background. He studied in Pisa during the same period as Varchi, and he was fascinated by Francesco Verino the Elder. He completed his philosophical studies in Padua, and later in Rome with Antonio Bernardi della Mirandola. By his own admission, however, Segni did not acquire a mastery of Greek, working more on Latin editions in his translation work.15 Alessandro Piccolomini, unlike Segni, had a mastery of Greek and Latin, poetics and rhetoric, which he had learned from his preceptor Carlo Piccolomini.16 He studied mathematics and astronomy with Carlo Pini and philosophy with Niccolò Cerretani. His erudition allowed him to join the Accademia degli Intronati, where he played a key role in the cultural development of Siena. His interests leaned towards classical literature, 14 Anna Laura Puliafito, “Abbracciare la dottrina di Aristotele, or Translating beyond Translations: Bartolomeo Cavalcanti’s Retorica (1559),” Rivista di storia della filosofia, 2 (2019): 377–90. 15 Roberto Ridolfi, “Novità sulle ‘Istorie’ del Segni,” Belfagor, 15 (1960): 663–76; Roberto Ridolfi, “Bernardo Segni e il suo volgarizzamento della Retorica,” Belfagor, 17 (1962): 511–26; Simone Bionda, Poetica d’Aristotile tradotta di Greco in lingua vulgare Fiorentina da Bernardo Segni Gentiluomo et accademico fiorentino (Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2015). 16 On Piccolomini’s life see Florindo Cerreta, Alessandro Piccolomini. Letterato e filosofo senese del Cinquecento (Siena: Accademia Senese degli Intronati, 1960).

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as his partial vulgarizations of Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphosis show. His fellow citizen Felice Figliucci, albeit ten years younger, received a comparable education, but with an ecclesiastical career in sight. Lodovico Castelvetro was not Tuscan. He was born in Modena. He was of the same generation of Varchi and Segni, and shared with them a passion for humanistic culture. He learned classical literature and languages with Panfilo Sassi and Dionigi Trimbocco, orienting his studies towards law. He studied in Bologna, where he probably followed Pomponazzi’s lectures, and then subsequently moved to Ferrara, Padua and Siena. In Siena he met Bernardino Maffei, Marcello Cervini and Alessandro Piccolomini, actively attending the Accademia degli Intronati, where he built on his classical education.

3.3

The Venetian Moment

All vulgarizers, in one way or another, lived for a short period or more in the Veneto region. This “Venetian moment” is fundamental in four key respects: (1) First of all, Padua was a stronghold with regard to Aristotelianism, and it was in the specifics of this framework, more than in any other respect, that they absorbed Aristotelian doctrines. (2) Second, the Veneto region – and, in particular, the Accademia degli Infiammati – was the birthplace of new theories on the vernacular and on the democratization of knowledge. (3) Third, Venice with its multiple printing presses allowed these intellectuals to have daily contact with the technology of print, to learn its language and use. (4) Finally, the Veneto region represented the backdoor to the Reformation in Italy, in particular, it was the place in which Erasmian ideas first took root. The Venetian moment was decisive for these scholars, who carried with them a wealth of knowledge acquired during these years, infecting other intellectual contexts all around Italy and Europe.

Born in Padua, Speroni was perfectly integrated into the cultural climate of the Republic of Venice. He was not fond of the printing press. He published only under pressure, and many of his works were printed without personal revision. He had scarce knowledge of the typographical language, even if

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he appreciated the potentialities of print. He did not like the university life either. In Padua, he was for a very short period a university professor, but then he decided to vacate the post at his father’s death in 1528. This was no great deal for him since he preferred to be like Socrates – that is, to teach without salary or not to teach at all, confronting “students in squares, brothels, taverns, churches and parties, reprehending them for their vices their wasting of time or the vanity of their pomp or other such similar thing.”17 Undoubtedly, his most important experience was at the Accademia degli Infiammati, whose history – touched on only very briefly here – was highly significant for the impact it had on vulgarizers, on other Italian academies, on the promotion of the vernacular as a language of knowledge, and on the spread of the very idea of the democratization of knowledge. The Accademia degli Infiammati was founded on 6 June 1540 at the initiative of Leone Orsini who was also the first principe.18 This was with the intention of bringing together a group of intellectuals, not only in literary and artistic fields but across all disciplines, all of whom were eager to promote the vernacular language19 and a certain idea of the democratization of knowledge.20 The academy motto was “Arso il mortal, al ciel n’andrà l’eterno,” which was a reference to the burning Hercules on Mount Oeta and an assertion of the importance of knowledge for becoming immortal. Throughout Orsini’s two years of activity, the Accademia degli Infiammati was frequented by two of the most important Aristotelian vulgarizers – namely Benedetto Varchi and Alessandro Piccolomini – and by intellectuals like Vincenzo Maggi and Bartolomeo Lombardo,21 Bernardino Tomitano,22 17 Sperone Speroni, Opere (Venezia: Occhi, 1740), vol.1, 171: “li scolari per le piazze, per li bordelli, per le bettole, alle chiese, alle feste, e riprendianli de’ loro vizii o della perdita del tempo loro o della vanità delle pompe o d’altra tal cosa.” 18 Richard Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi, the Accademia degli Infiammati, and the Origins of the Italian Academic Movement,” Renaissance Quarterly, 29 (1976): 603. 19 The most recent complete account of the Accademia degli Infiammati is Valerio Vianello, Il letterato, l’accademia, il libro. Contributi sulla cultura veneta del Cinquecento (Padova: Antenore, 1988), 47–91. 20 On the academy’s program of democratization, see Heikki Mikkeli, “The Cultural Programmes of Alessandro Piccolomini and Sperone Speroni at the Paduan Accademia degli Infiammati in the 1540s,” in Constance Blackwell and Sachiko Kusukawa (eds.), Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century: Conversations with Aristotle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 76–85. 21 Maggi and Lombardi were commentators and editors of Aristotle’s Poetics. See Stefania Di Mare, “Maggi, Vincenzo,” in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer 2022), 2022a–2024b. 22 Tomitano was the editor of Aristotle’s Giuntine edition. See Maria Teresa Girardi, “Tomitano, Bernardino,” in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer 2022), 3271a–327b.

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Giovanni Battista Monte,23 Lazzaro Bonamico,24 Giovan Battista Bagolino,25 Girolamo Fracastoro,26 Daniele Barbaro,27 Giuseppe Betussi,28 Francesco Sansovino,29 Cola Bruno,30 Pierio Valeriano,31 Ludovico Dolce,32 and Pietro Aretino.33 Among others, we also f ind Mariano Sozzini, Celso Sozzini, Giovan Battista Goineo, Fortunato Martinengo – all involved in heretical religious groups – and therefore it is possible that heterodox ideas were in circulation. Perhaps it is not by chance that in the Lettere volgari (1542), published by Paolo Manuzio and traditionally acknowledged as a manifesto of ideas that support crypto-Evangelism, there were many members of the Infiammati.34 Giovanni Cornaro took over from Orsini as principe in August 1540, holding the position until November. The curriculum was mainly Aristotelian: Vincenzo Maggi was scheduled to teach Aristotle’s Poetica, and Sperone Speroni either Aristotle’s Rhetorica or Ethica.35 In fact, Speroni never gave 23 Da Monte was the founder of clinical medicine in Padua. See Maria Muccillo, “Da Monte, Giovanni Battista,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 32, 365–7. 24 He was a famous scholar of the classical languages. See Rino Avesani, “Bonamico, Lazzaro,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 11, 533–40. 25 He was editor and translator of Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias. 26 He was a famous physician and philosopher. See Francesca Maria Crasta, “Fracastoro, Girolamo,” in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer 2022), 1293b–1300a. 27 He was a translator of Vitruvius. See Giuseppe Alberigo, “Barbaro, Daniele Matteo Alvise,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 6, 89–95. 28 He was a translator of Boccaccio’s Latin works. See Claudio Mutini, “Betussi, Giuseppe,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 9, 779–81. 29 He was a polymath, historian and political theorist. See Ruben Celani, “Sansovino, Francesco,” in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer 2022), 2875b–2880a. 30 Secretary of Pietro Bembo. See Claudio Mutini, “Bruno, Cola,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 14, 650–1. 31 He was a scholar of Egyptian hieroglyphs. 32 He was a grammarian and man of letters. See Giovanni Romei, “Dolce, Ludovico,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 40, 399–405. 33 He was a playwright, poet and satirist. See Giuliano Innamorati, “Aretino, Pietro,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 4, 89–104. 34 Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento, 286. 35 Vianello, Il letterato, l’accademia, il libro, 52.

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these lectures, and was replaced with Benedetto Varchi, who delivered a series of lectures on the Ethica Nicomachea in the vernacular. However, the impressive attendance of foreign scholars and university students – coming in particular from France and Germany – obliged him to revert already in the second lesson to teaching in Latin.36 The third principe was Galeazzo Gonzaga (December 1540 – March 1541), while the fourth was Alessandro Piccolomini (April – September 1541). On 13 November 1541, Sperone Speroni himself was elected, remaining in charge for at least six months.37 During his tenure Speroni – according to Tomitano – banned teaching in Latin, having decided that all lessons were to be held in the vernacular.38 This was a decision that stemmed from an unwillingness to seem subservient to the university, providing a gesture of autonomy in terms of language and philosophical approach. Speroni was always intolerant of the excessive rigidity of the Accademia’s pedagogical and organizational system, and the troubled events surrounding his taking charge of the office of principe, after Piccolomini and Varchi’s extended prayers, may stand as proof of this. After May 1542, news of the Accademia ceases, but the innovative, theoretical ideas that came out of it exerted a powerful influence in the coming decades not only in the Veneto region, but across Italy – for instance, at the Accademia Fiorentina, which was established according to the blueprint of the Infiammati.39 It is within this context of the Accademia Fiorentina that Bernardo Segni published his vulgarizations of Aristotle: Retorica (1549), Politica (1549), Poetica (1549), Etica (1550), although the Trattato sopra i libri dell’anima di Aristotile (1583) was printed only posthumously. 40 36 See Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi, the Accademia degli Infiammati, and the Origins of the Italian Academic Movement,” 623; Vianello, Il letterato, l’accademia, il libro, 86–9; Salvatore Lo Re, Politica e cultura nella Firenze Cosminiana (Manziana: Vecchiarelli, 2008), 219–20. 37 See Lo Re, Politica e cultura nella Firenze Cosminiana, 232. 38 See Samuels, “Benedetto Varchi, the Accademia degli Infiammati, and the Origins of the Italian Academic Movement,” 615. 39 Benedetto Varchi, Opere (Trieste: Lint, 1859), vol. 2, 379. On the foundation of the Accademia Fiorentina, see Michel Plaisance, Académie et le Prince: Culture et Politique à Florence au Temps de Come ler et de François de Médici (Manziana: Vecchiarelli, 2004), 29–122. 40 Ullrich Langer, “Aristotle Commentary and Ethical Behaviour: Bernardo Segni on Friendship between Unequals,” in Constance Blackwell and Sachiko Kusukawa, (eds.), Philosophy in the Sixteenth Centuries: Conversations with Aristotle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 107–25; Simone Bionda, “La Poetica di Aristotele volgarizzata: Bernardo Segni e le sue fonti,” Aevum, 75 (2001): 679–94; Simone Bionda, “Aristotele in Accademia: Bernardo Segni e il volgarizzamento della Retorica,” Medioevo e Rinascimento, 13 (2002): 241–65; Simone Bionda, “La copia di tipografia del Trattato dei Governi di Bernardo Segni: breve incursione nel laboratorio del volgarizzatore di Aristotele,” Rinascimento, 42 (2002): 381–414; David A. Lines, “Rethinking Renaissance Aristotelianism: Bernardo Segni’s Ethica, the Florentine Academy, and the Vernacular in Sixteenth-Century

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Besides Speroni, who was born in Padua, Brucioli was the first vulgarizer to arrive in the Veneto region from outside, and not by his own will, but as an exile. His first stay was only a matter of a few months – he left Florence in 1522, and was already in Lyon in 1523. His second stay in 1529 was more extended. This was the point that Brucioli started his strenuous activity of polygraph, in conjunction with more than ten printing presses,41 and also with his brothers Francesco and Alessandro founding his own typography. This whole Venetian period was spent with the presses and his work in this regard certainly influenced his broader activity in relation to the democratization of knowledge. It was during these years that Brucioli came into contact with Aristotelianism, and he embarked upon the translation of a sizeable portion of the Aristotelian corpus. In a span of twelve years he published La Rettorica d’Aristotile tradotta con la sposizione di Rocco Catanio (1545), Gli otto libri della Republica che chiamono Politica di Aristotile (1547), La Phisica di Aristotile (1551), Aristotile della generatione et corrutione (1552), De celo et mondo (1552), La meteora (1555), and Di Aristotile libri tre dell’anima (1557). There is no evidence, however, for his attendance of intellectual circles or of academies such as the Accademia degli Infiammati or the Accademia della Fama, even if by virtue of his exposure to the knowledge of scholars like Luigi Alamanni, Pietro Aretino and Benedetto Varchi, he must have been familiar with their discussions. Benedetto Varchi was one of the most important figures in the Accademia degli Infiammati: he wrote and was the holder of the regulations. His participation to the Accademia was the result of a process he began in Florence and Bologna. Before his arrival in Padua in 1537, Varchi became a friend of Speroni, and already in 1540 he was contributing to the spread of Speroni’s Dialogo delle lingue.42 His conviction in the Speronian programme of democratization of knowledge was strong and marked a decisive step in his intellectual development. In a letter dated 22 November 1539, he wrote that he had always maintained that true knowledge was only to be found “in grammar and in the humanities and in the law,”43 but he was changing his Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly, 66 (2013): 824–65; Simone Bionda, “Un ‘traduttor dei traduttori’? Bernardo Segni dalla Retorica alla Poetica,” in David A. Lines and Eugenio Refini (eds.), “Aristotele fatto volgare”: Tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 77–97. 41 He worked with Gregorio de Gregori, Sabbio’s brothers, Lucantonio Giunti, Nicolò d’Aristotile detto Zoppino, Bartolomeo Zanetti, Francesco Bindoni e Maffeo Pasini, Aurelio Pincio, Giovanni Giolito, Gabriele Giolito, Giovanni Antonio di Volpini, Bernardino Bindoni, Venturino Roffinelli, Ottaviano Scoto, Girolamo Scoto, Bartolomeo Imperatore, Domenico Giglio. 42 Vianello, Il letterato, l’accademia, il libro, 29. 43 Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Carte Strozziane I, 136, c. 105r.

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mind, and now believed that every kind of knowledge was worth studying. The educational model was that of Socrates, who taught young people not in the schools, but in the squares and streets of Athens. Here, once again, the influence of Speroni was not meant to be secondary.44 It was in this feverish moment of activity at the Accademia degli Infiammati that Varchi produced his Aristotelian translations and commentaries in the vernacular, which remained, however, in manuscript form. They included the Comento sopra il primo libro dell’Etica d’Aristotile, 45 the Comento sopra il primo libro della Priora d’Aristotile,46 and the Comento primo sopra il primo libro delle Meteore d’Aristotele. 47 They are all vulgarizations destined for an erudite audience, and adopt a kind of exposition typical of humanistic examination of the texts. At his arrival in Padua at the Accademia degli Infiammati, Alessandro Piccolomini changed his interests, turning his focus towards science and philosophy. In Padua he studied with Marcantonio Genua, Vincenzo Maggi and Federico Delfino. It is within this context of cultural liveliness and vibrant Aristotelianism – almost absent in Siena – that Piccolomini published his first Aristotelian works both in Latin and in the vernacular. De la sfera del mondo, De le stelle fisse and the Latin translation of Alexander of Aphrodisais’s commentary to Aristotle’s Metereologica (all appearing in 1540) are the result of these investigations in the scientific field. In 1542 there followed De la institutione di tutta la vita de l’homo nato nobile e in città libera, probably written around 1539. In 1560 the work underwent a further edition with the title L’institutione morale. In some way connected with the Paduan period also is the Latin translation of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanics, containing the Commentarium de certitudine mathematicarum disciplinarum (1546). In Rome he continued his mission conceived at the Infiammati publishing the Instrumento della filosofia (1551), the Prima and Seconda parte della filosofia naturale (1551, 1554), the Retorica (1565) and the Poetica (1572). Over a long career, he published his works in Venice with more than twenty publishers. 48 44 Lo Re, Politica e cultura nella Firenze Cosminiana, 209. 45 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Firenze, Filza Rinuccini 10, 74r–94v. 46 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Firenze, Filza Rinuccini 10, 360r–411v. 47 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Firenze, Filza Rinuccini 10, 220v–44r. On this work see Simon Gilson, “Vernacularizing Meteorology: Benedetto Varchi’s Comento sopra il primo libro delle Meteore d’Aristotile,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 161–81. 48 Piccolomini worked with Curtio Navò, Andrea Arrivabene, Nicolò d’Aristotile detto Zoppino, Geronimo Scoto, Maffeo Pasini, Torresano d’Asola, Gabriele Giolito, Nicolò de Bascarini, Agostino Bindoni, Giovanni Maria Bonelli, Giovanni Padoano, Bartolomeo Cesano, Plinio di Pietrasanta,

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Figure 3.1: Frontispiece of Alessandro Piccolomini’s La seconda partede la filosofia naturale, published “alla Bottega d’Erasmo”

Domenico Farri, Giordano Ziletti, Giovanni Varisco, Francesco Rampazetto, Francesco Lorenzini, Nicolò Bevilacqua, Giorgio de’ Cavalli, Traiano Curzio, Altobello Salicato, Francesco Camozi, Luca Bonetti, Francesco de’ Franceschi and Daniele Zanetti. He published with Bartolomeo Bonardo in Bologna, Valerio and Girolamo Meda in Milan, Luca Bonetti in Siena, and Antonio Baldo and Vincenzo Valgrisi in Rome.

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Likewise for Figliucci, arrival in Padua was decisive. While the Accademia degli Infiammati was active, he studied Aristotelian philosophy at the University of Padua with Marcoantonio Genua. It was in this period that he conceived the idea of vulgarizing the Platonic and Aristotelian works. His first translation of Plato’s Phaedrus (1544) was printed in Rome, but the majority of his vulgarizations were produced in the Veneto region. In Venice were published his Le divine lettere del gran Marsilio Ficino (1546), and De la Politica, overo scienza civile secondo la dottrina d’Aristotile (1583); in Padua, his Tradottione antica de la Rettorica d’Aristotile (1548). His De la filosofia morale libri dieci, sopra li dieci libri dell’Ethica d’Aristotile (1551) was entrusted to the printer Vincenzo Valgrisi, originally from Lyon. The relationship that Figliucci and Piccolomini had with the printer Valgrisi – who worked both in Rome and Venice – is significant. Indeed, it was in Rome that Valrgrisi produced his editions of the Aristotelian vulgarizations with the ensign “ex officina Erasmiana” or “al segno d’Erasmo,” or “alla bottega d’Erasmo.”49 Valgrisi published the Italian edition of Erasmus’ Colloquia and also of the Apophthegmata, of which he held the privileges.50 For many other Erasmian works, including the Paraclesis, Valgrisi asked and obtained the privileges, although they were never printed.51 It is noteworthy that Valgrisi’s collaborator and Erasmus’s translator was the Modenese Pietro Lauro, close to Lutheran ideas and friend of Fausto da Longiano, one of the most important theorizers of vulgarization, as we will see in Chapter 4. Lauro is an interesting figure because he dedicated the translation of Colloquia (1544) to the duchess Renata, justifying his vulgarization with the same words that Erasmus used in the Paraclesis to justify the translations of Holy Scriptures: Most of these colloquia discuss things relating to our Christian religion: so much so that souls inclined to true piety could greatly benefit from them. All are full of important teachings and useful warnings, through which almost all of life can be shaped and educated in perfect morality 49 Ilaria Andreoli, Ex officina erasmiana. Vincenzo Valgrisi et l’illustration due livre entre Venise et Lyon à moitié du XVI siècle (Lyon: PhD thesis, 2006). 50 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Senato Terra, registro 33 (1543–1544), 98r. 51 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Senato Terra, registro 34 (1545–1556), c139v: “Die suprascritto [M.D.XXXXVI Die XXVIII Augusti] Che per autorità di questo conseglio sia concesso al fidel nostro Marchio libraro dalla Gatta che alcuno altro che lui, per anni X prossimi, senza sua permissione non possa stampare, né far stampare in questa nostra città né in alcun luogho del Dominio nostro, né altrove stampate in quelli vender l’opere … Lodovico Vives de officio mariti et feminae christianae et f iliorum volgare, Paraclesis suarum literarum, Lingua di Erasmo volgare, et il matrimonio Christiano, Vidua Christiana, encomium matrimonii, modus orandi Deum del detto Volgare.”

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and civility, and through which persons of every age, every sex, and of every condition can, according to their degree, learn the way and the norm to govern all their actions prudently.52

The printer Valgrisi, therefore, produced a series of vulgarizations under the aegis of Erasmus, and filled his catalogue with authors such as Sperone Speroni, Vittoria Colonna and Marcantonio Flaminio.53 His contribution is a very significant and emblematic aspect that characterizes the process of the democratization of knowledge in Renaissance Italy. A fil rouge connects vulgarizers of Aristotle, Erasmian movements, and ideas of spiritual renewal.

3.4

Spiritual Renewal

The Accademia degli Infiammati came to life in a period in which hopes for a religious renewal were at their height on the eve of the Diet of Regensburg, and ceased its existence with the failure of these colloquia, the death of Juan de Valdés, and the escape of Bernardino Ochino and Peter Martyr Vermigli. Coincidental though these events may seem, if one looks at the biographies of the vulgarizers of the period, it is clear that their intellectual development and careers were profoundly influenced by powerful individuals from the Catholic world that were mediating with Protestant exponents. Among them were Gasparo Contarini – former student of Pomponazzi – Reginald Pole, and Marcantonio Flaminio, just to mention three. From both directions, historians of language and historians of the Reformation in Italy have pointed out the extraordinary correlation and interconnectedness between these two phenomena. Carlo Dionisotti has emphasized how diff icult it is to understand the indubitable relation between Italian spiritual, evangelical and reformist movements and the new vernacular literature.54 However, in recent years this relationship has 52 Desiderius Erasmus, Colloquii famigliari di Erasmo Roterdamo ad ogni qualità di parlare, & specialmente a cose pietose accomodati (Venezia: Valgrisi, 1545), 3r: “La più parte di essi colloqui discorrono sopra cose appartenenti a la nostra Christiana religione: onde gli animi inchinati a la vera pietà possono trarne costrutto non mediocre. Tutti poi sono pieni di notabilissimi ammaestramenti et utilissimi avvertimenti, donde quasi tutta la vita de l’huomo si può formare, & erudire in una perfetta moralità, & politia, & donde ogni età, ogni sesso, ogni condition de persone puo secondo il grado suo, imparare il modo e la regola di governarsi prudentemente in tutte le sue attioni.” 53 Valgrisi also published the works of Ambrogio Catarino Politi, who was perfectly orthodox. 54 Carlo Dionisotti, Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana (Torino: Einaudi, 1967), 233.

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become much clearer. Jean-Louis Fournel and Ivano Paccagnella point out that the phenomenon of these reformist movements, with their “postulate that the language of divine truth should be accessible to all, changes radically not only the reflections and practices that concern the language of faith as the language of truth, but also the kind of writings about non-theological truths,” like that of philosophy or the sciences.55 According to Massimo Firpo, there was a common matrix in these two movements that consisted in “the enlargement of the boundaries of scientific, philosophical and religious knowledge to a wider social universe and in the breaking of the academic and clergy monopoly on erudition and faith.”56 It cannot be a coincidence that Aristotle’s vulgarizers and members of heterodox religious circles shared the notion of the vernacular as the new “language of knowledge” and the principle means of emancipation from authority. The two movements cannot be considered distinctly, but rather should be understood through their reciprocity and in terms of the theoretical background and platform that supported and stimulated both of them. This platform may be termed “Erasmus’s ecosystem,” through which it is possible to better explain this matrix and relation. Erasmus’ visit to Italy seemed to go unnoticed. In the Tuscan context, birthplace of many vulgarizers, the circulation of Erasmus’ works was slower than in Venice, where the philosopher of Rotterdam was the friend of Aldo Manuzio. However, the echoes of Savonarola’s spiritual renewal were still very strong and – as Silvana Seidel Menchi has remarked – the Erasmian position, with its criticism of ecclesiastical degeneration “had the full right of citizenship in Savonarolian Florence.”57 The heirs of Filippo Giunta in 1518 published two of Erasmus’ works – the Encomium moriae and an edition of Euripides’ two tragedies – a clear symptom of a widespread local interest in the Erasmian perspective.58 In 1520, Giunti’s brothers published a collection of Erasmus’s works, including the Institutio principis christiani. It was in these years that Tuscans like Brucioli, Varchi and Segni became acquainted with 55 Jean-Louis Fournel and Ivano Paccagnella, Premessa, in “Fedeli, diligenti, chiari e dotti.” Traduttori e traduzione nel Rinascimento (Padova: Cleup, 2016), 13. See also Dionisotti, Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana, 187; Élise Boillet, “Vernacular Biblical Literature in SixteenthCentury Italy: Universal Reading and Specific Readers,” in Discovering the Riches of the Word. Religious Reading in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 213–233. 56 Massimo Firpo, “Riforma religiosa e lingua volgare nell’Italia del ‘500,” Belfagor, 57 (2002): 533. 57 Silvana Seidel Menchi, “Atteggiamenti della cultura italiana di fronte a Erasmo,” in Eresia e riforma nell’Italia del Cinquecento (Firenze-Chicago: Sansoni-The Newberry Library, 1974), 86. 58 Dionisotti, Machiavellerie, 211.

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Erasmus’ philosophia Christi and the new way of conceiving spirituality, as Brucioli’s dialogue Della sapientia e della stultitia clearly testifies (1526).59 It was Padua, however, that was the main centre for the dissemination and institutionalization of Erasmus’ ideas – ideas imported into Italy by students from Northern Europe.60 In particular, Friederich Grau, future bishop of Vienna, and student of law in Padua, provided a strong impulse for the reading of Erasmian texts. In 1521, when Speroni was teaching logic at the university, Grau had the opportunity to teach a grammar course on Erasmus’ De octo orationis partium constructione, which he edited in 1522 for Gregorio de Gregoriis in Venice. Marco Bevilacqua da Forlì also worked with Gregorio de Gregoriis as typographer, publishing with Antonio de Sabio within a very few years more than thirty works by Erasmus, mainly grammar and rhetoric, but also the famous Colloquia. Likewise, Marino Becichemo, teacher of rhetoric at the University of Padua and colleague of Sperone Speroni, had been extremely influenced by Erasmian ideas. Becichemo was very well regarded by Pietro Bembo and Erasmus,61 and prompted the envy of Gregorio Amaseo. He was a great connoisseur of Cicero’s work, and corresponded with Christophe de Longueil, attracting ridicule in Erasmus’s Ciceronianus for his extreme Ciceronianism. The reception of Erasmus, therefore, at least within the university, was at first in terms of interest in rhetoric, and at the same time anti-Lutheran, as is possible to gauge from the dedicatory letter dated 1523 to the Hymni novi ecclesiastici iuxta veram metri et latinitatis normam (1525). In addition to Grau, Bevilacqua and Becichemo, Seidel Menchi detects Erasmian traces that vary in level of obviousness among Paduan Scholars including Angelico Guarino da Cagli, Lucio Paolo Rosello, Piero Paolo Vergerio, Girolamo Pollastrello dei Vitali, Federico Stampa and Anton Francesco dei Dottori.62 When our democratizers began their activities in Padua, Erasmus was the reference point for religious renewal and for any general reassessment of post-humanist rhetoric. Within this Erasmian framework we can reconstruct the spiritual and human vicissitudes of the democratizers of knowledge. 59 Reinier Leushuis, “Antonio Brucioli and the Italian Reception of Erasmus: The Praise of Folly in Dialogue,” in The Reception of Erasmus in the Early Modern Period (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2013), 237–260. 60 For the reconstruction of the Paduan Erasmian circle see Seidel Menchi, Erasmo in Italia 1520–1580, 35–7. 61 Erasmus owned Marino Becichemo, Elegans ac docta in C. Plinium praelectio (Paris: Vidou, 1519); See Egbertus Van Gulik, Erasmus and his Books (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2018), 476. 62 Seidel Menchi, Erasmo in Italia 1520–1580, 35.

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Brucioli had his f irst decisive encounter with Protestantism in Lyon and during his short stay in Germany, as he confessed in his inquisitorial trial.63 He brought back with him the spirit of the Reformation and of religious renewal when he came back to Florence. Indeed, after the collapse of the Medician regime after the Sack of Rome in 1527, anyone convicted of conjury in 1522 could return to Florence. Brucioli, however, had not a quiet life. Soon he collided with the Dominicans of St Mark, in particular with Benedetto da Foiano and Tommaso del Bene.64 According to the testimony of the notary Ciaio degli Ottaviani, Brucioli “read Martin Luther’s work publicly to some young people, and every day he went to St Mark’s to dispute with those friars, approving Luther’s ideas.”65 It is hard to establish whether these charges were true and that he professed Lutheranism. There remains no doubt, however, that Brucioli was against the arrogance shown by the Church and was very close in his thinking to the Erasmian philosophy of Christ: opposing the sterile dogmatism of “the very dirty and idle swine,” “corruptors of good and tender minds,” with the “the very holy study of the sacred and true Christian theology.”66 Charged with subversion, he was forced to abandon Florence and move to Venice. Here, he worked on his translation of the New Testament, which was published in 1530 and dedicated to Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, patron of suspected heretics like Bernardino Ochino and Pietro Paolo Vergerio. Surprisingly enough, in his inquisitorial trial, Brucioli attributed the original idea of publishing Holy Scripture in the vernacular to Gerolamo Aleandro, great punisher of heretics, proud opponent of Erasmus, as well as opposed to vulgarizations.67 Brucioli’s sympathies towards Lutheranism are evident in his Compendio di tutte l’orazioni de’ santi padri, profeti et apostoli, raccolte da sacri libri del Vecchio e Nuovo 63 Giorgio Spini, Tra Rinascimento e Riforma. Antonio Brucioli (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1940), 51; Andrea Del Col, “Il secondo processo veneziano di Antonio Brucioli,” Bollettino della Società di studi valdesi, 146 (1979): 95: “… quando fui in Alemagna, che possono essere anni 28 [1527], io lessi Martino Luthero, Bucero et altri de quelli autori ….” 64 Spini, Tra Rinascimento e Riforma. Antonio Brucioli, 62 65 Spini, Tra Rinascimento e Riforma. Antonio Brucioli, 63: “leggeva ad alcuni giovani le cose di Martino Luter publice, et ogni giorno andava a San Marco a disputar con quelli frati della fede, approvando le cose di Luther.” 66 Antonio Brucioli, Dialogi (Venezia: Gregorio de Gregori, 1526), 6v: “… Perch’io mi accorgo che la tua ostinatione dalle false persuasioni di questi corruttori delle buone & tenere menti nasce, & il versare mi faro io per lo zelo della santa nostra religione, contro di questi spurcissimi porci ociosi, allhora che tanto d’ocio dato mi fia, che a santissimi studi della sacra & vera Theologia christiana ritornare possa.” 67 Del Col, “Il secondo processo veneziano di Antonio Brucioli,” 90.

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Testamento (1534), which was a translation of Otto Brunfels’ Precationes biblicae sanctorum partum, illustrium virorum et mulierum utriusque Testamenti (1528) and Nuovo commento in tutte le celesti ed divine epistole di San Paulo, which included Heinrich Bullinger’s In primam D. Pauli ad Corinthios epistolam commentarius (1534).68 This last, furthermore, contained long passages of Martin Bucer’s Ennarrationes Perpetuae in Sacra quattuor Evangelia (1530). In Venice he continued his feverish activity publishing religious texts, arousing a certain suspicion among the religious authorities because in the vulgarization of the Biblia (1532) he invited a return to the true Christian philosophy “to the extent that we do call ourselves Christian, but we do not know who Christ is.”69 Paolo Simoncelli saw in these words the dissemination of new Reformed ideas in Italy, but they are nothing other than the vulgarization of a passage of Erasmus’s Paraclesis.70 In a letter dated 7 November 1537, Pietro Aretino wrote that “the immortal fatigue of Brucioli is not food” adequate for the friars against whom he launched his own attacks also in Venice.71 In praise of Brucioli’s informative and pedagogical enterprise, Aretino stated that We go to church cleansed of the scruples that perverse men place in religion … and believing we are hearing a sermon, we hear discord and disputes that do not pertain to the Gospel nor to our sins. And from here it arises that the barbers understand it [Gospel] according to their imagination.72

Brucioli’s work would allow, according to Aretino, the understanding of religion also by the poorest, to whom knowledge has been denied, leading to a perverted interpretation of the sacred words. Where Aretino saw merit, other scholars and intellectuals saw potential problems that would undermine the Church’s authority. Thus, Ambrogio Catarino Politi, in his Compendio di errori et inganni luterani (1544), wrote: 68 Carlo Ginzburg, Il nicodemismo. Simulazione e dissimulazione religiosa nell’Europa del ‘500 (Torino: Einaudi, 1970). 69 Antonio Brucioli, La Biblia (Venezia: Giunti, 1532), Al Christianissimo Re di Francia. 70 Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento, 89. 71 Pietro Aretino, Il primo libro delle lettere (Bari: Laterza, 1913), 269. 72 Aretino, Il primo libro delle lettere, 269: “noi andiamo in chiesa netti dagli scrupoli che i perversi mettono ne la religione … e credendo udir la predica, udiamo strida e dispute, che nulla appartengono all’evangelo né ai peccati nostri. E di qui nasce che fino ai barbieri la intendono come gli detta la fantasia.”

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There came into my hands a few days ago a vernacular translation with a commentary on the New Testament, and reading some passages, I identified that this author had diligently read the Latin books of the German heretics, and especially Bucer, because I recognized that he had translated de verbo ad verbum long pages of that heretic. I do not care to mention this author; just to say Brucioli.73

Politi’s testimony shows how Brucioli’s work was being read, and how a pious Catholic was well acquainted with Lutheran works. Brucioli was charged further with Lutheranism on 22 April 1548 by the Mantuan friar Patrizio da Cerasari, who submitted that he and his brothers had secretly published Lutheran books, among which was Francesco Negri’s Tragedia del libero arbitrio (1547).74 This complaint was similarly not followed up. In July 1548, however, the house of Giovanni Centani was searched, and some “heretical, false and damned” books were found. Centani confessed that these books had been given him by Brucioli. Two separate commissions were established. The first was composed of typographers including Francesco Torresano, Tommaso Giunta and Michele Tramezzino in order to check whether these volumes were published using the same characters used by Brucioli or not. The second was composed of men of letters such as Sperone Speroni and Trifon Gabriele, to determine whether the rhetorical style of these works was attributable to Brucioli. While the typographers identified a substantial congruence between Brucioli’s works and the heretical books found in Centani’s house, Speroni and Gabriele established that the style was so different that it was impossible to attribute the authorship. In any case, on 21 November 1548 Brucioli was banished from Venice. After Brucioli left Venice, he went to Ferrara to stay with the duchess Renata, sympathizer of the Reformation, in particular of Calvinism, who had welcomed within her walls figures of the calibre of Celio Secondo Curione, Giulio da Milano, Antonio Pagano and Ambrogio Cavalli. His arrival in Ferrara aroused great suspicion, and the papal nuncio Tommaso Stella 73 Ambrogio Catarino Politi, Compendio di errori et inganni luterani (Roma: Cartolari, 1544), 20: “Venne, non è molti giorni, a le mie mani una traduttione del Nuovo Testamento volgare, con il commento, et leggendo io sopra alcuni passi, riconobbi che questo autore haveva diligentemente letto e’ libri latini di quelli heresiarchi di Germania, et specialmente di Bucero, perché riconobbi che haveva tradotto de verbo ad verbum longhe facciate di quello pessimo heretico. Non mi curo di nominare questo autore; basta dire il Bruciolo.” On Politi see Giorgio Caravale, Beyond the Inquisition: Ambrogio Catarino Politi and the Origins of the Counter-Reformation (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2017). 74 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Santo Uffizio, b. 51.

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wrote immediately to Marcello Cervini “that Brucioli, banished from Venice for heresy, was staying with Madame, with another, who professed Greek letters, and was in Modena for a long time and is drenched with heresy.”75 Brucioli’s fellow at the court of Renata was Francesco Porto. His stay in Ferrara was taken very seriously, and the Ferrara’s ambassador Bonifacio Ruggeri wrote directly to Duke Ercole II – Renata’s husband – about the Papal preoccupations.76 Brucioli’s quite singular attitude also struck Pietro Manelf i, to the extent that on 13 November 1551 – betraying his old friends and becoming an informer to the Bolognese Inquisition – listed him among the various persons he met in Venice who supported Lutheran ideas.77 With the death of Pope Jules III and with the ascent to the Papal throne of Paul IV in 1555, the Church repression and the censorship became stronger and Brucioli was put on trial. On 22 June 1555 he was obliged to abjure all the heretical ideas for which he was convicted.78 It was not only that he believed in “heretical dogmas and opinions,” but most significant of all was the fact that he divulged and printed these ideas, that he publicly “discussed with heretics,” and that he “approved and translated in the vernacular” heretical books. There is a harsh condemnation against the dissemination of knowledge considered harmful to the Church’s authority. Among the many charges for which he was convicted was that of possessing Erasmus’s book on the New Testament, and to this charge he answered honestly that he did not believe that “they were either heretical or forbidden.”79 Brucioli’s belief in these ideas was clearly sincere and solid, since in 1558 he was again found to uphold them, despite his abjuration in 1555.80 Varchi’s spiritual and religious life was less tormented. He was never charged with heresy. In Bologna Varchi had his first exposure to Erasmian ideas, which however, as we have seen, were already circulating in Venice. Indeed, in the decade between 1530 and 1540, he was active in Bologna among 75 Gottfried Buschbell, Reformation und Inquisition in Italien um die Mitte des XVI. Jahrhunderts (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1910), 275–6: “Trovammo in Ferrara che il Brucciolo, bandito da Venezia per heretico, stesse appresso Madama; similmente un altro, che fa molta professione di lettere grece, et è stato molto tempo in modena et è fradicissimo in tal materia.” 76 Spini, Tra Rinascimento e Riforma. Antonio Brucioli, 107. 77 Carlo Ginzburg, I costituti di Don Pietro Manelfi (Firenze-Chicago: Sansoni-The Newberry Library, 1970), 49, 69. Emilio Comba, “Un sinodo anabattista a Venezia,” Rivista Cristiana, 13 (1885), 83. 78 Spini, Tra Rinascimento e Riforma. Antonio Brucioli, 125 79 Del Col, “Il secondo processo veneziano di Antonio Brucioli,” 96. 80 Spini, Tra Rinascimento e Riforma. Antonio Brucioli, 128–9.

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a group of intellectuals that were aiming for a spiritual and moral renewal.81 Perhaps it was during this stay that he came to know the work of Erasmian Juan Luis Vives – in particular, the De anima et vita (1538), which was one of the main sources of the Letture sopra un sonetto della gelosia di Mons. Dalla Casa, and was his first publication as a member of the Accademia degli Infiammati.82 Furthermore, he also breathed unorthodox air in his frequent stays in Ferrara with the duchess Renata. In Padua the situation was not dissimilar. Gregorio Cortese wrote in 1540 that Calvinist works, which attracted young minds, were circulating profusely.83 All of these experiences distilled down to Il Sermone fatto alla Croce (1549), which was influenced by the ideas circulating among Spirituals and followers of Juan de Valdés. More specifically, Paolo Simoncelli has identified two distinct influences, that of the Beneficio di Cristo and that of the Meditatione fatta da un devotissimo huomo sopra la passione di Christo.84 The Beneficio di Cristo – a very complex work, and a collection of many heterodox ideas – was written by Benedetto Fontanini da Mantova,85 but revised for publication by Marcantonio Flaminio, who was the author of the Meditatione.86 Varchi had in mind the instances of religious and spiritual renewal of his time, as his Sonetti reveal.87 To sum up, Varchi was surrounded by heterodox ideas that provided rich stimulation not only for the Accademia degli Infiammati, but also the Accademia fiorentina, which – as Simoncelli has splendidly demonstrated – even if divided from within on the question of language, was cohesive on religious matters.88 It is not by chance that Segni developed his project of vulgarization in relation to Aristotle within this religious context, 81 Seidel Menchi, Erasmo in Italia 1520–1580, 541 82 Paolo Cherchi, “Due lezioni Benedetto Varchi ispirate da J. L. Vives,” Lettere Italiane, 40 (1988): 387–99. 83 Gregorio Cortese, Omnia quae huc usque colligi potuerunt (Padova: Comino, 1774), vol. 1, 127. 84 Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento, 336–9. For Valdesian influences see Massimo Firpo, Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo: Eresia, politica e cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I (Torino: Einaudi, 1997): 224. 85 Carlo Ginzburg and Adriano Prosperi, Giochi di pazienza. Un seminario sul “Beneficio di Cristo” (Torino: Einaudi, 1975). 86 Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento, 339. 87 Si vedano gli eccellenti studi di Marcel Battaillon, “Benedetto Varchi et le Cardinal de Burgos D. Francisco de Mendoza y Bobadilla,” Les lettres romanes, 23 (1969): 3–62; Selene Maria Vatteroni, “Dal Beneficio di Cristo ai Sonetti. Parte Prima: tracce di Spiritualismo nel canzoniere di Benedetto Varchi,” Schriften des Italienzentrums der Freien Universität Berlin, 3 (2019): 91–112; Ester Pietrobon, La penna interprete della cetra. I Salmi in volgare e la poesia spirituale italiana nel Rinascimento (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, 2019). 88 Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento, 330–420.

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a project that had its origin in Padua with Piccolomini, Varchi and Speroni at the Accademia degli Infiammati. There is no doubt about Alessandro Piccolomini’s Catholic faith. However, as Simoncelli has correctly pointed out,89 many other great personalities who must be considered Catholic – Gaspare Contarini or Ercole Gonzaga, for example – lived a deep, inner, spiritual travail. There are many episodes in Piccolomini’s life which seem to testify to his religious torments. Piccolomini had early contact with heterodox religious ideas already in Siena at the Accademia degli Intronati – a pivotal centre for the dissemination of Protestant ideas. Furthermore, Piccolomini was a friend of Sozzini’s family and they shared together the experience at the Accademia degli Infiammati. He was part of a network of intellectuals who aspired to a religious renewal, as is possible to surmise from the dedicatory letter to Vittoria Colonna – niece of the more famous Vittoria Colonna, Marquise of Pescara – published in his Cento sonetti (1549). Finally, in a sonnet to Marcoantonio Flaminio, Piccolomini revealed how he hoped that Reginald Pole would become pope.90 In other words, neither was Piccolomini alien to influences of religious renewal. Unlike Piccolomini, Castelvetro was a heterodox spirit much more comparable to Brucioli. He became acquainted with unorthodox ideas in his youth through his teacher Panfilo Sassi, who in 1523 was convicted for heresy for adhering to the Pomponatian idea of the mortality of the soul, for his disbelief in the existence of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, and in the value of the mass.91 With the formation of the intellectual cenacle later to become the Accademia modenese, Castelvetro became increasingly drawn to Lutheran ideas. The publication of the Melanchtonian handbook El summario de la sancta scriptura and his polemics with Serafino Aceti de’ Porti brought him to the centre of attention. Castelvetro was charged by the Dominicans with being a Lutheran – lutheranus habitus voce publica – and for being the head of the Accademia modenese in the sense that in 1542 89 Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento, vii–xxvi. 90 Alessandro Piccolomini, Cento Sonetti (Geneva: Droz, 2015), 295: “pregal che col suo santo spirto ardente / mova e risplenda infin, ch’al giusto e pio / tuo Signor porga il gran timon in mano. / Allor vedremo ai fieri venti spente/tutte le forze e, con dar lode a Dio, / gir verso il porto il popol suo cristiano.” 91 Umberto Renda, Il processo di Panfilo Sasso da un codice Campori della Biblioteca Estense (Modena: Ferraguti, 1911); Carlo Ginzburg, “Un letterato e una strega al principio del Cinquecento: Panfilo Sasso e Anastasia la Frappona, in Studi in memoria di Carlo Ascheri,” Differenze, 9 (1970): 129–37; Susanna Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e crisi nel Cinquecento modenese. Tensioni religiose e vita cittadina ai tempi di Giovanni Morone (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1979).

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Jacopo Sadoleto required him to ensure that all members of the academy profess the Catholic faith. It was in this period – in 1544 – that Castelvetro attempted to translate the New Testament, according to the account of the bishop of Bergamo Vittore Soranzo.92 Facing increasingly pressing charges of heresy from 1553 on, in 1555 Castelvetro was accused of instigating a murder, a crime for which he was sentenced to death at the end of 1556. The circle of the Inquisition was gathering around Castelvetro and friends of his like Bonifacio Valentini and Antonio Gadaldino. Between 11 and 17 October 1560, Castelvetro was interrogated at the court of the Sant’Uffizio in Rome by Tommaso da Vigevano, who brought as evidence of his heretical position a manuscript, containing the vulgarization of a Melanchthonian work. Cornered, Castelvetro fled Rome, and on 26 November 1560 was convicted as a fugitive heretic. He settled in Geneve, where he taught for three years. He rejected Duchess Renata’s invitation to take refuge in her castle in Montargris, and instead found sanctuary in Lyon where he composed La Poetica d’Aristotele volgarizzata et sposta (1570). Because of the war between the Catholics and Huguenots, he then departed Lyon moving to Chiavenna and later Vienna, and abandoning in the process his private library of precious manuscripts. Characterizing Castelvetro’s religious attitude unequivocally is complex. He did not prefer one Reformist position over another, but saw in all of them, like many other Italians of his time, “the beginning of a new intellectual movement”93 which aspired to spiritual renewal. Reflecting finally more broadly, this group of intellectuals – even if they approached doctrinal formulations close to Protestant ones – did not for this reason endorse the Reformation. Their religious and spiritual character was inconsistent and not easy to determine with precision and although friends of vulgarizers like Pole, Colonna, Flaminio and Contarini were branded as heretics,94 it is fairer to say – as Paolo Simoncelli has perfectly put it – they developed forms of marked religiosity on a spiritual platform from which Erasmian ideas emerged.95 If the main characteristic of these 92 See Massimo Firpo and Dario Marcatto, Il processo inquisitoriale del cardinal Giovanni Morone (Roma: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1995), vol. 6, 377; Roberto Gigliucci, Lodovico Castelvetro. Filologia e ascesi (Roma: Bulzoni, 2007), 245–6. 93 Giuseppe Cavazzuti, Lodovico Castelvetro (Modena: Società Tipografica Modenese, 1903), 217. 94 Costantino Corvisieri, “Compendio dei processi del S. Uffizio di Roma,” Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria, 3 (1880): 273–86. 95 See Costance M. Furey, Erasmus, Contarini, and the Religious Republic of Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

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figures was – in Delio Cantimori’s words – that of “the emphasis of Christian moral life according to the practice and the distillation of the doctrine of the Gospel,”96 then we can say that all of these authors shared that new spirit of religiosity and that gospel philosophy, that philosophia Christi advocated by Erasmus, which his adversaries labelled as Lutheran. In conclusion, these vulgarizers of Aristotle, supporting the idea of the democratization of knowledge, grew up in a context in which Humanism was in decline. The study of the humaniora remained the basic form of education, and all of the intellectuals here discussed felt quite vividly the restrictions of the culture of Humanism, especially in the linguistic field; they regarded the research of language as far more apposite to the communicability of knowledge. All of these authors were profoundly influenced by their stay in the Veneto because of the contact it gave them with printing processes, with knowledge of Aristotelian philosophy, and with the development of a programme of democratization of knowledge that had its heights in the golden years of the Accademia degli Infiammati.97 Last but not least, all of these intellectuals aspired to a spiritual and religious renewal which could lead to a new morality, a new way of life. All of these aspects constituted a common platform or ecosystem from which could be promoted a process for the democratization of knowledge.

References a. Primary Sources Aretino, Pietro. Il primo libro delle lettere (Bari: Laterza, 1913). Brucioli, Antonio. Dialogi (Venezia: Gregorio de Gregori, 1526). Brucioli, Antonio. La Biblia (Venezia: Giunti, 1532). Catarino Politi, Ambrogio. Compendio d’errori et inganni luterani contenuti in un libretto senza nome de l’autore, intitolato “Trattato utilissimo del benefitio di Christo crucifisso”, Roma, Ne la contrada del Pellegrino, ed. Massimo Firpo, in Benedetto da Mantova, Il beneficio di Cristo, ed. Salvatore Caponetto (FirenzeChicago: Sansoni-The Newberry Library, 1972). Erasmus, Desiderius. Colloquii famigliari di Erasmo Roterdamo ad ogni qualità di parlare, & specialmente a cose pietose accomodati (Venezia: Valgrisi, 1545). 96 Ginzburg and Prosperi, Giochi di pazienza. Un seminario sul “Beneficio di Cristo”, 21. 97 Mikkeli, “The Cultural Programmes of Alessandro Piccolomini and Sperone Speroni at the Paduan Accademia degli Infiammati in the 1540s,” 76–85.

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Piccolomini, Alessandro. Cento Sonetti (Geneva: Droz, 2015). Speroni, Sperone. Opere (Venezia: Occhi, 1740).

b. Secondary Literature Alberigo, Giuseppe. “Barbaro, Daniele Matteo Alvise,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 6, 89–95. Allen, Grace. “Aristotle’s Politics in the Dialogi della morale filosofia of Antonio Brucioli,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 109–22. Andreoli, Ilaria. Ex officina erasmiana. Vincenzo Valgrisi et l’illustration due livre entre Venise et Lyon à moitié du XVI siècle (Lyon: PhD thesis, 2006). Argelati, Filippo. Biblioteca degli volgarizzatori, o sia Notizia dall’opere volgarizzate d’autori che scrissero in lingue morte prima del secolo 15 (Milano: Agnelli, 1767). Avesani, Rino. “Bonamico, Lazzaro,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 11, 533–40. Battaillon, Marcel. “Benedetto Varchi et le Cardinal de Burgos D. Francisco de Mendoza y Bobadilla,” Les lettres romanes, 23 (1969): 3–62. Bianchi, Luca. “Per una storia dell’aristotelismo volgare nel Rinascimento: problemi e prospettive di ricerca,” Bruniana & Campanelliana 15 (2009): 367–85. Bianchi, Luca. “Uses of Latin Sources in Renaissance Vernacularizations of Aristotle: The Cases of Galeazzo Florimonte, Francesco Venier and Francesco Pona,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 31–54. Bianchi, Luca. “Volgarizzare Aristotele: per chi?,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, 59 (2012): 480–95. Bionda, Simone. “Aristotele in Accademia: Bernardo Segni e il volgarizzamento della Retorica,” Medioevo e Rinascimento, 13 (2002): 241–65. Bionda, Simone. “La copia di tipografia del Trattato dei Governi di Bernardo Segni: breve incursione nel laboratorio del volgarizzatore di Aristotele,” Rinascimento, 42 (2002): 381–414. Bionda, Simone. “La Poetica di Aristotele volgarizzata: Bernardo Segni e le sue fonti,” Aevum, 75 (2001): 679–94. Bionda, Simone. Poetica d’Aristotile tradotta di Greco in lingua vulgare Fiorentina da Bernardo Segni Gentiluomo et accademico fiorentino (Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2015). Buschbell, Gottfried. Reformation und Inquisition in Italien um die Mitte des XVI. Jahrhunderts (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1910).

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Caravale, Giorgio. Beyond the Inquisition: Ambrogio Catarino Politi and the Origins of the Counter-Reformation (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2017). Cavazzuti, Giuseppe. Lodovico Castelvetro (Modena: Società Tipografica Modenese, 1903). Cerreta, Florindo. Alessandro Piccolomini. Letterato e filosofo senese del Cinquecento (Siena: Accademia Senese degli Intronati, 1960). Chartier, Roger. La main de l’auteur et l’esprit de l’imprimeur: XVIe-XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 2015). Cherchi, Paolo. “Due lezioni Benedetto Varchi ispirate da J. L. Vives,” Lettere Italiane, 40 (1988): 387–99. Comba, Emilio. “Un sinodo anabattista a Venezia,” Rivista Cristiana, 13 (1885): 21–24, 83–87. Cortese, Gregorio. Omnia quae huc usque colligi potuerunt (Padova: Comino, 1774). Corvisieri, Costantino. “Compendio dei processi del S. Uffizio di Roma,” Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria, 3 (1880): 273–286. Cotugno, Alessio. “Aristotile fatto volgare. Una questione linguistica dalla teoria alla prassi (parte II),” La lingua italiana, 13 (2018): 61–81. Cotugno, Alessio. “Volgarizzare Aristotele. Varchi tra Speroni e Piccolomini,” L’Ellisse, 13 (2018): 67–82. Crasta, Francesca Maria. “Fracastoro, Girolamo,” in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer 2022), 1293b–1300a. Del Col, Andrea. “Il controllo della stampa a Venezia e i processi di Antonio Brucioli (1548–1559),” Critica storica, 3 (1980): 457–510. Del Col, Andrea. “Il secondo processo veneziano di Antonio Brucioli,” Bollettino della Società di studi valdesi, 146 (1979): 85–100. Del Soldato, Eva. “The Elitist Vernacular of Francesco Cattani da Diacceto and its Afterlife,” I Tatti Studies, 16 (2013): 343–62. Del Soldato, Eva. “The Best Works of Aristotle: Antonio Brucioli as a Translator of Natural Philosophy,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 123–38. Di Mare, Stefania. “Maggi, Vincenzo,” in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer 2022), 2022a–2024b. Dionisotti, Carlo. Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana (Torino: Einaudi, 1967). Dionisotti, Carlo. Machiavellerie (Torino: Einaudi, 1980). Eco, Umberto. Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation (London: Orion Publishing, 2004). Firpo, Massimo. “Riforma religiosa e lingua volgare nell’Italia del ‘500,” Belfagor, 57 (2002): 517–39.

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Firpo, Massimo. Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo: Eresia, politica e cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I (Torino: Einaudi, 1997). Firpo, Massimo and Marcatto, Dario. Il processo inquisitoriale del cardinal Giovanni Morone (Roma: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1995). Fournel, Jean-Louis and Paccagnella, Ivano. “Premessa,” in “Fedeli, diligenti, chiari e dotti.” Traduttori e traduzione nel Rinascimento (Padova: Cleup, 2016), 9–22. Furey, Costance M. Erasmus, Contarini, and the Religious Republic of Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Garin, Eugenio. L’umanesimo italiano. Filosofia e vita civile nel Rinascimento (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1994). Gigliucci, Roberto. Lodovico Castelvetro. Filologia e ascesi (Roma: Bulzoni, 2007). Gilson, Simon. “Vernacularizing Meteorology: Benedetto Varchi’s Comento sopra il primo libro delle Meteore d’Aristotile,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 161–81. Ginzburg, Carlo. I costituti di Don Pietro Manelfi (Firenze-Chicago: Sansoni-The Newberry Library, 1970). Ginzburg, Carlo. Il nicodemismo. Simulazione e dissimulazione religiosa nell’Europa del ‘500 (Torino: Einaudi, 1970). Ginzburg, Carlo. “Un letterato e una strega al principio del Cinquecento: Panfilo Sasso e Anastasia la Frappona, in Studi in memoria di Carlo Ascheri,” Differenze, 9 (1970): 129–37. Ginzburg, Carlo and Prosperi, Adriano. Giochi di pazienza. Un seminario sul “Beneficio di Cristo” (Torino: Einaudi, 1975). Girardi, Maria Teresa. “Tomitano, Bernardino,” in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer 2022), 3271a–3276b. Innamorati, Giuliano. “Aretino, Pietro,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 4, 89–104. Kraye, Jill. “Beyond Moral Philosophy: Renaissance Humanism and the Philosophical Canon,” Rinascimento, 56 (2016): 3–22. Kristeller, Paul O. “Francesco Cattani da Diacceto and Florentine Platonism in the Sixteenth Century,” in Miscellanea Giuseppe Mercati (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1946), 260–304. Langer, Ullrich. “Aristotle Commentary and Ethical Behaviour: Bernardo Segni on Friendship between Unequals,” in Constance Blackwell and Sachiko Kusukawa, (eds.), Philosophy in the Sixteenth Centuries: Conversations with Aristotle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 107–25. Leushuis, Reinier. “Dialogical Strategies, volgarizzamento, and Ciceronian Ethos in Antonio Brucioli’s Dialogi della morale filosofia,” Quaderni d’italianistica, 30 (2009): 39–66.

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Lines, David A. “Beyond Latin in Renaissance Philosophy: A Plea for New Critical Perspectives,” Intellectual History Review 4 (2015), 1–17. Lines, David A. “Introduzione,” in David A. Lines and Eugenio Refini (eds.), “Aristotele fatto volgare”: Tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 1–10. Lines, David A. “Rethinking Renaissance Aristotelianism: Bernardo Segni’s Ethica, the Florentine Academy, and the Vernacular in Sixteenth-Century Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly, 66 (2013): 824–65. Lines, David A. “When is a Translation Not a Translation? Girolamo Manfredi’s De homine (1474),” Rivista di storia della filosofia, 2 (2019), 287–308. Lo Re, Salvatore. Politica e cultura nella Firenze Cosminiana (Manziana: Vecchiarelli, 2008). Mikkeli, Heikki. “The Cultural Programmes of Alessandro Piccolomini and Sperone Speroni at the Paduan Accademia degli Infiammati in the 1540s,” in Constance Blackwell and Sachiko Kusukawa (eds.), Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century: Conversations with Aristotle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 76–85. Montefusco, Antonio. “A mo’ d’introduzione. Elementi di una storia sociale dell’attività del tradurre nella Toscana medievale (1260–1430),” in Antonio Montefusco (ed.), Toscana Bilingue (1260ca.–1430ca.) (Berlin-New York: De Gruyter, 2020), 1–23. Muccillo, Maria. “Da Monte, Giovanni Battista,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 32, 365–7. Mutini, Claudio. “Betussi, Giuseppe,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 9, 779–81. Mutini, Claudio. “Bruno, Cola,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 14, 650–1. Peyronel Rambaldi, Susanna. Speranze e crisi nel Cinquecento modenese. Tensioni religiose e vita cittadina ai tempi di Giovanni Morone (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1979). Pietrobon, Ester. La penna interprete della cetra. I Salmi in volgare e la poesia spirituale italiana nel Rinascimento (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2019). Plaisance, Michel. Académie et le Prince: Culture et Politique à Florence au Temps de Come ler et de François de Médici (Manziana: Vecchiarelli, 2004). Puliafito, Anna Laura. “Abbracciare la dottrina di Aristotele, or Translating beyond Translations: Bartolomeo Cavalcanti’s Retorica (1559),” Rivista di storia della filosofia, 2 (2019): 377–90. Pym, Anthony. “Negotiation Theory as an Approach to Translation History: An Inductive Lesson from 15th-Century Castille,” in Yves Gambier and Jorma Tommola (eds.), Knowledge and Translation (Turku: Grafia Oy, 1993), 27–39. Refini, Eugenio. The Vernacular Aristotle: Translation as Reception in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

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Renda, Umberto. Il processo di Panfilo Sasso da un codice Campori della Biblioteca Estense (Modena: Ferraguti, 1911). Ridolfi, Roberto. “Bernardo Segni e il suo volgarizzamento della Retorica,” Belfagor, 17 (1962): 511–26. Ridolfi, Roberto. “Novità sulle ‘Istorie’ del Segni,” Belfagor, 15 (1960): 663–76. Romei, Giovanni. “Dolce, Ludovico,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–), vol. 40, 399–405. Samuels, Richard. “Benedetto Varchi, the Accademia degli Infiammati, and the Origins of the Italian Academic Movement,” Renaissance Quarterly, 29 (1976): 599–634. Seidel Menchi, Silvana. “Atteggiamenti della cultura italiana di fronte a Erasmo,” in Eresia e riforma nell’Italia del Cinquecento (Firenze-Chicago: Sansoni-The Newberry Library, 1974), 71–133. Seidel Menchi, Silvana. Erasmo in Italia 1520–1580 (Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1987). Simoncelli, Paolo. Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento. Questione religiosa e nicodemismo politico (Roma: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1979). Spini, Giorgio. Tra Rinascimento e Riforma. Antonio Brucioli (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1940). Vatteroni, Selene Maria. “Dal Beneficio di Cristo ai Sonetti. Parte Prima: tracce di Spiritualismo nel canzoniere di Benedetto Varchi,” Schriften des Italienzentrums der Freien Universität Berlin, 3 (2019): 91–112. Vianello, Valerio. Il letterato, l’accademia, il libro. Contributi sulla cultura veneta del Cinquecento (Padova: Antenore, 1988).

4. Intentions for Democratizing Abstract Chapter 4 deals with the intentions behind the project for the democratization of knowledge. In the first part, the focus is on the Erasmian legacy in democratizers like Antonio Brucioli, Cornelio Musso and Bernardino Tomitano, who reflect on their goals of making knowledge accessible to ordinary people starting with religious texts as a means of acquiring ethical behaviour appropriate for a Christian. The second part shows how, with the same arguments, intellectuals like Alessandro Piccolomini, Benedetto Varchi, Sperone Speroni and Giovan Battista Gelli had similar intentions concerning the promotion of the process of democratization of lay knowledge. The main objective was to educate people for the realization of a human beings’s moral nature. The last section of the chapter explains the fundamental role that language played in the democratization of knowledge for these intellectuals. Keywords: Democratization, Education, Ethics, Intentions

4.1

Erasmian Echoes

In sixteenth-century Italy, especially in the thirties and forties, many intellectuals were influenced by the Erasmian exhortation to vulgarize and popularize knowledge. Among these, a special place should be reserved for Antonio Brucioli,1 who in his vulgarization of the Bible and in his com-

1 Silvana Seidel Menchi, “La circolazione clandestina di Erasmo in Italia. I casi di Antonio Brucioli e Marsilio Andreasi,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere Filosofia, 9 (1979): 573–601; Reinier Leushuis, “Erasmian Rhetoric of Dialogue and Declamation and the Staging of Persuasion in Antonio Brucioli’s Dialogo della morale filosofia,” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook, 31 (2011): 61–84.

Sgarbi, M., The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: The Philosopher and the People. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463721387_ch04

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mentaries used and drew great inspiration from Erasmus’s writings2 and paraphrases.3 In his vulgarizations, Brucioli’s intentions was to make the truth available to all people, echoing Erasmus’s work. 4 His 1538 dedicatory letter to King Francis I of France in his translation of the New Testament is clear on this: And to those who piously say that it is dangerous to put this light before common eyes because it contains difficult and dark things, which the simple people are not given to understand and therefore are put at risk of being led astray, I shall say first of all that they should take the matter up with the Holy Spirit, who wanted to reveal these high secrets to simple people and idiots, judging them to be more worthy because their heads were not cluttered with worldly wisdom.5

Brucioli’s words are an indirect response to Alberto Pio: vulgarizations are not only important, but also a moral and religious duty, because otherwise there would be no way of explaining why Christ “sent the Holy Spirit to make illiterate men speak and be understood in all languages.”6 The vernacular language for Brucioli is therefore the medium through which to reveal to the people all those secrets which Latin, Greek and Hebrew keep hidden. Brucioli attacks those in the upper classes who withhold power by preventing 2 Edoardo Barbieri, Le Bibbie italiane del Quattrocento e del Cinquecento: storia e bibligorafia ragionata delle edizioni in lingua italiana dal 1471 al 1600 (Milano: Bibliografica, 1991), vol. 1, 111–2. 3 Brucioli’s commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew reveals a strong dependence on Erasmus, also in its terminology. Brucioli states that casting pearls is an allegory against the revelation of the evangelical message to anyone who is impious or immersed “in the mud of voluptuousness” and who “despises everything.” Brucioli, like Erasmus, does not want to withhold access to knowledge from illiterates or the people, but only from those whose hearts are not open to the faith. This is a moral evaluation. A pious man will always profess the pearls of the gospel with the aim of bringing its fruit to other persons who are not well-disposed to receiving God’s message. Like Erasmus, Brucioli emphasizes how Christ did not reveal “his mysteries to Pharisees, or to Jews who were enemy of the truth, as if they were dogs, neither to Herod or Pilate, as if they were swine.” See Antonio Brucioli, Nuovo commento ne divini et celesti libri evangelici (Venezia: Brucioli, 1542), 27. 4 Paolo Simoncelli emphasizes how the central topics of this letter became an integral part of the Beneficio di Cristo. See Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento, 87–8. 5 Brucioli, La Biblia, dedication: “Et a quegli che dicono sotto specie di pietà ch’egli è cosa pericolosa a mettere questa luce avanti agli occhi de’ vulgari per esservi cose difficili et oscure, le quali le semplice genti non possono così bene comprendere et che potrieno essere causa di fargli errare, dico primieramente che questi tali contendino con lo spirito santo, che volle a’ semplici et idioti manifestare quegli alti secreti, giudicandone quegli più degni non havendo le menti gonfiate di mondana sapientia.” 6 Ibid.

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the circulation of knowledge and the understanding of the truth. As the passage above goes on to assert: … I say that the difficult and dark things are few, and pose no threat to simple minds, for whom it is an easy matter to defer to others when they do not understand something, unlike the Greek and Latin men, for whom the dangers have always been far greater and far more serious, because, in maligning, they have wanted to know more than was necessary, because those passages that are so fraught with difficulty and danger have never led anyone astray except those who because of languages and scientific knowledge have thought of themselves as important, and because of them this have wanted to prove themselves to be more knowledgeable than others, and hence have fallen into real shadow.7

In the dedication to Renata, Duchess of Ferrara, in his I sacrosanti libri del vecchio testamento, Brucioli declares that he has undertaken the translation of the Bible [p]rompted by those who, erring grievously, declare it not to be a good thing that Holy Scripture should exist in our vernacular, and through it be expressed so that it may become known to all, saying that in this manner divine speech is brought to vulgar ears … these enemies of the divine word … say that things lose their credibility and venerability to the extent that they are known by many, and many are allowed to participate, and these wise fools of the world are unaware that those things that appear great, and of greatest benefit to us, the more they are inquired into, and the more common they become, and widely known, the more their reputation and venerability will grow, yet just as the truth is the opposite of falsehood, … so they proceed, and just as falsity always seeks to remain hidden, and truth to reveal itself, so too do false religions seek to conceal themselves and cover themselves as much as possible with terrors and the veils of ceremony, hiding their own truths from view, but that which is true wants, unlike that which is false, to be manifest to 7 Ibid.: “… dico che poche sono, et di nessuno pericolo a le semplici menti [le cose difficili et oscure], le quali facilmente si rimettono a altri in quelle cose che esse non intendono, ma bene di maggiore et più grave pericolo sono state sempre a gli huomini Greci, et Latini, che hanno malignando voluto sapere più di quello che bisogna sapere, perché que’ luoghi che allegheranno questi di difficultà, et pericolo, non si truova che conducessino a mala via se non quegli che per le lingue, et scientie, hanno pensato di essere qualche cosa, et da quegli presa la occasione volsono mostrare di sapere più che gli altri, et caddono in manifeste tenebre.”

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Figure 4.1: Frontispiece of Brucioli’s translation of Bible, attributed to Lorenzo Lotto

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all, known by all, so that the good that it brings may be seen clearly, and may lift us all out of falsehood, so that the greater the number of those who gain knowledge of it, the more its glory shall grow, and the greater and better its fruit shall be.8

Brucioli paraphrases Erasmus’s exhortation. He believes that truth and knowledge cannot be concealed, but need to be revealed to as many people as possible to bear the best fruits. Brucioli had already dwelt at length on this problem in 1532 in the Biblia, where he writes to Francis I: Some will perhaps exclaim that it is unworthy for a woman or a cobbler to discourse on Holy Scripture, and understand them through reading, when it is best to understand them in the simplicity of the heart rather than in the elevation of science, and to hear speak of the virtue of the spirit to similar simple idiot souls than certain grand masters who with their well-founded philosophy sully the word of God. … Do we want to hide this evangelical light from those devout and simple minds who wish to see it, as if it had been sent from heaven just for the educated?9

8 Antonio Brucioli, I sacrosanti libri del vecchio testamento (Venezia: Zanetti, 1540), vol. 1, dedication: “mosso da quegli, che grandemente errando, dicano non essere ben fatto, che essa divina scrittura sia nella nostra lingua vulgare, & in essa dichiarata, talmente che possa essere nota a ciascuno, dannando, che così si mettino agli orecchi del vulgo i parlari divini … questi adversarii del verbo divino … dicano che le cose tanto perdano di riputazione, & venetratione quanto più sono note a assai, & che assai ne sono fatti partecipi, non si accorgendo questi stolti sapienti del mondo, che quelle cose che sempre appaiono maggiori, & di maggior frutto alla nostra salute, quanto più si ricerca quali esse sieno, & quanto più sono communi, & da più conosciute, più crescano di nome & di reverentia, ma come la verità è contraria alla falsità, … così per contrario modo fra loro procedono, & come la falsità sempre cerca di stare occulta, & la verità farsi palese, così le false religioni cercano di occultarsi, et coprirsi quanto sia loro possibile, sotto terrori, & velami di ceremonie, fuggendo l’esserne ricercata la verità, ma la vera vuole essere, per contrario modo dalla falsa, a tutti palese, da tutti conosciuta, accio che si vegga il bene che essa apporta, & levi ogniuno dalla falsità, in modo che quanti più ne hanno la cognitione, più ne viene grande la gloria sua & maggiore, & migliore il suo frutto.” 9 Brucioli, La Biblia, dedication: “Esclameranno forse alcuni essere indegna cosa che una donna, o uno calzolaio, parli de le sacre lettere, et quelle intenda leggendo, quando meglio è intenderle in semplicità di cuore, che in elevazione di scientia, et udire parlare a simili anime semplici idiote de la virtù de lo spirito che certi sommi maestri, che con la loro sana philosophia maculano la parola di Dio. … vogliamo ascondere questa luce evangelica a le devote e semplici menti, che desiderano di vederla come se per i soli litterati fusse mandata dal cielo?”

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In Brucioli’s view, therefore, everyone has access to truth and the sciences because they were given to us to be “understood by the pious and modest idiot as much as by the arrogant philosopher.”10 This contraposition between the pious and the arrogant clearly reveals the Erasmian background of Brucioli’s thought. Brucioli believes that knowledge must be available to “the blind, the lame, the beggar, the publican, centurions, sappers, women, and children,” as also to “the merchant, the blacksmith, the farmer, the builder, the fisherman, the publicans, and all the conditions of men, and women.”11 In the “communication of truth” there must be “no difference between people, ages, bodies, or circumstances” – he is quoting Erasmus quite explicitly here – because knowledge is God-given.12 Brucioli includes the philosophical vulgarizations of Plato and Aristotle in the transmission of truth:13 And if this divine knowledge in the one and the other testament, and in the Platonic and the Aristotelian, and in all the others, was written in those languages that were spoken at that time, if now they are not spoken, why then should these truths not be read in the languages that are in use now, and therefore understood by more people, since the benefit is greater the more people participate in it.14

The ultimate aim for Brucioli was to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge by as many people as possible, and this independent of the fact whether the text was religious or philosophical because the f inal intent was to educate. For his heterodox position, close in some respects to Erasmus’s more extreme views, Antonio Brucioli was – as we saw in the previous chapter – convicted as a heretic. The preacher Cornelio Musso (1511–1574), however, had a different fate, even though he supported the same ideas.15 Musso was 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid.: “Et se questa divina scientia de l’uno & l’altro testamento, & la Platonica, & l’Aristotelica, & tutte le altre, in quelle lingue furno scritte, che all’hora si parlavono, se hora più naturalmente non si parlano, perché non si debbe leggere questa verità in quelle lingue che sono in uso, & da più intese, essendo uno bene tanto maggiore, quanto da più è partecipato.” 15 Hubert Jedin, “Der Franziskaner Cornelio Musso, Bischof von Bitonto. Sein Lebensgang und seine kirchliche Wirksamkeit,” Römische Quartalschrift, 41 (1933): 207–75; Gustavo Cantini, “Cornelio Musso dei frati minori conventuali (1511–1574). Predicatore, scrittore e teologo al concilio di Trento,” Miscellanea francescana, 41 (1941): 145–74, 424–63; Roger J. Bartman, “Cornelius Musso,

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born in Piacenza, and in 1522 moved to Padua, where he studied philosophy and theology via Scoti. It was in this period that he came into contact with Erasmian ideas. His fame as a preacher was such that Pope Paul III entrusted him with the education of his nephew, Alessandro Farnese. He was one of the main protagonists at the Council of Trent. His homilies are a perfect blend of gospel philosophy and Aristotelianism.16 An examination of Musso’s sermons shows how he shared with Erasmus the idea of a philosophy of Christ and the view that this philosophy should be available to a great number of people. Among the many sermons in which Musso made extensive use of Erasmian ideas, the Prediche sopra il simbolo de gli Apostoli (1542) are the most significant. In this sermon Musso widely plundered Erasmus’s Paraclesis, in particular the idea of the democratization of knowledge, and especially evangelic philosophy. Thus Musso believed that children should be taught knowledge of Christ 17 and that it was foolish to study Greek and Latin philosophy exclusively.18 Knowledge must be communicated to the world, and Christian wisdom in particular must be known by all: men and women, nobles and poor, literate Tridentine Theologian and Orator,” Franciscan Studies, 5 (1945): 247–76; Angelico Poppi, “La spiegazione del Magnificat di Cornelio Musso (1540),” in Problemi e figure della scuola scotista del Santo (Padova: Edizioni Messagero, 1966), 415–89; Angelico Poppi, “Il commento della lettera di s. Paolo ai romani di Cornelio Musso,” Il Santo, 6 (1966): 225–60; Gabriele De Rosa, Tempo religioso e tempo storico. Saggi e note di storia sociale e religiosa dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1987), 395–442; Paolo Simoncelli, “Inquisizione romana e Riforma in Italia,” Rivista storica italiana, 100 (1988): 5–125; Corrie E. Norman, Humanist Taste and Franciscan Values: Cornelio Musso and Catholic Preaching in Sixteenth-Century Italy (New York: Peter Lang, 1998); Maria Teresa Girardi, “Cornelio Musso, predicatore e vescovo francescano dell’età conciliare,” Studia Borromaica, 21 (2007): 307–24. 16 Gregorio Piaia, Sapienza e follia. Per una storia intellettuale del Rinascimento europeo (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2015), 173–210. 17 Cornelio Musso, Prediche sopra il simbolo de gli Apostoli … (Venezia: Giunti, 1601), 9: “Oimè, i platonici, i pitagorici, gli academici, gli stoici, i cinici, i peripatetici, gli epicurei, ciascuno professore di qualche setta, sa tanto bene i dogmati suoi, gli tiene sì tenacemente nella memoria, gli segue con tanta diligenza ne’ studi; e noi che siamo cristiani o poco o nulla sappiamo della istituzion di Cristo! Chi non si dolerà qui meco di voi? Si vergognarebbono tutti i peripatetici di non saper a mente quello che tiene Aristotel dell’infinito, della prima materia, della cause de’ folgori. […] Ohimè, perché non ci vergognamo ancora noi, avendo si da fanciulli fatto professione d’essere cristiani, essendo consacrati a Cristo con tanti sacramenti, avendo giurato nelle sue parole non una volta sola, tenendo questo nome di discepoli di Cristo, a non saper i dogmati di quello sommo filosofo, i quali però soli ci prestano la beata vita?” 18 Ibid., 10: “Non può esser triviale questa dottrina, ma bisogna che sia molto rara e sublime, poiché dopo tante filosofie d’uomini savi, greci, latini e barbari, dopo tanti profeti, un sì mirabil auttore, com’è Dio, è venuto in terra ad insegnarla. E quello che è più, con quella, in sì poco tempo, ha impazzito tutta la sapienza del mondo.”

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and illiterate.19 All should have access to this kind of knowledge – indeed, it may be accommodated to persons of any age, sex or condition.20 Erasmus is everywhere in these sermons. This did not lead, however, to any charge of heresy against Musso, even if he used the same passage from Erasmus that had been exploited by Brucioli. The same ideas about the democratization of knowledge were received differently in two different intellectual contexts. The Paraclesis continued without interruption to inform the projects, interests and intentions of the democratizers of knowledge up to the end of the sixth decade of the sixteenth century. Seidel Menchi narrates the curious story of Marziale Clementi, detained in the bishop’s prison of Padua for heresy. One of his most frequent visitors was the apothecary Baldassarre dal Cappello, who, during a visit, gave him a vernacular edition of the New Testament. This work was the Prima parte del Nouo Testamento (1545), which was an anonymous revision of Brucioli’s translation.21 Edoardo Barbieri, who studied this text in depth, has suggested that this revision was the work of Natalino Amulio. Amulio was the editor of the companion Vita, passione e resurrettione di Iesu Christo nostro Salvatore (1544), which underwent a second edition with the title Adunatione dei quattro evangelisti in uno, cioè vita, passione e ressuretione di Iesu Christo con una breve espositione molto utile e necessaria a ogni fidel christiano (1556). This work was modelled on Andreas Osiander’s Harmoniae evangelicae libri III (1537), published for the first time by Froben and then in Italy by Valgrisi in 1541.22 The book was based very heavily on Erasmus’s writings. In any case, there are analogies and parallels between the Prima parte del nouo Testamento and that of Amulio. In the letter “To the Benevolent Readers” published in 1544, Amulio wrote that on the basis of existing works that had been collected on the life of Christ, he had made a vernacular translation for the benefit of anyone who

19 Musso, Prediche sopra il simbolo de gli Apostoli, 7–8: “Però non insegna Cristo in Gierusalemme, non nel tempio, non in piazza, non nella sinagoga, ma sul monte, all’aria nuda, che è commune a tutto ’l mondo, perché niuno sia essente da imparare questa dottrina: hic est filius meus dilectus, in quo mihi bene complacui; ipsum audite (Mt. 3, 17; 17, 5), dice la voce di Dio al monte Tabor e al fiume Giordano. Tutti, tutti, maschi, femine, nobili, plebei, circoncisi, prepuziali, grandi, piccoli, dotti, indotti: tutti udite questo maestro ….” 20 Ibid., 11: “in questa f ilosof ia non è uomo, né donna, né fanciullo che non possa riuscire dottissimo; niun’età, niun sesso, niuna condizione è al mondo che non sia capace della cristiana istituzione: s’accomoda a tutti, è picciola ai piccioli e a’ grandi è più che grande.” 21 Barbieri, Le Bibbie italiane del Quattrocento e del Cinquecento, 295. 22 This is at least the well-grounded opinion of Barbieri, see Barbieri, Le Bibbie italiane del Quattrocento e del Cinquecento, 295.

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“has no knowledge of the Latin language.”23 With Erasmian echoes that directly recall the prefatory letter to the Gospel according to Matthew, and in particular the interpretation of the passage on not casting pearls before swine, the pedagogic intention was to educate all people with regard to moral behaviour and ethical conduct through the imitation of Christ’s life. Those who could have access to these “high mysteries” were pious minds with hearts open to Christ and willing to know the truth, in contrast to those who had a vainglorious and arrogant curiosity.24 In the letter “To the Benevolent Readers” published in 1556 he emphasized the intentions of the first edition. The main objective was to benefit all those who had “no intelligence” of the doctrine of Christ, avoiding the reckless men who were simply curious about reading his life. A simple translation is not sufficient in Amulio’s view because many mysteries and higher meanings are hidden in the Gospel, and thus the intention is to produce a clearer exposition in order to teach the Gospel’s moral philosophy. In the Prima parte del Nouo Testamento we can find the Epistola di Erasmo Roterdamo per la quale esorta ciascuno ad imitar Christo, which is nothing less than the vulgarization – revised, reduced and simplified – of the letter to the pious reader that comes before Erasmus’ paraphrases of the Gospel according to Matthew. According to this anonymous translator – which could be Amulio – the doctrine of Christ must be vulgarized for the benefit of all because It does not divide the man from the woman, the child from the old, the slave from the freeman, the private citizen from the king, the rich from the poor, the Jew from the pagan, the priest from the layman, the monk from who is not a monk.25

This doctrine was not for anyone who was looking for the “the profit or the pleasure of life,” but for “pure spirits.” An evangelic exhortation was conjoined with a vulgarization of knowledge destined for the social sphere of ordinary people. 23 Natalino Amulio, Vita, passione e resurrettione di Iesu Christo nostro Salvatore (Venezia: Speranza, 1544), “To the Benevolent Readers.” 24 Ibid. 25 Natalino Amulio, Prima parte del nouo testamento, ne laqual si contengono i quattro euangelisti, in uno, cioè vita, passione, et resurretione di Iesu Christo Nostro Saluatore (Venezia: Speranza, 1544), epistle to Erasmus: “Non separa l’homo da la donna, non il fanciullo dal vecchio, non il servo dal libero, non il privato dal re, non il ricco dal povero, non il iudeo dal pagano, non il sacerdote dal laico, non il monacho da quello che non è monacho.”

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Another interesting case of Erasmian reception is that of Bernardino Tomitano, one of the central figures for the instatement of the vernacular as language of knowledge in the mid-sixteenth century. Pupil of Sperone Speroni, regular participant of the Accademia degli Infiammati, professor of logic and medicine at the University of Padua, Tomitano published under his own name in 1547 the Espositione letterale del testo di Mattheo Evangelista. The interesting aspect of this text is not that Tomitano decided to make a literal exposition of the Gospel according to Matthew, but that it was a vulgarization, though not recognized as such, of Erasmus’s paraphrases. Furthermore, what is even more peculiar regarding this text is that Tomitano consciously refrains from translating Erasmus’s Exhortatio to the pious reader, which was published – albeit in a revised form – in the Prima parte del nouo Testamento, to include a letter to Caterina Sauli da Passano, later charged of Lutheran heresy with her daughter.26 Finally, the publication of this volume was the main reason for Tomitano’s inquisitorial trial for suspected heresy in 1555, the same year as Brucioli’s conviction. It is striking that in his defence Tomitano called on Cornelio Musso for help – that pious preacher considered so orthodox by the Papal curia, but who vulgarized, as we have seen, Erasmus’s exhortation. The vulgarization was commissioned to Tomitano by Giovanni Gioacchino da Passano (1465–1551), a trustworthy man of Francis I of France, who published the work with the name of the translator distinguished as author on the frontispiece, unbeknownst to Tomitano himself.27 Da Passano would also have had the go-ahead for publication from the Venetian inquisitor, approval that was contested by the inquisitor himself – an inquisitor who was later charged for being too permissive in allowing texts suspected of heresy to be published.28 The inquisitors charged Tomitano not only with being translator of the work, but also an advocate of Erasmian ideas. Tomitano’s defence, based on the fact that he was merely a translator, convinced the inquisitors,29 who imposed the penalty of drafting two orations, one as an apology and 26 Federica Ambrosini, L’eresia di Isabella. Vita di Isabella da Passano, signora della Frattina (1542–1601) (Milano: Franco Angeli 2005); Federica Ambrosini, Una gentildonna davanti al Sant’Uffizio. Il processo per eresia a Isabella della Frattina (1568–1570) (Genève: Droz, 2014). See also Luigi De Biasio, “La difesa di Cornelio Frangipane per Isabella Frattina davanti al Sant’Uffizio veneziano,” Memorie storiche forogiuliesi, 73 (1993): 149–58. 27 Bernardino Tomitano, Oratione alli Signori della santissima Inquisitione (Padova: Perchacino, 1556), 15v. 28 Seidel Menchi, Erasmo in Italia 1520–1580, 279–80. 29 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Archivio del Santo Ufficio, B. 11, fasc. 28.

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the other to refute some Erasmian theses.30 As for Tomitatano’s sincerity, there are grounds for doubting this. Silvana Seidel Menchi correctly argues that “Tomitano’s anxiety to defend himself gives reason to believe that his translation was something more than an occasional and disinterested act of deference from a poor literate man to a rich and powerful lord like Passano.”31 Yet in 1549 Tomitano’s name was included in the index written by Giovanni Della Casa,32 and at the beginning of October 1553 a citizen of Pisa, Antonio Gambino, charged Tomitano with being a sympathizer of Lutheran ideas.33 Even if he had no connection with the Lutherans, he had among his friends religious innovators like Reginald Pole, Gasparo Contarini, Jacopo Sadoleto, Pietro Bizzarri, Matteo Gribaldi, Pietro Aretino and Fortunato Martinengo, just to name a few who were in contact with Erasmus or shared Erasmian ideas.34 Beyond the hints that are diff icult to conf irm from the documents at our disposal, what is certain is that Tomitano’s opus magnum – that is, the Ragionamenti della lingua toscana, published for the first time in 1545 – saw a substantial revision in content in relation to Erasmus and to theological problems, in comparison with the Quattro libri della lingua thoscana printed in 1570.35 But even more Erasmian is the dedicatory letter to Caterina Sauli. Here Tomitano states that nothing is more important in life than religion. Only religion, indeed, could help the human being to live 30 The trial had an enormous echo. Indeed, on May 1555 the Venetian typographers, in spite of the mild punishment afflicted to Tomitano, handed over books considered heretical – among these were many penned by Erasmus – to the authorities. See Andrea Del Col, “Il controllo della stampa a Venezia e i processi di Antonio Brucioli (1548–1559),” Critica storica, 3 (1980): 457–510. 31 Silvana Seidel Menchi, “Sulla fortuna di Erasmo in Italia. Ortensio Lando e altri eterodossi della prima metà del Cinquecento,” Schweizerische Zeitschirift für Geschichte, 24 (1974): 617. 32 Franz Heinrich Reusch, Die Indices librorum prohibitorum des Sechzehnten Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: de Graaf, 1886), 139; Luigi Alberto Ferrai, Studi storici (Padova: Drucker, 1892), 217; Jesús Martínez De Bujanda, Index de Venise 1549, Venise et Milan 1554 (Genève: Droz, 1987), 161, 265–68, 364. 33 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Archivio del Santo Ufficio, B. 11, fasc. 28. 34 On Erasmus and Bizzarri see Massimo Firpo, Pietro Bizzarri esule italiano del Cinquecento (Torino: Giappichelli, 1971); on Erasmus and Contarini see Gigliola Fragnito, Gasparo Contarini. Un magistrato veneziano al servizio della cristianità (Firenze: Olschki, 1988), 146–52; on Erasmus and Sadoleto see Richard Douglas, Jacopo Sadoleto, 1477–1547: Humanist and Reformer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 57; on Erasmus and Pole see Thomas F. Mayer, Reginald Pole: Prince & Prophet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 29–30; on Erasmus and Martinengo Marco Bizzarini (ed.), Fortunato Martinengo. Un gentiluomo del Rinascimento fra arti, lettere e musica (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2018). 35 Maria Rosa Davi, Bernardino Tomitano. Filosofo, medico e letterato (1517–1576). Profilo biografico e critico (Trieste: Lint, 1995), 24–35; Maria Teresa Girardi, Il sapere e le lettere in Bernardino Tomitano (Milano: Vita e pensiero, 1995), 67–8.

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a moderate life according to the dictates of reason – a life that distinguishes human beings from beasts. Among the religions, only Christianity is true, and among all sacred books none is more useful and necessary than the Gospel. The Gospel, Tomitano states, openly declares the truth “of which the ancients saw only a shadow” and which “the law of Moses concealed.”36 The evangelical message – which opens and illuminates human minds – is against the closure of knowledge. Christ’s words are the “consolation of the sad, the wealth of the poor, the health of the sick, the doctrine of the ignorant, and healthy food for hungry souls.”37 According to Tomitano, the evangelical message was always conveyed as a form of doctrine, and “from this doctrine none should be banished,” but all must be granted access to it. Not only was Caterina worthy of acquiring this knowledge, but all women were. With Erasmian tones – absent in other works – Tomitano stated that whoever believed that “Holy Scripture cannot be understood except by learned and judicious men” was wrong.38 These persons are moved – and Tomitano adds “as I believe,” attributing to himself an Erasmian thought – “rather by pride than anything else; not wanting it that lowly people might be capable of ordinary and common health.”39 This attitude was for Tomitano entirely false, and even if he did not choose to demonstrate it rationally, he stated that the life of Christ and his preaching represented the best example that his message was for all. Christ gave evidence of this in “the parables, comparisons, figures and examples” that he used to better explain his concepts to all. Christ, then, “preached mainly to a multitude of vile and uneducated people … spoke not in Greek nor in Latin, but the common Hebrew, to be understood by the outcastes.”40 That his message was not aristocratic or elitist was evinced by the fact that he “chose fellows and disciples not among learned men, nor among proud people of mundane wisdom, but among the poor and ignorant, revealing to them those secrets that were hidden to the wise men.”41 In this letter, Tomitano appropriated and took up the Erasmian subject of the democratization of knowledge. If these topics aroused the perplexities and doubts of Alberto Pio and many 36 Bernardino Tomitano, Espositione letterale del testo di Mattheo Evangelista di M. Bernardin Tomitano (Venezia: Griffo, 1547), aijv. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid.: “piutosto da superbia che d’altro; non volendo che le volgar persone, possano esser capaci, della volgare & commune salute.” 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid.

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other intellectuals, then it is easy to understand the interest of the Inquisition in the Paduan philosopher.

4.2

Educational Purposes

These ideas are typical not only of Tomitano, but of the majority of the vulgarizers and democratizers of Aristotle that took part in the Accademia degli Infiammati. These scholars extended the principle of the democratization of the philosophy of Christ to every philosophy, science and other form of knowledge. The use of the vernacular as opposed to Latin is consistently justified in their works by the underlying notion that to vulgarize meant above all else to make what had hitherto been the preserve of a restricted clique of intellectuals available to a much wider public. For instance, according to Alessandro Piccolomini, perhaps the greatest vulgarizer of Aristotelian works in the sixteenth century, the purpose of vulgarizing was to untie, and open up, and illuminate a subject so as to make it accessible, and so open in its intelligence that any who are not entirely uncouth and without ability may understand it, at least most of it. 42

In his Ragguagli di Parnaso (1612), Traiano Boccalini remembers Piccolomini with his passion for democratizing as a kind of Promethean hero who assails the decision by the god Apollo to prohibit the dissemination of knowledge in the vernacular to as wide a public as possible. The virtuous men of Italy beg of Apollo that philosophy may be treated in the Italian language and are denied their request. The Italian scholars have these many years been very insistent with his Majesty that he would be pleased to enable the Italian language to treat philosophical matters, and have used all possible means to achieve their end; but Apollo would never grant it, saying that the liberal sciences were no longer esteemed, as esteemed as when they were handled in Greek and Latin; for metaphysics, and other sovereign sciences would suffer an infinite degradation, if the admirable secrets thereof being taught in Italian should be communicable even to innkeepers and butchers; moreover, if all the liberal sciences were allowed to be written in the Italian language, the most 42 Alessandro Piccolomini, Copiosissima parafrase di M. Alessandro Piccolomini nel primo libro della Retorica di Aristotele (Venezia: Varisco, 1565), 4–5.

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noble Latin language, in which all men confess the true majesty of writing and speaking elegantly doth consist, would come close to being lost. The Italians were not satisfied with these alleged reasons, but continued ever so fervent in their former desire, as his Majesty seemed to be inclining towards giving them satisfaction, when all the liberal sciences doubting lest some resolution might be taken which would be displeasing to them, bad the Italian scholars be quiet; for they would by no means undergo the shame of being discussed in insipid Italian circumlocutions, but would rather be argued in their customary Latin terms. Alessandro Piccolomini was there present, who freely said that the Greek and Latin philosophers were fools if they believed that the Italian writers were so ill-read that they did not know very well that philosophy, being a natural science, and therefore known even to children, would wholly lose her reputation, if being treated in Italian; the world should know that it was wholly hidden under Scholastic terms, which being neither Greek nor Latin, seemed rather to be Slavic words, which being translated into Italian would discover the cheating tricks of Philosophers, who spend nights and days in the study of philosophy to learn words rather than things. 43 43 Traiano Boccalini, De’ Ragguagli di Parnaso (Venezia: Farri, 1612), 315–6: “I virtuosi d’Italia fanno istanza appresso Apollo, che la bellissima lingua italiana sia habilitata a trattar cose di Filosofia, e sono ributtati. … Anchorché siano passati molti anni, da che i Letterati Italiani fecero gagliardissima istanza a sua Maestà, che si degnasse di habilitare la bellissima lingua Italiana a trattar cose di filosofia; & ancorche appresso lui habbiano adoperati i più efficaci mezzi che giammai siano stati possibile, Apollo nondimeno costantemente ha sempre negato il volerlo concedere, affermando, che le nobilisssime scienze tanto erano tenute in pregio, quanto venivano trattate con le due fecondissime Lingue Greca, e Latina: perche in infinito appresso tutte le nationi sarebbe divenuta vile l’Augusta Metafisica, & le altre più sovrane Scienze, se quegli ammirandi secreti, trattati in lingua Italiana, fossero stati communicati fino a gli Hosti, & ai Pizzicaruoli. Oltre che quando si fosse permesso, che tutte le più Illustri scienze si fossero potutte scrivere con la lingua Italiana, si correva evidente periculo, che tra il genere humano affatto si perdesse quella nobilissima lingua Latina, nella quale confessavano tutti esser riposta la vera maestà del ragionare, e del sciver elegante. Per questa ragione addotta gl’Italiani non solo non si quietarono, ma con nuove, e gagliardissime istanze tanto ardenti si mostrarono nel desiderio loro, che parea che sua Maestà inclinasse à dar loro soddisfattione, qunado tutte le più illustri scienze dubitando di qualche risoluzione, che loro desse poco gusto, dissero a’ Letterati Italiani, che si quietassero, percioche in modo alcuno non volevano ridursi alla vergogna di esser trattate con le ispide circonlocutioni Italiane, ma che volevano esser disputate co’ loro ordinarij termini Latini. Esarse all’hora il nobilissimo ingegno di Alessandro Piccolhomini, e liberamente disse, che i Filosofi Greci, e Latini, erano pazzi, & ignoranti, se si davano à credere, che gli scrittori Italiani tanto poco pratici fossero nelle buone lettere, che benissimo non si accorgessero, che la Filosofia, scienza naturalissima, e però nota fino a’ fanciulli, havrebbe perduta tutta la sua riputazione, se essendo trattata in Italiano, il Mondo fosse venuto in cognitione, ch’ella tutta stava ascosa sotto certi termini Scolastici, che, non essendo parole Greche, né Latine, più tosto

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Indeed, the intention of democratizing for the benefit of all and for the progress of science and knowledge is evident in the emphasis that Piccolomini gave to the importance of introducing new terms that could reflect the advancement of knowledge: And so should learned people in our times desire to reveal to others their doctrines using their own language, as it would be easy for them to do for any science, and certain words being missing for certain things, it would be no less legitimate for us to find new words for new things than it was for the Latins, who, whether by importing from Greek or by inventing new words, never found themselves wanting the words with which to make their concepts clear. Neither should anyone feel surprised, since in any art that is not commonly practised they invent their own artificial words, which, if any of us wanted to treat of that same art, would seem new. Doctors, merchants, architects and every other profession have their own words, which, to everyone apart from themselves, will seem strange.44

Piccolomini was aware of the fact that it is only by introducing new words to designate new discoveries and concepts that it is possible to contribute to the progress of knowledge, which otherwise would be inhibited. It is a significant point in his theory of vulgarizations, because it corroborates the view that it is only by adopting a living vernacular that knowledge may effectively be advanced. 45 It is in disseminating and setting down this new knowledge and these new discoveries that it becomes necessary to introduce new terms that may not always be easy for people to understand: pareano voci Schiavone, iquali tradotti poi in Italiano havrebbono scoperto la vera magagna de’ Filosofi, i quali notte, e giorno si ammazzano ne’ perpetui studij della loro filosofia più per imparare i nomi, che le cose.” 44 Alessandro Piccolomini, La prima parte della filosofia naturale (Roma: Valgrisi, 1551), 1br-v: “Così volessero le persone dotte di questi tempi mostrar altrui le dottrine loro con questa lor lingua propria, come in qual si voglia scientia verrebbe lor fatto agevolmente e se ben mancasse forse qualche parola d’alcuna cosa, non manco saria lecito a noi a le cose nuove impor nuovi vocaboli, che sì fosse ai Latini, i quali, o trasportando dai Greci o di nuovo fabbricando, non si lasciavan mancar parole, onde i lor concetti facesser chiari. Né di ciò si deve maravigliar alcuno, considerando che in qual si voglia arte, l’uso de la quale non sia commune, fabricano i proprii artefici vocaboli, che a chi di noi volesse poi di quell’arte trattare parrebbon nuovi. Hanno i medici, i mercanti, gli architetti, et finalmente in ogni altra parte proprii lor vocaboli che, salvo che a loro, parranno ad ogni altro stranii…” 45 Cfr. Anna Siekiera, “La questione della lingua in Alessandro Piccolomini,” in Alessandro Piccolomini (1508–1579) (Paris: Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur la Renaissance Italienne, 2012), 227.

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I have contrived to use the most appropriate and familiar and manifest words as possible, even though I have used words that are not entirely familiar to people to express concepts that are not yet in the minds of the people. 46

Piccolomini understands that not all the words he employs are easily comprehensible by the people, yet it is only by their use that it is possible to produce a reliable education, which is not reducible to cheap knowledge: Certain words will often be found which, although they may not appear lowly, are used in the squares and streets, and will nonetheless be worthy of being introduced and appropriated by us. 47

Piccolomini’s language is thus versatile because knowledge evolves constantly and must be communicated to as wide a public as possible. However, the main aim is to elevate people, and therefore one should transmit knowledge in an appropriate way, sometimes even using difficult terms and sentences. Undoubtedly one of the most difficult aspects of vulgarizing an Aristotelian text was the fact that vulgarizers were typically highly cultured intellectuals who had to adopt a common person’s perspective in order to see how best to make philosophical content more accessible. The “lower standpoint” was in fact rarely adopted: intellectuals still wrote as intellectuals, not as common people, but this does not mean that they did not want to popularize knowledge. It simply means that it was difficult for them to write in a register that differed from the elevated manner to which they were accustomed through education. Recent investigations show how the accessibility of a text depends on a variety of registers being adopted, indicating, for instance, that Piccolomini’s works on Aristotle’s Poetics employed a more accessible register than Castelvetro’s Poetica. 48 However, Alessio Cotugno correctly argues that complexity can stand in the way of a 46 Piccolomini, La prima parte della filosofia naturale, aiiiiir: “Sommi ingegnato d’usar parole, et modi di dire più proprij, et più usitati, et manifesti, ch’io ho potuto, di maniera che se ben’alcuna parola non in tutto trita dal Volgo vi ho io lacuna volta interposta per meglio isprimere quei concetti, che in mente del Volgo non sono ancora.” 47 Ibid.: “Alcune parole accaderà spesse volte di ritrovare, che se ben non parranno trite, et usate per le piazze et per le strade, saran non di meno degne d’esser da l’uso ricevute, nodrite, e fatte nostre.” 48 See Alessio Cotugno, “Piccolomini e Castelvetro traduttori della ‘Poetica’ (con un contributo sulle modalità dell’esegesi aristotelica nel Cinquecento,” Studi di lessicografia italiana, 23 (2007): 113–219; Alessio Cotugno, “Le ‘Annotationi’ di Piccolomini e la ‘Poetica’ di Castelvetro a confronto: tecnica argomentativa, vocabolario critico, dispositivi esegetici,” in David A. Lines, Marc Laureys

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text’s readability, though it cannot be used as evidence to affirm that these texts were directed at a more elevated public than intended. 49 The study of linguistic register is therefore useful only in determining whether a text may have been relatively easy or difficult to understand.50 Some vernacular works used a level of linguistic complexity similar to those written in Latin, precisely because the vernacular aimed to supplant Latin as a language of culture. This should alert us to the dangers of thinking that the culture of the people and culture for the people are one and the same51 – that is to say, conflating a series of cultural practices that originate with the people, and a type of knowledge produced for them by the educated classes, as in the case of the vulgarization and popularization of knowledge.52 As we have seen, vulgarizations were for the most part, if not always, the works of learned individuals, and their readers might of course have included men and women who were capable of reading even the most complex works in Latin, not simply “idiots” or “illiterates.” It would therefore be wrong to identify them with popular works associated with a particular group of readers. Contrary to the commonly held view that vernacular books were written for the lower classes and therefore reflected their tastes, evidence shows that the most successful works were “not those written for the lower classes, but those that were written for different groups of readers.”53 On this question, Roger Chartier writes that it is pointless to try to identify popular culture by some supposedly specific distribution of cultural objects. Their distribution is always more complex than it might seem at first glance, as are their appropriations by groups and individuals.54 and Jill Kraye (ed.), Forms of Conflict and Rivalries in Renaissance Europe, (Göttingen: V&R Unipress-Bonn University Press, 2015), 161–206. 49 In particular, his methodology of research on the management of information may in time reveal in detail the complexity of the text. See Cotugno, “Piccolomini e Castelvetro traduttori della ‘Poetica’,” 180. 50 See Alessio Cotugno, “Osservazioni linguistiche sull’‘Instrumento della filosofia’ di Alessandro Piccolomini (1551). Testualità, lessico, procedimenti espositivi,” in David A. Lines and Eugenio Ref ini (eds.), “Aristotele fatto volgare”: Tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 99–148. 51 Carlo Ginzburg, Il formaggio e i vermi (Torino: Einaudi, 1976), XV. 52 See Roger Chartier, Lectures et lecteurs dans la France d’Ancien Régime (Paris: Seuil, 1987), 7–17. 53 Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 63. 54 See Chartier, Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Modern France, 233.

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As he correctly suggests concerning the story of the miller Domenico Scandella known as Menocchio, “the books he read were in no way especially designed for a popular audience,”55 indeed, common people “did not, by any means, read everything read by the notables but the books they acquired were not specific to their class.”56 Likewise it is erroneous to believe that works with complex linguistic registers were directed exclusively at an elevated audience, especially in light of explicit statements made by vulgarizers regarding the fact that their ultimate aim was to instruct a lower-level public. An elevated linguistic register could point also to an intended audience of common people, even if it was not completely understandable to them. Piccolomini’s reflections are an evident sign of this attitude, which has its origin in Pietro Bembo. Indeed, according to Bembo, the great models of the past – like Homer and Cicero – never wrote in the “idiom that was in use and on the tongue of the populace in their times”; rather, they wrote “according to how they felt would be appreciated for a longer time.”57 Petrarch himself never wrote his poems “in the language used by the people of his times,” neither did Boccaccio “reason with the mouth of the people.”58 In vulgarizing knowledge, ancient models reasoned with the people in a way that the people could understand, but not in the same way as the people reasoned with them … that writers should reason so that they may be understood by the people I can accept not in all writers, but in some; but that they should reason in the same way as the people do, this will never be acceptable in any writer.59

High culture speaks to the people, but not like the people. Such a view was endorsed by the preacher Francesco Panigarola in stating that because the preacher talks to the people, he does not have to reason popularly, remembering what Bembo says on this, that reasoning with 55 Ibid., 233–4. 56 Ibid., 240. 57 Bembo, Prose della volgar lingua, 31. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid., 32: “hanno ragionato col popolo in modo che sono stati dal popolo intesi, ma non in quella guisa nella quale il popolo ha ragionato con loro … che agli scrittori stia bene ragionare in maniera che essi dal popolo intesi, io il vi potrò concedere non in tutti, ma in alquanti scrittori tuttavia; ma che essi ragion debbano, come ragiona il popolo, questo in niuno vi si concederà mai.”

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the people, we must talk in such a way that people can understand us; but not talking in such manner in which people reason with us.60

The aim was to educate, to spread knowledge and to avoid ignorance, just as Erasmus had written in his Paraclesis about promoting the good life and the art of well-being. According to Benedetto Varchi, in his manuscript Comento sopra il primo libro dell’Etica d’Aristotile, the principal reason for the debasement of general costume was a level of ignorance which only an influx of knowledge could defeat. Whoever wanted to keep knowledge hidden, corrupting the sciences and other disciplines, was a crazy fool – again the terminology is reminiscent of Erasmus. In order to help uneducated people, it is necessary – Varchi would have it – to vulgarize: I firmly believe that the corruption of costumes and of our way of living proceed mostly from corrupted studies. … [A]ll errors and all sins come, as Socrates said …, from ignorance … Therefore I do not know how it is legitimate or true, in particular in those things that pertain to the good living of the human being, that reasons that some said: the ancients both philosophers and theologians would have concealed knowledge under different veils and various figures, because idiots and vulgar human beings as unworthy men and despisers of such a gift could not ever see nor know … And even if someone is, as it is true that there are many of them, for some reason so far distant from himself and such an enemy of his own good that he wants to maintain and stay anyway in his so harmful and foolish insanity, not to say evil, of others’s miserable and very unhappy miseries, it is necessary rather to have compassion from discreet men …61 60 Francesco Panigarola, “Questioni intorno alla favella del predicatore italiano,” in Degli autori del ben parlare per secolari e religiosi opere diverse (Venezia: Salicata, 1643), vol. 5, 1–40, 18–9: “perche parli a plebei il medesimo, non però plebeamente deve ragionare, raccordandosi quello che dice il Bembo a questo proposito che ragionando col popolo, in modo doviamo favellare che dal popolo siamo intesi; ma non in quella maniera nella quale il popolo ragiona con noi.” See Coletti, Parole dal pulpito, 221–2; Caludio Marazzini, “Il predicatore sciacqua i panni in Arno. Questione della lingua ed eloquenza sacra nel Cinquecento,” in Lingua tradizione rivelazione (Casale Monferrato: Marietti, 1989), 12–20. 61 Annalisa Andreoni, La via della dottrina. Le lezioni accademiche di Benedetto Varchi (ETS: Pisa, 2012), 331–2: “Io tengo fermamente che la corruttela de i costumi et vivere nostro sia proceduta in buona parte da gli studi et scienze corrotte. … tutti gli errori et tutti i peccati vengono, come diceva Socrate …, dall’ignoranza … Onde non so io come sia leggittima o vera, et massimamente nelle cose che al ben vivere dell’huomo appartengono, quella cagione che dicono alcuni, gli antichi così filosofi come teologi havere occultato i divini misteri della santissima filosofia sotto diversi velamenti et avrie figure, accioché gli huomini idioti et volgari, come indegni et dispregiatori di cotanto dono non gli potessero né vedere né conoscere già mai … Et se pure

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Hence, this whole process of democratizing knowledge is to be understood as an extension of knowledge through the vernacular and in opposition to Latin-based culture, and designed to include a broader social base and therefore a greater number of people. Varchi clearly counters those who would preserve hidden knowledge, stating that [t]he Latins were followed by the Tuscans, who are able to write in a simple manner and with marvellous dexterity pretty much all that they turn their hand to. And I for my part have no doubt that in the course of time, despite the novelty of the language and the contrariness of the people as much as of the times, we shall see all or most of the sciences translated or at least treated very satisfactorily in the Tuscan language … nor does it seem to me to be true what many, basing themselves on the authority of the ancients, criticize so much, namely that the sciences should not be made manifest and explained to the populace … but I say that each and every man of prudence and discernment must dedicate himself with all his might to making idiots and vulgar human beings less so as much as possible, and there is no other way than to teach them first the virtues, then the sciences.62

Varchi’s intention for democratizing is to instruct people of all social classes with moral and scientific knowledge. This should be the intent of every prudent human being: democratization is a moral duty. We are still here a long way from the mass knowledge or culture of today, of course, but we are looking at a concept of knowledge and culture that looks to reach out transversely towards diverse social strata, and therefore aims to expand the number of consumers of culture. Properly speaking, we are dealing with alcuno è, come di vero molti ne sono, il quale per qualunche cagione sia tanto lontano da se stesso et sì nemico del propio bene che voglia rimanere et starsi in ogni modo nella sua così dannosa et stolta follia, per non dire malvagità, della altrui miseranda et veramente infelice miserie si deve più tosto havere dagli huomini discreti compassione …” 62 Varchi, Opere, vol. 2, 490: “Ai Latini sono i Toscani succeduti, i quali semplicemente e con agevolezza meravigliosa scrivono per lo più tutto quello che a scrivere prendono. Ed io per me non ho dubbio che in processo di tempo, nonostante la novità della lingua e la contrarietà non meno delle persone che dei tempi, s’abbiano a vedere o tutte o gran parte delle scienze nella lingua toscana felicissimamente o tradotte o trattate … né mi pare che sia vero quello che molti, fondatisi sopra l’autorità degli antichi, biasimano tanto, cioè che le scienze non si debbano manifestare e far palesi al volgo … ma dico che ciascuno prudente uomo e giudizio debbe ingegnarsi con tutto il poter suo che gli idioti e volgari uomini siano meno che si possa, e ciò altramente non può farsi che con l’insegnare loro prima le virtù, poscia le scienze.”

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a democratization of access to knowledge, which should be distinguished from a democratization, or popularization, of knowledge. In his Battaglie (1582) Girolamo Muzio wrote that the intention of every author is to “offer usefulness” and benefit “to lords and gentlemen; soldiers and sappers; merchants; men; women; the young; the old; the learned; the uneducated; in other words to everyone regardless of age and sex, whatever their condition.”63 The range of recipients presented by Muzio is as wide as the variety of themes that are to be treated, from Aristotelian philosophy to the most practical of disciplines: If you wish to treat of divine matters … is it not more expedient to do so in Italian, so that those who know nothing of those beautiful things and lofty mysteries may learn them from you …? I shall say the same about philosophy, which contemplates nature; and even more so of ethics. … But to speak of more particular things: wanting to write of the art of war, is it not right that the captains and soldiers should understand you? And of architecture, is it not best that the engineers and masters of workshops should be able to learn from our teachings? And of agriculture, does it not seem necessary to you that the men of the people should profit from them? And of arithmetic, should it not be your intention that even the uneducated understand you? … It seems to me that this is the task of the man of letters and the good writer.64

However, one looks at it, vulgarization is a “downwards movement” that exemplifies the complexity of connections and exchanges of knowledge that took place among “low,” “medium,” and “high” culture, or at least between different social and cultural classes. The vernacular language was never used innocently, but at least in the Renaissance it often accompanied a desire to transmit and disseminate knowledge, especially concerning philosophical and scientific texts. 63 Girolamo Muzio, Battaglie (Venezia: Dusinelli, 1582), 160v: “Se voi volete trattar le cose divine … non è più convenevole scriver Italicamente, a fine, che color, che non sanno quelle cose belle, & quegli alti misteri, gli apparino da voi …? questo medesimo dirò io della Filosofia contemplatrice della natura; & della morale maggiormente. … Ma per venire alle cose piu particolari: Volendo scrivere della arte della guerra, non è egli buono, che i Capitani, & i soldati vi intendano? Se di Architettura, non è egli convenevole, che gli ingegneri, & maestri delle fabbriche possano apprender i nostri ammaestramenti? Se di Agricoltura, non vi par necessario, che gli huomini del popolo ne possano trar utilità? Se di Arithmetica, non dee esser vostra intention, che anche gli huomini non letterati vi debbano poter leggere? … Questo a me sembra, che officio sia di huomo letterato & di buon scrittore.” 64 Muzio, Battaglie, 187r–187v. On this passage see Coletti, Parole dal Pulpito, 163.

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The “downwards movement,” or the attempt to make the content of knowledge accessible to a greater number of people, may in fact be considered an initial phase in a process whose ultimate goal was to generate a subsequent “upwards movement,” with the creation of a culture and an intellectual interest that had not existed until that time. This is borne out by Oreste Vannocci Biringucci’s Lettera ai lettori of the Sopra le Mechaniche d’Aristotele,65 in which the explicitly stated purpose is to facilitate knowledge, make it public, and ensure that “good minds are put on a par with uncouth minds, and those who are notable and important with those who are low-caste and plebeian.”66 This leads us to suppose that even complicated and highly elaborate linguistic works of vulgarization, such as Castelvetro’s, were not symptomatic of a closing-off of knowledge or a restriction of audience, but were in fact an attempt to improve the knowledge of those who had no Classical education, or were more comfortable reading in their own native tongue. As we have seen, vulgarization techniques and linguistic register are not always reliable indicators, because if these vulgarizations aim to educate, and not to be mere literary exercises, the primary purpose is the improvement of knowledge, which means imparting information and language that a person did not have before, and that are therefore difficult to understand. Any process of “instruction,” however “simplified,” requires raising the level of culture and providing a terminology and a state of knowledge that previously was lacking.67 A clear example is provided by Bernardino Tomitano’s Discorso sopra l’eloquenza e l’artificio delle prediche e del predicare in praise of the preacher Cornelio Musso, which is not a mere eulogy, but rather a bold statement on how to teach the public: One could reprehend that mix of words, sometimes Latin, at other times Greek, with the Tuscan, or one could believe that by adventure they were 65 The work was published in 1547 in Latin with the title In mechanicas quaestiones Aristotelis paraphrasis paulo quidem plenior. 66 Alessandro Piccolomini, Sopra le Mechaniche d’Aristotele (Roma: Zanetti, 1582), 5. 67 On the impossibility of conceiving of vulgarizations without a public, see the insightful remarks of Eugenio Refini on translation as reception. He argues “that the potentially unlimited interpretive nature of translation lies in the productive interaction of the players involved in the reception process: translators and their readers.” He suggests that “instead of simply considering translators as authors of translations and readers as the receivers,” we should conceive “both translators and readers as integral parts of the translation process.” See Refini, The Vernacular Aristotle, 13.

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said for the study of the learned man. But if such a fellow would consider the task of someone that aims to improve this profession of study, how many matters he must speak of, how many purposes, the great variety of recipients, and how from him all wait to learn … he would turn the reprehension into wonder, and he could not refrain from commending him.68

Whoever wants to benef it a large number of people of different social extraction, whoever aims to educate – that is, to improve and increase knowledge – can make use of Latin or a Latinate language. In some cases, according to Tomitano, the appeal to Classical language is not only a duty, but a necessity. One cannot blame someone who uses these languages to speak of religious matter, indeed the words of Christ, of evangelists, of St Paul, of the ancient law, of the holy doctors, of the theologians, of the councils, of the ecclesiastical decrees, as they are all holy, pure and inviolate, and from the Holy Spirit directed to the truth, they receive more faith and greatness being expressed in their own form.69

Tomitano seems to argue against vulgarization and to lean more towards a form of restriction of knowledge, as Alberto Pio had done against Eramsus, but it is not so. The intention is to educate, to raise, even through Latin, those who only know the vernacular. Indeed, Tomitano ends his Discorso by stating that it is the task of the vulgarizer – in this case of the preacher – to 68 Bernardino Tomitano, Discorso sopra l’eloquenza e l’artificio delle prediche e del predicare di Monsignor Cornelio Musso, in Maria Teresa Girardi, “l’arte compiuta del vivere bene.”L’oratoria sacra di Cornelio Musso (1511–1574) (Pisa: ETS, 2012), 221: “Potrebbe forse alcun riprendere quell mescolamento di parole ora latine, e ora greche, con le toscane, o stimare per aventura che fussero dette a studio di parer dotto. Ma se quel tale avertirà l’ufficio d’uno ch’in questa sì fatta professione studi di giovare, di quante materie sia tenuto a favellare, in quanti propositi, a quanta varietà d’ascoltatori, e come da lui tutti attendono alcuna cosa d’imparare, e com egli ciò faccia a tempo e l’uomo … nel vero volgendo la riprensione in maraviglia, non potrà astenersi di non altamente commendarlo.” 69 Ibid.: “… le parole di Cristo, de gli evangelisti, di Paolo, della legge vecchia, de i dottori santi, de i teologi, de i concili, e de i decreti ecclesiastici, sì come sono tutte sante, pure, inviolate, e dallo Spirito santo indricciate al vero, così ricevono maggior fede e grandezza essendo allegate nella loro propria forma.” For the same reason in the Ragionamenti, Tomitano seems to exclude that the vernacular language fits with theology. In the fragment Di che si debba scrivere oggidì in questa lingua volgare, Speroni too puts forward some concerns about the possibility of using the vernacular for sacred knowledge or religious text, “because speaking of honourable things in low language is not wise.” See Speroni, Opere, vol. 5, 446.

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work with the Latin words “to explain and to make them clear,” using all the best possible techniques of vulgarization. The same applies today when teaching a scientific discipline to those who have no concept of it. As with the vulgarizers, the content is not trivialized, nor is the register lowered, but strategies are sought to clarify the meaning. To trivialize knowledge where the purpose is to increase the level of culture would be a job badly done indeed. This was a clear indication that the vernacular was ripe for tackling intricate speculative and theoretical questions, as well as taking on a role as a “language of knowledge” and an instrument of emancipation.

4.3

Educating through Language

Although Latin was still the main language of scientific and erudite discourse in the Renaissance, the vernacular was already taking its first steps towards asserting “its own dignity and capacity for expressing even the most abstruse philosophical concepts,”70 and so making them accessible to people generally. In his Dialogo delle lingue (1542), Sperone Speroni sought to transform the vernacular into a language of philosophy and science that would eventually supplant Greek and Latin even in erudite circles, and therefore become the vehicle for the transmission of knowledge. Contrary to what some fourteenth- and fifteenth-century humanists believed, Speroni asserted that knowledge of Greek and Latin was not necessary for understanding Aristotle, and even that “the study of Greek and Latin is the cause of our ignorance.”71 Thus, he claims, may God will it that, for the benefit of those who will come after me, all the books of all the sciences, as many as can be counted in Greek and Latin, some scholarly and generous person dedicate himself to rendering into the vernacular, so that the number of good philosophers may be greater than it is now, and their excellence rarer.72 70 Tullio Gregory, Origini della terminologia filosofica moderna. Linee di ricerca (Firenze: Olschki, 2006), 72. 71 Sperone Speroni, Dialogo delle lingue (Pescara: Libreria dell’Università, 1999), 188. On this idea see Cesare Vasoli, Sperone Speroni: La filosofia e lingua. L’ombra del Pomponazzi e un programma di volgarizzamento del sapere, in Il volgare come lingua di cultura dal Trecento al Cinquecento (Firenze: Olschki, 2003), 342. 72 Ibid., 184: “Dio volesse in servigio di chi verrà dopo me, che tutti i libri d’ogni scientia quanti ne sono greci, et latini, alcuna dotta, et pietosa persona si desse a render volgari, che per certo il

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Speroni looks forward to the day when it will be possible to speak of every thing in every country in every language, and the sciences and arts shall no longer be under the dominance of the Classical languages.73 Yet his ambition goes further still. He hopes … through reason to be capable of communicating to others their affections and their own doctrine with their own language, and therefore to translate the philosophy sown by our Aristotle in the fields of Athens from Greek into the vernacular, be it Italian or German, which would not be like throwing it among the stones in the woods where it would become infertile; on the contrary it would make something distant close, something foreign a citizen of all provinces … in this way the Peripatetic speculations would become far more familiar to us, and domestic such as they are not at present, and they would be easier to deal with, and would be understood by us if some learned man should translate them from Greek into the vernacular.74

Speroni believes that all the languages of the world can signify and express philosophical matters, but he also recognizes that it is still expedient to discuss science in the Classical languages simply because it is still customary to do so. This, however, does not mean that philosophy cannot be discussed in Mantuan or Milanese.75 Philosophy should not be ashamed of being expressed in Lombard rather than Greek or Latin words, indeed it “does not disdain to find its place in the minds of Lombards,”76 just as it did not numero de i boni philosophanti sarebbe più spesso, che egli non è, et più rara diverrebbe la loro excellentia.” The mimetic nature of Speroni’s text makes it difficult to attribute any particular position to the Paduan intellectual, but when we compare it to other texts, and above all to the manner in which it was received, the most cogent perspective appears to be the one espoused by Scolare in reporting the arguments of Pomponazzi. The same opinion is held by Mario Pozzi, see Mario Pozzi, Trattatisti del Cinquecento (Milano: Ricciardi, 1978), 619. 73 See Ibid., 188. 74 Ibid., 192: “… poter di ragione comunicare con altrui gli affetti, et la dottrina di sé, con la sua lingua medesma, dunque tradurre la philosophia seminata dal nostra Aristotele ne i campi d’Athene, di greco in volgar, italiano, o tedesco, non serebbe gettarla tra’ sassi ne i boschi, ove sterile divenisse, anzi sarebbe far lei di lontana propinqua, et di forestiera cittadina d’ogni provincia … così le speculationi peripathetice ci diverrebbono assai più familiari, et domestice che non sono al presente, et più facilmente si tratterebbono, et intenderebbono da noi se di greco in volgar alcun dotto homo le convertisse.” 75 See Ibid., 194. 76 Ibid., 200. Lazzaro Bonamico, another protagonist of the dialogue, f inds it abhorrent to “see Aristotle’s philosophy written in the Lombard language and hear it being discussed by all manner of uncouth people, porters, peasants, boatmen, and other such people.”

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disdain to be manifested among common people who had no knowledge of Greek or Latin. This a crucial step forward because the vernacular became increasingly “the vehicle for disseminating philosophy and the sciences beyond the schools and conquering a different public, especially for overcoming the restrictions and limitations of the traditional culture upheld by scholastic Latin.”77 In Speroni there is clearly a subversive intention to reverse the status quo: Every time I speak or write in the vernacular on any topic that is very distant from the common people, although I am well aware that my feeble intelligence is not up to the task of exalting it, nonetheless it seems to me, I am not sure how, that I am vindicating the republic of letters which has been oppressed for so long by a small group of powerful individuals, rich men who by using only Greek and Latin words have usurped the dominion of the sciences.78

Speroni is clearly pointing out that this is not merely a question of the legitimacy of the vernacular as a “language of knowledge,” since the vernacular was itself acquiring value “as an instrument of emancipation and cultural innovation.”79 The case of Galileo Galilei offers us a clear picture of how intellectuals viewed the vernacular language. Aware as he was that the vernacular was more limiting than Latin in terms of the international reach of his ideas, he nevertheless believed that Italian would some day become a language of culture, and in any case wished to “distance himself in protest from the erudite caste.”80 It was at this time that the defence of the vernacular language rested strongly upon the newfound awareness that any culture is above all an ongoing transmission of prior experiences that lead, when transferred to new contexts, to transformations in all areas of knowledge. At a time when the official knowledge of the Church and the

77 Gregory, Origini della terminologia filosofica moderna, 72. 78 Speroni, Opere, vol. 5, 505: “… Io veramente qualunque volta parlo o scrivo volgare d’alcuna cosa alquanto dal vulgo lontana, benché io conosca assai bene il mio debole ingegno esser poco atta esaltarla, nulladimeno parmi pur in non so che modo di vendicar la repubblica litterale dell’esser stata oppressa sì lungamente da pochi alcuni potenti; li quali ricchi solamente di parole Grece e Latine, per forza s’hanno usurpato il dominio della scienze.” 79 Ibid. 80 On Galileo’s conception of the vernacular see Claudio Marazzini, Storia della lingua italiana. Il secondo Cinquecento e il Seicento (Bologna: il Mulino, 1993), 58.

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universities was perceived to be stagnating, it was “the vernacular, not Latin, that opened up new cultural horizons.”81 This reaction against authority, both temporal and religious, and this emphasis on the subversive character of the vernacular is evident in the case of Giovan Battista Gelli.82 The son of a modest artisan, Gelli never translated any Aristotelian works into Italian, but he was a skilful vulgarizer of Aristotelian ideas in philosophical dialogues that bordered on heresy. The importance of his work in this context rests on the direct link he established between the methods used to vulgarize Holy Scripture and those adopted with the works of Aristotle, in particular in showing their common intent. In I capricci del Bottaio, Gelli develops the Speronian idea that it is not language that make a human being cultured, but the sciences: grammar, or rather Latin, is a language, and languages are not what make men learned, but rather concepts and sciences … it is the things, not the languages, that make men learned; and although they are signified with words, a person who understands only the words would never be worth anything.83

One learns languages in order to gain knowledge of the sciences they contain.84 The knowledge of sciences is not a direct consequence of knowledge of languages, and many who know Greek and Latin may not have any understanding of the sciences. Knowledge, whether transmitted in the vernacular or in one of the Classical languages, comes with “great effort.” Learning the Classical languages before embarking upon the acquisition 81 Gregory, Origini della terminologia filosofica moderna, 72. 82 On Gelli see Armand L. De Gaetano, Gianbattista Gelli and the Florentine Academy: The Rebellion against Latin (Firenze: Olschki, 1976); Vittoria Perrone Compagni, “Cose di filosofia si possono dire in volgare. Il programma culturale di Giambattista Gelli,” in Il volgare come lingua di cultura dal Trecento al Cinquecento (Firenze: Olschki, 2003), 301–37; Eva Del Soldato, “Aristotelici, accademici ed eretici. Simone Porzio e Giovan Battista Gelli,” in Simone Porzio, An homo bonus vel malus volens fiat (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura: Roma, 2005), V–XXIX; Chiara Cassiani, Metamorfosi e conoscenza. I dialoghi e le commedie di Giovan Battista Gelli (Roma: Bulzoni 2006); Anna Laura Puliafito, “Volgarizzamento e propaganda: Giovan Battista Gelli e l’Accademia fiorentina,” in Mecenati, artisti e pubblico nel Rinascimento (Firenze: Cesati, 2009), 640–55; Anna Laura Puliafito, “Filosofia, letteratura e vita civile: Giovan Battista Gelli e il volgare,” Modernidades 11 (2011), 1–15. 83 Giovan Battista Gelli, Opere (Torino: UTET, 1976), 178: “la grammatica, o per me’ dire il latino, è una lingua, e le lingue non sono quelle che faccino gli uomini dotti, ma i concetti e le scienzie … sono le cose, e non le lingue, che fanno gli uomini dotti; e se ben elle si significano con le parole, chi intendesse solamente le parole non sarebbe mai però da nulla.” 84 Ibid., 195.

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of knowledge only adds to the effort, hence, if all the sciences were already written in one’s native language, a human being “would not have to spend four to six of his best years learning a language only to use it to move on to studying the sciences.”85 Like his fellows Sperone Speroni and Alessandro Piccolomini, Gelli viewed the fact that the sciences were written in Latin or Greek as an obstacle to the advancement of knowledge. The problem, therefore, is to understand why the “literati are so hostile towards those who translate something” into the vernacular.86 These so-called literati seem to think that the vernacular is not suitable for receiving such elevated matters as Holy Scripture or philosophy because it detracts from their “reputation.”87 But this is not an adequate explanation in Gelli’s view, since “all languages … are capable of expressing the concepts and needs of those who speak them.”88 The real reason is another, and it is quickly stated: “the accursed jealousy and desire they have to be viewed as better than others.”89 Gelli goes on to support his thesis with a fictional dialogue that shows how the intellectuals of the time viewed vulgarization as a democratization of knowledge that was aimed primarily at those who did not know the Classical languages: I recall finding myself recently in the presence of certain literati, one of whom said that Bernardo Segni had translated Aristotle’s Rhetoric into the vernacular, to which another replied that he had performed a great disservice; and when asked why, he said: “Because it is not good that every uneducated person should be allowed to know what another has acquired over many years with great effort from Greek and Latin books.90

Gelli is openly critical of this miserly approach to knowledge, writing that these are “inappropriate words … not … only for a Christian, but also for any human being!”91 85 Ibid., 198. 86 Ibid., 200. 87 Ibid., 201. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid.: “io mi ricordo che ritrovandomi a questi giorni dove erano certi litterati, e dicendo uno che Bernardo Segni aveva fatto volgare la Retorica d’Aristotele, uno di loro disse che egli aveva fatto un gran male; e domandato della ragione, rispose: “Perché e’ non istà bene ch’ogni volgare abbia a sapere quello che un altro si arà guadagnato in molti anni con gran fatica su pe’ libri greci e latini.” 91 Ibid.

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The desire to keep knowledge under wraps is not only anti-Christian, therefore: it is in fact contrary to the very nature of the human being, whose task is to “love all and help others …, the greatest gift to whom is to aid their understanding.”92 Hence Gelli believes “that there is nothing more useful and praiseworthy” than translating into the vernacular that which is most necessary, namely the precepts of religion and the principles of philosophy. If it were possible to start acquiring them in childhood, men would “more devoutly love and defend the teachings of the Christian religion.”93 Gelli’s discourse is a clear echo of Erasmian ideas. Gelli goes on to say that “Christians who teach their children to read with mercantesca or legends where there is nothing to learn should be ashamed.”94 He believes that rote learning the Latin words of sacred and philosophical texts without understanding their content “is like women croaking or parrots squawking.”95 The end purpose of vulgarizers such as Gelli is not only the dissemination of knowledge, therefore, but also to make knowledge available to all human beings, who are thus able to understand the message conveyed by religion and philosophy in order to realize their human nature. There is an educational intent inserted and energized in a spiritual attitude according to which it is a moral and religious duty to help and educate other people. The democratization of culture is seen as part of a wider conception, according to which the accumulation of knowledge is a form of progress that allows human beings to avoid mistakes caused by ignorance.96 Preserving culture in the Classical languages is as an aristocratic paradigm that is intrinsically inhuman and therefore must be opposed at all costs. Gelli openly attacks the supporters of this aristocratic conspiracy to prevent the vernacular from becoming a language of culture, pointing to the miserliness of the priests and friars who, not content with their portion of tithes ordered by God to be allocated to them by law, and wanting to live as sumptuously as they do, they keep hidden [the tithes] from us, selling them to us bit by bit, or piecemeal, in so doing terrorizing men with a thousand false threats that are not written in the law as they interpret them; so that they have snatched from the hands of the poor more than half of what they had … this is an evil that I feel resides not 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid., 203. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid., 204. 96 Ibid., 203.

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only in the priests, but in everyone: indeed there is not a man who does not think of taking money from the possessions of others and keeping it as his own. It is true that the priests, friars, and notaries, who do it with words, are better at it than others. … it would not be so easy for them [to deceive] if men had better knowledge of Holy Scriptures than they have. And the reason why human affairs are not translated is likewise the impiety of many doctors and lawyers who want to sell us common things; and in order to do so, they have come up with this artful ruse whereby contracts cannot be written in the vernacular, but only in their own polished grammar, which some only partly understand and others not at all. I am astonished that men have tolerated such conditions, under which it is possible to perpetrate a thousand deceptions.97

Priests and friars, or members of the Church generally, along with lawyers and jurists, have conspired against the opening up of culture in order to preserve the privileges of their caste and exert control over the uneducated classes. Gelli’s critique cuts deeper than this, though: the only reason why human beings do not criticize the religious authorities is because they do not know the Holy Scriptures. Yet, as Christians, all human beings are equals and can therefore criticize and judge both priests and princes, and even point out the mistakes that the Pope himself “commits as a human being and as a Christian.”98 This is a harsh indictment of the political and 97 Ibid., 205: “[del]l’avarizia de’ preti e de’ frati, che non bastando loro quella porzione delle decime che avevano ordinato loro Iddio per legge, a voler vivo tanto suntuosamente come e’ fanno, ce le tengono ascose, e ce le vendono a poco a poco, come si dice a minuto, e in quel modo però che e’ vogliono, spaventando gli uomini con mille falsi minacci, i quali non suonan così nella legge come egli interpretano; di maniera che egli hanno cavato di mano a’ poveri secolari più che la metà di quel che egli avevano … questo è un male che mi pare che si dia non solamente a i sacerdoti, ma ognuno: anzi non c’è uom che pensi ad altro, se non in che modo e’ potesse cavare e danari delle scarselle d’altri, e mettergli nella sua. Egli è ben vero che i preti, e frati e i notai, che lo fanno con le parole, son più valenti de gli altri. … non sarebbe venuto lor fatto così agevolmente [ingannare], se gli uomini avessino avuto più cognizione delle Scritture Sacre che e’ non hanno. E la cagione che non si traducono l’umane è similmente la impietà di molti dottori e avocati, che ci voglion vendere le cose communi; e per poterlo far meglio, hanno trovato questo bel ghiribizzo, che i contratti non si possin fare in volgare, ma solamente in quella loro bella grammatica, che la intendon poco eglino e manco altri. Io mi meraviglio, che gli uomini abbin mai sopportato tanto una cosa simile sotto la quale si può fare mille inganni.” 98 Ibid., 206. On Gelli’s view as an example of a wider movement of biblical vulgarizations, see the insightful paper by Sabrina Corbellini: “‘Se le scienze e la scrittura sacra fussino in volgare, tu le intenderesti.’ Traduzioni bibliche tra Medioevo e Rinascimento in manoscritti e testi a stampa,” in La traduzione del moderno nel Cinquecento europeo (Manziana: Vecchiarelli, 2011), 1–21.

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religious establishment, the subversiveness of which did not escape the notice of the censors who forced him to make substantial amendments to the more controversial passages.99 Gelli’s position recalls the words uttered by the miller Domenico Scandella when sentenced to death by the Inquisition: “speaking Latin is a betrayal of the poor because in lawsuits the poor do not know what is being said and are crushed; and if they want to say four words they need a lawyer.”100 The use of Latin by the upper classes was seen by the vulgarizers as a means of controlling and exerting power over those who had only limited access to culture. The vernacular language was therefore perfectly placed to express the most complex ideas and to emancipate the people from the dominance of the educated classes, under whose yoke they had laboured for centuries. It is in this double sense, therefore, that the project to democratize knowledge for the people becomes vitally important. Gelli aims at “social equity.”101 The democratic significance of vulgarization can be better explained with reference to the letter Alexander the Great wrote to Aristotle, and which is contained in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.102 Here, the Macedonian king criticizes his teacher for having broadcast the knowledge that had once been the prerogative of a few among the common people and his enemies. References to this anecdote are to be found in the works of a number of vulgarizers, including Antonio Brucioli in his preface to the translation of Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione. The most interesting reading of his text, however, comes from Antonio Tridapale dal Borgo, a modest mid-sixteenth-century intellectual whose only claim to fame is the fact that he published the first vernacular logic.103 Tridapale shows that underlying Alexander’s criticism was the notion that knowledge was a form of power that dissipates once it enters the public domain. The question of whether it was right for knowledge to have been the exclusive preserve of a small group of people for so long – if it leads to power and domination over others – was a pressing concern for vulgarizers. 99 See Andrew L. De Gaetano, “Tre lettere inedite di G.B. Gelli e la purgazione de ‘I capricci del bottaio’,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 134 (1957): 298–313. 100 Ginzburg, Il formaggio e i vermi, 12: “Io ho questa opinione, che il parlar latin sia un tradimento de’ poveri, perché nelle litte li pover’homini non sano quello si dice et sono strussiati, et se vogliono dir quatro parole bisogna haver un avocato.” 101 Mario Pozzi, “Tradurre per una maggiore equità sociale e culturale,” in “Fedeli, diligenti, chiari e dotti.” Traduttori e traduzione nel Rinascimento (Bologna: Cleup, 2016), 72. 102 See Marianne Pade, The Reception of Plutarch’s Lives in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2007), 52. 103 See Antonio Tridapale, La loica in lingua volgare (Venezia: Gherardo, 1547), 2r; Marco Sgarbi, The Italian Mind: Vernacular Logic in Renaissance Italy (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 127–53.

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Tridapale, like Gelli, Brucioli, and many other vulgarizers from the same period, was clear on this point: knowledge must be available to all, and therefore, in order to reach as many people as possible, it must be written in the vernacular as well as Latin. Alexander the Great’s desire to keep all knowledge for himself and thereby maintain his power over other men is for this reason inhuman. As we have seen, if – as Aristotle asserts – all human beings tend naturally towards knowledge, denying them access to knowledge is an inhuman endeavour. This was also the perspective endorsed in 1493 by Bernardino da Feltre, who questioned the success of the vernacularization of the Bible, relating it to the Aristotelian conception of acquiring virtue: What does it mean, such an abundance of books filling every town and every villa? Once it was forbidden to translate the Bible into vernacular and now it is put into print in the vernacular. What would this mean other than that God in these dark and miserable times has given us so much light that no one can be excused? There was never so much light in the world, that all writings exist for making the human being more virtuous, as Aristotle says. There are as many learned men as stars in the sky … We have never seen so many books. … Christians cannot be excused because we have access to so much knowledge, or at least we are supposed to. If from the legal point of view, there is no difference between knowing, having to know and having the possibility of knowing easily, who can excuse himself with so many books, preachers, confessors, religious men and laws?104

In order to provide all human beings with the opportunity to explore their capabilities and to become fully human, Tridapale, Gelli, and many others state that the highest ambition is not to conceal all knowledge from the greater part of men, but – on the contrary – to help others gain knowledge 104 Bernardino da Feltre, Sermoni (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1940), 340: “Quid vult dicere tanta habundatia librorum quibus omnis villa et domus est plena? Olim erat prohibitum ut nunquam Biblia esset in vulgari redacta, et tamen nunc est impressa in vulgari. Quid vult dicere hoc, nisi quod Deus, istis temporibus infelicissimis et obscuratis, tantum lumen fecit ut nemo possit excusari. Nunquam fuit tantum lumen in mundo, chè omnis scriptura est ad hunc finem ut faciat hominem virtuosiorem, ut dicit Aristoteles. Tot doctores, sicut stelle celi. […] Non fu mai veduto tanti libri […] Christiani erunt inexcusabiles quia habemus plus cognitionem, vel saltem tenemur habere; quia secundum jus paria sunt: scire, scire debere, et faciliter scire posse, quis potest se excusare, tanta habundantia librorum, predicatorum, confessorum, religiosorum et legum?”

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of those things that nature has made available to us all, even revealing the most difficult and arcane secrets. If, according to Bernardino, there is no difference in practice – legally speaking – between knowing, having to know and the possibility of knowing easily, we can say that there is such a difference if no vulgarizations are provided. Hence the need to translate Aristotle and all kinds of knowledge into the vernacular for the people. Communication and the spread of knowledge are a value to be cherished and upheld, according to Aristotle’s vulgarizers, and its defence requires a transvaluation of the values that had accompanied culture up until that moment. Knowledge is no longer to be perceived as predominantly closed, aristocratic, and partly “tied to a vision of the world and history that belonged to hermeticism”;105 it is now more open, “democratic” and “egalitarian.” While it is important to avoid over-generalizing, it is nevertheless the case that – in terms of opening up knowledge – Aristotle’s vernacular works display some of the qualities that are later to be found in some aspects of “modern science.” For a long time in the Middle Ages, and later into the Renaissance period, the man of learning was viewed as something akin to a magician who had the power to penetrate the inner workings of an infinitely complex reality, the secrets of which had to be kept hidden from the common people to avoid its debasement. Remember the words of Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim: “any experience of magic holds the public in contempt, wants to be hidden, builds its strength in silence, and is destroyed when broadcast.”106 Thanks primarily to Aristotle’s vulgarizers, secrecy in Renaissance Italy generally became an anti-value, whereas sharing and opening up knowledge became a moral imperative.107 Although in terms of modern historiography, magic, philosophy, and science in the Renaissance are hopelessly entangled,108 their 105 Paolo Rossi, La nascita della scienza moderna in Europa (Roma-Bari: Laterza 1997), 19. For a careful investigation of the problem see Vittoria Perrone Compagni, “Parlare velato: trasmissione esoterica della verità nel Rinascimento,” in La verità in scrittura (Firenze: Clinamen, 2013), 73–86. 106 Agrippa von Nettesheim, Opera Omnia (Lyon: Bering, 1550), vol. 1, 498. 107 On “openness of knowledge” see William Eamon, “From the Secrets of Nature to Public Knowledge: The Origins of the Concept of Openness in Science,” Minerva, 23 (1985): 321–47; William Eamon, “From the Secrets of Nature to Public Knowledge,” in Reappraisals of Scientific Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 333–66; Pamela O. Long, “The Openness of Knowledge: An Ideal and Its Context in 16th-Century Writings on Mining and Metallurgy,” Technology and Culture, 2 (1991): 318–255; Pamela O. Long, Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 175–243. 108 See Brian Vickers (ed.), Occult & Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Paolo Rossi, Il tempo dei maghi. Rinascimento e modernità (Milano: Raffaello Cortina, 2006), 103–29.

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approach to knowledge could hardly be more different. Aristotle’s vulgarizers are closest to the ideal conception of knowledge of “modern science,” and we might even say they were its most immediate and fertile precursors. Those who criticized Alessandro Piccolomini for his vulgarizations, which perforce appeared to be directed at “uncouth” people and “people devoid of judgement,” were reminded by him of the distinction between intelligent people without access to culture who needed educating, and people who were completely uninterested in knowledge and devoid of any capacity for critical thought, who were therefore unsuited to be recipients for his works: And they are greatly deceived if they think that those who read my works are uncouth and so devoid of judgement that they assume that with the same amount of concentration and immediacy of understanding that is required to read fables and romances, they can tackle matters astrological and scientific, almost as if writing in our language necessarily entailed giving the same degree of clarity to all subjects. Be it not pleasing to God that such ill-fortune should befall this work that it should fall into the hands of such uncouth and inept readers that believe such things.109

Piccolomini’s critique is double-edged: those who presume to read scientific works in the vernacular as if they were fables are uncouth and inept, but those who believe that vulgarizations are of a low cultural and doctrinal order just because they are not written in Greek or Latin are even more so. For Piccolomini, as for many other contemporary vulgarizers, it is absolutely clear that this is not a case of casting the pearls of knowledge “before swine,” as a certain kind of culture that claimed lordship over knowledge presumed; on the contrary, it is a matter of supplying – pro bono publico – a vast public that wants to be educated with the knowledge and the means to achieve cultural emancipation, not only for the sake of advancement of science, but also for the purpose of ethical and moral edification.110 This is why the 109 Alessandro Piccolomini, La prima parte dele theoriche overo speculationi dei pianeti (Venezia: Varisco, 1558), A1v: “e si ingannano di gran lungi, se pensano che le persone che son per leggere li scritti miei, sieno si rozzi, & privi d’ogni giuditio, che si stimino, che con quella medesima attenzione, & subita apprensione, con la quale si leggano le favole, & le novelle, con la medesima si devin leggere le materie astrologiche, & scientifiche cosi fatte, quasi che lo scrivere in lingua nostra habbia de porgere ugualmente ad ogni materia ugual chiarezza. Non piaccia a Dio che con si mala fortuna venga fuora questa opera, che l’habbia da venire in mano di lettori cosi rozi, & inetti, che questo credino.” 110 See William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 319–350; Rossi, Il tempo dei maghi. Rinascimento e modernità, 275–304.

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Figure 4.2: Frontispiece of Agrippa’s De occulta philosophia with the motto Nihil est opertum, quod non reveletur, & occultum quod non sciatur.

relationship between vernacular Aristotelianism and the democratization of knowledge constitutes an important chapter in the intellectual history of the Renaissance.

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References a. Primary Sources Agrippa von Nettesheim. Opera Omnia (Lyon: Bering, 1550). Amulio, Natalino. Prima parte del nouo testamento, ne laqual si contengono i quattro euangelisti, in uno, cioè vita, passione, et resurretione di Iesu Christo Nostro Saluatore (Venezia: Speranza, 1544). Amulio, Natalino. Vita, passione e resurrettione di Iesu Christo nostro Salvatore (Venezia: Speranza, 1544). Bembo, Pietro. Prose della volgar lingua, ed. Carlo Dionisotti (Torino: UTET, 1931). Bernardino da Feltre. Sermoni (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1940). Boccalini, Traiano. De’ Ragguagli di Parnaso (Venezia: Farri, 1612). Brucioli, Antonio. I sacrosanti libri del vecchio testamento (Venezia: Zanetti, 1540). Brucioli, Antonio. La Biblia (Venezia: Giunti, 1532). Brucioli, Antonio. Nuovo commento ne divini et celesti libri evangelici (Venezia: Brucioli, 1542). Musso, Cornelio. Prediche sopra il simbolo de gli Apostoli … (Venezia: Giunti, 1601). Muzio, Girolamo. Battaglie (Venezia: Dusinelli, 1582). Panigarola, Francesco. “Questioni intorno alla favella del predicatore italiano,” in Degli autori del ben parlare per secolari e religiosi opere diverse (Venezia: Salicata, 1643). Piccolomini, Alessandro. Copiosissima parafrase di M. Alessandro Piccolomini nel primo libro della Retorica di Aristotele (Venezia: Varisco, 1565). Piccolomini, Alessandro. La prima parte dele theoriche overo speculationi dei pianeti (Venezia: Varisco, 1558). Piccolomini, Alessandro. La prima parte della filosofia naturale (Roma: Valgrisi, 1551). Piccolomini, Alessandro. Sopra le Mechaniche d’Aristotele (Roma: Zanetti, 1582). Speroni, Sperone. Dialogo delle lingue (Pescara: Libreria dell’Università, 1999). Speroni, Sperone. Opere (Venezia: Occhi, 1740). Tomitano, Bernardino. “Discorso sopra l’eloquenza e l’artificio delle prediche e del predicare di Monsignor Cornelio Musso,” in Maria Teresa Girardi, “L’arte compiuta del vivere bene.” L’oratoria sacra di Cornelio Musso (1511–1574) (Pisa: ETS, 2012), 217–24. Tomitano, Bernardino. Espositione letterale del testo di Mattheo Evangelista di M. Bernardin Tomitano (Venezia: Griffo, 1547). Tomitano, Bernardino. Oratione alli Signori della santissima Inquisitione (Padova: Perchacino, 1556). Tridapale, Antonio. La loica in lingua volgare (Venezia: Gherardo, 1547). Varchi, Benedetto. Opere (Trieste: Lint, 1859).

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Davi, Maria Rosa. Bernardino Tomitano. Filosofo, medico e letterato (1517–1576). Profilo biografico e critico (Trieste: Lint, 1995). De Biasio, Luigi. “La difesa di Cornelio Frangipane per Isabella Frattina davanti al Sant’Uffizio veneziano,” Memorie storiche forogiuliesi, 73 (1993): 149–58. De Bujanda, Jesús Martínez. Index de Venise 1549, Venise et Milan 1554 (Genève: Droz, 1987). De Gaetano, Armand L. Gianbattista Gelli and the Florentine Academy: The Rebellion against Latin (Firenze: Olschki, 1976). De Gaetano, Andrew L. “Tre lettere inedite di G.B. Gelli e la purgazione de ‘I capricci del bottaio’,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 134 (1957): 298–313. De Rosa, Gabriele. Tempo religioso e tempo storico. Saggi e note di storia sociale e religiosa dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1987), 395–442. Del Col, Andrea. “Il controllo della stampa a Venezia e i processi di Antonio Brucioli (1548–1559),” Critica storica, 3 (1980): 457–510. Del Soldato, Eva. “Aristotelici, accademici ed eretici. Simone Porzio e Giovan Battista Gelli,” in Simone Porzio, An homo bonus vel malus volens fiat (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura: Roma, 2005), V-XXIX. Douglas, Richard. Jacopo Sadoleto, 1477–1547. Humanist and Reformer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959). Eamon, William. “From the Secrets of Nature to Public Knowledge,” in Reappraisals of Scientific Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 333–66. Eamon, William. “From the Secrets of Nature to Public Knowledge: The Origins of the Concept of Openness in Science,” Minerva, 23 (1985): 321–47. Eamon, William. Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Firpo, Massimo. Pietro Bizzarri esule italiano del Cinquecento (Torino: Giappichelli, 1971). Fragnito, Gigliola. Gasparo Contarini. Un magistrato veneziano al servizio della cristianità (Firenze: Olschki, 1988). Ginzburg, Carlo. Il formaggio e i vermi (Torino: Einaudi, 1976). Girardi, Maria Teresa. “Cornelio Musso, predicatore e vescovo francescano dell’età conciliare,” Studia Borromaica, 21 (2007): 307–24. Girardi, Maria Teresa. Il sapere e le lettere in Bernardino Tomitano (Milano: Vita e pensiero, 1995). Gregory, Tullio. Origini della terminologia filosofica moderna. Linee di ricerca (Firenze: Olschki, 2006).

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Jedin, Hubert. “Der Franziskaner Cornelio Musso, Bischof von Bitonto. Sein Lebensgang und seine kirchliche Wirksamkeit,” Römische Quartalschrift, 41 (1933): 207–75. Leushuis, Reinier. “Dialogical Strategies, Volgarizzamento, and Ciceronian Ethos in Antonio Brucioli’s Dialogi della morale filosofia,” Quaderni d’italianistica, 30 (2009): 39–66. Long, Pamela O. “The Openness of Knowledge: An Ideal and Its Context in 16thCentury Writings on Mining and Metallurgy,” Technology and Culture, 2 (1991): 318–255. Long, Pamela O. Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Marazzini, Caludio. “Il predicatore sciacqua i panni in Arno. Questione della lingua ed eloquenza sacra nel Cinquecento,” in Lingua tradizione rivelazione (Casale Monferrato: Marietti, 1989), 12–20. Marazzini, Claudio. Storia della lingua italiana. Il secondo Cinquecento e il Seicento (Bologna: il Mulino, 1993). Mayer, Thomas F., Reginald Pole: Prince & Prophet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Norman, Corrie E. Humanist Taste and Franciscan Values: Cornelio Musso and Catholic Preaching in Sixteenth-Century Italy (New York: Peter Lang, 1998). Pade, Marianne. The Reception of Plutarch’s Lives in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2007). Perrone Compagni, Vittoria. “Cose di filosofia si possono dire in volgare. Il programma culturale di Giambattista Gelli,” in Il volgare come lingua di cultura dal Trecento al Cinquecento (Firenze: Olschki, 2003), 301–37. Perrone Compagni, Vittoria. “Parlare velato: trasmissione esoterica della verità nel Rinascimento,” in La verità in scrittura (Firenze: Clinamen, 2013), 73–86. Piaia, Gregorio. Sapienza e follia. Per una storia intellettuale del Rinascimento europeo (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2015). Poppi, Angelico. “Il commento della lettera di s. Paolo ai romani di Cornelio Musso,” Il Santo, 6 (1966): 225–60. Poppi, Angelico. “La spiegazione del Magnificat di Cornelio Musso (1540),” in Problemi e figure della scuola scotista del Santo (Padova: Edizioni Messagero, 1966), 415–89. Pozzi, Mario. “Tradurre per una maggiore equità sociale e culturale,” in “Fedeli, diligenti, chiari e dotti.” Traduttori e traduzione nel Rinascimento (Bologna: Cleup, 2016), 67–84. Pozzi, Mario. Trattatisti del Cinquecento (Milano: Ricciardi, 1978). Puliafito, Anna Laura. “Filosofia, letteratura e vita civile: Giovan Battista Gelli e il volgare,” Modernidades, 11 (2011), 1–15.

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Puliaf ito, Anna Laura. Volgarizzamento e propaganda: Giovan Battista Gelli e l’Accademia fiorentina, in Mecenati, artisti e pubblico nel Rinascimento (Firenze: Cesati, 2009), 640–55. Reusch, Franz Heinrich. Die Indices librorum prohibitorum des Sechzehnten Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: de Graaf, 1886). Rossi, Paolo. Il tempo dei maghi. Rinascimento e modernità (Milano: Raffaello Cortina, 2006). Rossi, Paolo. La nascita della scienza moderna in Europa (Roma-Bari: Laterza 1997). Seidel Menchi, Silvana. Erasmo in Italia 1520–1580 (Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1987). Seidel Menchi, Silvana. “La circolazione clandestina di Erasmo in Italia. I casi di Antonio Brucioli e Marsilio Andreasi,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere Filosofia, 9 (1979): 573–601. Seidel Menchi, Silvana. “Sulla fortuna di Erasmo in Italia. Ortensio Lando e altri eterodossi della prima metà del Cinquecento,” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte, 24 (1974): 537–634. Sgarbi, Marco. The Italian Mind: Vernacular Logic in Renaissance Italy (Leiden: Brill, 2014). Siekiera, Anna. “La questione della lingua in Alessandro Piccolomini,” in Alessandro Piccolomini (1508–1579) (Paris: Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur la Renaissance Italienne, 2012), 217–233. Simoncelli, Paolo. Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento. Questione religiosa e nicodemismo politico (Roma: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1979). Vasoli, Cesare. “Sperone Speroni: La filosofia e lingua. L’ombra del Pomponazzi e un programma di volgarizzamento del sapere,” in Il volgare come lingua di cultura dal Trecento al Cinquecento (Firenze: Olschki, 2003), 339–59. Vickers, Brian (ed.). Occult & Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

5.

Tools of the Trade Abstract Chapter 5 focuses on the tools of the trade of the democratizers of knowledge – that is, their language and their techniques for vulgarization and popularization. The first part reconstructs how the vernacular became a “language of knowledge” capable of expressing philosophy and science. Starting with Pietro Bembo’s vernacular humanism, the chapter examines the theoretical solutions of Sperone Speroni, Alessandro Piccolomini, Giovan Battista Gelli and Benedetto Varchi. The second part highlights the polysemy of “vulgarization” as a form of “translation” or “popularization.” The third and fourth parts deal with the conceptual techniques of vulgarization, namely metaphrasis, paraphrasis, summary, explanation, and annotation in Lodovico Castelvetro, Sebastianus Faustus Longianus, Orazio Toscanella, Francesco Robortello and Girolamo Catena. Keywords: Vulgarization, Popularization, Language, Translation

5.1

Language of Knowledge

To achieve the ambitious intentions and to realize the grand project of the democratization of knowledge, intellectuals were in need of a language capable of expressing even the most complex philosophical and scientific content, and also textual techniques that made it digestible for popular audience. Language and techniques are the democratizers’ tools of the trade. I have already pointed out that the democratization process was strictly related to language, and in particular to the diffusion of the vernacular. For more than a thousand years in Europe the main language for philosophy and science had been Latin. Latin in its various forms – albeit with regional and historical differences that cannot be smoothed away – constituted a relatively homogeneous background for European culture at least until the end of the nineteenth century. Around the twelfth century, vernacular

Sgarbi, M., The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: The Philosopher and the People. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463721387_ch05

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languages appeared on the literary scene alongside Latin, yet – except in a few sporadic cases – the vernacular language was neither judged suitable for, nor commonly implemented in philosophy and sciences.1 If the democratization of knowledge implies the adoption of the vernacular language – and I believe it so – it is important to understand how and why the vernacular became a “language of knowledge” in the period under consideration. By “language of knowledge,” I mean a language that is used to transmit different kinds of knowledge-seeking activities – such as philosophy or the sciences, or even sacred knowledge – and that is not restricted to any specific literary genre or area of interest. Framing the matter in this way makes the assertion that the vernacular became a language of knowledge only during the Renaissance, in the sixteenth century in particular, acceptable to almost all scholars.2 The vernacular had already made its mark as a literary language with the so-called Tre Corone (Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio), as well as beyond the confines of poetry with the works of authors such as Taddeo Alderotti, Dante and Boccaccio, or pieces like the Fiore di virtù,3 as Alison Cornish has magnificently demonstrated. But its use remained highly restricted. More importantly, in a century that has been defined by Christopher S. Celenza as the “long fifteenth century,”4 the vernacular underwent a marked downturn in theoretical and literary output – characterized by Mirko Tavoni as an “elimination of the autonomy and very existence of the vernacular by the humanists.”5 Needless to say, the same period also produced some notable exceptions, including Leon Battista Alberti, Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Cristoforo Landino, among others.6 It was only with the end of the fifteenth century and the invention of the printing press that the vernacular made a definitive comeback in the cultural panorama of the Italian Renaissance. Although oral and manuscript culture 1 Loris Sturlese (ed.), Filosofia in volgare nel Medioevo (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003); Rita Librandi and Rosa Piro (eds.), Lo scaffale della biblioteca scientifica in volgare (secc. XIII–XVI) (Firenze: Sismel, 2006); Gianluca Briguglia (ed.), Thinking Politics in the Vernacular from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Fribourg: Fribourg Academic Press, 2011). 2 Pietro Trifone, “L’affermazione del concetto di una lingua italiana come lingua di cultura e lingua comune degli italiani,” in Pre-sentimenti dell’Unità d’Italia nella tradizione culturale dal Due all’Ottocento (Roma: Salerno, 2012), 105–116. 3 See Alison Cornish, Vernacular Translation in Dante’s Italy: Illiterate Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 4 See Christopher S. Celenza, Il Rinascimento perduto. La letteratura latina nella cultura italiana del Quattrocento (Roma: Carocci, 2014), 241–63. 5 Mirko Tavoni, Storia della lingua italiana. Il Quattrocento (Bologna: il Mulino, 1992), 65. 6 On Quattrocento vernacularizations see Refini, The Vernacular Aristotle.

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continued to thrive, the rise and spread of printing was a key development that changed the way culture was consumed at the turn of the century, no doubt serving also as a catalyst that led to the firm establishment of the vernacular in Italy. Even so, in the age of the incunabula and the early years of the sixteenth century, the output of printed works in the vernacular remained somewhat limited, as many printers were still unwilling to include works that were not written in Latin in their catalogues. This was the case not only in Italy – arguably the cradle of humanism – but also across Europe,7 and it went hand-in-hand with the gradual spread of literacy in a growing cross-section of society.8 The political unrest that followed the death of Lorenzo the Magnif icent continued until the Sack of Rome in 1527, leading eventually to the def initive demise of the courtly system and resulting indirectly in the vernacular becoming the “language of knowledge” in Italy later than elsewhere in Europe – and at a time of acute political, religious and social upheaval. With the progressive, but slow, waning of the courtly system, intellectuals lost their customary patrons and were thus forced to reinvent themselves by penetrating new systems of cultural production, such as urban schools, abacus schools, academies, and printing houses. This obliged intellectuals in the sixteenth century to explore new horizons and open up to new audiences,9 and brought about full-scale cultural change. With the advent of printing, the context in which cultural unity was shaped ceased to be a physical location such as a court or a university, becoming rather a socio-intellectual space constituted by the book.10 The market shift from the court and the universities to a wider public sparked a demand for a language that was stripped of local expressions and that would allow books to be consulted or purchased by anyone anywhere in the peninsula.11 The assumption of a unitary linguistic model, therefore, was like a kind of natural corollary to the disruptive development of the printing press.12 7 Paolo Trovato, Storia della lingua italiana. Il primo Cinquecento (Bologna: il Mulino 1994), 22. 8 For literacy statistics in the sixteenth century with a special emphasis on Venice see Paul Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy. Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600 (Baltimore-London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 42–7. 9 See Vianello, Il letterato, l’Accademia e il libro, 3. 10 See Pietro Trifone, Rinascimento dal basso. Il nuovo spazio del volgare tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento (Roma: Bulzoni, 2006), 18. 11 See Trovato, Storia della lingua italiana. Il primo Cinquecento, 78. 12 Fournel and Paccagnella, Premessa, 13.

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It was in this quest for linguistic cohesiveness and understandability that the vernacular established itself as a “language of knowledge,”13 a process that proved to be anything but peaceful.14 The sixteenth century thus marked “the decisive spread throughout Italy of a unitary linguistic type,”15 that codified by Pietro Bembo, whose theory is contained in Prose della volgar lingua (1525). As long as the vernacular was subject to the vagaries of times, cities and people – in Bembo’s view – it would never become an idiom capable of the magnificence of Latin: indeed, a lack of rules and style prevented it from becoming a genuine language of knowledge. A lawless language cannot transmit knowledge, and for this reason in the Prose his concern was to establish norms and forms that would raise the dignity of the vernacular: the focus, thus, is not “on the content of what is written, but how it is written.”16 He took Petrarch and Boccaccio to be the models in this respect, and hence it was in their writings that the rules of grammar were to be sought. What mattered above all else was to discover the rules and ideas that would shape timeless models, on the basis of which it would be possible for the vernacular to compete on a par with Latin. The manner in which Bembo’s text was read was to seal the fate of the Prose, which came to play “a role in Italian culture that was opposite to what it had been written for, namely as a weapon of divisiveness.”17 It was “one of the most dramatic works of the century,” both for “the crisis of values that hangs over it,” and for “the sense of emptiness it left in its wake.”18 Many intellectuals from Sperone Speroni onwards – and we may include here Alessandro Piccolomini, Giovan Battista Gelli and Benedetto Varchi – carried Bembo’s project to an extreme, criticizing its aristocratic choice of favouring an elitist, mainly written, language. They believed that the vernacular was sometimes superior to Latin in terms of its expressive capacity. They maintained the idea that the vernacular suited all literary 13 See Trovato, Storia della lingua italiana. Il primo Cinquecento, 78; Trifone, Rinascimento dal basso, 17. 14 On this topic see Caterina Mongiat Farina, Questione di lingua. L’ideologia del dibattito sull’italiano nel Cinquecento (Ravenna: Longo, 2014). 15 Ghino Ghinassi, “Sulla lingua del Cinquecento,” Cultura e scuola, 3 (1964), 34. See Maurizio Vitale, L’oro nella lingua. Contributi per una storia del tradizionalismo e del purismo italiano (Milano: Ricciardi, 1986). 16 Bembo, Prose della volgar lingua, 43. 17 Giancarlo Mazzacurati, La crisi della retorica umanistica nel Cinquecento (Antonio Riccobono) (Napoli: Libreria scientifica editrice, 1961), 47; Mirko Tavoni, “Le Prose della volgar lingua di Pietro Bembo,” in Letteratura italiana. Le opere. I: Dalle. Origini al Cinquecento (Torino: Einaudi, 1992), 1084. 18 Mazzacurati, La crisi della retorica umanistica nel Cinquecento, 47.

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genres, whether poetry or prose, and all styles, from low to high. They were convinced that the dignity of the vernacular language does not depend necessarily on predetermined norms, which – on the contrary – are often seen as a barrier to communication and hence to the advancement of knowledge. Finally, they asserted that spoken language sometimes has even greater dignity than the written language in that it represents the primary form of communication. The linguistic theories of Speroni, Piccolomini and all the others set aside any reference to models and timeless ideals, did not pursue a hidden, eternal norm, but rather emphasized the communication and sharing of ideas in a world made of human beings able to realize their true natures. Speroni Speroni developed his new theory of language in the discourse Del modo di studiare. He believed that language was nothing more than a means for expressing and articulating the concepts that were contained within the mind.19 Hence the quest for the perfect language was entirely secondary and subordinate to knowledge of the concepts that give rise to wisdom. In very Erasmian fashion, he is deeply critical of those who waste their time “not learning why the truth is manifested, but what diction a Greek or Latin author used to signify any given thing back in their day.”20 Indeed, from the ancients he learned an important lesson about the instatement of the vernacular as the language of knowledge: There was perhaps a time when the glorious Romans, for whom the language of Athens was then what theirs is now to the Italians, disdaining new Latin words, resorted to the Greek … Which heresy, known by one Galba, by two Gracchi, debilitated by Crassus and Anthony, confuted by Hortensius, Marcus Tullius extinguished altogether; who, without considering that the Latin language was common to the Senate and the people of Rome, and that common people all over Italy spoke Roman, full of reasonable courage, happily orating and philosophizing in his own native tongue, set about demonstrating to everyone that it was possible to wrest from Athens’ grasp with force and with liberty the palm of speaking.21 19 Speroni, Opere, vol. 5, 488. 20 Ibid.: “imparando non per quali ragioni si mostri la verità, ma con che dizione alcuna cosa Greco o Latino scrittore significasse al suo tempo.” 21 Ibid.: 503–5: “fu forse un tempo, nel quale que’ gloriosi Romani, cui tale era la lingua d’Atene, quale è adesso la loro agl’Italiani, disdegnando loro nove Latine parole, alle Grece si riducevano … come in suo proprio albergo credevano essere riposta al vera gloria … La quale eresia conosciuta da un Galba, da due Gracchi, debilitata da Crasso e da Antonio, confutata da Ortensio, Marco

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Like Erasmus in the Ciceronianus, Speroni uses Cicero’s example of the transition from Greek to Latin to justify his idea that every age has its particular culture and language.22 If the purpose of a language is to communicate knowledge, then it is advisable to use the language that is most widely understood, and for Speroni in his own time, this was the vernacular. This was even more relevant for someone wishing to speak rhetorically and ornately – that is, the orator – because his job is easier if he accommodates the variety of customs of people living under different laws and at different times, rather than speaking in dead languages.23 If language should express the truth, therefore, and the truth is something acquired through knowledge, and equally knowledge differs across time, then language also differs across time in terms of its capacity to express new knowledge. Veritas est filia temporis, but also lingua est filia temporis. Such topics all receive fuller treatment in the more renowned Dialogo delle lingue, a genuine new Renaissance agenda that attested to the growing discrepancy with Ciceronianism and Bembo’s vernacular classicism. The theory of the supremacy of the vernacular, put in the mouth of a fictional Pietro Pomponazzi, is based upon this concept of the communicability of thoughts. His arguments in favour of the vernacular as the “language of knowledge” are clear and simple. It is not necessary to know Greek and Latin to be educated – on the contrary, the “study of Greek and Latin is the cause of our ignorance.” If so much time and effort was not devoted to studying them, there would be philosophers like Plato and Aristotle in the “new age” too, because in terms of genius, the moderns are by no means inferior to the ancients.24 For this reason, the Mantuan philosopher hopes that all knowledge may someday be transmitted in the vernacular,25 because this is the only way that those who do not know Greek or Latin will also be able to expand their horizons and contribute to advancement of knowledge. Hence, for the fictional Pomponazzi it is to be hoped that one day “of every thing in every country I may speak every language,” and

Tullio estinse del tutto; il quale senza guardare che la lingua latina fosse comune al senato ed alla plebe di Roma, e che volgarmente per tutta l’Italia sia parlasse Romano, pieno di ragionevole audacia, orando e filosofando felicemente con la sua lingua natia, diede a divedere ad ognuno quanto fosse possibil cosa alla repubblica Ateniese con l’imperio, con la libertà insieme tor di mano la palma del favellare. Altrettanto oramai dovrebbe essere adivenuto della lingua volgare.” 22 Ibid.: 504. See Cotugno, La scienza della parola, 33–47. 23 Ibid.: 508. 24 Speroni, Dialogo delle lingue, 186, 188. 25 Ibid.: 184.

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that the sciences and the arts should be under the tyranny of the Classical languages no longer.26 Speroni’s project was carried forward and further developed by Bernardino Tomitano in his Ragionamenti della lingua toscana (1545), a wholehearted endorsement of the vernacular language and its dissemination in fields of learning traditionally claimed by Latin, such as philosophy and the natural sciences. Tomitano maintained that the quest for a codified language was thus of marginal importance, and added nothing new to the content of knowledge existing behind the words: In addition to this, Aristotle and Plato’s speaking in Greek rather than Latin adds nothing to the cognitive power of the things they say; … the Tuscan, Venetian, Paduan and Brescian words and the other languages will convey the same essence to anyone who reads in the Greek.27

Searching for a sophisticated language adds nothing to the capacity to communicate; hence it is entirely legitimate to use Tuscan, Venetian, Paduan, or Lombard, rather than Greek or Latin. Another protagonist in this debate is Alessandro Piccolomini. The key work is De la Institutione di tutta la vita de l’homo (1542). Unlike Speroni, however, who considered all languages to be worthy of use as a means of communication, Piccolomini favours the Tuscan language as the gentlest, easiest, and fairest sounding,28 distinguishing between a literary Tuscan spoken by “men of sound judgement” and the language of the people, which must not be taught at all.29 This does not detract from the idea of the vernacular as a “language of knowledge” that is capable of expressing even the most complex of content, however. He is simply acknowledging the fact that the excessive variability of the spoken language might inhibit the correct understanding of a communication. By distinguishing between an 26 Ibid.: 188. See Luca Bianchi, L’aristotelismo vernacolare nel Rinascimento italiano: un fenomeno ‘regionale’?, in Centres and Peripheries in the history of Philosophical Thought (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), 47–68. 27 Bernardino Tomitano, Ragionamenti della lingua toscana (Venezia: De Farri, 1546), 40: “Oltre che per questo il parlar Greco d’Aristotile et di Platone, piu che mentre in Romane voci favellano, non accresce authorita alla cognitione delle cose lor dette, perciò che quello stesso che sotto la scorza delle Greche voci si contiene, fedelmente sotto le Romane inteso, et non pur quelle, ma le Toscane, Venetiane, Padovane, Bresciane, et altre voci rendera quello stesso odore a chiunque legge che nelle Greche.” 28 Alessandro Piccolomini, De la Institutione di tutta la vita de l’homo nato nobile e in città libera (Venezia: Scoto, 1545), 29v. 29 Ibid., 43r.

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educated vernacular and a vernacular of the common people, Piccolomini is not supporting the Bembian project to codify the language. In his letter to Pietro Aretino, dated 20 March 1541, he expresses his aversion to the classicist notion of reviving the “dead language” of Petrarch and Boccaccio, advocating a language that is capable of coining new terms for new concepts, as I have already shown in the previous chapter. It is for some months, if not years, that I have had it in mind, and now more than ever before, to render into our language not only certain things of astrology and cosmography written by Ptolemy; but also a large part of philosophical matters, both natural and moral, in accordance with the Peripatetics; not by translating, but by expanding where necessary, but in such a way as not to depart from the positions of Aristotle, first and foremost, but also his most important Greek interpreters. And this is the direction of my desire to show, against the views of many, that our language, when enriched with a few specific terms, would be for the rest amply suff icient, on a par with Latin, perhaps better, in terms of bringing to light nature’s every secret; and I say perhaps better, but in many things it is far closer than Latin to the Greek language, in which the treasure of philosophy is currently contained … what frightens me most about this project is seeing how many abhor any new word one dares to utter, and that using any word in any way that cannot be found in Petrarca or Boccaccio would be considered the utmost sacrilege. Indeed, I have often found myself in opposition to such individuals, defending the view that it is good to find new words for such concepts as find themselves these days stripped of vocabulary; and for no other reason than the fact that Boccaccio, or Petrarca never had occasion to use such concepts, as they did not write discursively on either natural or moral philosophy, or on metaphysics, or other such sciences; and if they had ever written about such things, who could doubt that they would have used new words to express the profound concepts they would have come across therein? … But since in far too great a proportion of human beings this unreasonable preconception is rooted, I have so far not ventured to turn my hand to this venture, which I have alluded to above; because one of two things shall prove necessary, namely to express with great circumlocution of words those concepts which have no words of their own; or indeed to find new words as required; of which the former would obfuscate and confuse sentences and concepts, where my intention is to clarify and express things which are extremely difficult, so that anyone who is averagely literate may understand … and

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so for all these reasons I have remained without putting into practice this intensely desired project.30

Piccolomini’s purpose is to show how the vernacular can be put to use as a “language of knowledge” that will supplant Greek and Latin. In order to achieve this, however, it is necessary first to break with the rigid parameters of Bembism, which is defined as an “unreasonable proposition” because of the idea that one cannot write using words and forms that are different from those that have been codified in the fourteenth-century Italian of Petrarch and Boccaccio. His rebellion against Bembo is clear in the Sfera del mondo: And to make this text less confused and easier to understand, I took some concepts that have no proper name in our language, to use words that perhaps cannot be found in either Boccaccio or Petrarca because they never had occasion to handle such concepts. And I was zealous in my 30 Pietro Aretino, Lettere scritte al Sig. Pietro Aretino da molti signori, comunità, donne di ualore, poeti, et altri eccellentissimi spiriti (Venezia: Marcolini, 1552), 143r–146v: “Io già più mesi e forse anni sono, ho avuto in animo et ho più che mai, di ridur ne la lingua nostra, non solo alcune cose di astrologia e di cosmografia, scritte da Tolomeo; ma ancor buona parte de le cose filosofiche, così naturali, come morali, secondo la via dei peripatetici; non traducendo, ma ampliando dove bisogna, di maniera però che io non mi parti dal parer primariamente di Aristotile e di poi dei primi suoi greci espositori. Et a questo principalmente mi muove il desiderio che io ho di mostrare contra il parer di molti, che la la lingua nostra, quando si arricchisse di alcuni pochi vocaboli, saria quanto al resto bastantissima non men che la latina e forse più, a mandar in luce ogni segreto ed la natura; e dico forse più, però che in molte cose assai più che la latina si assomiglia a la lingua dei greci, ne la quale oggi è riposto il tesoro de la filosofia … quel che de questo disegno mi ha alquanto spaventato, è il veder che molti aborriscon di sorte, qual si voglia parola che punto sia nuova, che gli osan di dire, che di quelle parole, che non si trovano o nel Petrarca, o nel Boccaccio, saria più che sacrilegio l’usarne alcuna in alcun modo. Et in vero, contra di questi tali, mi so trovato molte volte a difender che sia ben fatto di procacciar nuove parole per quei concetti che di vocaboli che esprimergli possino son spogliati ai tempi nostri; non per altro se no perché al Boccaccio, o al Petrarca, non accadde il servirsi di tali concetti come quegli che non scrissero distesamente, né in filosofia naturale o morale, o in metafisica, o altre così fatte scienze; che se di tai cose avesser trattato, chi dubita che con nuove parole i profondi concetti che in esse si trovano arreber fati palesi? … Ma perché in troppo gran parte de gli uomini è radicata questa irragionevol sentenzia, non ho osato di voler mai metter mano a questo disegno ch’io v’ho detto di sopra; perché l’una de le due cose saria necessario di fare, overo con lunghe circunduzzioni di parole esprimer quei concetti, che parole proprie non hanno; o veramente trovar nuove parole, secondo il bisogno di mano in mano; de le quai cose, la prima renderebbe oscure e confuse le sentenzie e i concetti, dove che io per il contrario vorrei le cose ancor che difficilissime sieno nondimeno render così chiare e palesi, che qual si voglia ancor che mezzanamente litterato intender le potesse … onde per tutti questi rispetti son restato fin oggi senza mettere ad effetto un così da me bramato disegno. Ma mi son finalmente risoluto di fidarmi in questo al tutto del vostro giudizio … da la vostra risposta depende la mia resoluzione.”

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intent because I judged it to be better to be understood with words that were not entirely ours than, whether by circumlocution or illustrating with some other forced reduction, to make my words so confused and hazy that what I essay to communicate through them cannot be understood by others, let alone by myself.31

The primary objective is to communicate and be understood, and in order to do this it is necessary to introduce new words. Hence, the endeavour to establish the vernacular language is also an endeavour to introduce new words – a topic that is by no means marginal, becoming indeed something of an obsession for Piccolomini. Piccolomini’s vernacular is thus versatile, not hidebound by rules of grammar and style, because knowledge evolves constantly and must be communicated to as wide a public as possible. The writings of Giovan Battista Gelli clearly show that the ideas of Speroni and Piccolomini gained currency also beyond the borders of the Veneto. In his I capricci del Bottaio (1546), Gelli’s concern was not to normalize and standardize the vernacular, but rather to promote a language that could be understood by, and communicated to, everyone. The ideas presented in I capricci are similar to Speroni’s, and are expressed in a very similar language. That Gelli wants to express his ideas through the words of a barrel-maker is a telling point. His work is in fact a critique of the artisan and merchant class of his time, which was concerned more with acquiring wealth than culture. The circumstance of not being able to devote oneself to knowledge, however, is determined not only by the myopic preoccupation with enrichment, but also by the diff iculty of gaining access to texts which were still transmitted primarily in the Classical languages. The ultimate aim of a language – as for Speroni and Piccolomini – is to communicate the concepts of the soul. In Gelli’s words, “the vernacular language is thus as suited to expressing its concepts as Latin.”32 Any concept may be expressed in the vernacular, even “the dif31 Alessandro Piccolomini, Della sfera del mondo (Venezia: Del Pozzo, 1552), 3v: “E per render questa opera men confusa e più chiara, ho preso ardir qualche volta intorno ad alcun concetto, a cui non manchi nome appropriato ne la lingua nostra, di usare alcun vocabolo, che forse apresso o del Boccaccio, o del Petrarca, non si trovarà, per non esser ad essi accaduti tai concetti al proposito loro. E questo ho fatto arditamente, perciò che molto meglio ho giudicato io, che sia l’essere inteso con alcun vocabolo non in tutto nostro, che o circunscrivendo, o con qualche sforzata riduttion dipingendo, render così confuse e fosche le mie parole, che né dagli altri, né da me stesso intender si possa quel che io tra quelle mi voglia dire.” 32 Gelli, Opere, 177: “la lingua vulgare così ben atta a manifestar i concetti suoi come la latina.”

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ficult matters of philosophy, no less easily and perfectly than by any Latin author.”33 Indeed, Our language is perfectly suited to expressing any concept of philosophy or astrology, or any other science, and every bit as well as Latin, perhaps even Greek too, about which they make such a fuss.34

To establish the vernacular as a “language of knowledge” in the same way as the Romans did for Latin and Greek is almost a moral imperative because: “the true responsibility of the citizens is always, in whichever way possible, to benefit their country, to which we are no less obliged than to our own fathers and mothers.”35 Gelli hopes that one day whoever wishes to learn will not need to waste four to six of his best years learning a language, only to then use it to go on to the sciences. Beyond this, they could be learned more easily and safely. … because one never learns a foreign language as well as one’s own.36

Vernacular languages give access to knowledge that would be difficult without many years of instruction and experience. Only natural language can adequately communicate thoughts, and there is no need for refinement.37 The project to establish the vernacular as a “language of knowledge” was brought to completion by another Florentine intellectual, Benedetto Varchi. In his posthumous Hercolano, dialogo nel qual si ragiona generalmente delle lingue e in particolare della fiorentina e della Toscana (1570), Varchi elaborates ideas common to Pomponazzi’s anthropology. First of all, he believes that “speech, in other words exterior human discourse, is nothing

33 Ibid., 178: “le diff icil cose di f ilosofia non manco facilmente e perfettamente che qual si voglia scrittore latino.” 34 Ibid., 182: “La nostra lingua è attissima a esprimere qual si voglia concetto di f ilosof ia o astrologia o di quaunche altra scienzia, e così bene come si sia la latina, e forse anche la greca, della quale costoro menano così gran vampo.” 35 Ibid., 198: “l’ufizio vero de’ cittadini è sempre, in qualunque modo si può, giovare a la patria, a la quale noi non siamo manco obligati che a’ padri e a le madri nostre.” 36 Ibid.: “chi desidera d’imparare non arebbe a consumare quattro o sei de’ primi suoi migliori anni in imparare una lingua, per poter poi col mezzo di quella passare a le scienze. Oltra di questo, le si imparerebbono più facilmente e con maggior sicurtà. … che e’ non s’impara mai una lingua esterna in modo che ella si possegga bene come la sua propria.” 37 Ibid., 200: “i forestieri, bene spesso col volerla troppo ripulire la guastano: onde avvien proprio a lei come a una donna bella, che, credendosi far più bella con il lisciarsi, più si guasta,”

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other than manifesting to others the concepts of the soul using words.”38 Speech is for Varchi a good that is common and natural to all human beings, but speaking many languages, or speaking one language rather than another, is anything but natural.39 Hence, there is no evidence to suggest that human beings need to learn Latin in order to communicate. This is because a human being does not naturally possess the characteristic of speech, but naturally possesses the capacity to speak, just as laughing is not proper to a human being, but being able to laugh is. 40 Speaking, therefore, is clearly natural, but it is also clear that speaking in this or that language, or in Latin or Greek, with or without rhetoric, depends entirely on circumstance, study, or will – in other words, on factors that are merely anthropological, historical, and cultural. In Dichiarazione sopra que’ versi del trionfo d’amore, therefore, Varchi hopes that one day all knowledge may be expressed in the vernacular: The Latins were followed by the Tuscans, who are able to write in a simple manner and with marvellous dexterity pretty much all that they turn their hand to. And I for my part have no doubt that in the course of time, despite the novelty of the language and the contrariness of the people as much as of the times, we shall see all or most of the sciences translated, or at least treated very satisfactorily, in the Tuscan language … nor does it seem to me to be true what many, basing themselves on the authority of the ancients, criticize so much, namely that the sciences should not be made manifest and explained to the people … but I say that each and every man of prudence and discernment must dedicate himself with all his might to making idiots and vulgar men less so as much as possible, and there is no other way than to teach them first the virtues, then the sciences. 41 38 Benedetti Varchi, L’Hercolano (Pescara: Libreria dell’Università, 1995), 530: “il parlare, cioè il discorso umano esteriore, non è altro che manifestare ad alcuno i concetti dell’animo mediante le parole.” 39 Ibid., 542. 40 Ibid., 543. 41 Varchi, Opere, vol. 2, 490: “Ai Latini sono i Toscani succeduti, i quali semplicemente e con agevolezza meravigliosa scrivono per lo più tutto quello che a scrivere prendono. Ed io per me non ho dubbio che in processo di tempo, nonostante la novità della lingua e la contrarietà non meno delle persone che dei tempi, s’abbiano a vedere o tutte o gran parte delle scienze nella lingua toscana felicissimamente o tradotte o trattate … né mi pare che sia vero quello che molti, fondatisi sopra l’autorità degli antichi, biasimano tanto, cioè che le scienze non si debbano manifestare e far palesi al volgo … ma dico che ciascuno prudente uomo e giudizio debbe ingegnarsi con tutto il poter suo che gli idioti e volgari uomini siano

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For Varchi, it is therefore important not only that language transmits knowledge, but also that it be understood by the people, including “idiots,” or illiterates. Such a conception of language necessarily entailed the abandoning of assumptions regarding linguistic ideals as eternal and unchangeable models that have to be adhered to in order to provide a definitively codified image of the world. In the specific case of Varchi, moreover, there is a general re-evaluation of the dimension of orality, which was one of the main vehicles for the transmission of knowledge in informal contexts in sixteenth-century Italy. With Speroni, Piccolomini, Gelli and Varchi, the sixteenth century offers a new theory of language. This “new” linguistic framework – inserted, as we have seen in the previous chapters, within a context in which Erasmus’s idea of democratization of knowledge and anti-Ciceronianism exerted a powerful fascination42 – gave a substantial impetus to the establishment of the vernacular as a “language of knowledge,” a language that was no longer limited to a narrow circle of intellectuals, but open to the people for the people.

5.2

Vulgarizing, Vernacularizing and Popularizing

The mid-sixteenth century, therefore, saw the vernacular establish itself as a “language of knowledge,” and vulgarization no longer being questioned in terms of its feasibility, as had been the case before. 43 A tool of the trade was ready to be used. Indeed, the question of its validity had become simply superfluous, at times even nonsensical. By then, vulgarization had become a well-established practice. 44 But what exactly was this practice? Once the meno che si possa, e ciò altramente non può farsi che con l’insegnare loro prima le virtù, poscia le scienze.” 42 One might ask whether this process would have been equally possible without Erasmus, or in other words, whether the process of transformation of the vernacular from an everyday or literary and poetical idiom to a “language of knowledge” was inevitable with the emergence of the printing press, entirely independently of the Erasmian ecosystem. However, what is clear from the study of sixteenth-century intellectuals is that they used Erasmus either implicitly or explicitly. So even if the process was independent, they found in Erasmus a confirmation and consolidation of their ideas. 43 Richardson brilliantly shows how paratextual elements were fundamental in justifying vulgarizations. See Brian Richardson, “Traduttori e dedicatari nel Rinascimento italiano,” in “Fedeli, diligenti, chiari e dotti.” Traduttori e traduzione nel Rinascimento (Bologna: Cleup, 2016), 23–66. 44 Bodo Guthmüller, “Fausto da Longiano e il problema del tradurre,” Quaderni veneti 12 (1990): 10–1.

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vernacular no longer needed legitimizing as a “language of knowledge,” and once the notion that vulgarizing was “extremely beneficial and honourable”45 began to be widely accepted, intellectuals began to focus their reflection on techniques for translating a text and making it more accessible. Charles F. Briggs has made use of this distinction in order to qualify two different practices: one, an intra-lingual practice – and this is our concept of vulgarization properly speaking – where a source is adapted and simplified; and the other, an inter-lingual practice which involves a process of mere transposition or translation from one language to another.46 This distinction, at least in the context of Italy, is misleading. Indeed, “volgarizzare” – that is, to “vulgarize”47 – from the first dawn of the Italian language, and in the fourteenth century especially, implied both an act of translating into the vernacular and making content accessible to people with a lower level of education. The Tesoro della lingua italiana delle origini illustrates this double meaning of the verb “to vulgarize.” Andrea from Grosseto mentions having “traslatato e vuolgarizato” the third book of De amore et dilectione Dei et proximi et aliarum rerum et de forma vitae by Albertano da Brescia, 48 whereas in his Rime Dino Compagni uses “volgarizar” to signify ‘to translate.’49 Angelo di Capua claims to have “vulgarizata” the Aeneid, “cumpilata per lu excellenti poeta Virgiliu mantuanu,”50 Ciampolo di Meo Ugurgieri speaks of having “vulgarizzato … il libro dell’Eneida di Virgilio,”51 and Giovanni Villani writes “sì metteremo apresso verbo a verbo la detta dichiarazione fatta fedelmente volgarizzare.”52 A series of notarial writings and chronicles use the term 45 Orazio Toscanella, Discorsi cinque (Venezia: De Franceschi, 1575), 28. 46 Charles F. Briggs, “Teaching Philosophy at School and Court: Vulgarization and Translation,” in The Vulgar Tongue: Medieval and Postmedieval Vernacularity (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2003), 99–111. 47 For a detailed examination of volgarizzamenti, see Giovanna Frosini, “Volgarizzamenti,” in Giuseppe Antonelli, Matteo Motolese, Lorenzo Tomasin (ed.), Storia dell’italiano scritto, II, Prosa (Roma: Carocci, 2014), 17–72; Remigio Sabbadini, “Del tradurre i classici in Italia,” Atene e Roma, 3 (1900): 202–217, sets the tone for any subsequent investigations. See, for example, Glyn P. Norton, “Translation Theory in Renaissance France: Etienne Dolet and the Rhetorical Tradition,” Renaissance and Reformation, 10 (1974): 1–13; Trovato, Storia della lingua italiana, 149. 48 Andrea from Grosseto, Dei Trattati morali di Albertano da Brescia volgarizzamento inedito del 1268 (Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1873), 286. 49 Isidoro Del Lungo, Dino Compagni e la sua Cronica (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1879), vol. 1, 387. 50 Gianfranco Folena (ed.), La istoria di Eneas vulgarizzata per Angilu di Capua (Palermo: Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani, 1956), 3. 51 Aurelio Gotti, L’Eneide di Virgilio volgarizzata nel buon secolo della lingua da Ciampolo di Meo degli Ugurgieri senese (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1858), 431. 52 Giovanni Villani, Nuova Cronica (Parma: Guanda Editore, 1990–1991), 59.

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‘vulgarize’ as a synonym of ‘translate’: “Questo constoduto fue volgarizato et scritto per me Ranieri Ghezi Gangalandi notaio, di comandamento de’ signori camarlèngo et quatro proveditori del comune di Siena,”53 “fermati et approvati fuorono li ditti statuti per lo generale Consiglo del popolo, e lecti e volgariçati nello ditto Consiglo per me Maççeo s. Giovanni Bellebuoni, notaio della ditta Opera,”54 “e ’l Camarlingo dell’Arte possa satisfare a’ Notari e alle persone che ’l detto Statuto scriveranno o volgarizzeranno,”55 “ch’igli faciano legere la dicta constitutione e fare vulgariçare in lo publico parlamento.”56 In all these cases “to vulgarize” means “to translate” or “to vernacularize,” but not in any sense “to popularize.” Vulgarization in the sense of popularizing, or making a text clearer and more palatable for a broader audience, is just as widely used: “io, frate Guidotto da Bologna, cercando le sue magne virtudi, sì mmi mosse talento di volere alquanti membri del fiore di rettorica volgarezzare,”57 “se a voi, o giovani, diletta d’imprendere la dottrina d’accendere e nutricare l’amoroso fuoco …, bene che sia fatica e un poco di riprensione a noi, a’ quali per istudio è dato conoscere e intendere i libri de’ poeti e de’ savi scritti in latino, volgarizagli, tuttavia … sodifacciamo alle vostre petizioni,”58 “fue uno filosofo, lo quale era molto cortese di volgarizzare la scienza a’ signori, per cortesi, e ad altre genti.”59 Transposing from one language to another and making content more accessible are two practices which are not always easy to distinguish without careful and detailed investigations. The two meanings have long co-existed, and their polysemy is just as appreciable today as it was in the Renaissance. What is interesting is that in this period intellectuals began to reflect on the process of vulgarization itself, and their perspectives reveal themselves to be much more complex and nuanced, to the extent that this twofold characterization quickly collapses into a multitude of theories and practices. 53 Alessandro Lisini (ed.), Il Costituto del comune di Siena volgarizzato nel MCCCIX–MCCCX (Siena: Lazzeri, 1903), 3. 54 Lucia Gai and Giancarlo Savino (ed.), L’Opera di S. Jacopo in Pistoia e il suo primo statuto in volgare (1313) (Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1994), 201. 55 Paolo Emiliani-Giudici, Storia dei Comuni italiani (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1866), 367. 56 Paolo Colliva, Il Cardinale Albornoz, lo Stato della Chiesa, le Constitutiones Aegidianae (1353–1357) (Bologna: Publicaciones del Real Colegio de España, Bologna, 1977), 644. 57 Bono Giamboni, Fiore di rettorica (Pavia: Dipartimento di Scienza della Letteratura e dell’Arte medioevale e moderna, 1994), 150 58 Vanna Lippi Bigazzi, I volgarizzamenti trecenteschi dell’Ars amandi e dei Remedia amoris (Firenze: Accademia della Crusca, 1987), vol. 2, 21. 59 Gualteruzzi da Fano, Libro di novelle, et di bel parlar gentile (Firenze: Giunti, 1572), 307.

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In the Italian Renaissance almost any attempt to make content more accessible to a wider public implied at least some form of translation from the classical languages into the vernacular where the production was not original, and this is what was meant by rendering into the vernacular (i.e. vernacularization). That said, however, we can make no general assumption – at least on the basis of the cases we have knowledge of – to the effect that every translation or vernacularization was in turn an instance of popularization.60 The transfer from Greek-Roman culture into the vernacular does not necessarily entail a form of simplification. The widespread distribution of a vast number of theoretically demanding Aristotelian texts – for instance on the question of the immortality of the soul, which until the 1540s was debated almost exclusively in the universities, but thereafter became common currency in vernacular writings too – flies in the face of the view that the vernacular was restricted to simplified works of a purely informational nature, such as “the ‘secret books’, or recipe books (pertaining to medicine, chemistry, cosmetics, cookery, etc.), a type of publication that enjoyed great success, but which because of its empirical nature was markedly different from academic and scientific treatises, which were generally written in Latin.”61 Either way, vulgarization is never a simple and neutral transmission of a text from one language to another; it is not a mere linguistic problem, because it always produces new knowledge.62 Hence, even when vulgarization is not intended as popularization, by making the text or its content more widely known, and also where a radical transformation of both is involved, it nevertheless fulfils the function of generating new knowledge.63 Purely on the grounds that it increases the number of recipients, this act of creating and disseminating new knowledge involves a certain kind of democratization of knowledge. This is especially in regard to philosophical and scientific texts since it is primarily from such texts that new knowledge 60 Marazzini, Storia della lingua italiana, 30. I provided some examples in Marco Sgarbi, “Benedetto Varchi on the Soul: Vernacular Aristotelianism between Reason and Faith,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 76 (2015): 1–23; Marco Sgarbi, Profumo d’immortalità. Controversie sull’anima nella filosofia volgare del Rinascimento (Rome: Carocci, 2016). 61 Marazzini, Storia della lingua italiana, 30. 62 George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 449. 63 See Jean Paris, “Translation and Creation,” in The Craft and Context of Translation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961), 57–67; Haroldo De Campos, “De la traduction comme création et comme critique,” Change, 14 (1973): 71–84; Lance Hewson, “The Vexed Question of Creativity in Translation,” in Palimpsestes. Traduire ou “Vouloir garder un peu de la poussière d’or…” (Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle: 2006), 53–65.

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is generated.64 The act of vulgarizing is always related to expressive 64 According to Gianfranco Folena, the fact of creating new knowledge means that every vulgarization fosters a new tradition. Insofar as it gives rise to a new tradition, vulgarization performs an act of parricide: it takes what it finds and transforms it into something original. Every vulgarization is famously a betrayal, because it is forced to abandon the archetype and what has guided it up to that point, however difficult that may be, in order that it may give birth to something new. To date, studies focusing on the vulgarization process have for the most part been concerned with the early phases of the Romance languages between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. See Gianfranco Folena, Volgarizzare e tradurre (Torino: Einaudi, 1991). Other studies on the vulgarization include Cesare Segre, Lingua, stile e società. Studi sulla storia della prosa italiana (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1963), 49–78; Geneviève Contamine (ed.), Traductions et traducteurs au Moyen Âge (Paris: CNRS, 1989); Bodo Guthmüller, “Die volgarizzamenti,” in Grundriß der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, Bd. 10: Die italienische Literatur im Zeitalter Dantes und am Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Renaissance (Heidelberg: Winter Verlag 1989), 201–54, 333–48; Jeanette M.A. Beer (ed.), Translation Theory and Practice in the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University Press, 1997); Rita Beyers, Jozef Brams and Dirk Sacré (eds.), Tradition et traduction. Les textes philosophiques et scientifiques grecs au Moyen Age latin (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999); Jacqueline Hamesse (ed.), Les traducteurs au travail. Leurs manuscrits et leur méthodes (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001); Luca Morlino, “Volgarizzare e trasporre. Una postilla al lessico della traduzione,” Critica del testo, 17 (2014): 143–57. Another line of enquiry has dealt with the problem of translation from Greek into Latin under Humanism. See Mariarosa Cortesi, “La tecnica del tradurre presso gli Umanisti,” in The Classical Tradition in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Spoleto: CISAM, 1995), 143–68. Detailed investigations have been carried out for France. See Glyn P. Norton, The Ideology and Language of Translation in Renaissance France and their Humanist Antecedents (Geneva: Droz, 1984); Virginia Worth, Practicing Translation in Renaissance France: The Example of Etienne Dolet (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). Few studies have been written on the theory of vulgarization in the Italian Renaissance. See Bodo Guthmüller, “Antico-moderno, latino-volgare. Zum literarischen Traditionsbewußtsein im Cinquecento,” in Die Präsenz der Antike im Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Frühen Neuzeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 231–46; Bodo Guthmüller, “Letteratura nazionale e traduzione dei classici nel Cinquecento,” Lettere Italiane, 45 (1993): 501–18; Bodo Guthmüller, “Literaturgeschichte und Volgare in der ersten Hälfte des Cinquecento,” in Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: Humanismus und Historiographie (Weinheim: Acta humaniora, 1991), 105–23. For the most part, scholars have been concerned primarily with the translation of literary texts rather than philosophical and scientif ic texts. Some examples are Bodo Guthmüller, Ovidio Metamorphoseos vulgare. Formen und Funktionen der volkssprachlichen Wiedergabe Klassicher Dictung in der italienischen Renaissance (Boppard am Rhein: Bold, 1981); Antonietta Porro, “Volgarizzamenti e volgarizzatori di drammi euripidei a Firenze nel Cinquecento,” Aevum, 55 (1981), 481–508; Luciana Borsetto, Il furto di Prometeo. Imitazione, scrittura, riscrittura nel Rinascimento (Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso, 1991); Luciana Borsetto, L’“Eneida” tradotta. Riscritture poetiche del testo di Virgilio nel XVI secolo (Milano: Unicopli, 1989). Only recently there has been a surge of interest in the various translation practices that were adopted. See Riccardo Tesi, Aristotele in Italiano. I grecismi nelle traduzioni rinascimentali della Poetica (Firenze: Accademia della Crusca, 1997); Alessio Cotugno, “Piccolomini e Castelvetro traduttori della Poetica (con un contributo sulle modalità dell’esegesi aristotelica nel Cinquecento),” Studi di lessicografia italiana, 23 (2006), 113–219; Annalisa Siekiera, “Aspetti linguistici e stilistici della prosa scientifica di Benedetto Varchi,” Studi linguistici italiani, 33 (2007): 3–50; Annalisa Siekiera, “La Poetica vulgarizzata et

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techniques – it is the nature of the literary genres employed. As Alessio Cotugno and Eugenio Refini have so brilliantly shown, it is difficult to speak of vulgarization without reference to the manner in which a text is vulgarized – in other words, to the techniques of production, exegesis and interpretation adopted.65 It is clear that the choice of one literary genre over another implied a different approach to the original text. For this reason, it became a matter of importance to investigate the possibilities and limitations of vulgarization. The most pressing concern for these intellectuals was therefore to define the criteria and principles according to which it was possible or even necessary to vulgarize. Such principles seemingly opened the way to selecting the best vulgarization technique: the second tool of the trade for the vulgarizer.66 For Renaissance scholars it was a matter of where they stood with regard to the question of the question “do we vulgarize according to the words or the meaning?”67 Some intellectuals approached the idea of vulgarization as a form of translation in the strictest sense – in other words, to “convert,” “transpose,” “interpret” and “render or return” (convertere, transferre, sposta per Lodovico Castelvetro e le traduzioni cinquecentesche del trattato di Aristotele,” in Ludovico Castelvetro. Letterati e grammatici nella crisi religiosa del ‘500 (Firenze: Olschki, 2008), 25–45; Annalisa Siekiera, “L’eredità del Varchi,” in Varchi e altro Rinascimento. Studi per Vanni Bramanti (Manziana, Vecchiarelli, 2013), 145–71; Annalisa Siekiera, “I lettori di Aristotele nel Cinquecento: i libri e le carte di Benedetto Varchi,” Studi Linguistici Italiani, 39 (2013): 198–218; Alessio Cotugno, “Le Annotationi di Piccolomini e la Poetica di Castelvetro a confronto: tecnica argomentativa, vocabolario critico, dispositivi esegetici,” in Renaissance Conflict and Rivalries Research Colloquim (Göttingen: V&R-Bonn University Press, 2015), 161–206; Alessio Cotugno, “Osservazioni linguistiche sull’Instrumento della filosofia di Alessandro Piccolomini. Testualità, lessico, procedimenti espositivi,” in David A. Lines and Eugenio Refini (eds.), “Aristotele fatto volgare”: Tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 99–148; Annalisa Siekiera, “Riscrivere Aristotele: la formazione della prosa scientifica in italiano,” in David A. Lines and Eugenio Refini (eds.), “Aristotele fatto volgare”: Tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 149–167; Karen Newman and Jane Tylus (eds.), Early Modern Cultures of Translation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); Andrea Rizzi, Vernacular Translators in Quattrocento Italy: Scribal Culture, Authority, and Agency (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017); Annalisa Siekiera, “Fare in modo che s’intenda. La scienza tradotta di Benedetto Varchi,” L’Ellisse, 13 (2018): 65–77. 65 Cotugno, “Piccolomini e Castelvetro traduttori della ‘Poetica’,” 113–219; Cotugno, “Osservazioni linguistiche,” 99–148; Cotugno, “Le ‘Annotationi’ di Piccolomini e la Poetica di Castelvetro,” 161–206; Refini, The Vernacular Aristotle. 66 This theory of vulgarization became possible only when the idea that it was necessary also to reproduce the most formal forms of Latin into the vernacular was abandoned. See Dionisotti, Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana, 167; Guthmüller, “Fausto da Longiano e il problema del tradurre,” 13. 67 Guthmüller, “Fausto da Longiano e il problema del tradurre,” 21.

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interpretari, reddere). This involved to all intents and purposes a word-forword translation (verbum pro verbo). Others investigated vulgarization not as a direct translation or word-for-word transposition, but above all as a rendering of the true sense of the author’s message, in line with St Jerome’s dictum “do not render word-for-word, but express the original sense” (non verbum e verbo, sed sensum exprimere de sensu).68

5.3 Translating Theoretical considerations on translation as a form of vulgarization tend to show its limits rather than its potentialities. One of the earliest documents to offer an insight into the question of the meaning of translation is a letter dated 7 May 1543 from Ludovico Castelvetro to Gaspare Calori.69 Castelvetro’s letter is built around three core themes: (1) the genetic priority of concept over word; (2) the semantic power of concept over word; (3) the impossibility of deriving the former from the latter. This last impossibility gives rise to the single greatest issue in translation, namely its reliability. While it is difficult to relate a word to a concept of our own, it is well-nigh impossible to do so with a word that replaces another word that already refers to another’s concept. The impossibility of knowing the soul’s concepts and affects – that is, the intentions of the author – constitutes the first major obstacle to translation. But Castelvetro also exposes a second problem. Each language contains concepts that are in some way inseparable from words because throughout the course of the centuries they have built up a certain semantic value that can be transposed from one language to another only with great difficulty. These are the so-called “untranslatables.”70 The questions relating to linguistics and the theory of translation that Castelvetro raises present no easy solutions, and one may well be lulled into seeing some kind of equivalence between thought/concept and linguistic 68 Cicero’s theory of translation was pivotal in the discussion of the theory of vulgarization in the sixteenth century. Indeed, what he wrote in De finibus III.15, – that is, “it is not necessary to squeeze out a translation word by word, as ineloquent interpreters do, when there is a more familiar word conveying the same meaning because I usually use several words to expose what is expressed in Greek by one, if I am unable to do anything else,” was to inspire generations of scholars. 69 I quote from the latest edition by Enrico Garavelli in Lodovico Castelvetro, Lettere Rime Carmina (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2015). 70 Castelvetro, Lettere Rime Carmina, 123.

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utterance/word – a kind of nominalism, in other words, or one-to-one correspondence.71 This cannot be Castelvetro’s position, however, because it would imply that only one specific word could be used to express a specific concept, and hence no translation would be possible. Far more simply, Castelvetro speaks of a customary use of language, a kind of habitus. Just as we are accustomed to seeing water as transparent and find it strange to see it black, so we are accustomed to using certain words and not others for certain concepts.72 Castelvetro offers no solution to the problem of the untranslatables, or how to transpose from one language to another concepts that are closely bound to a word without resorting to loan-words from the source language. Castelvetro appears to be operating, albeit unconsciously, in a manner that is highly philosophical rather than philological. The aim is to identify in the target language the word that best characterizes the source concept, and then to translate it. This naturally implies a deep understanding of the concept – an understanding which had hitherto remained unattainable given the impossibility of reading concepts stripped of words. The best one can do to overcome this difficulty is to acquire an in-depth knowledge of the subject in question, namely the text to be vulgarized. However philological Castelvetro’s approach may seem, and however closely he may focus on finding the right words, it is content, or the concept, that provides the key to his theory of translation. To overlook the content would mean to create the paradoxical situation of expressing serious concepts with frivolous words, or frivolous concepts with serious words. This might explain Cicero’s aversion to word-for-word translations, but still, according to Castelvetro, Cicero is not critical of literal translation in an overall sense. Rather Cicero wishes to assert that it is possible to adopt different approaches to rendering a source text according to the situation. Following Aulus Gellius, in his Noctes Atticae IX, 1–2, Castelvetro made reference to the author and not the translator when claiming that it was not necessary to translate a source text word-for-word.73 An author for Castelvetro is not one who dresses concepts in words for the first time – at least, not only this. Like so many others after him, he refers rather to the etymological meaning of the word “author,” which translates the Latin “auctor,” from “auctus,” perfect participle of “augeo,” meaning “to enlarge,” “to augment,” “to develop” and “to expand.” Anyone who is not a 71 See Werther Romani, “Lodovico Castelvetro e il problema del tradurre,” Lettere Italiane, 18 (1966): 156; Riccardo Drusi, “Recensione a Bodo Guthmüller, Faustus Longianus e il problema del tradurre, “Quaderni Veneti,” 12, 1990, 9–152,” Lettere Italiane, 45 (1993): 468–75. 72 Castelvetro, Lettere Rime Carmina, 123–4. 73 Ibid., 126.

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very literal translator, therefore, is for Castelvetro an author, in the sense that he enlarges, augments, develops and expands the source text. It is not necessary to be innovative to be an author. Any vulgarizer who is not merely a very direct translator is an author, because he expands a source text making it more transparent for the reader. Castelvetro’s perspective is taken further by Sebastianus Faustus Longianus in his dialogue Del modo de lo tradurre d’una in altra lingua segondo le regole mostrate da Cicerone (1556).74 The fictional dialogue is based on the story of two intellectuals engaged in debate as to whether it is right to translate word-for-word or according to meaning.75 Here, translating means above all to convert and transpose faithfully from one language to another.76 Translation is part of a wider psychological process based on a word/thing dichotomy of Aristotelian derivation: “any utterance … consists of nothing more than two elements: things and words.”77 Things, meaning “statements, senses, feelings, matters, concepts, are considered first,” and are prior to words, which are only an ornament to them. The priority is to preserve “the order of things,” meaning the concepts themselves – that is to say, not to alter the sense of the original author’s argument. The content must be preserved, and only subsequently is it possible to apply “the same forms and figures, or conformations, … ornaments, … or patterns.”78 It is therefore necessary to translate “with appropriate words and beyond that to preserve the virtue, the force and the value of the words of the language from which one is transposing.”79 This means that words play a crucial role as a “garment” for concepts.80 In the case of pure translation, however, the task should be to “stay within the words if possible and express the meaning.” In other words, for Faustus Longianus translation should be word-for-word, if in such a manner the meaning may be conveyed. Clearly this is not easily achieved: there is 74 On Longianus and his translation of Aristotelian vernacular works see Dario Tessicini, “Fausto da Longiano’s Meteorologia (1542) and the Vernacular Transformations of Aristotle’s Natural Philosophy in the Sixteenth Century,” Rivista di storia della filosofia, 2 (2019): 309–26. 75 I quote from Guthmüller’s edition in “Fausto da Longiano e il problema del tradurre” referring to the paragraph. Longianus, Dialogo del modo de lo tradurre d’una in altra lingua segondo le regole mostrate da Cicerone, § 38. 76 Ibid., § 54. 77 Ibid., § 115: “Ogni parlare, che s’è fatto, e farassi da qualunque si sia in tutto l’universo in voce, od in iscritto non costa piu che di due parti di cose, e di parole.” 78 Ibid., § 119. 79 Ibid., § 85: “Deggono apresso isplicare le sentenze con parole accomodate, & oltra ciò servare la vertù, la forza, el valore de le parole di quella lingua, da la quale si traporta.” 80 Drusi, “Recensione,” 474.

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recognition of the fact that “each language has its own usages, beauties, splendours, which do not correspond to those of other languages.”81 Hence in order to translate literally, it is important to understand the meaning of the text and to know both the language from which one is translating and the language into which one is translating. Whoever is unable to overcome these three diff iculties will necessarily resort to translating according to meaning.82 It is often the case that those who do not understand the meaning of a text – and here the reference is to Faustus Longianus – goes no further than the words, and so the “translation, which was discovered to make explicit otherwise hidden information, proves to be even more obscure.”83 In the same vein as Faustus Longianus is Francesco Robortello in his manuscript Del translatare d’una lingua in l’altra (c. 1552).84 Here Robortello characterizes two kinds of vulgarization: one concerning the sciences, the other common speaking. Common speaking is therefore a plain that may easily be traversed, in that it is easy to understand and learn, while scientific speaking is like an intricate vineyard, often repetitive and hard to understand. Robortello distinguishes a number of different levels of translation precisely because translation is not merely a transposition of words from one language to another, but involves a wider process of vulgarization. Scientific terms can be translated into: (1) “our” popular terms; (2) “our” terms not in current usage; (3) ancient terms which have been “popularized or accepted by people out of necessity”; or (4) ancient terms that have not been “made popular.” What is important for Robortello is that these terms must in every instance be comprehensible to all. But he also takes this distinction a step further. Ancient terms that refer to the same thing must be translated with vernacular terms. For example, “ephippium” must be translated with “sella” (saddle). Where ancient terms are similar to those ordinarily employed, however, they must be preserved using vernacular diction, as with “due sesterzi” or “cinquanta ducati,” thus preserving a Latinized vocabulary in the vernacular. Alternatively, if there is no correspondence in terms of terminology or content, it is necessary to preserve ancient words as they are. This is important for Robortello especially in connection with 81 Ibid., § 122: “ogni lingua ha li soi modi, le sue vaghezze, i soi splendori, liquali non corrispondono à l’altre.” 82 See Ibid., § 151–2. 83 Ibid. 84 See Enrico Garavelli, “Un frammento di Francesco Robortello (1516–1567) ‘del traslatare d’una lingua in l’altra’,” in Studi di italianistica nordica (Roma: Aracne, 2014), 287–305.

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ancient arts or sciences which had specific terms and subjects no longer current. This explains in general the strategy for using Greek and Latin words in vernacular texts: it is not because the beneficiaries of these texts are more learned, but because there is no other way to teach the people, if not by indicating with precision what no longer exists, or what had its own specific term. Only thus, according to Robortello, is it possible to disseminate knowledge easily and to educate people. Common speaking proceeds, on the other hand, by means of simple words, locutions and metaphors. Simple words do not constitute the difficulty of translation, while locutions may be of different kinds. Proper or ordinary locutions like “conticuere omnes”85 (all were silent) can be translated without difficulty into the vernacular. Locutions of circumstance, if there are analogous vernacular terms, must be translated thus, or otherwise they can remain in the original language. For instance, the locution of circumstance “Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis”86 (The snow has fled; already the grass is returning to the fields) can be translated, but such expressions sound infelicitous in the vernacular. Fabular locutions (locuzioni fabulari) such as “indulgere genio” or “Bacchus amat colles,”87 are readily translatable. Metaphors must be translated only if there are words analogous to the ancient ones, otherwise they do not need to be translated, although one should find in one’s own language equally effective metaphors, so that the knowledge may fully be understood. Robortello’s conception of the translation of knowledge is far from simple: one must translate, but not always, not necessarily and not unconditionally. There are various ways of translating, and various linguistic registers must be adopted in order to render in the best possible way the sense of what is being translated. This means not only remaining faithful to the original, which for Robortello is the main priority in terms of acquiring reliable knowledge, but also being understood by a wider public. A particular emphasis on the rhetorical aspects of vulgarizations is given by Orazio Toscanella in his Discorso del tradurre (1575). As for Faustus Longianus, the choice as to whether to translate and vulgarize needs no justification: everyone “knows that transposing authors from one language to another is both extremely beneficial and highly honourable; for this reason I need spend no effort demonstrating it.”88 Moreover, for Toscanella 85 Virgil, Aeneid, II.1. 86 Horace, Odes, IV.7. 87 Virgil, Georgic, II.113. 88 Toscanella, Discorsi cinque, 28.

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the problem of vulgarization, as he himself addresses it, is restricted to translation, in particular the translation of philosophical and scientific texts. From this perspective, the essential element the translator must seek to preserve before all others is the content. Indeed, his first recommendation is that the translator must be an expert in the subject he is translating, lest the end product turn out to be of extremely poor quality: if someone who is not a philosopher started translating works of philosophy, and someone who is not an astrologer works of astrology, there is no question that he would reap criticism rather than applause, and in no small measure.89

But it is not merely a problem of content: there is also the question of terminological appropriateness, since the various sciences use different vocabulary and to mix them up would be to distort the translation. Hence his advice that “no one should undertake the translation of something that is outside of their profession.”90 The task of the translator is to stick rigorously to the words. He must translate literally and not “according to substance.”91 The translator must be as faithful as possible to the words because words represent things, and different words would represent different things. In this Toscanella displays a naturalistic view of language: he believes that certain concepts remain perennially unchanged and stand in a univocal relationship with certain words. When translating, the same concept should be translated with the vernacular term that most closely corresponds to the original word, not concept, in the target language. Graecisms and Latinisms were admitted. There are plenty of such cases in the Prontuario di voci volgari et latine. In his Discorso, Toscanella points out that the target language must not only reflect the “quality of the words,” but also the “quantity of their syllables, and the position where they are collocated.”92 The correspondence must be of such quality and detail that not only must the words and syllables be the same in number and of the same length in order to deliver the same timing and the same level of harmony, but the words themselves must be positioned in the very same place within the sentence: the translator is “obliged to position the translated vernacular verb where the Latin verb is, the noun where the noun is, the pronoun where the pronoun is, and so on 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid., 33.

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with all other parts of the discourse.”93 What matters most to Toscanella is to be as faithful as possible to the original text. Sometimes in order to sustain such faithfulness, the translator may use obsolete words, or refer to things that no longer exist and are therefore difficult to understand. This may be achieved if and only if “he has some support, and knows that someone else has used them,” or that they can be “received and tolerated.”94 At the end of his Discorso, Toscanella finally shows his cards when he says “that the translator must preserve the same invention, the same disposition, and the same locution observed by the author.”95 He does not deny the importance of transmitting the content, something he considers to be beyond question, but he focuses more on the language and the style – in other words, on the rhetoric of translation. Alessandro Piccolomini took to an extreme almost all the possible solutions already theoretically conceived by Faustus Longianus, exploring practically every form of vulgarization during his long career as vulgarizer and democratizer of knowledge. In the Epistola ai lettori del modo del tradurre, published in Piena, et larga parafrase nel terzo libro della retorica d’Aristotele (1572), he develops his theory of vulgarizations.96 The roots of Piccolomini’s reflection on vulgarization is based on his theory of language. He is convinced that the concepts of the mind are the same in all human beings and that they have priority over words. Indeed, words are found only to give expression to concepts, not vice versa. At the same time, concepts form the primary content of texts and hence, when vulgarizing, one should work so that “their preservation be kept always clean, immaculate, inviolable, and in no way altered.”97 To change concepts when vulgarizing can lead to the interpolation of the voice of a second author into the text who “would come to write his own things … would stray into the vice of falsifying … would making others say what they do not say.”98 A more difficult proposition is to maintain the locution, “which consists of words and structure and in the links between them,” because every language has its own specific variety. The perfect translation “forces one to maintain and preserve not only the opinions of others, but also their words,”99 an operation 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid., 34. 96 I quote the Epistola ai lettori del modo del tradurre from the critical edition in Cotugno, “Piccolomini e Castelvetro traduttori della Poetica” referring to the paragraph. 97 Piccolomini, Epistola ai lettori del modo del tradurre, § 39. 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid.

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which, as we have said, is extremely difficult to achieve. In translation absolute correspondence between source and target languages is required. Translation must not only remain faithful to the mind of the author, but must also “preserve as much as possible his words and locution and links, and his thought patterns,” without needing to further amplify or order sentences. Adherence to the source language can sometimes produce a translation that is “more obscure or more confused,” and ultimately “pointless and vain,” and therefore bears “no fruit whatsoever.”100 Piccolomini even goes on to add that translators of scientific texts working from Greek into Latin, or from Greek into Latin and then into vernacular, even when extremely well versed in the content, in attempting to stay close to the word of the original frequently fail to achieve the ultimate aim of the translation, which is to vulgarize – in other words to make the content more understandable: “some … without conveying, as they should, primarily the sentence and the sentiment, proceed word-by-word, minimal particle-by-minimal particle, seeking to reproduce the exact rhythm they find, … [some] end up producing a kind of confused and insipid locution, and what is worse, for the most part unintelligible …”; they render “the sentence obscure, intricate, and often false, and, what is worse, as I have said, difficult to draw any sense from.”101 In his Discorso sopra la traduttione delle scienze, & d’altre facultà (1581) Girolamo Catena applies his ideas on translation specifically to scientificphilosophical texts and Scripture. For Catena, “the proper translation and interpretation of the authors in their doctrines was… word-for-word.”102 Translating word-for-word means essentially “to preserve the figures and the same order of things,”103 thus prioritizing rhetoric over content. The content may be conveyed only through a perfect rendering of the words. Hence, he asks, “who will give me the true science of Plato or Aristotle if he does not restrict himself to interpreting word-for-word?”104 Only the words render the true meaning because they give back the concepts. For this reason: it has always been agreed among the experts that in the public schools one reads the ancient translations of Aristotle, whether by Boethius or others, never a modern one … since the translations of the moderns, 100 Ibid. Piccolomini’s argument here is with the translation of Aristotle’s Poetics by Lodovico Castelvetro. Cotugno, “Piccolomini e Castelvetro traduttori della Poetica,” 195. 101 Ibid., § 22. 102 Girolamo Catena, Discorso sopra la traduttione delle scienze & altre facultà (Venezia: Ziletti, 1581), 1–2. 103 Ibid., 2. 104 Ibid., 3.

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for all that they are cleaner and more ornate, precisely because of their ornaments lose the true sentiment of the author.105

Catena is particularly scathing of the false translators of Aristotle, “who to a very great extent and with great eloquence have translated him, thinking they were illustrating him.”106 His reasoning is quite singular: “philosophy is like an immaculate virgin that loves neither compliment nor ornament.”107 Regarding scientific-philosophical texts, Catena recommends that a vulgarization go straight to the heart of the content without any rhetorical ornament whatsoever: “eloquence is not necessarily to be sought in the doctrines, or where truth only resides.”108 Anyone who translates by departing significantly from the words of the author for the sake of rhetoric may consider themselves to be “ignorant” or “forgers.”109 In this group, Catena points the finger at one translator of Aristotle in particular, Joachim Périon, who – as Charles B. Schmitt has pointed out – created with his beautifully Ciceronian translation a full-blown “humanist Aristotle” in opposition to the “scholastic Aristotle,” and which at times is even more obscure.110 As Catena observes, the style of Aristotle was “succinct and restrained,” while Cicero’s was “extremely elaborate and abundant:”111 in order to be faithful to these two authors, therefore, one must translate their works word-for-word in different ways. Following the words is therefore the only way to gain access to the truth of the text: the truth reveals itself through the words, not only through concepts. Hence “the sciences and the doctrines and even more so the Holy Scriptures must be translated according to the words, even when the outcome would prove less easy on the ear than one’s own composition or an imitation.”112 As I have shown, Catena’s interest in literal translation rests on the fact that it alone renders the words of a discourse in a perfect way. It would, however, be misguided to think that translation for Catena is a means for making the discourse of an author understandable, or even simply for making it more easily understood. To translate is most definitely not to vulgarize 105 Ibid., 4. 106 Ibid., 83. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid., 51. 109 Ibid. 110 Charles B. Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 71–82. 111 Catena, Discorso sopra la traduttione delle scienze & altre facultà, 56. 112 Ibid., 38.

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Figure 5.1: Girolamo Catena’s Discorso sopra la traduttione delle scienze, & d’altre facultà (1581)

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in the broadest sense of clarifying or popularizing. There are instances in which one can and must translate knowledge in an obscure manner. The most noteworthy example is Heraclitus: if I were to translate Heraclitus, and my translation were to remain obscure, what blame would I have, given that Heraclitus wanted to write obscurely. On the contrary, it would no longer be a composition of Heraclitus’ if I sought to open it up. This is the task of the commentator, not the translator.113

Catena identifies five specific types of word-for-word translation: When the layout is observed, and all the words are interpreted according to the order; when one transposes, but all the words are translated; when each word has its correspondent of the same quality, and even if it does not, the same Greek word is used; and of the language into which one is translating … the language of the orator … is done circuitously, … namely with a great roundabout use of words.114

As to be expected, Catena doubts that the last two forms of translation are indeed word-for-word translations, suggesting rather that they fall under the broader umbrella of vulgarization, which “belongs more properly to paraphrase, and to those who do epitome, and summary, and breviarii.”115

5.4

Techniques of Vulgarizing

A perfect codification of these forms of vulgarization – not properly speaking translation – is given by Faustus Longianus in his Dialogo de lo modo di tradurre. He distinguished translation from metaphrasis, paraphrase, summary, comment, exposition and explanation – in other words, from all the other modes of vulgarization, providing them with a detailed exposition. In Faustus Longianus’s view, metaphrasis is a form of popularization,116 whether in the same language or a different one, coming close to translating 113 Ibid., 33. 114 Ibid., 59. 115 Ibid. 116 I am not referring here to vulgarization because metaphrasis does not necessarily take place in the vernacular. See Elizabeth Fisher, “Metaphrasis,” in Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most and

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according to meaning, so that, in his words, “nowadays it is used by many, but under the name of translation.”117 Nonetheless, it refers only to “meaning or the shadow of meaning,” in other words “it is not obliged to the purity of the meaning, nor of the words.”118 It can, however, be a powerful means of distorting the message of a text, and indeed it “amplifies, diminishes, confuses, transposes, disturbs, obscures, so that the main author would no longer recognize it as his own.”119 The meaning can be transformed to such a degree that the original author finds himself on a par with a secondary author who may even bring another meaning to the text. Hence metaphrasis, whose purpose was to adapt and explain the content to a wider audience, can end up perverting it instead. Elsewhere, Faustus Longianus speaks of metaphrasis in terms of an illustration (illustratitione), “which is not bound to any law of meaning or of words.”120 Like metaphrasis, paraphrase “can be done in the same language or in another one.”121 It is in every sense a form of vulgarization because “its strength consists in clarifying the meaning of that which is ambiguous or obscure with a greater number of words.”122 Unlike metaphrasis, therefore, paraphrase always remains close to the meaning intended by the author. Because of this, and because of its capacity to clarify content, paraphrase for Faustus Longianus is “extremely difficult, and not everyone can do it.”123 Another form of vulgarization is the summary, or epitome, the purpose of which is to aid memory and ensure that only the most salient content is reported. Yet it is precisely in this selection of content that Faustus Longianus sees the greatest risk in the act of summarizing, which is liable “sometimes to cause no small amount of damage.”124 Selection can result in important content being left out, or a message that is different from the author’s intended being conveyed. Hence the best summary is one that follows the author’s intended meaning. Salvatore Settis (eds.), The Classical Tradition (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 583–4. 117 Longianus, Dialogo del modo de lo tradurre d’una in altra lingua segondo le regole mostrate da Cicerone, § 44: “Hoggì è da molti usata, ma sotto nome di tradottione.” 118 Ibid., § 45: “senso od ombra del senso … Non è obligata à la purità del senso.” 119 Ibid: “amplif ica, sminuisce, confonde, traspone, disturba, adombra di maniera tale, che l’autore principale non riconoscerebbe il suo per suo.” 120 Ibid., § 156. 121 Ibid., § 46. 122 Ibid., § 47: “La vertù sua consiste in far chiari i sensi, ch’hanno o de l’ambiguo, o de l’oscuro con piu largo giro di parole se necessario.” 123 Ibid., § 46. 124 Ibid., § 49.

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The f inal form of vulgarization examined by Faustus Longianus is the explanation (ispianatione) or “ispositione, commentario, narratione, isplicatione.” Its purpose is to: declare meanings, manifest the secrets of the art, resolve contradictions, clarify ambiguities, grasp the most plausible opinion in a controversy, publish stories and hidden fables, show the significations and virtues of words, apportion reason, discover their sources, observe their elocution.125

In other words, ispianatione serves to make the content of a text plainer, clearer, and more understandable, and in this sense it is an example of genuine vulgarization, even though “it may be done both in one’s own language and in that of others.”126 Faustus Longianus thus identifies two general forms of vulgarization: (1) those that render the text into the vernacular – that is, translation according to sense and literal translation; (2) those that simplify the implications of a text, despite the problems that this too can sometimes cause, including metaphrasis, paraphrase, summary and ispianatione. Translation – even though is not necessarily a clarification – since it represents a transition from a dead classical language to a living vernacular language, it allows for a greater degree of precision in the communication of the text’s content. Vulgarization – understood as mere translation – can only be metaphrases, paraphrases, summaries and ispianationi if and only if they are in the vernacular. Alessandro Piccolomini also makes the point that translation is not the only form of vulgarization and it is not even the most preferable. Indeed, concepts may be vulgarized in different ways: “translating, commenting, in other words explaining, annotating, paraphrasing, and summarizing.”127 Of all these methods, the most difficult – which, in Piccolomini’s opinion, is also the one to avoid – is translation. In his view, if one does not translate, but limits oneself to commenting, paraphrasing, summarizing or annotating, 125 Ibid., § 52: “Travagliasi in dichiarare i sensi: manifestare i secreti de l’arte: risolvere le contrarietadi, chiarire gli ambigui, nel conflitto de l’openioni appigliarsi à la piu verisimile; pubblicare l’historie, e le favole occulte, mostrare la significanza, e vertù de le parole: assegnare la ragione, ritrovare il fonte d’onde escono: osservare l’elocutioni.” 126 Ibid., § 51: “si puote e ne la propria favella, e ne l’altrui.” 127 Piccolomini, Epistola ai lettori del modo del tradurre, § 9. See also Alessandro Piccolomini, Annotationi di M. Alessandro Piccolomini, nel libro della Poetica d’Aristotele, con la traduttione del medesimo libro, in lingua volgare (Venezia: Guarisco-Compagni, 1575), letter to the readers; Alessandro Piccolomini, La prima parte della filosofia naturale (Roma: Valgrisi, 1551), 1br–v.

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one requires expertise only in the source language, not so much the target language, because these forms of vulgarization do not require adherence to the original and therefore the words can be less rigorously selected. Vulgarization generally, when not pure translation, allows the sentences to be expressed more effectively – broken down, simplified and modified – so that the effect the author intended becomes more understandable in the target language. Hence vulgarization does not require “an exceedingly close familiarity with the language.”128 Translation has another limitation in that it is missing in the other kinds of vulgarization. In every form of vulgarization, from comment to paraphrase, the vulgarizer may be accused of betraying the author. In comments and paraphrases, however, a betrayal may be viewed as an instance of bad interpretation, an accusation mitigated by the common practice, in such cases, of the vulgarizer speaking in the first person. In translation, however, as already mentioned, the vulgarizer is never accused of bad interpretation, but of being an out-and-out falsifier. Piccolomini’s preference for types of vulgarization other than translation is dictated also by practical concerns. Translations are so difficult – especially those that set out “to convey from one language into another scientific and doctrinal material”129 – that often the translator simply ends up displaying his ignorance of the subject and inability to use the appropriate language. In other words, Piccolomini takes issue with the approach of literal translation carried out by translation professionals who are not experts in the field, rendering a text virtually incomprehensible. Moreover, he rejects the position of those who do not wish to make any kind of modification to the original text and end up formulating new words in order to consolidate meaning, thus creating “barbarisms.” He also attacks the practice of those who attribute the meaning of one word to another, and in so doing mislead the reader.130 Even Toscanella believes that translation is not always suitable and that different forms of vulgarization must be sought. For example, if certain words cannot be translated into the vernacular, “they can be left without blame, just as they are, in the same way as the translators of Greek into Latin left certain Greek words as they were.”131 If it is not possible to adhere so closely to the text because certain concepts and ideas would prove incomprehensible, 128 Ibid., § 14. 129 Ibid., § 14. 130 Cotugno, “Piccolomini e Castelvetro traduttori della Poetica,” 189. 131 Toscanella, Discorsi cinque, 30.

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the translator may use “periphrasis, or metaphor,” or other rhetorical devices that will render a text more intelligible.132 Such techniques, such “roundabout expressions,” must not be overused, however, because “simple things in every language may be called in simple ways.”133 Metaphors, periphrasis, explanations and other rhetorical techniques became thus a fundamental tool for rendering a text more accessible, as part of the process of democratizing knowledge. Francesco Robortello, more than others, explores the idea that rhetoric is useful for making philosophical discourse more understandable and popular among a wider public.134 Robortello qualifies the notion of a philosophical discourse as that which is formulated of words such as universal terms that are little-known to the people. In contrast, popular discourse is that which refers directly to things whose words are instantly comprehensible and shared by all. For Robortello, rhetoric is fundamental to bridging the gap between these two discourses. It serves as a necessary tool in education and teaching – in other words, as a means of introducing everyone to the knowledge of things. Rhetoric has the task of making knowledge clear to the people and giving them the opportunity to judge “concretely” the truth or falsity of what they know.135 Rhetoric starts from probable premises, or at least what may be taken to be true by the people, since people themselves can start from a common and shared body of knowledge and then further refine what they have learned.136 Not all knowledge can be popularized, according to Robortello. Indeed, there are some disciplines such as jurisprudence, mathematics and theology, which in themselves can also be eloquent, but which common people find it difficult to get used to – primarily because they employ so many technical and specific terms that cannot be made p ​​ opular.137 Robortello maintains that there are four ways of making a philosophical discourse popular, in other words of transforming an intellectually challenging philosophical text and making it relevant for a wider audience: (1) making an abstract notion more concrete, which is possible thanks to rhetorical inference of the example. 132 Ibid., 29. 133 Ibid., 30. 134 See Marco Sgarbi, “Francesco Robortello on Popularizing Knowledge,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 75–92. 135 Biblioteca del Museo Correr, Venezia, Donà dalle Rose 447, 9r–v. 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid., 13r.

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(2) transforming a universal concept into a particular concept: the orator does not deal with happiness in terms of its definition, but with regard to the happy man.138 (3) speaking of philosophical concepts by means of metaphor. (4) employing many words and phrases – that, is through circumlocution – to explain and clarify a philosophical concept.

A philosopher should not overdo words and metaphors, thereby risking falling into error and making the discourse more obscure, but the vulgarizer can use this technique to reformulate and to explain more effectively notions that are not completely clear to the people.139 Rhetoric for Robortello is a tool for reaching a wider audience, and popularizing, vulgarizing, and translating are the first of all processes by means of which the public’s level of knowledge may be raised without reducing high culture to a lower level.140 What we are confronted with here is a reappraisal of eloquence, based on the fact that the purposes of the humanists were different from those of the intellectuals of the mid-sixteenth century. Whereas the humanists had preserved the unity of res and verba, of wisdom and rhetoric – because they were intent on a type of language that highlights a specific kind of beauty of discourse – their later counterparts upheld the union of res and verba as the only means of rendering the truth of the content with utmost fidelity in order to communicate it in the best possible way. These are two different ways of understanding rhetoric and Cicero’s heritage, especially in their relation to knowledge and wisdom. With the former, there is an underlying Ciceronianism, based on the idea that the ancient language of the past is the most perfect – an idea which is almost entirely absent in the case of the latter, where scholars tend to merge Cicero and Aristotle for the sake of a better communication of thoughts. By examining the techniques of vulgarizers, we can learn that to vulgarize does not simply mean to transpose into the vernacular, namely to translate, but that sometimes it also has the broader meaning of popularizing or divulging. The view has often been expressed that the focus on translation – literal translation in particular – was a reaction to the spread of other 138 Robortello, Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, V D 45, f. 70r. 139 Ibid. 140 On Robortello’s conception of rhetoric see Marco Sgarbi, “Francesco Robortello’s Rhetoric: On the Orator and his Arguments,” Rhetorica, 34 (2016): 243–67.

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kinds of vulgarizations which seemed in one way or another to betray the original text through amplification or summary, sometimes even by completely disrupting the content. This resistance undoubtedly echoes the intellectual debates current at the time, but when taken to extremes it ends up obscuring the one sense of vulgarization and translation which everyone could agree upon: a manifestation of the content of knowledge. Authors such as Piccolomini did so openly, with little concern for the words themselves, and in this way were able to explore alternative forms of vulgarization for the sake of the content. This twofold attitude is perfectly captured in the practice of vulgarizing philosophical texts. If one looks at Aristotelian vernacular works statistically speaking, only 16% were translations proper. Treatises were most common at 29%, followed by summaries and compendia, at 24%, dialogues, at 18%, and paraphrases, at 3%. Less numerous than translations were commentaries, at 5%, lectures and speeches, at 4%, and letters, a mere 1%.141 Translation was therefore not the first choice of method for vulgarizing Aristotle’s philosophy. The actual method chosen was an important factor in determining how many recipients were reached, as a closer examination of these works divided by genre reveals. Summaries, compendia, and dialogues – which combined account for 42%, or almost half of the total number of vulgarizations – were the most accessible. This meant that they were easier and more likely to attract a large number of recipients, despite sometimes, albeit infrequently, over-simplifying the material. On the other hand, translations along with commentaries and paraphrases, while accounting for a good 24% of the total number of works, frequently adopted complex terminology, sometimes transposed directly from Greek and Latin, and tended to become embroiled in lengthy disquisitions on difficult and complex passages which deserved fuller treatment. As regards both translation – of whichever kind – and other forms of vulgarization too, what was entailed was a process of rendering into the vernacular for the purpose of making content more accessible. What mattered most was the transmission of sense, and in order to transmit sense it was legitimate also – in the more extreme cases – to abandon translation, which could be cumbersome, and embrace freer forms of vulgarization. Naturally, vulgarizers were also aware that this would 141 Statistics are grounded in Vernacular Aristotelianism in Renaissance Italy Database http:// vari.warwick.ac.uk. See Eugenio Refini, “Per un database dell’aristotelismo volgare in Italia (c. 1400–c. 1650),” in David A. Lines and Eugenio Refini (eds.), “Aristotele fatto volgare”: Tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 201–6.

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lead to a betrayal, but betrayal – as mentioned at the outset – can also lead to new traditions and ideas: an acceptable sacrifice for the advancement of knowledge and for its dissemination to varied and transversal communities of recipients.

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b. Secondary Literature Andrea da Grosseto. Dei Trattati morali di Albertano da Brescia volgarizzamento inedito del 1268 (Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1873). Borsetto, Luciana. Il furto di Prometeo. Imitazione, scrittura, riscrittura nel Rinascimento (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 1991). Borsetto, Luciana. L’“Eneida” tradotta. Riscritture poetiche del testo di Virgilio nel XVI secolo (Milano: Unicopli, 1989).

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Briggs, Charles F. “Teaching Philosophy at School and Court: Vulgarization and Translation,” in The Vulgar Tongue: Medieval and Postmedieval Vernacularity (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2003), 99–111. Briguglia, Gianluca (ed.), Thinking Politics in the Vernacular from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Fribourg: Fribourg Academic Press, 2011). Celenza, Christopher S. Il Rinascimento perduto. La letteratura latina nella cultura italiana del Quattrocento (Roma: Carocci, 2014). Colliva, Paolo. Il Cardinale Albornoz, lo Stato della Chiesa, le Constitutiones Aegidianae (1353–1357) (Bologna: Publicaciones del Real Colegio de España, Bologna, 1977). Cornish, Alison. Vernacular Translation in Dante’s Italy: Illiterate Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Cortesi, Mariarosa. “La tecnica del tradurre presso gli Umanisti,” in The Classical Tradition in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Spoleto: CISAM, 1995), 143–68. Cotugno, Alessio. “Le Annotationi di Piccolomini e la Poetica di Castelvetro a confronto: tecnica argomentativa, vocabolario critico, dispositivi esegetici,” in Renaissance Conflict and Rivalries Research Colloquim (Göttingen: V&R-Bonn University Press, 2015), 161–206. Cotugno, Alessio. “Osservazioni linguistiche sull’Instrumento della filosofia di Alessandro Piccolomini. Testualità, lessico, procedimenti espositivi,” in David A. Lines and Eugenio Refini (eds.), “Aristotele fatto volgare”: Tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 99–148. Cotugno, Alessio. “Piccolomini e Castelvetro traduttori della ‘Poetica’ (con un contributo sulle modalità dell’esegesi aristotelica nel Cinquecento,” Studi di lessicografia italiana, 23 (2007): 113–219. Cotugno, Alessio. La scienza della parola. Retorica e linguistica di Sperone Speroni (Bologna: il Mulino, 2018). De Campos, Haroldo. “De la traduction comme création et comme critique.” Change, 14 (1973): 71–84. Del Lungo, Isidoro. Dino Compagni e la sua Cronica (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1879). Dionisotti, Carlo. Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana (Torino: Einaudi, 1967). Drusi, Riccardo. “Recensione a Bodo Guthmüller, Faustus Longianus e il problema del tradurre, “Quaderni Veneti,” 12, 1990, 9–152,” Lettere Italiane, 45 (1993): 468–75. Emiliani-Giudici, Paolo. Storia dei Comuni italiani (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1866). Fisher, Elizabeth. “Metaphrasis,” in Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most and Salvatore Settis (eds.), The Classical Tradition (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 583–4. Folena, Gianfranco (ed.). La istoria di Eneas vulgarizzata per Angilu di Capua (Palermo: Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani, 1956). Folena, Gianfranco. Volgarizzare e tradurre (Torino: Einaudi, 1991).

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Fournel, Jean-Louis and Paccagnella, Ivano. “Premessa,” in “Fedeli, diligenti, chiari e dotti.” Traduttori e traduzione nel Rinascimento (Padova: Cleup, 2016), 9–22. Frosini, Giovanna. “Volgarizzamenti,” in Giuseppe Antonelli, Matteo Motolese, Lorenzo Tomasin (ed.), Storia dell’italiano scritto, II, Prosa (Roma: Carocci, 2014), 17–72. Gai, Lucia and Savino, Giancarlo (ed.). L’Opera di S. Jacopo in Pistoia e il suo primo statuto in volgare (1313) (Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1994). Garavelli, Enrico. “Un frammento di Francesco Robortello (1516–1567) ‘del traslatare d’una lingua in l’altra’,” in Studi di italianistica nordica (Roma: Aracne, 2014), 287–305. Ghinassi, Ghino. “Sulla lingua del Cinquecento,” Cultura e scuola, 3 (1964), 34–45. Giamboni, Bono. Fiore di rettorica (Pavia: Dipartimento di Scienza della Letteratura e dell’Arte medioevale e moderna, 1994). Gotti, Aurelio. L’Eneide di Virgilio volgarizzata nel buon secolo della lingua da Ciampolo di Meo degli Ugurgieri senese (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1858). Grendler, Paul F. Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600 (Baltimore-London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). Guthmüller, Bodo. Antico-moderno, latino-volgare. Zum literarischen Traditionsbewußtsein im Cinquecento, in Die Präsenz der Antike im Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Frühen Neuzeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 231–46. Guthmüller, Bodo. “Fausto da Longiano e il problema del tradurre,” Quaderni veneti 12 (1990): 9–152. Guthmüller, Bodo. “Letteratura nazionale e traduzione dei classici nel Cinquecento,” Lettere Italiane, 45 (1993): 501–18. Guthmüller, Bodo. “Die volgarizzamenti,” in Grundriß der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, Bd. 10: Die italienische Literatur im Zeitalter Dantes und am Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Renaissance (Heidelberg: Winter Verlag 1989), 201–54, 333–48. Guthmüller, Bodo. “Literaturgeschichte und Volgare in der ersten Hälfte des Cinquecento,” in Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: Humanismus und Historiographie (Weinheim: Acta humaniora, 1991), 105–23. Guthmüller, Bodo. Ovidio Metamorphoseos vulgare. Formen und Funktionen der volkssprachlichen Wiedergabe Klassicher Dictung in der italienischen Renaissance (Boppard am Rhein: Bold, 1981). Hewson, Lance. “The Vexed Question of Creativity in Translation,” in Palimpsestes. Traduire ou “Vouloir garder un peu de la poussière d’or…” (Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle: 2006), 53–65. Librandi, Rita and Piro, Rosa (eds.), Lo scaffale della biblioteca scientifica in volgare (secc. XIII–XVI) (Firenze: Sismel, 2006). Lippi Bigazzi, Vanna. I volgarizzamenti trecenteschi dell’Ars amandi e dei Remedia amoris (Firenze: Accademia della Crusca, 1987).

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Lisini, Alessandro (ed.). Il Costituto del comune di Siena volgarizzato nel MCCCIX–MCCCX (Siena: Lazzeri, 1903). Marazzini, Claudio. Storia della lingua italiana. Il secondo Cinquecento e il Seicento (Bologna: il Mulino, 1993). Mazzacurati, Giancarlo. La crisi della retorica umanistica nel Cinquecento (Antonio Riccobono) (Napoli: Libreria scientifica editrice, 1961). Mongiat Farina, Caterina. Questione di lingua. L’ideologia del dibattito sull’italiano nel Cinquecento (Ravenna: Longo, 2014). Morlino, Luca. “Volgarizzare e trasporre. Una postilla al lessico della traduzione,” Critica del testo, 17 (2014): 143–57. Newman, Karen and Tylus, Jane (eds.), Early Modern Cultures of Translation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Norton, Glyn P. “Translation Theory in Renaissance France: Etienne Dolet and the Rhetorical Tradition,” Renaissance and Reformation, 10 (1974): 1–13. Norton, Glyn P. The Ideology and Language of Translation in Renaissance France and their Humanist Antecedents (Genève: Droz, 1984). Paris, Jean. “Translation and Creation,” in The Craft and Context of Translation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961), 57–67. Porro, Antonietta. “Volgarizzamenti e volgarizzatori di drammi euripidei a Firenze nel Cinquecento,” Aevum, 55 (1981), 481–508. Refini, Eugenio. “Per un database dell’aristotelismo volgare in Italia (c. 1400–c. 1650),” in David A. Lines and Eugenio Refini (eds.), “Aristotele fatto volgare”: Tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 201–6. Refini, Eugenio. The Vernacular Aristotle: Translation as Reception in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). Rizzi, Andrea. Vernacular Translators in Quattrocento Italy: Scribal Culture, Authority, and Agency (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017). Romani, Werther. “Lodovico Castelvetro e il problema del tradurre,” Lettere Italiane, 18 (1966): 152–79. Sabbadini, Remigio. “Del tradurre i classici in Italia,” Atene e Roma, 3 (1900): 202–217. Schmitt, Charles B. Aristotle and the Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983). Segre, Cesare. Lingua, stile e società. Studi sulla storia della prosa italiana (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1963). Sgarbi, Marco. “Benedetto Varchi on the Soul. Vernacular Aristotelianism between Reason and Faith,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 76 (2015): 1–23. Sgarbi, Marco. “Francesco Robortello on Popularizing Knowledge,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 75–92.

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Sgarbi, Marco. “Francesco Robortello’s Rhetoric: On the Orator and his Arguments,” Rhetorica, 34 (2016): 243–67. Sgarbi, Marco. Profumo d’immortalità. Controversie sull’anima nella filosofia volgare del Rinascimento (Rome: Carocci, 2016). Siekiera, Annalisa. “Aspetti linguistici e stilistici della prosa scientifica di Benedetto Varchi,” Studi linguistici italiani, 33 (2007): 3–50. Siekiera, Annalisa. “Fare in modo che s’intenda. La scienza tradotta di Benedetto Varchi,” L’Ellisse, 13 (2018): 65–77. Siekiera, Annalisa. “I lettori di Aristotele nel Cinquecento: i libri e le carte di Benedetto Varchi,” Studi Linguistici Italiani, 39 (2013): 198–218. Siekiera, Annalisa. “L’eredità del Varchi,” in Varchi e altro Rinascimento. Studi per Vanni Bramanti (Manziana, Vecchiarelli, 2013), 145–71. Siekiera, Annalisa. La Poetica vulgarizzata et sposta per Lodovico Castelvetro e le traduzioni cinquecentesche del trattato di Aristotele, in Ludovico Castelvetro. Letterati e grammatici nella crisi religiosa del ‘500 (Firenze: Olschki, 2008), 25–45. Siekiera, Annalisa. “Riscrivere Aristotele: la formazione della prosa scientifica in italiano,” in David A. Lines and Eugenio Refini (eds.), “Aristotele fatto volgare”: Tradizione aristotelica e cultura volgare nel Rinascimento (Pisa: ETS, 2014), 149–167. Steiner, George. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Sturlese, Loris (ed.), Filosofia in volgare nel Medioevo (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003). Tavoni, Mirko. Le Prose della volgar lingua di Pietro Bembo, in Letteratura italiana. Le opere. I: Dalle. Origini al Cinquecento (Torino: Einaudi, 1992), 1084–6. Tavoni, Mirko. Storia della lingua italiana. Il Quattrocento (Bologna: il Mulino, 1992). Tesi, Riccardo. Aristotele in Italiano. I grecismi nelle traduzioni rinascimentali della Poetica (Firenze: Accademia della Crusca, 1997). Tessicini, Dario. “Fausto da Longiano’s Meteorologia (1542) and the Vernacular Transformations of Aristotle’s Natural Philosophy in the Sixteenth Century,” Rivista di storia della filosofia, 2 (2019): 309–26. Trifone, Pietro. L’affermazione del concetto di una lingua italiana come lingua di cultura e lingua comune degli italiani in Pre-sentimenti dell’Unità d’Italia nella tradizione culturale dal Due all’Ottocento (Roma: Salerno), 105–116. Trifone, Pietro. Rinascimento dal basso. Il nuovo spazio del volgare tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento (Roma: Bulzoni, 2006). Trovato, Paolo. Storia della lingua italiana. Il primo Cinquecento (Bologna: il Mulino 1994). Vianello, Valerio. Il letterato, l’accademia, il libro. Contributi sulla cultura veneta del Cinquecento (Padova: Antenore, 1988). Villani, Giovanni. Nuova Cronica (Parma: Guanda Editore, 1990–1991).

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Vitale, Maurizio. L’oro nella lingua. Contributi per una storia del tradizionalismo e del purismo italiano (Milano: Ricciardi, 1986). Worth, Virginia. Practicing Translation in Renaissance France: The Example of Etienne Dolet (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).

6. Communities of Recipients Abstract Following Natalie Zemon Davis’s distinction between “audience” and “public,” chapter 6 assesses the communities of recipients of Aristotelian vernacular works. The first part of the chapter focuses on the intended public by examining explicit declarations of vulgarizers and democratizers of knowledge. It shows how vernacular works in fact were aimed at a transversal public composed of princes, men of letters, courtiers, nobles, rulers, artisans, apothecaries, woodsmen, physicians, navigators, women, children, idiots, and illiterates. This public was the same as for vernacularizations of religious texts. This first part highlights how not all their attempts to make knowledge more accessible were successful, and the limits of the process of democratization. The second part of the chapter deals with the real audience reconstructed on the basis of library catalogues and other archival sources. This second part shows how this real audience coincides with the intended public, in spite of the limitations of this kind of investigation. Keywords: Recipients, Public, Audience, Readers

6.1

Intended public

Democratization is a process. Not all the intentions to democratize were successful. Intellectuals were well aware of the difficulties they faced in bringing knowledge to a wider public. In his Poetica d’Aristotile vulgarizzata et sposta – rightly selected by Luca Bianchi as an example of an erudite vernacular text requiring knowledge of Classical languages and literature1 – Lodovico Castelvetro shows himself to be conscious of having vulgarized “perhaps with greater ardour of spirit than felicity of result.”2 In a rare 1 See Bianchi, “Volgarizzare Aristotele: per chi?,” 493. 2 Lodovico Castelvetro, Poetica d’Aristotele volgarizzata et sposta (Wien: Stainhofer, 1570), Aiii.

Sgarbi, M., The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: The Philosopher and the People. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463721387_ch06

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moment of modesty, Castelvetro acknowledges that despite being moved by genuine desire to clarify and share as far as possible the content of Aristotle’s poetics, the outcome is not what he had hoped for. Another notable case is Alessandro Piccolomini’s In mechanicas quaestiones Aristotelis paraphrasis paulo quidem plenior (1547), vulgarized in 1582 by Oreste Vannocci Biringucci under the title Parafrasi di Monsignor Alessandro Piccolomini … sopra le Mechaniche d’Aristotele. Biringucci maintained that in order to “satisfy his just and ardent desire to benefit all, without prejudice of any kind, easily and happily, he [Piccolomini] set about adorning our language with every kind of science,” and above all “regretted having written in Latin, alongside certain other fine works, during his best years, and among his studies is also this paraphrase of the Mechaniche d’Aristotele, because he saw that since it was in Latin it was not accessible to those who could have made the best use of it,” that is “engineers and architects.”3 According to Biringucci, therefore, Piccolomini believed it was a mistake to write in Latin rather than the vernacular, because the intended recipients (who should have made use of the text) were unable to read it. It is a significant observation because it shows how intellectuals sometimes fell short of their stated intentions despite their democratizing zeal: it was most likely not infrequent that the intended public of Latin or vernacular texts with complex commentaries was much wider than the audience they actually reached. Perhaps one of the most remarkable examples of a failed project in this regard was that of Benedetto Varchi. 4 As outlined above, during his stay in Padua at the Accademia degli Infiammati, he began working on an Italian edition of Aristotle’s Organon and Ethics. His initial manuscript attempts at translation circulated widely among his associates in Florence.5 In a letter dated 11 November 1540, his friend Francesco Del Garbo writes I have looked at your translation and interpretation of the Priora, which I like very much, as it seems to me well understood and arranged, and likewise the friends of ours who have seen it also like it. All agree that it is better to start from certain of those books of Aristotle’s which more than this one may prove beneficial and enjoyable to a certain category of 3 Piccolomini, Sopra le Mechaniche d’Aristotele, 5. 4 On the limits of Varchi’s project see Luca Bianchi, “L’aristotelismo vernacolare nel Rinascimento italiano: un fenomeno ‘regionale’?,” in Centri e periferie nella storia del pensiero filosofico (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), 47–67. 5 See Lo Re, Politica e cultura nella Firenze Cosminiana, 257–94.

Communities of Recipients

Figure 6.1: Alessandro Piccolomini’s In mechanicas quaestiones Aristotelis paraphrasis (1547)

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Figure 6.2: Alessandro Piccolomini’s Parafrasi sopra le Mecaniche d’Aristotile (1582)

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men, namely those who read books in volgare more than anything else; because those today who enjoy themselves with the sciences think first about the Greek language in which they are written; those who do not know the language, and came late to the sciences will be unable to attain logic in any case, even if it be in a language they understand perfectly well, because it is of such difficulty that the difficulty of the language does not impede its being learned, there being many who, although they know the language very well, do not find it easy to grasp logic.6

Del Garbo and the Florentine circle dissuaded Varchi from continuing with the translation of Aristotle’s logic on the grounds that it was too difficult for people ignorant of science to understand, and that those who could understand his vulgarization would still prefer to read the text in Greek. Del Garbo demonstrates clearly that the ability to understand complex content is equal to the difficulty of knowing the Greek language. Others in this group of friends included were Francesco Verino and Pier Vettori. Indeed, in a letter to Vettori of the 29 November 1540, Varchi writes: “I agree with you and Verino in saying that dealing with logic is bothersome, long, and maybe not very useful and in receipt of no ornament.”7 In particular, Varchi acknowledges that his vulgarization would be too long and complex to read, even if he believes that attempting a vulgarization equivalent to the Greek in clarity of exposition and that avoids the obscurity of Latin is not without its usefulness. The failure of a project does not detract from the intentions that such works conveyed, intentions that played a significant role in shaping the mindset of the time. An analysis of the intentions of the democratizers of knowledge is a useful way of assessing the communities of recipients of these works. The analysis here follows Natalie Zemon Davis’s distinction between “audience” and 6 Carlo Roberto Dati, Prose fiorentine (Venezia: Occhi, 1730–1735), part 4, vol. 2, 214: “Io ho veduto la vostra traduzione e interpretazione della Priora, la quale mi piace assai, e mi pare molto bene intesa e racconcia, e similmente piace agli amici nostri, che l’hanno veduta. Trovo concorde il giudizio di tutti, che sia meglio cominciare da qualcuno di quei libri d’Aristotile, che possono giovare e dilettare più che questa una certa sorte d’uomini, che sono quelli che leggono più i libri volgari che gli altri; perché quelli che si dilettano oggi delle scienze la prima cosa pensano alla lingua greca, dove quelle sono scritte; quelli che non sanno la lingua e che si sono tardi avveduti d’attendere alle scienze non potranno conseguitare la logica ogni modo, ancorché sia in lingua quale intendano benissimo, perché la cosa è tanto più difficile che la difficultà della lingua non impedisce l’acquistarla, sendo molti, che sanno benissimo la lingua, e non acquistano la logica facilmente.” 7 British Library, Add. Ms. 10273, cc. 223r–4r: “E in somma io sono con voi e col Verino, che trattare di logica sia fastidioso, lungo e forse con non molta utilità e che non riceva ornamenti.”

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“public,” in other words between the number of actual readers founded on the basis of library catalogues and other objective sources, and the target readership imagined by the authors when writing their books.8 This is a useful distinction to make, because we can interpret the phenomenon of democratization differently according to whether we are looking at public or audience. The intended public of certain works is the key element in the history of knowledge because it reveals the intentions and aims of intellectuals at a given time. The audience can testify to the effectiveness of the attempted vulgarization, a matter that is beyond the purview of the author. The fact that a work does not always measure up to the intentions and needs of vulgarization may be determined by a range of factors such as the complexity of the topic, the absence of knowledge of a specific language, or the author’s inability to fulfil his own purposes. A vulgarizer, as we have seen, may set out to write the easiest and most accessible book possible and fail in any number of ways. The intended public of Aristotelian vernacular works can be framed by focusing both on direct evidence and on the voice of the authors themselves.9 The voices echoing from the past provide us with important clues as to what a likely community of recipients for Aristotle’s works could be. At least two levels of public may be discerned. At a more general level, the recipient group includes the largest possible number of people, including “idiots,” “simple minds,” “ignorants,” and “illiterates,” in other words people who potentially lacked the requisite culture to access higher knowledge. As has been so valuably suggested by Elizabeth Eisenstein, the majority of the population at that time did not know how to read, and there remained thus a clear distinction between literacy and familiarity with reading, between learning to read and learning through reading. In other words, knowing how to read did not necessarily mean that a person would actually engage in the act of reading or acquire new knowledge.10 The “illiterates” and those who had rudimentary knowledge were divided by various degrees of culture that corresponded to different levels of access to knowledge, which, however, are not perfectly distinguishable. Paolo Trovato 8 See Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays (Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press, 1975), 192–3. 9 See Appendix 1. On the reliability of prefaces, see Paolo Trovato, L’ordine dei tipografi. Lettori, stampatori, correttori tra Quattro e Cinquecento (Roma: Bulzoni, 1998), 143–61. 10 See Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 65–6. On Eisenstein see Anthony Grafton, “The Importance of Being Printed,” The Journal of Inderdisciplinary History, 2 (1980): 265–86.

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and Pietro Trifone have shown that relying exclusively on literacy statistics for Renaissance Italy is fruitless because they are largely unreliable. Indeed, reading and linguistic skills generally varied not only among different social classes, but also within the same social class. Gigliola Fragnito lucidly distils this thus: “there was the literacy of those who knew how to read and write, the semi-literacy of those who had varying degrees of reading ability, and absolute illiteracy.”11 The social and economic conditions that determined the level of a person’s education differed enormously, even among the illiterates. Roger Chartier suggests that the printed word was familiar even to those who could not read, in workshops, in the Protestant churches, and in the festive confraternities. Addressed in common, taught by some and deciphered by others, deeply integrated into the life of the community, the printed word laid its mark on the urban culture of the popular masses. And it thus created an audience, and therefore a market, beyond those who were literate and even those who read books. In fact between 1530 and 1660, for the majority of the popular urban classes, the relation to the printed material is not a relation to books …12

While some acquired the rudiments of an education in the home or the workshop, others were self-taught and built an education primarily on their contact with the book; some were able to attend parish schools, while others went to abacus schools. Having the means to attend a university or hire a top-notch private tutor was therefore not the only factor discriminating between literates and illiterates.13 Moreover, literacy was by no means the only barrier standing between the common people and the educated classes. The availability of vernacular works – whether printed or manuscript, not to mention their cost – and the existence of social occasions on which such works could be read aloud, were all factors that had a profound influence on the consumption of cultural products. Why Aristotle’s works should be directed at social groups with such a low level of education is a moot question. An initial, if partial, answer may be found in the passages cited above and in those mentioned in chapter 3. 11 Gigliola Fragnito, Proibito capire. La Chiesa e il volgare nella prima età moderna (Bologna: il Mulino, 2005), 269. 12 Chartier, Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Modern France, 243. 13 On education in Renaissance Italy with particular reference to vernacular teachings, see Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy, 275–332; Robert Black, Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 275–81, 301–5.

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These works are most commonly described as “benefiting” such people and increasing their knowledge.14 The benefit and accretion of knowledge they bestow are to serve all human beings in fulfilling their essence as rational beings who by their very nature wish to know, as Aristotle himself asserts at the beginning of the Metaphysica. And from this knowledge, again in Aristotelian terms, derives happiness, since happiness results from the fulfilment of one’s nature. Benefiting others is a duty that human beings must perform by virtue of the fact that a human being’s nature consists in the perfection of knowledge, and this will also lead to the perfection of practical activities and therefore to a greater state of happiness. There is also a second level of consideration whereby works have specific recipients, and therefore also purposes that go beyond benefiting the person in a general sense. Antonio Scaino and Felice Figliucci, for instance, dedicate their works to men involved in politics who govern cities. Panfilo Persico is even more explicit in addressing his writings to princes and those who rule the republic and the court. Far from being uneducated, these social groups frequently had knowledge of Classical languages, or at least some degree of erudition, but even so it was easier for them to read in the vernacular than a language that was no longer spoken. A striking example is the Doge Leonardo Donà, who knew Latin, but read the Bible in the vernacular.15 The works of Benedetto Dottori and Lodovico Castelvetro were aimed at a similar, if not higher cultural milieu: men of letters, poets, and literary critics. That both Dottori and Castelvetro addressed their writings to scholars of the Republic of Letters with a certain level of erudition – and therefore steeped in Classical literature, – serves to explain the complexity of their works. Yet the fact that they were written in the vernacular instead of Latin, as would have been the case only thirty or forty years before, shows how profound a shift the studia humanitatis were going through, and how the new humanism conceived in the academies mostly spoke the vernacular rather than Latin. A case in point is the Loica by the Venetian physician Niccolò Massa, which was addressed “not only to Philosophers and Rhetoricians, but also Grammarians, Historians, and other men of letters,” namely to all those who in the fifteenth century pursued the studia humanitatis – that is to say, the humanists.16 Writing in the vernacular was no mere literary 14 See Maria Pia Ellero, “I volgarizzamenti e la felicità mentale: l’umana perfezione nella Filosofia naturale di Alessandro Piccolomini,” in Lo scaffale della biblioteca scientifica in volgare (secoli XIII–XVI) (Firenze: Sismel-Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2006), 453–68. 15 See Fragnito, Proibito capire, 265. 16 Niccolò Massa, Loica (Venezia: Bindoni, 1549), frontmatter.

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exercise for these new intellectuals: they were effectively expanding the recipient base for Aristotelian texts. For many vernacular writers, however, the educated upper classes were not the only intended recipients. Giovan Battista Gelli was animated by a need to teach philosophy also to woodcutters and apothecaries,17 while Claudio Tolomei viewed the knowledge of mechanics as an important acquisition for sculptors, painters, carpenters, and architects too.18 Mechanics, as Niccolò Tartaglia wrote in the frontispiece of his Scientia nova, was an important subject also for “bombardiers” – that is artillerymen and men of war – not only for so-called “speculative mathematicians.”19 Francesco Verino, on the other hand, pronounced that the natural phenomena investigated in the Meteorologica would be of interest to anyone who read it, whether for “honour” or “pleasure,” on the simple ground that such phenomena give rise to “marvellous things”; or else for practical purposes,20 in the case of a paterfamilias, who must keep the home stocked with food, or a doctor, who would discover therein the causes of diseases and their remedies, or navigators, both mercantile and military, who would learn how to anticipate adverse weather conditions. Works targeting specific recipient groups were usually, but not exclusively, concerned with ethical-political matters (ethics, politics, rhetoric), or applied sciences (mechanics and meteorology), and sometimes differed from Latin works in that they contained a practical form of knowledge that their public would apply.21 Furthermore, that such targeted groups did not consist only of men is demonstrated by Alessandro Piccolomini, some of whose works were 17 On the apothecary as a hub of information and communication, see Filippo De Vivo, “Pharmacies as Centres of Communication in Early Modern Venice,” Renaissance Studies, 21 (2007): 505–21. 18 Claudio Tolomei, Delle lettere libri sette (Venezia: Giolito, 1547), 82r–v: “Matters relating to architecture are very popular and widely practiced nowadays among men who have little knowledge of the Latin language, and likewise among sculptors, painters, master carpenters, and vulgar architects. … It will therefore be of benefit to the world to provide a new translation of Vitruvius in the beautiful Tuscan language …” (“Le cose d’architettura sono disiderate assai e praticate oggidì da huomini che non hanno molta intelligenza di lingua latina, sì come scoltori, dipintori, maestri di legname, e architettori volgari. … Farassi dunque ancor questo utile al mondo, traducendo nuovamente Vitruvio in bella lingua toscana …”). 19 Niccolò Tartaglia, Inventione novamente trovata … utilissima per ciascuno speculativo Mathematico, Bombardiero et altri intitolata Scientia nova (Venezia: Sabbio, 1537), *ii. 20 See Craig Martin, “Meteorology for Courtiers and Ladies: Vernacular Aristotelianism in Renaissance Italy,” Philosophical Readings, 2 (2012): 3–14; Donato Verardi, “I Meteori di Cesare Rao e l’aristotelismo in volgare nel Rinascimento,” Rinascimento meridionale, 3 (2012): 115–28. 21 See, for example, the advice genre written for politicians and governors featured in Valentina Lepri, Layered Wisdom: Early Modern Collections of Political Precepts (CLEUP: Padova, 2015).

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written precisely with women in mind. Not only as possible authors of a new vernacular literature, but also in their roles as nannies and wet-nurses, women with access to culture were perfectly placed to become themselves vehicles in the education of children, who were in this manner exposed from their earliest years to works which were probably read to them in infancy, and which they would later go on to memorize.22 Hence we might say that a substantial cross-section of the population was the intended recipient of these works, and therefore that the cultural consumer base was thus greatly expanded.23 These were the intended public – the people – targeted by Aristotle’s vulgarizers. It is natural to want to know at this point whether this public, these consumers of Aristotelian vulgarizations, did in fact exist, or whether they were a completely invented fabrication, perhaps for commercial purposes merely to sell more books to a greater number of people.24 Put differently, we might want to ask whether there was at least a partial correspondence between intended public and real audience. Again, some preliminary understanding of the conception of this public will provide insight into the nature of the actual audience, for the simple reason that someone who writes is writing for someone – for instance, artisans, women, or merchants. In absolute terms, we might say – to quote Giovan Battista Gelli – that “anyone who writes does so for no other reason than that his things, preserved as letters, which do not disappear like voices, may be understood by the whole 22 See Fragnito, Proibito capire, 275–87. 23 There were handbooks for teaching adults like artisans and women to read without going to school. For sixteenth-century Rome see Armando Petrucci, “Scrittura, alfabetismo ed educazione graf ica nella Roma del primo Cinquecento: da un libretto di conti di Maddalena Pizzicarola in Trastevere,” Scrittura e civiltà, 2 (1978): 163–207. For sixteenth-century Venice see Piero Lucchi, “La Santacroce, il Salterio e il Babuino: Libri per imparare a leggere nel primo secolo della stampa,” Quaderni storici, 38 (1978): 593–630; Piero Lucchi, “Leggere scrivere e abbaco: L’istruzione elementare agli inizi dell’età moderna,” in Scienze, credenze occulte, livelli di cultura (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1982), 101–19; Paul F. Grendler, “What Zuanne Read in School: Vernacular Texts in Sixteenth Century Venetian Schools,” The Sixteenth Century Journal, 13 (1982): 41–54; Anne Jacobson Schutte, “Teaching Adults to Read in Sixteenth-Century Venice: Giovanni Antonio Tagliente’s Libro Maistrevole,” Sixteenth Century Journal, 17 (1986): 3–16. 24 See Paolo Veneziani, “Il frontespizio come etichetta del prodotto,” in Il libro italiano del Cinquecento. Produzione e commercio (Rome: Istituto poligraf ico e Zecca dello Stato, 1989), 99–125. See also Paolo Trovato, “Prefazioni cinquecentesche e questione della lingua. Assaggi su testi non letterari,” Schifanoia, 9 (1990): 55–66; Francesca Gatta, “Prefazioni a traduzioni scientifiche e Questione della lingua nel Cinquecento,” La lingua italiana. Storia, strutture, testi, 7 (2011): 41–55; Laura Refe, “Istruzioni per l’uso e dichiarazioni di metodo nei volgarizzamenti aristotelici del Rinascimento (I),” Philosophical Readings, 2 (2016): 95–106.

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world.”25 If the social groups to which such works were explicitly addressed had not existed as a prototype readership, or if it had not been possible to create them as a new type of literary space, the writer would either not have written at all or have stopped writing altogether. That social groups that were uneducated or capable of reading only in the vernacular did in fact exist is borne out by at least one factor evinced by the parallel phenomenon in Italy of biblical vulgarizations. There were a great number of laymen, idiots, women and artisans that discussed religious matters, and these were scattered all over the Italian peninsula. They ranged from the most famous Menocchio – masterfully narrated by Carlo Ginzburg – to the small heretical groups of Siena or Porcia, so magnificently depicted by Valerio Marchetti and Andrea Del Col.26 Erasmus’ dreams, more than that of Luther, were coming true. 25 Gelli, Opere, 202: “chiunque scrive non lo fa per altro, se non perché le cose sue, essendo conservate dalle lettere, che non vengon meno come le voci, sieno intese da tutto il mondo.” 26 Among all the various records of the inquisitorial trials, the most significant for its relation to the passage in the Gospel according to Matthew is that of Antonio Fachin, which has been comprehensively reconstructed by Andrea Del Col. Little or nothing is known about Fachin. He was an artisan of Porcia, near Pordenone. He had a workshop for weaving wool and for making clothes for ordinary people. Nothing is strange about any of this, except that this artisan exhibited very odd and strange behaviour, especially in comparison to his fellow villagers, and especially concerning religious matters. As Del Col writes in vivid words, Fachin “did not go to the mass and did not confess himself, he did not respect the holidays but rather he opened his workshop early in the morning; he did not observe the disposition on the abstinence of eating meat on Friday, Saturday and on the prescribed eves … he made disconcerting discourse on religion, which was certainly qualified as heretical and Lutheran, talking in the streets, in the houses and in his workshop, where he kept a Bible in the vernacular for those who wanted to read or hear it read … he conversed with artisans and in general with the common people not only of Porcia, but also of nearby towns, with men and women and sometimes he discussed with priests themselves” (Andrea Del Col, “Eterodossia e cultura fra gli artigiani di Porcia nel secolo XVI,” Il Noncello, 46 (1978): 10). In short, his behaviour certainly did not go unnoticed. He did not respect good customs prescribed by the Church, and discussed sacred things with everyone, even women, and gave everyone the opportunity to read or listen to the Holy Scripture in the vernacular in his workshop. His method of circulation and production of knowledge was mainly oral, and his battlefields were informal contexts like private houses and public streets. He even considered himself a teacher. In fact, Fachin was not alone, and among his followers were a large number of artisans, ranging from the leathermaker Francesco Soldà to the cobblers Zulian della Massara and Hieronimo della Massara, and from the carter Fiori de Luchetta and weaver Alovise to the German peasant Zorzi Stanfelder. In Fachin there was everything that Silvio Antoniano rejected in a Christian. Fachin regularly hosted this group of artisans – not dissimilar to many other “temerarious artisans” operating in other towns like Siena or Mantua – to discuss philosophical and religious topics in his own house. He duplicated what the sixteenth-century academies or intellectuals did. Among the various members of Fachin’s circle, some owned books like Antonio Brucioli’s translation of the Bible or Lucio Paolo Rossello’s Discorso di penitenza (1549), and

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Further, conservative intellectuals on all sides opposing the vulgarization of knowledge were reacting against an endeavour that was clearly proving successful, otherwise their reaction would have been less forceful. This movement against vulgarizations and vulgarizers banishes all doubt regarding the possibility that the programmatic statements of vulgarizers were purely propagandistic, and therefore directed at a largely fictional, non-existent public. The Franciscan friar, Giovanni da Fano, wrote against the “Lutheran heresy” for the edification of those who were “illiterate and simple,” in other words for “idiot men, women and children.”27 The very idea of extending knowledge to “cobblers, bronzesmiths, scrap metal merchants, butchers, dyers, wool cleaners, wool beaters, builders and blacksmiths,”28 not to some had also attended schools that gave them the opportunity to learn reading, writing and keeping accounts. Yet it was not the written culture – as Del Col lucidly remarks – “that mainly informed the beliefs of the group,” but rather “the oral transmission was of greater importance and effect” (Ibid., 21), even in relation to different social and cultural classes. What was the oral message that they conveyed? It was a message that was certainly considered heretical, deviant and mainly Lutheran. In particular, Fachin maintained that one should not recite the Rosary, and that those who believed in saints were fools. He denied the existence of purgatory and the value of confession or mass, and he did not believe in transubstantiation. Extremely meaningful for our reconstruction is the episode of the death of Fachin’s mother in 1554. Antonio did not allow his mother to confess, but paid for her funeral, even if he turned his back on the host during the Eucharist (Ibid.). After the religious celebration he pronounced the following words: “I have never in my life spent money that has hurt me more than this that I gave to these rabid dogs of priests” (Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Santo Uffizio, processi b. 13, fasc. Deloio Antonio, cc. 2r–v, 13v–14r). Fachin’s brief words reveal two attitudes that illuminate the message of the Gospel according to Matthew. The holders of knowledge – the arrogant priests – are the true dogs, not the humble and pious people. There is a complete inversion of the evangelical message that associated priests in a derogatory way with rabbis, who – as we have seen – were those who kept close control of knowledge and did not reveal the mysteries. It is an attitude that must not, or at least should not be regarded as Lutheran, but that incorporates an idea dear to Erasmus and that started from a sense of profound need for spiritual renovatio and enrichment, which was widespread in early modern Italy and which involved not only great intellectuals, but also, and perhaps most of all, common people. The spiritual renewal that many historians have identified as a characteristic of this period was essentially democratic, not elitist, and involved broad strata of society. 27 Giovanni Pili da Fano, Opera utilissima vulgare contra le pernitiosissime heresie lutherane per li simplici (Bologna: Phello, 1532), 1v. On Pili see Silvano Cavazza, “Luthero fedelissimo inimico de messer Jesu Christo. La polemica contro Lutero nella letteratura religiosa in volgare della prima metà del Cinquecento,” in Lutero in Italia. Studi storici nel V centenario della nascita (Casale Monferrato: Marietti, 1983), 67–94; Gian Luigi Betti, “Alcune considerazioni riguardo all’Incendio de zizanie lutherane di Giovanni da Fano pubblicato a Bologna nel 1532,” Archiginnasio. Bollettino della Biblioteca Comunale di Bologna, 82 (1987): 235–43; Sebastiano da Potenza, “L’incendio di zizanie lutherane di Giovanni da Fano,” Italia francescana, 36 (1961): 188–96, 426–31. 28 Lorenzo Davidico, Anotomia delli vitii (Firenze, 1550), 327. See Massimo Firpo, Nel labirinto del mondo. Lorenzo Davidico tra santi, eretici, inquisitori (Firenze: Olschki, 1992), 96–7; Massimo Firpo, Riforma protestante ed eresie nell’Italia del Cinquecento (Bari-Roma: Laterza, 1993), 10.

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mention “the tailors, the woodcutters, and other low-born scum,”29 was hard to accept. This was, however, the dream of a pious man such as Erasmus. Yet, as Dominican friar Ambrogio Catarino Politi, the great castigator of Antonio Brucioli, was forced to admit, human curiosity and presumption, … has reached the point today that any person, whatever their circumstances, whether woman or man, whether idiot, uneducated, or educated, wants to understand profound matters of sacred theology and Holy Scripture.30

The ecclesiastical authorities had to keep control over knowledge, banishing as Lutheran and therefore heretical any attempt at undifferentiated democratization or intellectual curiosity. To the endeavour to extend wisdom, and in particular knowledge of Holy Scripture, beyond the strict circle of learned men and the ecclesiastical world, the Catholic Church reacted with a programme of censorship and oppression aimed at denying that holy things be given to dogs or pearls be thrown before swine. It is a significant response that characterized the period of Counter-Reformation, especially in Italy, and that led to the compilation of many indexes of prohibited books and to the institution of various apparatuses for the control of knowledge and repression of ideas that could diminish ecclesiastical authority. In his Tre libri dell’educatione christiana dei figliouli (1584), Silvio Antoniano – secretary of the college of cardinals, friend of cardinal Carlo Borromeo and Sperone Speroni, censor of Torquato Tasso – in an attempt to establish a new educational programme in contrast to those advanced by the Reformation, wrote: It is not the task of the layman, of the idiot, of the artisan, and of the woman to dispute subtly of the things of our faith, nor to be arrogantly a teacher […] Because the good Christian must not seek curiously for things beyond his intelligence, but he must simply believe in what the holy mother Church says and in this holy simplicity he will be saved,

29 Vincenzo Ferrini, Della lima universale de’ vitii (Venezia: Giunti, 1607), 308r. All these accounts are examined in Firpo, “Riforma religiosa e lingua volgare nell’Italia del Cinquecento,” 537–8. 30 Ambrogio Catarino Politi, Compendio d’errori et inganni luterani contenuti in un libretto senza nome de l’autore, intitolato “Trattato utilissimo del benefitio di Christo crucifisso”, Roma, Ne la contrada del Pellegrino, ed. Massimo Firpo, in Benedetto da Mantova, Il beneficio di Cristo, ed. Salvatore Caponetto (Firenze-Chicago: Sansoni-The Newberry Library, 1972), 347. On Politi see Coletti, Parole dal Pulpito, 139–40; Caravale, Beyond the Inquisition.

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for to enter Paradise great learning is not necessary, but great charity, humility, and obedience.31

Antoniano applies in its strictest sense the evangelic precept not to cast pearls before swine and not to be high-minded, countering what Erasmus had proclaimed. He denies that laymen, illiterates, workers and women might be intellectually curious and at the same time criticizes anyone who wants to be a teacher of doctrine that he cannot perfectly understand. Intellectual curiosity – noli altum sapere – must be limited and sometimes punished, while subjection to ecclesiastical authority, the only true source of knowledge, must be incentivized and stimulated. As this handful of testimonies indicates, the social classes mentioned by those who opposed the vulgarization of biblical lore were similar to the recipient groups targeted by Aristotle’s vulgarizers, which suggests that such an audience not only existed but was capable of reading complex doctrines, a fact of no small concern to the religious authorities. And if they were capable of grasping the truth of the Bible, theology and Revelation, one might argue that they were also capable of understanding the rational truths offered by philosophy, albeit partially and with some degree of effort. No doubt the level of penetration for Holy Scripture was higher than that of the philosophical texts, for the reason that there was more occasion to come into contact with the biblical message, but nonetheless the public was the same. That philosophical works could indeed be directed at groups at the bottom or on the margins, including illiterates, idiots, simple people, and labourers, may indeed raise scepticism or doubt. Could Aristotle really have had such widespread influence and such a large public at a time when literacy rates were so low? How deeply did the knowledge of Aristotle penetrate society, reaching even ordinary people? Such questions would require a series of micro-historical and sociological studies of culture aimed at reconstructing the knowledge of the so-called lower classes, studies that would be severely hampered by the volatile, oral nature of popular culture at the time. At most, one could seek to reconstruct the book heritage, but this too would yield 31 Silvio Antoniano, Tre libri dell’educatione christiana dei figliouli (Verona: Sebastiano dalle Donne, 1584), 39: “non è off itio del laico, dell’idiota, dell’artigiano et della feminetta il voler disputar sottilmente delle cose della nostra fede, nè arrogarsi il luogo del maestro. […] Per ilche il buon Christiano non ha da cercare curiosamente molte cose sopra la sua intelligenza, ma ha da credere simplicemente quello che la santa Chiesa madre nostra ci propone et in questa santa simplicità sarà salvo, conciosia che per andare in paradiso non fa di bisogno di molta dottrina, ma di molta carità, humiltà, et obedienza.”

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only a partial picture of the culture of the period. As Zemon Davis, Del Col and Fragnito have rightly pointed out, common people did not need to form a private book collection in order to have access to them: (1) they could purchase a book or a manuscript,32 and then sell it on, having read it; (2) reading groups could disseminate knowledge orally (for instance in rural areas, in workshops or printing houses);33 (3) certain works, like those on mathematical calculus, were available in shops, and therefore accessible to apprentices as well as shopkeepers;34 (4) other works were intended to be distributed orally, such as sermons, songs, and speeches.

In his edict of 20 October 1598, Pietro Visconti from Tabia, the inquisitor of Reggio Emilia, neatly encapsulates all the various possible approaches to texts and books, condemning “who composes, transcribes, prints, sells, buys, brings, donates, borrows, receives, holds, hides, reads and listens to books” which can be considered heretical.35 There were therefore multiple ways of acquiring knowledge from books, without possessing a single copy.

32 A key factor in the circulation of vernacular Aristotelian works was the widespread practice of personally transcribing manuscripts: printing “did not immediately displace the ms. trade … The average library, whether public or private, contained mss. as well as printed books … a doctor might have one treatise of Aristotle in printed form and another in ms. form,” see George Sarton, Appreciation of Ancient and Medieval Science During the Renaissance 1450–1600 (New York: Barnes, 1958), 4. 33 Of particular interest, and characteristic of the time, are reading groups of women and Protestants. For the latter especially, it was extremely dangerous to possess works that were considered heretical, and these were therefore frequently disseminated orally. See Fragnito, Proibito capire, 261–310; Valerio Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali senesi nel Cinquecento (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1975). 34 On these points, Natalie Zemon Davis is emphatic: Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 212–3. 35 Archivio di Stato di Modena, Inquisizione, b. 270, fasc. IV: “Chi compone, transcrive, stampa, vende, compra, porta, dona, impresta, riceve, tiene, nasconde, legge, et ascolta libri, o scritti d’heretici, overo contenti heresia, o infedeltà, arte magica, negromantia, incanti, superstitioni.” See Gigliola Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo. La censura ecclesiastica e i volgarizzamenti della Scrittura (1471–1605) (Bologna: il Mulino, 1997), 42.

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Real audience

Up to now I have thematized the intended public of vulgarizations, and the conception of democratization of knowledge that they entail. I have also problematized the existence of such an intended public. Now, I would like to say a little more about the actual audience. In order to understand how a vulgarization was more or less received, one needs to search for written evidence or dig about in the inventories of private libraries. Certainly a mention of a book in a letter, or a citation of a book in another text, or the presence of a volume in a library catalogue, says little in relation to the real reception. They only say that the vulgarization had a certain degree of circulation, but not how it was used. Moreover, from the standpoint of the history of knowledge, it is important to remember that the possession of a single book instead of a well-furnished library, is often the more significant, because such a work had the potential to have more of an impact on the real audience. These remarks are important in that they emphasize the need for caution in determining the actual influence of a vulgarization on the real audience. It is essential, for instance, to check books listed in inventories very carefully, and then, after that, whether the books still exist and, if so, whether there are any signs or evidence of it having been read or annotated. Even where such investigations have been possible, books often show very few telling traces, as we shall see. What does this mean? Were the books not read? Were they simply used in another way? In order to assess the real audience, these limitations of the evidence must always be kept in mind. Among the real audience, those who had most to gain from the democratization of knowledge were women, who became not merely passive readers, but also active authors of philosophical and scientific texts. There are at least three striking cases that show how the process of vulgarization of Aristotelian works had an impact on a female public, all of which involve Piccolomini. The first case, masterfully narrated by Laura Refe,36 is that of Giulia Da Ponte. Refe discovered a copy of Piccolomini’s Institutione di tutta la vita de l’homo nato nobile e in città libera,37 which contains a handwritten dedicatory

36 Laura Refe, “Un esemplare della Institutione di tutta la vita dell’homo nato nobile (1545) di Alessandro Piccolomini donato a Giulia Da Ponte,” L’Ellisse. Studi storici di letteratura italiana, 11 (2016): 91–107. 37 Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, A: 60.9 Eth.

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Figure 6.3: Frangipane’s dedicatory letter to Giulia da Ponte, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, A: 60.9 Eth.

letter from Prospero Frangipane to Giulia Da Ponte, making clear that the book was a gift for the baptism of one of her sons or daughters. Giulia was the daughter of the nobleman Giovanni Paolo da Ponte, patron of Titian and owner of a conspicuous library. In 1534 Giulia married Adriano

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of Spilimbergo, supporter of Bernardino Partenio’s academy and a bookcollector. Adriano’s library was full of Erasmian works, and also of biblical and religious books, among which were Brucioli’s vulgarizations. When Adriano died in 1541, Giulia married Giovan Francesco of Spilimbergo. Both Adriano and Giovan Francesco endorsed heterodox religious ideas. She was at the centre of animated cultural life: Adriano encouraged her in her studies, she received books from her correspondents, and had a large number of works at her disposal. She gave a typical humanistic education to her children, sharing the Erasmian pedagogic ideal of reading Holy Scripture in the vernacular to strengthen the faith. She gave her children the opportunity to have access to all books in our mother tongue that have been published by good writers, because, by God’s grace, in this period many valiant and learned spirits have written and translated from the Greek and Latin into these worthy and honourable books, which were read and studied by them [the children] so diligently, that not only did they benefit from histories, sciences and arts, but also all the fruit and juice that every practical and learned student could acquire from them, and thus they enriched themselves with ancient and modern histories and from poetical fables that, with the result that all persons that spoke with them believed they were very well educated in Greek and Latin.38

Refe found important clues in the reading habits of Giulia’s daughter’s, Irene of Spilimbergo: She read many books translated from Latin and Greek into the vernacular and others of our mother tongue pertaining to customs, politeness and the rules of our language, observing with diligence the most notable things. She had many other books continuously in her hands, such as Plutarch little works, Piccolomini’s Institutione, the Cortigiano, Bembo’s Asolani, Petrarch and other similar books, which she read not as the majority of women and 38 Refe, “Un esemplare della Institutione di tutta la vita dell’homo nato nobile (1545) di Alessandro Piccolomini donato a Giulia Da Ponte,” 105: “tutti libri che nella lingua nostra materna sono fora de boni scrittori, che per gratia de Dio in questa nostra ettà molti valorosi et dotti spiriti ha scritti et translati da la grecha et latina lingua in questi degni et honorati libri, i quali veduti et studiati da esse così diligentemente, che non solo ne ha tratto el beneffitio delle instorie over scientie et arte, ma tutto quel frutto et sugo che ogni pratico et dotto studente ne avesse potuto cavare, et così arichitesi delle istorie antiche et moderne et delle fabole poetiche che, con qualunque persona parlavano, credevano che le fosse instruitissime della greca et latina lingua.”

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men do, as a mere hobby or by chance, but with judicious and particular care of the topics, of the concepts and of elocutions, noting and making abstracts with application of the mind of the most beautiful things to use them for politeness and for customs, as well as for reasonings and writings.39

Irene read translations of Greek and Latin texts as well as original works written in the vernacular, among which was Piccolomini’s Institutione. Her aim was not mere pleasure, but to ennoble her spirit, to educate her behaviour and to enrich her knowledge. This evidence shows also that Irene was used to taking excerpts from what she read, eagerly consuming everything that came into her hands. In both the two other cases – this time involving Camilla Erculiani and Fiammetta Frescobaldi – Piccolomini’s vernacular books were devoured, digested and re-written. 40 Camilla Erculiani was an apothecary, who read and quoted Piccolomini’s Seconda parte della filosofia naturale in her Lettere della philosophia naturale.41 The idea that Erculiani read no book in drafting her work, as she mentioned in the letter to the readers, is to be discounted. The references to texts of Greek and Latin philosophy and sciences are precise and accurate, and they show that she had one eye on her books and that she also knew Classical languages. Erculiani has a perfect understanding of Piccolomini and of his thesis against the possibility of an infinite body. 42 Fiammetta Frescobaldi, in contrast, was a Dominican nun of the convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli in Florence. 43 At the age of twenty-five she became 39 Ibid.: “leggeva molti libri tradotti dal latino et dal greco in volgare et altri della nostra lingua appartenenti alle morali, alla creanza et alle regole di essa lingua, osservando con diligentia le cose più notabili. Haveva etiandio di continuo molte altre opere per le mani, come sono le operette di Plutarco, l’Institutione del Piccolomini, il Cortigiano, gli Asolani del Bembo, il Petrarca e cotai libri; i quali ella leggeva non come il più delle donne et anco de gli huomini fanno, per semplice passatempo, o come a caso, ma con giuditioso et particolare avvertimento delle materie che trattano, de concetti e delle elocutioni, osservando tuttavia et facendo estratti delle cose più belle, con fissa application d’animo al servirsi di loro così nella creanza et ne’ costumi, come ne’ ragionamenti et ne’ gli scritti.” 40 Eleonora Carinci, “Between Convent and Apothecary: Women Readers of Alessandro Piccolomini’s Natural Philosophy,” in Liberty, Irreverence and the Place of Women in Early Modern Italian Culture: Studies in Honour of Letizia Panizza, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2022), forthcoming. 41 On Piccolomini’s natural philosophy and his eclectic perspective see Stefano Caroti, “L’Aristotele italiano di Alessandro Piccolomini: un progetto sistematico di filosofia naturale in volgare a metà ‘500,” in Il volgare come lingua di cultura dal Trecento al Cinquecento (Firenze: Olschki, 2003), 361–401. 42 Camillia Erculiani, Lettere della philosophia naturale (Kracow: Lazaro, 1584), fiij. 43 Giovanna Pierattini, “Suor Fiammetta Frescobaldi cronista del monastero domenicano di Sant’Iacopo a Ripoli in Firenze (1523–1586),” Memorie domenicane 56 (1939): 101–16, 233–40;

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ill and unable to work, and therefore she started her career as vulgarizer and translator for her sisters at the convent who did not know Latin. She was self-taught, most likely she was ignorant of Classical languages, and she was able to collect a number of books for the convent through relatives. Very proudly she writes that in September 1582 she had a wardrobe for her books “written in Latin and in the vernacular for the consolation of the nuns.”44 From these books she produced several manuscript works among which were four volumes divided into the seven parts of her Sfera dell’universo, which was, at least in the case of the first volume, a revision and summary of Piccolomini’s Della sfera del mondo. Her encounter with Piccolomini’s text is vividly written in her own words to her brother: It is so natural to the human intellect to search for and investigate new things, lovely brother (by me cordially loved) that it can never stop. I have experimented with this many times and I have continuous experience of it, so much so that since I have known the parts of the world newly discovered, to understand it I wrote a book like a general history; however, the desire did not die out, rather a greater desire was kindled in me to understand something of the heavens, of their movements, of the fixed and wandering stars; of the circles, of the zones, and of others things that I could not find satisfaction. Into my hands came the book entitled “Della sfera del mondo,” composed by the Sienese Alessandro Piccolomini, written by him with such learning and no less elegance in the year 1561 (or better say printed); I had such satisfaction and pleasure that I decided to write a short treatise, leaving aside all that information he gives to know things and the ways to acquire these cognitions through the figures of spheres, circles and other similar things, being content with his conclusions more easily understandable by my low wit. 45 57 (1940): 106–11, 260–69; 58 (1941): 28–38, 74–84, 226–34, 258–68. See also Angelo Cattaneo, Giovanna Murano, and Elissa B. Weaver, “Fiammetta Frescobaldi (1523–1586),” in Autographa: Autografi di italiani illustri—Autographs of Learned Italians, 2.1: Donne, sante e madonne: Da Matilde di Canossa ad Artemisia Gentileschi (Imola: La Mandragora, 2018), 173–81. 44 Pierattini, “Suor Fiammetta Frescobaldi cronista del monastero domenicano di Sant’Iacopo a Ripoli in Firenze (1523–1586),” 258. 45 Ibid., 263–4: “Et tanto naturale allo intelletto humano il ricercare e investigare nuove cose amantissimo fratelllo (da me cordialmente amato) che mai può posarsi; il che ho sperimentato assai volte in me et del continuo sperimento, imperochè avendo inteso delle parti del mondo nuovamente discoperto, per capacitarlo, ne scrissi un libro a modo di storia generale; non per questo si estinse tal desiderio, anzi mi si accese un desiderio maggiore di intendere qualcosa de’ cieli, dei loro moti, delle stelle f isse et delle erranti; de’ circoli, delle zone, et altre cose a noi apartenenti, che non trovavo posa. Venne nelle mie mani il libro intitolato “Della sfera del

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Frescobaldi owned the edition of De la sfera del mondo that included Le stelle fisse, published in Venice by Giovanni Varisco. The letter continues with the description of the content of her treatise. The most interesting aspect of the incipit, which is reminiscent of the beginning of Aristotle’s Metaphysica, is that it provides a precious sense of Frescobaldi’s intellectual curiosity and how she approached the reading of Piccolomini’s text by going directly to the conclusion, without spending very much time or effort on more complex questions. That women were interested in De la sfera del mondo is evident from its presence in many libraries of nuns. But a certain level of interest was also stirred in lay women. For instance, in 1585 Lessandra di Manetto Fei left a library of astronomy and navigation books, among which was Piccolomini’s La sfera del mondo. 46 Frescobaldi’s case permits more general reflection on the dissemination of Aristotelian vernacular works among religious orders, where generally the level of literacy was low. The libraries of religious orders in Italy teemed with Aristotelian texts in the vernacular, as the detailed inventories testify.47 The dissemination of Piccolomini’s work is the hardest to determine because of the large number of editions and reprints, and the impossibility in most cases of identifying the exact volume. 48 Nonetheless, from the table we can appreciate the extent of the diffusion in almost all the libraries of religious orders. In contrast to Piccolomini, Brucioli’s vulgarizations are noticeably absent, and this is not surprising given his reputation as a heretic and the fact that his vulgarizations of Holy Scripture are in any case rare. Severely limited also is the circulation of the vulgarization of the Poetica of another heterodox, Lodovico Castelvetro. The topic and the difficulty of the work did little to arouse the interest of the readers, who, as we have seen, were mainly men of letters. The Florentine Segni had a degree of circulation. The Retorica et poetica di Aristotele is preserved in eighteen copies, while the Trattato dei governi survives in eight, and the Ethica again in eighteen. mondo,” composto da Messer Alessandro Picholuomini sanese, scritto da esso con molta Dottrina e non minore elegantia l’anno 1561 (o per dir meglio stampato); ne presi tanta sodisfatione et tanto piacere che deliberai scriverne un breve trattato, lasciando da parte tutti gli avertimenti che dà per sapere conoscere delle cose e i modi di conseguitare tal cognitioni colle figure a ciò convenienti delle sfere, circoli e altre cose simili, contetandomi delle sue conclusioni come più facili a capire al mio basso ingegno.” 46 Christian Bec, Les Livres des Florentins (1413–1608) (Firenze: Olschki, 1984), 246. 47 See Appendix 2 for a detailed list. 48 I have taken the titles from the f irst editions. Sometimes it is impossible to distinguish L’instrumento della filosofia from Instrumento de la filosofia naturale, or which parts of Piccolomini’s natural philosophy the inventory refers to, and in such cases I have left the title as it is in the catalogue.

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Girolamo Manfredi’s Il perché is among the texts that enjoyed significant dispersal, and there are thirty-eight copies in the libraries of religious houses. In contrast to the hundreds of copies of the Catechismo, there are only twenty-one copies of Felice Figliucci’s Della filosofia morale libri dieci, and two of De la politica, overo scienza civile secondo la dottrina d’Aristotile. Nicolò Vito di Gozze enjoyed wider circulation with his Platonic works, less with his Aristotelian. His Dello stato delle republiche secondo la mente di Aristotele is preserved in three copies, his Governo della famiglia just one, while there are four remaining of the Discorsi sopra le Metheore d’Aristotele. One of the most read books among religious orders was Galeazzo Florimonte’s Ragionamenti sopra l’Ethica d’Aristotele (1554) with eleven copies remaining. Monsignor Fernando Davila in Venice had a large collection of religious and philosophical books, mainly in Latin. As well as the vernacular works of Aristotle, he had an ethics and a rhetoric impossible to identify, and also L’Ethica di Aristotile a Nicomacho ridutta in modo di Parafrasi dal Reverendo M. Antonio Scanio. 49 Aristotle in the vernacular made his appearance also on the shelves of many artists. For instance, Gian Lorenzo Bernini owned a copy of Piccolomini’s De la sfera del mondo, Panfilo Persico’s Della filosophia morale & politica d’Aristotele, Ludovico Dolce’s Somma della filosofia d’Aristotele, and Giovanni Manente’s Il segreto de segreti.50 The painter Pietro Vieri had a great number of vernacular books, among which are listed: Piccolomini’s La prima filosofia naturale, La seconda parte della filosofia naturale and La sfera del mondo, Varchi’s Lezzioni, Verino’s Trattato delle Metheore, Segni’s L’Etica d’Aristotele and Rettorica et Poetica d’Aristotele, Rinaldo Odoni’s Discorso per via peripatetica, and most likely Brucioli’s Politica d’Aristotele.51 Artisans represent a significant case for the dissemination of Aristotelian works. A good example is the episode found and reconstructed by Valerio Marchetti at the State Archive of Siena. It comes from an inquisitorial trial against the blacksmith Bartolomeo di Giovanni Nelli. The story is worth telling in its complexity. On 16 December 1559, Ettore di Andrea, a Sienese artisan, denounced his colleague Bartolomeo for having publicly debated in a heretical manner. The discussion happened in an apothecary’s workshop and involved commenting on the sermon of the Jesuit Girolamo Rubiols on 49 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Giudici di Petizioni, Inventari di eredità, tutele, curatele, b. 342, n. 8. 50 Sarah McPhee, “Bernini’s Books,” The Burlington Magazine, 142 (2000): 442–8. 51 Lothar Sickel, “Pietro Veri. Ein Florentiner Künstler in Diensten des Herzogs von Bracciano, Virginio Orsini,” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft, 30 (2003): 183–209.

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faith and justification in agreement with the dictates of Catholic religion. The fact that the discussion was in a workshop (in butigha), and that it was essentially oral is meaningful in explaining the circulation of knowledge at that time, a dissemination that was not limited to the written word, be it manuscript or printed. Artisanal workshops represented a forge for the exchange of ideas. In the discussion of this sermon, “Bartolomeo blacksmith said that our actions were fruitless (and cited St Paul); and that we were saved because of Christ and not because of our actions.” Not only this, the following morning, continuing the debate, Bartolomeo stated that justification by faith and actions were a “Pelagian heresy.” In other words, he maintained the Lutheran thesis of salvation by grace alone. This is not the interesting part of the story, however. Bartolomeo was formally charged of heresy by the Inquisition and among the various books he owned, there pops up a “vernacular booklet” listed as “Antonio Brucioli’s dialogues.” It is impossible to identify which among the many dialogues published by Brucioli the extender of the inventory was referring to. By consulting the inventories of the time and checking other volumes that Bartolomeo possessed, we may speculate that Brucioli’s work was the Dialoghi di filosofia morale. Bartolomeo explained the function that these books had: they were educational works for his family. He stated explicitly that “I kept them for delight and to educate my family.” And so the sons of Bartolomeo received a moral education based on reading or listening to the ideas of a crypto-Protestant scholar. This kind of influence is attested also by possession in his private library of the New Testament in the vernacular. These vernacular works thus had as their recipients both wives and children, and in all probability had as their cultural mediator the paterfamilias. But how did a blacksmith obtain these books? He did not buy them: they were a gift. This is another important aspect to ponder in assessing the dissemination of knowledge at the time. The most interesting details are that the New Testament was donated by a “young friar,” whose name Bartolomeo did not remember, and that the book of Brucioli’s Dialoghi was a gift of the noblewoman Francesca di Cristoforo Cristofani. That a woman, however noble, gave this book to a blacksmith – and other volumes too – is a remarkable fact that testifies to how women were a real audience for these works, as in the above-mentioned case of Giulia Da Ponte.52 Ludovico Usper – the apothecary “alle Tre Corone” in Venice – devoured philosophical books on natural philosophy. He had Francesco Venier’s 52 Francesca’s donation also argues in favour of active mediation by members of the upper social classes in disseminating knowledge to those beneath them.

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Discorsi sopra i due libri della Generatione, & corruttione d’Aristotele, Brucioli’s translation of Aristotle’s Physics, Juan de Jarava’s Della filosofia naturale – translated by Alfonso of Ulloa – and Rinaldo Odoni’s Discorso per via peripatetica ove si dimostra se l’anima secondo Aristotele è mortale o immortale. He owned almost all the works on natural philosophy of Alessandro Piccolomini. He had the first two parts of Piccolomini’s Della filosofia naturale, but also the 1585 edition of Piccolomini Della filosofia, with a third part provided by Portio Piccolomini. He also owned Piccolomini’s Sfera, Della grandezza della terra et dell’acqua, and La prima parte delle Theoriche. Among his other books were a vernacular ethics, Giason De Nores’s Poetica, and most likely the 1552 edition of Figliucci’s De la filosofia morale.53 Architects too had Aristotelian vernacular books in their possession. Antonio Liberi da Faenza had many books in the vernacular, and among them Brunetto Latini’s Tesoro, Albert the Great’s De le virtù de li animali and Girolamo Manfredi’s Il perché. Similarly, Francesco Peparelli (1587–1641) had a very well furnished library, almost exclusively in the vernacular and among which Piccolomini’s De la sfera del mondo stands out.54 In his personal collection Giovanni Antonio Rusconi, “painter and architect” – according to Tartaglia in his Aristotelian work Quesiti et inventioni diverse (1546) – listed, among his many philosophical and scientific volumes, Piccolomini’s De la sfera del mondo, Copiosissima Parafrase … nel primo [secondo] libro della Retorica and La prima parte delle theoriche, and Tartaglia’s Nova scientia.55 Piccolomini’s De la sfera del mondo also occupied a pivotal position in Giovanni Maria Nosseni’s private library.56 But other professions were no less acquisitive in terms of books. At his death in 1439, the merchant Francesco di Ser Benozzo left in his private library a book of poetry and a booklet on Aristotelian logic.57 In 1573, Giovambattista di Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi – of the famous banker family – owned a large number of vernacular works, among which feature Bartolomeo Cavalcanti’s Retorica and Piccolomini’s La sfera del mondo and l’Institutione.58 53 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Giudici di Petizioni, Inventari di eredità, tuttele, curatele, b. 342, n. 24. 54 Margherita Fratarcangeli, “On an Architect’s Library: The Intellectual World of Francesco Peparelli (1587–1641),” Fragmenta, 5 (2011), 213–45. 55 Louis Cellauro, “La biblioteca di un architetto del Rinascimento: la raccolta di libri di Giovanni Antonio Rusconi,” Arte Veneta, 58 (2001): 224–37. 56 Barbara Marx, “Vom Künstlerhaus zur Kunstakademie: Giovanni Maria Nossenis Erbe in Dresden,” in Sammeln als Institution: von der fürstlichen Wunderkammer zum Mäzenatentum des Staates (München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2006): 61–92. 57 Bec, Les Livres des Florentins (1413–1608), 184. 58 Ibid., 268–78.

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Aristotelian works in the vernacular were to be found not only on the shelves of monasteries or churches, but also in the cabinets of princes, kings, and noblemen. The many dedicatory letters to these wealthy and powerful persons indicate that at the very least these books were in their possession. But their secretaries also had private collections of books. The state secretary of Cosimo I, Neri Rapucci, left in 1592 a substantial library of over one hundred works, most of them in the vernacular. Among these volumes was Piccolomini’s La prima parte della filosofia naturale. And the accountant of Florence, Filippo di Giovanni Spina, owned a wide range of Latin and vernacular books, including Piccolomini’s La prima parte della filosofia naturale and Tartaglia’s Quesiti et inventioni.59 Thanks to Christian Bec’s investigations it is possible to reconstruct the tastes of noble Florentines concerning Aristotle in the vernacular within a period of more than one hundred years. At the beginning of the fifteenth century – in 1414 to be precise – Antonio Bonsignori listed among his vernacular books Alderotti’s Ethica and Eticha e Rettoricha, which are not identifiable.60 A little later, in 1423, Pietro Teci’s inventory shows the existence of two different Aristotelian works, likely in the vernacular, in his library.61 And in 1435, Giovanni di Giovanni Bellani left a book “in which there are many sayings of philosophers” and a book of Aristotle, again impossible to identify.62 In 1439, Piero da Filicaia, doctor in law, left Aristotle’s Ethica in the vernacular.63 In 1446, Antonio di Bartolomeo Corbinelli had in his library Aristotle’s Ethica in the vernacular, a book entitled De’ segreti, and a book on the Predichamenti d’Aristotile.64 In 1472, Domenico d’Antonio Barni left to his daughters and his son the book Della virtù e de’ vizi sechondo Aristotile.65 Again, Spinello d’Allamanno di Francesco Castellani in his 1478 inventory listed two vernacular books of Aristotle’s ethics.66 In the library of Ubertino di ser Atto di Giovanni Gherardi da Pistoia there was in 1483 a copy of Jacopo Campora’s dialogue on the immortality of the soul.67 Piero Francesco di Folco Portinari, most likely author of a vulgarization of Aristotle’s Categoriae and De interpretatione,68 at his death owned a large 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

Ibid., 312. Ibid., 150. Ibid., 154. Ibid., 180. Ibid., 181. Ibid., 181–2. Ibid., 189. Ibid., 192. Ibid., 197. Ibid., 21–3.

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number of Aristotelian works in Greek and Latin, though none were in the vernacular with perhaps the exception of an Ethica d’Aristotele – to be identified with Alderotti’s work. Giuliano Rustici de’ Guidicci di Spicchio had almost thirty books at his death, among which were Piccolomini’s La sfera del mondo and Speroni’s Dialogi.69 Likewise, Simone di Lorenzo di Girolamo Zanini and Niccolò Scamici di Arezzo left among their many vernacular books Piccolomini’s La sfera del mondo.70 In Modena Count Paolo Boschetti owned a respectably large library – however with only Orazio Toscanella among vernacular books.71 In 1526 in Venice Antonio Pesaro – coming from one of the wealthiest family of the city, – had a library of more than 150 books, among which were several on Aristotle, on the spheres, and especially Jacopo Campora’s Dialogo de la inmortalita de l’anima, most likely in the 1477 edition.72 Another interesting f igure is Girolamo Ferro. He came from a rich Venetian family, which under him suffered a rapid decline. He had had a solid humanistic education and became an expert in classical languages. He worked as a translator and vulgarizer of Greek texts, publishing Demosthenis et Aeschinis mutuae accusationes de ementita legatione et de corona ac contra Timarchum quinque numero cum eorum argumentis, ipsorum oratorum vita et Aeschinis epistola ad Athenienses ac indice copioso nuper a bene docto viro traductae (1545), and Cinque orationi di Demostene et una di Eschine tradotte di lingua greca in italiana secondo la verità de’ sentimenti (1557). He was considered as a possible successor to Sebastiano Foscarini at the School of Rialto for the chair of philosophy, where he would have had to lecture on Aristotelian doctrines. In 1558, in fact, the chair went to Giacomo Foscarini. Among more than 270 books, Ferro had almost all the Greek commentators and also the most important Latin expositors of Aristotle, though only several volumes in the vernacular: Nicolò Massa’s Loica and Rinaldo Odoni’s Discorso per uia peripatetica, oue si dimostra, se l’anima, secondo Aristotele, è mortale, o immortale. Perhaps one of the most extraordinary Renaissance collections of books was that of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Spanish ambassador in Venice and Rome, friend of Varchi and Piccolomini, and a supporter of the project of the democratization of knowledge. On his shelves one could find almost everything that had been printed on Aristotle in Greek and Latin, but still 69 70 71 72

Ibid., 236. Ibid., 313. Meris Bellei, “La biblioteca del conte Paolo Boschetti,” La bibliofilia, 90 (1988): 55–87. Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Cancelleria Inferiore, Miscellanea Notai Diversi, b. 34, n. 25.

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very few vernacular books. He owned Manenti’s Il segreto dei segreti, le moralita, e la phisionomia, Manfredi’s Opera nova intitulata il Perche, and Speroni’s Dialogi.73 Jacopo Campora’s dialogue was one of the few books that Leonardo da Vinci had in his library. A lot has been written on his bookish interests, and besides the dialogue De imortalità d’anima a scientist and artist like him had various Aristotelian books in the vernacular, including Fiore di virtù and the Meteura d’Aristotile.74 We have a better understanding of what Galileo read and also the type of books he owned. He eagerly read Piccolomini, of whose works he had De le stelle fisse – published in 1570 – and La sfera del mondo, published in 1573. La sfera del mondo is conspicuously annotated and these notations say a lot about how he used this book. In marginal notes Galileo summarized those of Piccolomini’s theses that he found most convincing, and all of them seem to have acted as a way of retrieving the most important passages and doctrines: they figure in themselves as a kind of index. Equally they serve to identify Aristotle’s main ideas. The marginal notes to Delle stelle fisse also seem to point to a reading of Piccolomini’s text as a repertoire of opinions and sayings.75 Conversely, the annotations to Tartaglia’s Quesiti et inventioni (1554) and La nova scientia (1558) – two books somewhat related to Renaissance Aristotelianism in the vernacular – have a totally different tone. The copy of the La nova scientia has an ownership note by Giorgio Vasari, which shows that the book passed from the painter into the hands of the scientist. Yet there is little relevance in the underlining in this copy. Greater in number, the marginal notes to the Quesiti et inventioni have a twofold function. On the one hand, they highlight the most important passages, and on the other they signal connections between Tartaglia’s text and Galileo’s own experience and ideas. From his 73 Anthony Hobson, Renaissance Book Collecting: Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, their Books and Bindings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 74 Ms. Atl., 266v. On Leonardo’s library see Ladislao Reti, “Two Unpublished Manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci in the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid,” Burlington Magazine, 110 (1968): 81–89; Ladislao Reti, The Library of Leonardo da Vinci (Los Angeles: 1972); Edoardo Villata, La biblioteca, il tempo e gli amici di Leonardo: Disegni di Leonardo dal Codice Atlantico (Novara: De Agostini, 2009); Carlo Vecce, La biblioteca perduta di Leonardo (Roma: Salerno Editrice, 2017). On the Metaura see Rita Librandi, La Metaura d’Aristotile: volgarizzamento fiorentino anonimo del XIV secolo (Napoli: Liguori, 1995). 75 On Galileo’s library see Antonio Favaro, “La libreria di Galileo Galilei,” Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche, 19 (1886): 219–93; Michele Camerota, “La biblioteca di Galileo: alcune integrazioni e aggiunte desunte dal carteggio,” in Biblioteche filosofiche private in età moderna e contemporanea (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2010), 81–95; Crystal Hall, “Galileo’s Library Reconsidered,” Galilaeana, 12 (2015): 29–82.

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reading of the seventh book – the vulgarization of the pseudo-Aristotelian Questioni mechanice – Galileo distils Piccolomini’s verbose passage into lapidary sentences.76 Vernacular works of Aristotle in the libraries of physicians are quite rare in comparison with a range of other vernacular books on recipes, secrets and plagues. The anatomist Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente, for instance, had in its library Le Mechaniche de Aristotele vulgarizate, probably Bringucci’s translation of Piccolomini’s work.77 Men of letters – spanning, as they do, from the great humanists and intellectuals to abacus teachers – manifest varying degrees of culture and education. At the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, humanists rarely used or owned texts in the vernacular. Humanists like Ermolao and Francesco Barbaro had no vulgarizations in their private libraries.78 The situation changed with the years, especially in relation to the lower classes. A good example is Paolo Cataldi, an abacus teacher who denied the temporal power of the Church and that the true body and blood of Christ was present in the eucharist. In 1560 he was charged with heresy, and his accuser was the noblewoman Porzia Venturi, who gave another account of oral transmission of knowledge. Cataldi, indeed, was not only an abacus teacher, but taught in the houses of patricians, and on one such occasion he made very explicit his doubt about these doctrines of the Church. He was entirely convinced of what he said when he taught his ideas to the young Marcello Ricci, who had heard him defend those heresies not only in his house, but also in a workshop (in butigha). Cataldi confessed to knowing the vernacular works of Brucioli and Erasmus, and also to owning vernacular “books of experiments,” with “magical or negromantic” doctrines, which may be identified with books of secrets like those of Giambattista Della Porta, or Manenti’s edition of the Segreto de’ secreti. At his dismissal, Cataldi declared himself to be ignorant of theology, being only an abacus teacher, and for this reason he said he could never have taught forbidden doctrines. He kept them “not for teaching someone, but because he bought them cheap.”79 By means of these books he had “reasoned about experiments to find treasures,” but he “had never done any experiment.” Cataldi claimed, 76 Ottavio Besomi, “Galileo postillatore,” in Galileo e l’universo dei suoi libri (Firenze: Vallecchi, 2008), 32–42. 77 Francesco Ben Zanetti, “La libreria di Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente,” Quaderni per la Storia dell’Università di Padova, 9–10 (1976–77): 161–83. 78 Aubrey Diller, “The Library of Francesco Barbaro and Ermolao Barbaro,” Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 6 (1963): 253–62. 79 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali senesi nel Cinquecento, 211–227.

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therefore, that he had only considered the treasures and secrets in these books from a theoretical angle, and that the purpose of this knowledge was merely personal. In contrast, Inghiramo Inghirami, one of the secretaries of the apostolic penitentiary, had many philosophical works both in Latin and the vernacular, among which could be counted Piccolomini’s La sfera del mondo. Some men of letters were also ecclesiastical figures of the first order. They included Giovanni Della Casa, who had in his possession Figliucci’s Tradottione antica della Rettorica d’Aristotile nuovamente trovata.80 Conservative humanists like Marco Mantova Benavides had a very select collection of books. Yet Benavides gathered quite a number, especially in old age, and they included Piccolomini’s Institutione dell’homo nato nobile and L’instrumento della filosofia, Bartolomeo Cavalcanti’s Retorica and Figliucci’s Della filosofia morale. It does not seem remarkable, however, that – being a vulgarizer – Benedetto Varchi had a large number of Aristotelian works in the vernacular, both printed and in manuscript form. In the latter category we find Galeazzo Florimente’s Ragionamenti sopra l’ethica d’Aristotile, Taddeo Alderotti’s Etica d’Aristotile, Paolo Del Rosso’s La fisica d’Aristotile in volgare toscano, and also a Trattato della natura degli animali and Trattati del flusso et reflusso, whose authorship is uncertain. Varchi had many of Piccolomini’s vulgarizations, including Della Nobilità ed eccellenza delle donne, Istruzione della vita del huomo, L’instrumento della filosofia, La prima parte della filosofia, Della grandezza della terra et della acqua, and Delle stelle fisse et la spera. He had others, too, by Brucioli, such as De coelo, e mondo, La Fisica d’Aristotile, Gli otto libri della Politica d’Aristotele and Dialogi della moral filosofia. In his library there also featured works by Tartaglia like Nova scientia, the Quesiti et inventioni, and his translation of Euclid. He owned Segni’s L’etica d’Aristotile and Rettorica et Poetica d’Aristotile, and also Figliucci’s Della filosofia morale and Traduzione antica della Retorica d’Aristotile. Varchi had Figliucci’s translations of Plato – for instance, Fedro, Iside and Ione. His library would not have been complete without Fiore di virtù, Speroni’s Dialogi and Tullia d’Aragona’s Dialogo dell’infinità d’amore. And, finally, he had a remarkable collection of works on logic and natural philosophy, encompassing, for example, Antonio Tridapale’s La loica in lingua volgare, Niccolò Massa’s Logica, Simone Porzio’s De’ colori de gli’occhii, Pompeo Della Barba’s Esposizione d’un sonetto platonico letto nell’Accademia, Alfonso de Ulloa’s Somma della natural filosofia, Paolo Manuzio’s Degli elementi et di 80 Emanuela Scarpa, “La biblioteca di Giovanni Della Casa,” La Bibliofilia, 82 (1980): 254.

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molti loro notabili effetti, Girolamo Manfredi’s Il libro del perché and Giovanni Manenti’s Segreto de’ segreti.81 Pier Vettori’s library was more select and less rich in its vernacular volumes.82 Like Varchi, Vettori had almost all Piccolimini’s books, including Delle stelle fisse libro uno, I tre libri della Rettorica d’Aristotele, La sfera del mondo, Annotazioni del libro della Poetica d’Aristotele, Parte prima, seconda, e terza della filosofia naturale, Parafrasi sopra le meccaniche d’Aristotele, Della istituzione morale, Copiosissima parafrase ne’ libri della Retorica, Della grandezza della terra et dell’acqua, La prima parte delle theorice e speculazioni de’ pianeti, Della istituzione di tutta la vita dell’uomo nato nobile, e in città libera. On his shelves were also Segni’s L’Ethica di Aristotele tradotta e commentata and Panfilo Fiorimbene’s translation of Plato’s Repubblica. Torquato Tasso was an eager reader of Aristotelian works and many of his volumes are postilled. The marginal notes to Piccolomini’s Annotazioni del libro della Poetica d’Aristotele show how Tasso read and worked on the same book at different periods of his life. Some of his notes summarize very briefly the content of the paragraph, others pinpoint a particularly important passage, others make comparisons with other commentaries to Aristotle’s Poetica, and others again contain the personal opinions and ideas of Tasso himself. Many of these notes, then, became merged within other works like the Discorsi del poema eroico.83 Evidence thus shows that Aristotelian vernacular works reached the recipients for which they were destined, and that there is indeed a complementarity between ideal public and real audience. Besides men of letters and university professors, very few people knew Greek and Latin; they were simple and illiterate folk and they needed the vernacular as a linguistic medium to provide access to knowledge. Yet there are no substantial grounds for concluding that Aristotle’s vulgarizations were especially popular. Indeed, none of these books had the distinctive characteristics of cheap books, affordable to everyone. Nonetheless, they represented a concrete step forwards in the dissemination of knowledge, which led to a second phase of democratization in which Aristotelian doctrines became popularized still further and were made more germane to ordinary people. 81 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, ms. II.VIII.142; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Filze Rinuccini 11, 49, 265r–306v; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Filza Rinuccini 11, 49, 313r–318r, 322v–335r, 337r. 82 Caterina Griffante, “Il catalogo della biblioteca a stampa di Pier Vettori,” Atti dell’Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 147 (1988–1989), 371–534. 83 Simona Miano, “Le postille di Torquato Tasso alle Annotationi di Alessandro Piccolomini alla Poetica di Aristotele,” Aevum, 3 (2000): 721–50.

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Bianchi, Luca. “Volgarizzare Aristotele: per chi?,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, 59 (2012): 480–95. Black, Robert. Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Camerota, Michele. “La biblioteca di Galileo: alcune integrazioni e aggiunte desunte dal carteggio,” in Biblioteche filosofiche private in età moderna e contemporanea (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2010), 81–95. Caravale, Giorgio. Beyond the Inquisition: Ambrogio Catarino Politi and the Origins of the Counter-Reformation (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2017). Carinci, Eleonora. “Between Convent and Apothecary: Women Readers of Alessandro Piccolomini’s Natural Philosophy,” in Liberty, Irreverence and the Place of Women in Early Modern Italian Culture. Studies in Honour of Letizia Panizza, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2022), forthcoming. Caroti, Stefano. “L’Aristotele italiano di Alessandro Piccolomini: un progetto sistematico di filosofia naturale in volgare a metà ‘500,” in Il volgare come lingua di cultura dal Trecento al Cinquecento (Firenze: Olschki, 2003), 361–401. Cattaneo, Angelo, Murano, Giovanna, and Weaver, Elissa B. “Fiammetta Frescobaldi (1523–1586),” in Autographa: Autografi di italiani illustri—Autographs of Learned Italians, 2.1: Donne, sante e madonne: Da Matilde di Canossa ad Artemisia Gentileschi (Imola: La Mandragora, 2018), 173–81. Cavazza, Silvano. “Luthero fedelissimo inimico de messer Jesu Christo. La polemica contro Lutero nella letteratura religiosa in volgare della prima metà del Cinquecento,” in Lutero in Italia. Studi storici nel V centenario della nascita (Casale Monferrato: Marietti, 1983), 67–94. Cellauro, Louis. “La biblioteca di un architetto del Rinascimento: la raccolta di libri di Giovanni Antonio Rusconi,” Arte Veneta, 58 (2001): 224–37. Chartier, Roger. “Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Modern France,” in Understanding Popular Culture: Europe from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century (Berlin-New York-Amsterdam: Mouton, 1984), 229–53. Coletti, Vittorio. Parole dal pulpito. Chiesa e movimenti religiosi tra latino e volgare (Casale Monferrato: Marietti, 1983). da Potenza, Sebastiano. “L’incendio di zizanie lutherane di Giovanni da Fano,” Italia francescana, 36 (1961): 188–96, 426–31. Dati, Carlo Roberto. Prose fiorentine (Venezia: Occhi, 1730–1735). Del Col, Andrea. “Eterodossia e cultura fra gli artigiani di Porcia nel secolo XVI,” Il Noncello, 46 (1978): 9–76. De Vivo, Filippo. “Pharmacies as Centres of Communication in Early Modern Venice,” Renaissance Studies, 21 (2007): 505–21. Diller, Aubrey. “The Library of Francesco Barbaro and Ermolao Barbaro,” Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 6 (1963): 253–62.

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7. Epilogue Abstract The conclusion deals with the potentialities and limits of the democratization of knowledge in relation to the process of the vulgarization of Aristotelian works. It shows how, after a first phase in which Aristotle was translated, paraphrased, commented upon, annotated, and summarized, there followed a second phase of popularization of his thought in almanacs, horoscopes, astrological discourses and physiognomic booklets, characterized by strong eclecticism and a mix of doctrines that make it impossible to consider these works within the bounds of the Aristotelian tradition. Keywords: Vulgarization, Popularization, Eclecticism

I am seriously embarrassed in concluding this essay without a real conclusion. It is an open epilogue. My research leaves unresolved too many questions and too many problems for a single scholar to answer. In the previous chapters I have shown the possibilities and the limits of the democratization of knowledge. What I would like to point out at the end of this investigation are some consequences of this process, recapitulating what has been outlined above. From the very beginning I have stressed the pivotal role of Erasmus. Starting from Erasmus is not a historiographical arbitrary choice. As we have seen, his work and spirit galvanise the thought of the vulgarizers and democratizers in a period in which to be associated with or related to Erasmus was extremely dangerous. Pier Paolo Vergerio recognizes the influence Erasmus had on generations of scholars: Erasmus is the master of many scholars, and is like a great source for our times, many of these authors … are disciples and followers who have received knowledge from him.1 1 Pier Paolo Vergerio, Il catalogo de libri, li quali nuovamente nel mese di Maggio nell’anno presente MDXLVIIII sono stati condannati & scomunicati per heretici da M. Giovan Della Casa

Sgarbi, M., The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: The Philosopher and the People. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463721387_ch07

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To understand Erasmus’s contribution is essential for understanding how the process of the democratization of knowledge was sparked in sixteenth-century Italy. I do not want in any way to suggest that Erasmus was the initiator of this project, or to trace a direct genealogical line that sees in Erasmian thought the essential precondition without which some processes would not have happened. His thought, rather, represented a platform upon which intellectuals carried on the idea of the democratization of knowledge. In order to accomplish this process three conditions were necessary. First of all, there was the need to break the conception that to democratize knowledge was negative – that is, that it amounted to casting pearls before swine. This rupture could only become possible if endorsed by a large number of people. To reach such a swathe of society the message needed to be conveyed in a form that could radically alter the souls and minds of people at a personal level. The message needed to come from a spiritual renovation which had sufficient potency to change everyday life. In this sense, I believe that Erasmus’s thought provided at the beginning of the sixteenth century a framework within which these ideas of spiritual and moral renewal became possible for both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. But an idea of internal renewal is not sufficient if the message is not properly understood: comprehensibility and communicability become essential. In order to communicate this change some kind of transformative knowledge had to be provided. In fact, the only way to promote extensive spiritual renewal was to adopt the vernacular as a “language of knowledge” capable of expressing the most difficult and complex topics, and not only the frivolous and trivial matters with which it was associated. In such a way, everyone could come to understand knowledge and act in accordance with what was learned. The acceptance of the vernacular as “language of knowledge,” however, could happen only as a reaction to a culture, that of Humanism and of Ciceronianism, that exalted the Classical culture. Erasmus’s criticism of the pedantry of Humanism and Scholasticism in his Praise of Folly and Antibarbarians, as well as his censure of the excesses of Ciceronianism in the Ciceornianus, represented – alongside the conception of spiritual renovation

legato di Vinetia & d’alcuni frati e aggiunto sopra il medesimo catalogo un iudicio, & discorso del Vergerio (Zürich: Froschauer, 1549), i7r: “Erasmo è il maestro de molti, et come un fonte assai grande ne tempi nostri, parecchi di questi autori … sono i discepoli, et i rivi, che da lui hanno ricevuta la dottrina.”

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attached to a genuine philosophy of Christ – a fertile soil in which the idea of the democratization of knowledge could take seed. This spiritual renovation could have remained confined to the sphere of religion if it had not been grafted within a new context in which the traditional knowledge of Aristotelianism had left the walls and classrooms of the universities in search of new spaces. Vulgarizers of knowledge became thus cultural mediators in producing texts and works which were not only in the vernacular but also becoming more accessible in their form of presentation. The accessibility of texts, however, was not sufficient to guarantee the diffusion of knowledge. Democratization became possible because these intellectuals lived in places where technologies allowed them to produce, with relative ease, vulgarizations which could then be disseminated throughout almost the entire Italian Peninsula. The sharing of this knowledge – once the prerogative of a small elite – reconfigured the idea of knowledge itself and its use. Thus, in the early modern period, this process of democratization leads to substantial changes in the conception of what knowledge is. (1) Knowledge is power. Power has the twofold meaning of “control over” and “empowerment.” Power as control entails using knowledge to subjugate other people, to preserve and maintain authority and therefore stability. Power as empowerment involves using knowledge in order to improve people’s capacity for thought and action. This control and this empowerment give human beings the possibility to modify and intervene within the terms of their own nature and also in relation to ideas of the human. (2) Knowledge is power for all, not for a restricted elite. It is inhuman to maintain close knowledge, while it is a moral duty to educate other persons with every possible means. To benefit others is the absolute value. (3) Knowledge is power and must be for all, for the reason that knowledge is essentially a work in progress. Knowledge is not static, and truth is not discovered once and for all; on the contrary, truth is a daughter of time, and every single individual can help in the advancement of knowledge by adding his or her own findings and discoveries. (4) Knowledge for all does not only lead to an extension of ideas and the improvement of sciences, but also to a betterment of customs and in favour of moral edification.

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These are the main possibilities and potentialities that democratization opens up in the sixteenth century. However, democratization of knowledge, especially that of Aristotelian philosophy, was a process with significant limitations: (1) Vulgarizers and democratizers were intellectuals and scholars with a high level of erudition, who had difficulty adopting an inferior standpoint, at least at this point in time. (3) The quality and vocabulary of the language, and its stylistic bent, were not always capable – or at least not yet – of expressing the content and nuances of knowledge, and for this reason new technical terms needed to be introduced. (3) Not all techniques to vulgarize and democratize knowledge were successful in making a text more comprehensible. (4) The audience was not always prepared to absorb what was offered them on account of their varying degrees of literacy.

For any one of these reasons, democratization did not always have a happy outcome, and on many occasions the intentions of the democratizers were frustrated. To become really popular, Aristotelianism had to await a second phase of democratization, when the Aristotelian doctrine underwent a further process of simplification and popularization, not restricted to various forms of vulgarization. From the end of the sixteenth century, Aristotle in the vernacular penetrated even the lower classes. Elide Casali’s investigations have shown how the Latin works of university professors, as well as complex vernacular writings on astrology, astronomy and meteorology, underwent a concerted process of simplification to become accessible to an illiterate audience, and that these kinds of books were consumed avidly across different strata of society. This cheap and popular literature had “the task of educating people to contain fear, to dominate passions and feelings of the souls, to solve misunderstandings, to sweep away uncertainties”2 in relation to celestial phenomena. They helped land farmers and métayers organize and oversee daily work and forecast weather and the trend of the seasons. This process 2 Elide Casali, Le spie del cielo. Oroscopi, lunari e almanacchi nell’Italia moderna (Torino: Einaudi, 2003), 114.

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led to the popularization of Aristotelian ideas in almanacs, horoscopes and prognostications – very ephemeral and short publications of no more than eight pages. The storyteller Vincenzo Citaredo published in different towns his Lunario et giornale perpetuo … dispensato à benificio universale (1608), in which he offered cheap meteorological ideas. In support of his statements, he cited among other illustrious philosophers first of all Aristotle and his Greek commentators, Theophrastus, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Porphyry. Two years later, he printed in Parma, Viterbo, Brescia and Pauda, his Fisionomia naturale cavata da Aristotele … (1610). Following the frontispiece there is a one-page treatise entitled Trattato delli nei, which is no more and no less than a list of likely places for skin moles. On the same page there is section in Latin devoted to the meaning of the same, copied from Giambattista Della Porta’s Coelstis physiognonomiae libri sex. The central part of the work is a summary and vulgarization of the pseudo-Aristotelian Physiognomica,3 while the last two pages constitute an astrological table for orienting everyday life. 4 This kind of physiognomical work was typical of the astrological literature of the time. For instance, L’astrologo indovino, overo ragionamenti astronomici sopra i pianeti, e segni celesti, published in Genoa, Bassano del Grappa, Carpi and Bologna, included several Aristotelian pages of a Trattato di Fisionomia written by Ridolfino Capocorso. Another particular striking case is Giovanni Antonio Roffeni’s Discorso astrologico (1609–1645), which was published regularly almost every year. In his Discorso published in 1621, Roffeni writes For many years I have explained Aristotle’s doctrine on meteorological things in such a way that whoever had the astrological discourses published by me for twelve years, he would have almost the first two books of these doctrines explained and reduced in a very easy manner, so that every mediocre intellect could know and talk about them honestly. And, even if I had decided to give up this effort, being busy with my intellect in other studies and being focused on very hard doctrines that keep my mind busy all the time, to satisfy my friends and patrons and the 3 On Aristotelian vernacular works of physiognomics, see Cecilia Muratori, “From Animal Bodies to Human Souls: Animals in Della Porta’s Physiognomics,” Early Science and Medicine, 22 (2017): 1–23; Cecilia Muratori, “The Body Speaks Italian: Vernacular Aristotelianism in Giuseppe Liceti’s De la nobiltà de’ principali membri dell’huomo (1590),” Intellectual History Review, 27 (2017): 473–92. 4 On Vincenzo Citaredo see Guido Vitaletti, “Vincenzo Citaredo Canterino urbinate del secolo XVII,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 95 (1925): 98–121.

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Figure 7.1: Vincenzo Citraedo’s Fisionomia naturale

common curiosity, I felt the necessity to continue to print and explain these doctrines, which are Aristotelian, astronomical and medical, so much that with Aristotle every one could understand these topics.5 5 Giovanni Antonio Roffeni, Discorso astrologico delle mutationi de’ tempi, e d’altri notabili accidenti dell’Anno MDCXXI (Bologna: Cochi, 1621), 12: “Per molti anni ho dichiarato le dottrine d’Aristotele, delle cose meteorologiche, in modo tale che chiunque avesse i discorsi astrologici

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Roffeni did not offer only low-level knowledge to his audience. In his 1611 Discorso astrologico, as a paratextual element, Roffeni included even a letter in support of Galileo Galilei’s discoveries in the Siderius Nuncius, making these new findings available to common people.6 Similarly, his archenemy, Giuseppe Rosaccio, epitomized by Roffeni as a “charlatan,” produced works destined for a wide readership impregnated with Aristotelian ideas.7 Rosaccio was an itinerant philosopher and physician, a bookseller, a mountebank, constantly under attack by university professors. In his astronomical and cosmographical works, he summarizes the doctrines of Aristotle, Averroes, Thomas Aquinas and Alessandro Piccolomini, mixing them up indifferently with the new findings of Cristoforo Colombo, Amerigo Vespucci and Fernão de Magalhães. These booklets and chapbooks by themselves of an ephemeral nature, were available in squares and in public spaces where they were sold by mountebanks and street sellers for ordinary people.8 We can speak of an “Aristotle in the d’anni dodici stampati da me, avrebbe quasi gli duoi primi libri di esse dottrine dilucidate e ridotte a metodo facilissimo, che qual si voglia mediocre intelletto potrebbe e saperne e discorrerne francamente. E, se ben avevo risoluto tralasciare questa fatica, essendo impiegato con l’intelletto in altri studi e intento a dottrine di molta speculazione, che mi tengono occupato l’animo di continuo, tuttavia per soddisfare amici e padroni e alla curiosità comune, è bisognato ch’io risolva di stampare e seguitare in dichiarare esse dottrine e aristoteliche e astronomiche e mediche, acciocché con Aristotile ciascheduno possi intendere esse materie.” 6 Su Roffeni see Denisè Arico, “Giovanni Antonio Roffeni: un astrologo bolognese amico di Galileo,” il Carrobbio, 24 (1998): 67–98. 7 Elide Casali, “Se le galline o gallo batterà l’ali e canti. Il Lunario di Filippo Biserni da Premilcuore di Romagna tra astrologia e meteorologia,” in La Biblioteca come servizio (Bologna: CLUEB, 2008), 49–99; Elide Casali, “La piazza. Poeti, ciarlatani, gazzettieri,” in Storia di Bologna, III, Cultura, istituzioni culturali, chiesa e vita religiosa (Bologna: Bononia University Press 2008), 771–814; Elide Casali, “Stagioni odeporiche e cosmografie di piazza,” in Le stagioni di un cantimbanco. Vita quotidiana a Bologna nell’opera di Giulio Cesare Croce (Bologna: Compositori, 2009), 85–95; Elide Casali, “Il teatro del cielo. Il Sidereus Nuncius di Galileo e la letteratura astrologica,” Prometeo, 28 (2010): 42–51; Elide Casali, “Il ‘Teatro” del mondo. Giuseppe Rosaccio (1530ca–1620ca) tra Firenze e Bologna,” in L’Europa divisa e i nuovi mondi (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2011), 55–65; Elide Casali, “‘Anatomie astrologiche’. Melotesia e pronosticazione (secc. XVI–XVII),” in Anatome. Sezione, scomposizione, raffigurazione del corpo nell’età moderna (Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2012), 161–83; Elide Casali, “Astrologia “cristiana” e nuova scienza. Pronostici astrologici sulle comete (1577–1618),” in Celestial Novelties on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution (1540–1630) (Firenze: Olschki, 2013), 105–31. 8 Rosa Salzberg, Per le Piaze & Sopra il Ponte, “Reconstructing the Geography of Popular Print in Sixteenth-Century Venice,” in Geographies of the Book (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 111–31; Rosa Salzberg, “In the Mouths of Charlatans: Street Performers and the Dissemination of Pamphlets in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Studies, 24 (2010): 638–653; Rosa Salzberg, “Selling Stories and Many Other Things in and through the City: Peddling Print in Renaissance Florence and Venice,” Sixteenth Century Journal, 42 (2011): 737–760.

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Figure 7.2: Giovanni Antonio Roffeni’s Discorso astrologico (1611) with the letter against Martin Hork in defense of Galileo

marketplace,” at the disposal of a very large audience coming from the countryside as well as the town. But the process of democratization of knowledge was taking hold progressively in another form too, invading the market of

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cheap printing. This is the second phase of democratization, when knowledge became popular also for its medium. Wiktor Wasik called this phenomenon “popular Aristotelianism,”9 maintaining, however, the false belief that what was written in the vernacular had only informational and dissemination purposes and therefore that it was unoriginal and lacking in theoretical depth. In this second phase of the process of democratization, Aristotelian philosophy is watered down and the original ideas are only vaguely distinguishable one from another. This is the case of “common books” like Fiore di virtù, or books of secrets,10 eclecticism reigns. Some elements were in fact so trivialized that one might argue that the philosophical culture to which the people were exposed was neither very philosophical nor even very cultured in its essence. For this reason, therefore, one should speak more properly of trivialization, and not of democratization of knowledge. It is really hard to say that it was a retrograde culture; indeed, it reflected the new geographical discoveries, the most recent medical findings, and also the spread Galileo’s latest celestial observations. It was useful knowledge, a knowledge for practical application – at least in the perception of those who benefitted from it, at least for all of the seventeenth century. One could question whether this is any longer transversal in its spread, but in truth there is evidence that these works circulated among intellectuals as well as among the illiterate – that is, it was a philosophy for all. Was this democratization of knowledge? Or better, was this democratization actually realized or not? Or was it something else again? To the reader is reserved the judgment, to the researcher remains the challenges of new and further investigations.

References a. Primary Sources Roffeni, Giovanni Antonio. Discorso astrologico delle mutationi de’ tempi, e d’altri notabili accidenti dell’Anno MDCXXI (Bologna: Cochi, 1621). Vergerio, Pier Paolo Il catalogo de libri, li quali nuovamente nel mese di Maggio nell’anno presente MDXLVIIII sono stati condannati & scomunicati per heretici 9 Wiktor Wasik, “L’aristotélisme populaire comme fragment de la Renaissance,” Revue d’Histoire de la Philosophie et d’Histoire générale de la Civilisation, 9 (1935): 33–66. 10 “Common books” are a specif ic genre of books which were permitted to be published everywhere without privileges or licenses. See Laura Carnelos, Con libri alla mano. Editoria di larga diffusione a Venezia tra Sei e Settecento (Milano: Unicopli, 2012).

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da M. Giovan Della Casa legato di Vinetia & d’alcuni frati e aggiunto sopra il medesimo catalogo un iudicio, & discorso del Vergerio (Zürich: Froschauer, 1549).

b. Secondary Literature Arico, Denisè. “Giovanni Antonio Roffeni: un astrologo bolognese amico di Galileo,” il Carrobbio, 24 (1998): 67–98. Carnelos, Laura. Con libri alla mano. L’editoria di larga diffusione a Venezia tra Sei e Settecento (Milano: Unicopli, 2012). Casali, Elide. “Anatomie astrologiche”. Melotesia e pronosticazione (secc. XVI–XVII), in Anatome. Sezione, scomposizione, raffigurazione del corpo nell’età moderna (Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2012), 161–83; Casali, Elide. “Astrologia ‘cristiana’ e nuova scienza. Pronostici astrologici sulle comete (1577–1618),” in Celestial Novelties on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution (1540–1630) (Firenze: Olschki, 2013), 105–31. Casali, Elide. “Il teatro del cielo. Il Sidereus Nuncius di Galileo e la letteratura astrologica,” Prometeo, 28 (2010): 42–51. Casali, Elide. “Il ‘Teatro’ del mondo. Giuseppe Rosaccio (1530ca–1620ca) tra Firenze e Bologna,” in L’Europa divisa e i nuovi mondi (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2011), 55–65. Casali, Elide. La piazza. Poeti, ciarlatani, gazzettieri, in Storia di Bologna, III, Cultura, istituzioni culturali, chiesa e vita religiosa (Bologna: Bononia University Press 2008), 771–814. Casali, Elide. Le spie del cielo. Oroscopi, lunari e almanacchi nell’Italia moderna (Torino: Einaudi, 2003). Casali, Elide. “Se le galline o gallo batterà l’ali e canti. Il Lunario di Filippo Biserni da Premilcuore di Romagna tra astrologia e meteorologia,” in La Biblioteca come servizio (Bologna: CLUEB, 2008), 49–99. Casali, Elide. “Stagioni odeporiche e cosmografie di piazza,” in Le stagioni di un cantimbanco. Vita quotidiana a Bologna nell’opera di Giulio Cesare Croce (Bologna: Compositori, 2009), 85–95. Muratori, Cecilia. “From Animal Bodies to Human Souls: Animals in Della Porta’s Physiognomics,” Early Science and Medicine, 22 (2017): 1–23. Muratori, Cecilia. “The Body speaks Italian: Vernacular Aristotelianism in Giuseppe Liceti’s De la nobiltà de’ principali membri dell’huomo (1590),” Intellectual History Review, 27 (2017): 473–92. Salzberg, Rosa. “In the Mouths of Charlatans: Street Performers and the Dissemination of Pamphlets in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Studies, 24 (2010): 638–653.

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Salzberg, Rosa. Per le Piaze & Sopra il Ponte. “Reconstructing the Geography of Popular Print in Sixteenth-Century Venice,” in Geographies of the Book (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 111–31. Salzberg, Rosa. “Selling Stories and Many Other Things in and through the City: Peddling Print in Renaissance Florence and Venice,” Sixteenth Century Journal, 42 (2011): 737–760. Vitaletti, Guido. “Vincenzo Citaredo Canterino urbinate del secolo XVII,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 95 (1925): 98–121. Wasik, Wiktor. “L’aristotélisme populaire comme fragment de la Renaissance,” Revue d’Histoire de la Philosophie et d’Histoire générale de la Civilisation, 9 (1935): 33–66.



Appendix 1

The sources are divided here according to discipline and each group brings together authors from different periods using different linguistic registers. In italics I emphasize in bold the intended recipients of these works. … having laboured … to reduce to the form of paraphrase all eight books of the Politics … adding a particular commentary to each book, as well as various annotations and pertinent questions to help in the overall understanding of the text, which it has been greatly pleasing to bring to this point, as it has allowed me to see clearly how great a benefit the civil discourses written by Aristotle are to men, who are manual operators of government, for setting them up, ordering them, and maintaining them.1 Since no small benefit is derived by men from the knowledge of government and the running of cities, in these past days from Greek sources I have drawn Italic streams, the eight books of the Republic, which they call Politics.2 But since the doctrine of Aristotle is wrapped in considerations of such depth that a great deal of study and attentive research is required of any who wish to master it, it has been my intention to ease the way of this science, reducing it so to speak to the substance, and explaining it clearly and succinctly, so that thus exposed to greater ease of understanding it shall reveal of its own the errors that have entered into the art of politics from the world … having left aside the digressions, the responses and the lengthy disputations … I have captured the sentiment of Aristotle … so that, if I am not mistaken, in brevity no greater clarity could be wished for, nor could 1 Antonio Scaino, La politica di Aristotele ridotta in modo di Parafrasi (Roma: Case del Popolo Romano, 1578), preface: “… havend’io, conforme alla fatica dell’Ethica, ridotto sotto forma di Parafrasi tutti gli otto libri della politica … con particolari argomenti sopra ciascun libro, et con l’aggionta insieme di varie annotazioni, et dubbi molto opportuni, da me posti insieme per maggiore intelligenza di tutta l’opra: la quale mi sono ancho compiaciuto pur assai d’haver condotta a questo fine, per havere manifestamente conosciuto, quanto grande utile possino arrecare a gli huomini, che sono manuali operatori de governi, et per instituirgli, & per assettargli, & per conservargli, questi civili discorsi composti da Aristotele.” 2 Antonio Brucioli, Gli otto libri della republica (Venezia: Brucioli, 1547), dedication: “Perché non piccola utilità aporta a gli huomini la cognitione de governi, & reggimenti delle città, a questi passati giorni, da fonti greci tirai a rivi italici, gli otto libri della Republica, che chiamano Politica.”

Sgarbi, M., The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: The Philosopher and the People. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463721387_app1

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Figure 8.1: Antonio Scaino’s La politica (1578)

such breadth of material be reduced to greater brevity. And in so doing I believe I have made a useful and worthy contribution to Princes & men of republic & court, for whom it shall serve as a reminder of civil discipline, seeing as they are distracted by their work and responsibilities and cannot normally attend to such studies ….3 3 Panfilo Persico, Della filosofia morale & politica d’Aristotele (Venezia: Ciotti, 1617), b3: “Ma perché la dottrina d’Aristotele è involta in considerazioni così profonde, che grande studio, &

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Figure 8.2: Antonio Brucioli’s Gli Otto libri della Repubblica (1547)

attenzione ricerca, da chi se ne voglia render capace, perciò è stato mio consiglio d’agevolar la via a questa scienza, con ridurla quasi in sostanza, e spiegarla con chiarezza & brevità, accioch’esposta a più facil cognitione faccia per se stessa più chiari gli errori, che sono seguiti dal mondo nell’arte politica … lasciate le digressioni, le repliche, & le disputationi prolisse … ho raccolto il sentimento d’Aristotele … in modo che, se non m’inganno, nella brevità non si possa desiderar più chiarezza, ne l’ampiezza di materie cos’ gravi ristrigner in maggior brevità. In che ho stimato di far opra grata, & profittevole à Principi, & huomini di republica, & di corte, a quali potrà servir per memoriale della disciplina civile, poiché distratti nelle occupationi, & uffici della vita non possono applicarsi ordinatamente a questi studi ….”

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Figure 8.3: Panfilo Persico’s Della filosofia Morale, & Politica d’Aristotele (1607)

… having recently received the works of the singular Philosopher Aristotle, the secret of secrets, and the Ethics, of pleasing and useful subjects to all kinds of men; and considering how much benefit they bring to all, I dedicated myself for the common good to translating them into a plain and common language. 4 4 Giovanni Manenti, Col nome de Dio, Il segreto de Segreti, le Moralità, & la Phisionomia d’Aristotele (Venezia: Tacuino, 1538), Aiiv: “… essendomi ultimamente pervenuto à le mani

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Figure 8.4: Galezzo Florimonte’s Ragionamenti (1567)

Having witnessed … since my early years many Princes & other noble individuals pass almost indifferently through life without letters and without any adornment of praiseworthy customs, and feeling troubled by this; I de l’opere del singolar Philosopho Aristotile, Il segreto de segreti, & le moralità, di soggetto dilettivoli, & utilissimo a ogni sorte d’huomini; & considerando il giovamento che possi esser ad ognuno, mi son messo per utilità comune a traslatarle in lengua plana e volgare.”

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always had this thought that if they had devoted themselves to reading and understanding what Aristotle left us in his books on Ethics, the love of good virtues would easily have been ignited in their souls, as well as the desire to acquire them. Thinking then that the manner of expression of that philosopher is not suitable for idiot men, and therefore that it was necessary to make it easier in our language so that every person, however simple, would be able to receive its message.5 … it so happens that this eminent and great philosopher [Aristotle], being overly subtle in his treatment of the sciences, is for this reason so obscure to many as not to be fully understood … Hence wishing greatly, while His Holiness [Pope Julius III] is intent on correcting the world and leading it on the right path of religion, that likewise Aristotle should lead us on the path of good conduct more easily than in the past, I have endeavoured with all my strength to make his teaching clear in a new way, so that in this century of ours every one of us can find the right path each in his own way. And I thought that it should be done first by transposing his science into a more common and accessible language, which Greek and Latin are not, and then ironing out the many difficulties he artificiously filled his writings with.6 I am inspired to act for the benefit of the world (because we are all born to give benefit) … Having therefore diligently inquired, and finally seen that the things Aristotle writes in all his books are by their nature even very straightforward, but are made to seem obscure because of the difficulty and succinctness of their treatment; I have endeavoured to make them as clear as it was possible for me to do so … rendering them in this language of 5 Galeazzo Florimonte, Sopra l’Ethica d’Aristotile (Venezia: Nicolini, 1567), dedication: “Veggendo io … inf in dalla mia gioventù molti Principi, & altre persone nobili, quasi indifferentemente menarne senza lettere la vita loro, & senza ornamento alcuno di lodevoli costumi, & di ciò dolendomi insieme; hebbi sempre questo pensiero, che quando essi si fossero dilettati di leggere, & d’intendere quello, che ci lasciò scritto Aristotile ne suoi libri dell’Ethica, si sarebbe potuto agevolmente destare ne gli animi loro l’amore delle belle virtù, & il desiderio dell’acquistarle. Considerando poi, che la maniera del parlare di quel filosofo non è atta ad essere intesa da gli huomini idioti, & che perciò sarebbe stato bisogno spianarlo talmente nella lingua nostra, che ogni persona, per semplice che fosse, n’havesse potuto haver notitia.” 6 Felice Figliucci, Della filosofia morale libri dieci (Roma: Valgrisi, 1551), dedication: “… questo dignissimo, e gran filosofo [Aristotele], nel trattare troppo sottilmente le scienze è tanto in tal guisa oscuro che da molti per avventura non è pienamente inteso … Per tanto desiderando io sommamente, che mentre che la Santità V. [Papa Giulio III] è tutta intenta a correggere il mondo, & indirizzarlo ne la vera strade de la religione, parimente Aristotile con più facil modo che per l’addietro non ha fatto, a l’acquisto de buon costumi ci guidasse, ho cercato con ogni mio sforzo, in nuova maniera renderlo chiaro, acciocché in questo nostro seculo ciascuno per diverse vie si indirizzasse al ben fare. E mi avvisai dovermi venir fatto, prima trasportando la sua scienza in una lingua più comune, & agevole che la greca, o la latina non è, di poi sciogliendo molte difficultà, de le quali egli ad arte volse esser ripieno.”

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Figure 8.5: Felice Figliucci’s Della filosofia morale (1551)

ours, and expanding considerably where he was constricted, and brief … for the same reason I have avoided raising the style too high … but have tried instead to use middling, appropriate, and clear words that are accessible to someone whose only interest is to teach and is far removed from ostentation and superfluity of words.7 7 Ibid., letter to the readers: “… io ho in animo di fare in giovamento del mondo (perché tutti a giovare siamo nati) … Havendo io adunque diligentemente considerato, e veduto finalmente che le cose che scrive Aristotile in tutti li suoi libri, per natura loro sono facili pur assai e che solo

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Figure 8.6: Giulio Landi’s Le attioni morali (1584)

I sought to devote a few hours of the night … after a brief rest, to the study of moral Philosophy, a fitting study, & one that is perhaps necessary for anyone who governs people & cities, as you justly & piously do. … And this is a brief paiono oscure per la difficultà e brevità con la quale egli ha trattate; mi sono sforzato di renderle chiare quanto per me s’è potuto … mettendole in questa nostra lingua, et allargandomi assai, dove egli è stato stretto, e breve … per la medesima cagione non ho cercato di inalzarmi con lo stile troppo altamente … ma ho voluto usar parole mediocri, propie, e chiare, convenienti ad uno che solo desidera insegnare e che sia lontano da ogni vano ornamento e superfluità di parole.”

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introduction to the Ethics of Aristotle, already attempted a while ago in a scholarly and useful manner by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples … it seemed to me not inappropriate to translate the introduction also of this work into the vernacular … Nor will I dwell too long on revealing to you and showing you the usefulness of this introduction … I will say only that reading this work alone, and observing it, every man can become an excellent & perfect moral philosopher.8 With this translation … I will give considerable benefit to those who do not know all those languages which have conveyed to us so many noble sciences; ignorance of which deprives them of the knowledge of such benef icial things.9 But since this custom of giving Baptism gifts is not the same throughout Italy … according to the customs of our City of Siena it falls to me to give your child a gift, I debated in my mind for a long time what worthy Gem I could present to him. And as everything seemed unworthy to me, I finally decided that I could present to him no joy of greater worth than an institution for his entire life, such as could be drawn from the depths of Aristotle and Plato: so that he would find himself guided from the cradle through all the stages of his life according to the moral code, finally reaching the utmost happiness that is appropriate to man as man. Nor was I discouraged from my purpose by the thought that it might be a superfluous task, since he has you as his mother to instruct him very satisfactorily: no small benefit, it seemed to me, would he derive, as your knowledge demonstrates, from his becoming acquainted with these great philosophers.10 8 Giulio Landi, Le attioni morali (Giolito: Venezia, 1584), 1–2, 12: “… io mi sforzai di porre qualc’hora della notte … dopo un breve sonno, nello studio della Filosofia morale, studio invero convenevole, & forse anco necessario a chiunque governa popoli, & cittadi, si come voi giustamente & santamente fate. … E ciò sia una breve introduttione nell’Ethica d’Aristotele, già buon tempo fa da Iacopo Fabro dottamente, & utilmente composta … parvemi non essere disconvenevole l’introduttione anco d’essa rendere volgare … Ne mi estenderò molto in aprirvi, & mostrarvi l’utilità di questa introduttione … Dirovvi solamente, che questa sola opera leggendo, & osservando, può ciascuno huomo divenire eccellente & perfetto filosofo morale.” See Luca Bianchi, “From Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples to Giulio Landi: Uses of the Dialogue in Renaissance Aristotelianism,” in Jill Kraye and Martin Stone (eds.), Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2000), 41–58. 9 Giulio Ballino, La morale filosofia (Valvassori: Venezia, 1564), 10: “Con questa tradottione … gioverò appresso non poco a coloro, i quali non intendono tutte quelle lingue che nodrite ci hanno tante nobili scienze; la quale ignoranza li priva della cognition di così salutevoli cose.” See Jill Kraye, “From Greek into Italian: Giulio Ballino’s Translation of the Pseudo-Aristotelian On the Virtues and Vices,” Rivista di storia della filosofia, 2 (2019): 361–76. 10 Alessandro Piccolomini, De la institutione di tutta la vita de l’homo (Venezia: Scoto, 1545), 5r: “Ma perché questa usanza dei doni del Battesimo in ogni luogho d’Italia non è conforme … secondo lusanza de la Città nostra di Siena: a me tocca di qualche presente il figlio vostro adornare più

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Figure 8.7: Giulio Ballino’s La morale (1564)

tempo rivolsi ne la mente fra me medesimo, qual degna Gemma donar gli potesse. Et ogni cosa indegna parendomi, mi risolvei finalmente, che più ricca gioia, ritrovar per lui non potevo, che un’institutione di tutta la vita sua, laqual si tresse da le viscere d’Aristotele e di Platone: ond’egli fin da le fascie di età in età prendendo norma al vivere suo, finalmente a la somma felicità, che a l’hom si conviene come homo, condotto si ritrovasse. Ne a quest’impresa mi sbigottiva il pensar che fusse superfluo di questo fare, havend’egli per madre voi che bastantissimamente instituir lo potrete: però che non poco giovamento consideravo io, che dovesse essergli che quello istesso, che ne l’esempio di voi sia per cognoscere, vegha conforme al giudicio di si gran Filosofi.”

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… for the sole desire of benefiting the many that I know who have excellent minds, well suited to doing philosophy, and not knowing any other language than their mother tongue Italian, so as not to waste what is left to them of their good years in foreign languages, so wrapped in ignorance are they, that I decided some years ago to treat matters of philosophy, not only in an orderly and accessible manner, but also in our pure Italian language.11 Women likewise, in the virtue in which Aristotle maintains that the happy state of the city resides, it not being the custom in Italy to make them learn any language other than what they learn from their wet-nurses, thus remain deprived and stripped through no fault of their own of those habits which could make them happy: nor can they through reading learn how powerful are the virtues which serve them so well, nor through which operations, exercises, and offices they can perfect themselves, every good news being confined within the womb of Philosophy.12 It seemed to many ancient philosophers that to publish the sciences and make them clear to everyone was to throw away roses and pearls, and so they concealed what they knew with hieroglyphs, mysteries, fables, symbols, and enigmas, almost more than nature herself. And in so doing they showed themselves to be jealous of power and ungrateful, and unlike the giver of these and other graces. Even so there are some (albeit very few) who seek to defend them, saying that in this way the sciences maintained their reputation and dignity, because they were accessible only to fine minds and to the wealthy and important people …. And they say that by popularizing them and publishing them, good minds are put on a par with 11 Alessandro Piccolomini, L’instrumento della filosofia (Roma: Valgrisi, 1551), aiir-v: “per solo desiderio di giovare a molti che io conosco d’intelletto buonissimo, et atto a filosofare, i quali non sapendo altra lingua che la italiana lor materna, per non cusmare intor lingue stranie, quel che gli avanza de i buoni anni loro, involti si vivano ne l’ignorantia, mi lasciai cader’ in animo alquanti anni sono di trattare scrivendo le cose di Filosofia, non solo con ordine pieno d’agevolezza … ma con lingua pura Italiana nostra.” 12 Ibid., aiiiiv: “Le donne parimente, ne la virtù de le quali vuole Aristotele che il mezo del felice stato de le città risegga, non essendo costume in Italia di far loro apprender’ altra lingua, che quella che dà le nutrici imparano; restan per questo prive, et ignude senza lor colpa di quelli habiti, che far le potrien felici: né possan leggendo imparare di quanta forza sieno le virtù che lor convengano, et con quali operazioni, esercitazioni, et offitij si possin perfette rendere: essendo ogni buona notitia nel ventre chiusa de la Filosofia.” See Letizia Panizza, “Alessandro Piccolomini’s Mission: Philosophy for Men and Women in Their Mother Tongue,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 57–74.

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Figure 8.8: Alessandro Piccolomini L’instrumento della filosofia (1551)

uncouth minds, and those who are notable and important with those who are low-caste and plebeian. Nor do they refrain from attacking those who have sought to defeat ignorance in the world and spread the sciences in all the languages.13 13 Piccolomini, Sopra le Mechaniche d’Aristotele, 4: “Parve à molti antichi filosofi, che il publicar le scienze, e farle chiare à tutti, fusse un gettar via le rose, e le perle, e perciò oscurono le cose conosciute da loro con hieroglifi, misterij, favole, simboli, & enigmi, quasi più, che non fa l’istessa

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On the sphere of the world four books in the Tuscan language … reduced to such convenience and such an easy manner of demonstration that however little practice in the study of Mathematics will be sufficient to easily and quickly understand everything.14 Even here it has come to my attention (most noble and beautiful Madonna Laudomia) that having Your Ladyship found herself this past spring one day in the company of other most noble women in a garden … beautiful and scholarly and philosophical arguments occurred between you … I understood that Your Ladyship said that alongside the sorrow she has always felt, having been born a woman, not having had the opportunity to devote her years to some prestigious study and honourable science, and for this reason it pained her above all that she has not been able to nourish her soul with questions of Astrology, towards which she felt particularly drawn. … Having thus heard of such a pleasing desire, … I was inflamed with an equal desire to participate in such a great wish, as far as my strength would permit, by setting myself to bring together from the most famous and recognized authors who have written on matters astrological, everything that I considered most worthy of being known: because I have no doubt that however subtle and erudite the speculation, if it is not perfectly understood by Your Ladyship it is only because Your Ladyship has not been able to know certain things, which I believe to be because the Latin language was hidden from her, as a result of the malpractice of our times: which, since the sciences are not in our language, still prevents women from learning the language in which they are written: in this way it stops many women from entering into the study of the most excellent and rare letters … this little work on the Sphere of the World … having employed all my ability and diligence to reduce such things to such ease and clarity that I am certain that anyone (man or woman), however natura. Nel che si dimostronno invidiosi de poteri, & ingrati, e dissimili al donator di quelle, e d’ogni gratia. Con tutto ciò si trovano alcuni (Se ben pochissimi) che cercan difenderli, con dire, che così facendo mantenevano le scienze nella reputazione e dignità loro, perché non eron capaci di quelle, se non i buoni ingegni, e le persone ricche, e principali …. E dicono che nel facilitarle, e pubblicarle, vengono pareggiati i buoni con i rozzi intelletti, e le persone illustri, e principali con le vili, e plebei. Ne si astengono dal biasimar coloro, che han tentato di scacciar l’ignoranza del mondo, e diffondere in tutte le lingue le scienze.” 14 Alessandro Piccolomini, De la sfera del mondo (Venezia: Del Pozzo, 1540), frontmatter: “De la sfera del mondo libri quattro in lingua toscana … ridotti a tanta agevolezza, & a così facil modo di dimostrare che qual si voglia poco essercitato negli studij di Matemmatica potrà agevolissimamente & con prestezza intenderne il tutto.”

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little practice in the study of mathematics they have had, will be able to understand it very well ….15 Most gracious readers, who desire to read the writings of others, more out of a desire to learn than to criticize and malign; you have always been the only audience for my works … I want to warn you of certain things. Firstly, you must know that in all the works I have written until now, my primary intention has been to write as clearly as possible: seeking in every study to present the subjects to other intellects in a manner so plain, so accessible and free of difficulty, that not only fine intellects but also average ones can learn them. … I have always judged either envious or uncultured those who, the more the subjects they have set themselves to dealing with are wrapped in obscurity, the more instead of shedding light upon them, they seek, either with excessive brevity, or with words that are not well known, or with arrogant affected elegance, or, finally, by representing, while translating from one language to the other, things they do not understand, adding diff iculties and hoping in this way to appear more scholarly. … for this reason I have tried to make the subjects accessible with known vocabulary and familiar expressions, stating, replying and exemplifying to shed light upon them: so that for this reason many times I have chosen to adopt a lower style, and a turn of phrase that is perhaps too domestic; because it did not seem to me useful for the Readers to do the opposite 15 Ibid., dedication: “Mi è per insin qua venuto al’orecchie (Nobilissima e Bellissima Madonna Laudomia) che trovandosi in questa Primavera passata, la S.V. un giorno con altre nobilissime Donne in un giardino, … bellissimi & molti dotti e f ilosof ici ragionamenti accader tra voi … intesi che la S.V. disse che oltra’l dispiacer ch’ella ha sempre havuto, che per esser nata Donna, non le sia stato conceduto di poter donare gli anni suoi, a qualche pregiato studio & honorata Scientia, per questo ciò le dolea più che per altro, ch’ella non havea possuto pascer l’animo suo, de le cose d’Astrologia a le quali la si sentia più che ad altro inclinata. … Dunque un così bel suo desiderio, doppo che venutom’al’orechie … m’accese parimente d’ardente desio di voler in parte a così honorata voglia, per quanto si stendon le forze mie sodisfare, con l’ingegnarmi di raccoglier in lingua nostra dai più famosi et approvati Scrittori, che han trattato dele cose d’Astrologia, tutto quel che io giudicasse più degno d’esser saputo: perciò ch’io non dubito che quanto si voglia sottile & dotta speculatione, non sia per esser da V.S. compresa benissimo, essendo che sola cagion che V.S. non habbia possuto alcune cose sapere, stimo io che sia l’esserle stato ascosa la lingua latina, colpa dela mal’usanza dei nostri tempi: la qual da poi che le scientie non son nela lingua nostra, ne vieta ancora che le Donne non apprendin quella lingua, in chui le si truovano: così ne impedisce che molte Donne non venghin negli studi dele lettere escellentissime e rare … questa operetta dela Sfera del Mondo … havendo usato ogni ingegno, e diligentia di ridur tai cose a tanta facilità e chiarezza, che io tengo per certo che qual si voglia poco esercitato negli Studij di Matematica (o Donna o huomo che sia) potrà intenderle agevolissimamente ….”

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Figure 8.9: Alessandro Piccolomini’s La prima parte delle theoriche (1563)

and leave things obscure. … even though these things that I deal with are written in our language, no one can claim that for this reason they can be read and understood with flowing ease, as if they were histories, or romances, because the difficulties of the sciences do not depend on the language, but are tied up with the subject itself, so that it is more the way in which they are written and expressed than the variety of language that will make them clear, hence I am writing them in our Tuscan language, because such a language will make them easier, but only to release us, who

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are born in Italy, from the need to learn foreign languages before acquiring and discovering the sciences.16 Last year, most illustrious Prince [Cosimo De’ Medici], having set myself to doing something that would please Your Excellency and at the same time would prove beneficial if not to all men, then at least the majority of them, as far as it was in power to do so, I decided to render in our Florentine language the Rhetoric of the great Aristotle … A translation, most illustrious Prince, which may serve those who, not reading Greek and who do not disdain to read in the vernacular, will not be concerned with knowing in exquisite detail all that is required to understand this Art, but will be content to know the subject-matter in an approximate manner.17 16 Alessandro Piccolomini, La prima parte dele theoriche overo speculationi dei pianeti (Venezia: Varisco, 1558), letter to the readers: “Benignissimi Lettori, & desiderosi di leggere gli altrui scritti, più per desiderio di sapere, che per voglia di riprendere, & malignare; a voi soli ho io scritto sempre le opere mie … voglio voi d’alcune cose avvertire. Primieramente voi havete da sapere che in tutte quelle opere che io ho scritte fin qui, ho havuto più che ad altro intentione a scrivere con quella maggior chiarezza, che è stato a me possibile: procurando con ogni studio di mettere innanzi agli altrui intelletti le materie così piane, così agevolate, & sciolte di difficultà, che non solo li sottili intelletti, ma li mediocri ancora le possino apprendere. … ho io sempre giudicato, o invidiosi, o poco dotti coloro, li quali, quanto più li soggetti di cui han preso a trattare sono involti di oscurità, tanto più in cambio di dar lor luce, si ingegnano, o con troppa brevità, o con vocaboli poco noti, o con soverchia affettata elegantia, o f inalmente con depingere, da una lingua transportando nel’altra, le cose che non intendano, aggiugnere difficultà, sperando forse per questo parer più dotti. … per queta cagione ho cercato di aprire le materie, & con vocaboli manifesti, & modi di dire familiari, dichiarando, replicando, & esemplif icando dar lor luce: in tanto che per questo molte volte ho più presto voluto descendere a uno stile piutosto basso che no, & a un modo di dire troppo forse domestico; che con fare il contrario lascar le cose più oscure, che al’util dei Lettori non mi è paruto di convenire. … seben queste cose, che io tratto sono scritte in nostra lingua; non per questo ha da stimarsi alcuno che si possin leggendo intender con quella agevolezza scorrendo, che se fossero historie, o novelle, percioche le difficultà dele scientie non dependano dala lingua, ma son congiunte con le cose stesse, di maniera che più il modo di dirle, & di esprimerle, che le varietà dele lingue le posson far chiare, ne le scrivo io in questa lingua nostra Toscana, perché tal lingua le faccia più facili, ma solo per torre a noi che nasciamo in Italia la necessità di apprender le lingue esterne per poter acquistare & trovar le scientie ….” 17 Bernardo Segni, Rettorica et poetica d’Aristotile (Venezia: Imperatore, 1551), 2r, 4r: “Havendomi Principe Illustrissimo [Cosimo De’ Medici] nell’anno passato posto dinanzi agli occhi per oggetto di far qualche cosa, che piacesse a V. Ecc. et insieme che fusse per giovare se non a tutti, almeno a quella più parte degli huomini, che per me si potesse: mi venne in animo di mettere in questa nostra lingua Fiorentina la Rettorica del grande Aristotile … La qual’traduttione Principe Illustrissimo forse potrà servire a coloro, i quali non sappiendo la Greca lingua, & in questa non si disdegnando di leggere, non si cureranno di saper così squisitamente tutto ciò, che s’appartiene per intender questa Arte, ma che basterà loro di conoscer questa materia alquanto più grossolanamente.”

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Figure 8.10: Bernardo Segni’s Rettorica et poetica (1549)

… without wishing to ignore the words of others, especially those that appeared to me not to have been uttered inappropriately [by others], and without stinting on the authority of other writers in order to convey the meaning of the histories and the fables, and the other obscure things written by Aristotle, I did what I deemed necessary, perhaps with greater ardour of spirit than felicity of result, to represent the poetic art not only by showing and opening up that which has been written in these few pages by that supreme philosopher, but also what should or could have been written for

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Figure 8.11: Lodovico Castelvetro’s Poetica (1570)

the benefit of those who desire to know how properly to compose poems and rightly to judge whether their compositions have the right attributes or not.18 18 Castelvetro, Poetica d’Aristotele volgarizzata et sposta, Aiii: “… io senza tralasciare punto la dichiarazione delle parole, & specialmente di quelle che non mi sono parute essere state sconvenevolmente dagli altri dichiarate, & senza risparmiare l’autorità degli altri scrittori per fare intendere l’historie & le favole, & l’altre cose oscure scritte da Aristotele quanto ho giudicato far bisogno ho tentato, & forse con più ardore d’animo che con felicità d’effetto, di far manifesta l’arte poetica non solamente mostrando & aprendo quello che è stato lasciato scritto in queste

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Since … the doctrine of Aristotle (not to mention his other parts) is a mirror and law of civil living, and likewise order and government of affairs of state, I deemed it to be extremely useful to see it in our vernacular language as well as reduced to a practical brevity, so that it could be accessible and understood by everyone.19 … all men of letters that are good by nature, because they seek to communicate the gifts that God granted them, will comfort each person in such a way that a person will seek the condition and the strength to become virtuous; and if they see a woodsman, they will inspire him at least to turn to mathematics, if not other things … and so they will encourage an apothecary to take up medicine: and ultimately each person to try to learn the things they think will be useful and honourable in some way.20 And it is my purpose to write this work in our vernacular, so that those who are by nature gifted with excellent discourse and fine intellect, but know neither Latin nor Greek, may understand this science, which until now we might say has been buried to them.21 Men of prudence and judiciousness must endeavour to make idiot and vulgar men as little so as possible, and there is no other way to do this than to teach them first the virtues, then science.22 poche carte da quel sommo philosopho, ma quello anchora che doveva o poteva essere scritto per utilità piena di coloro che volessero sapere come si debba fare a comporre bene poemi, & a giudicare dirittamente se i composti habbiano quello che deono havere o no.” 19 Ludovico Dolce, Somma della filosofia d’Aristotele, e prima della dialettica (Venezia: Sessa, 1565), *2: “Essendo, … la dottrina di Aristotele (per tacer le altre sue parti) specchio e regola del viver Civile, e parimente ordine e governo de le cose pubbliche, ho giudicato sempre cosa di grandissimo profitto, che ella si potesse vedere nella nostra volgar lingua, e ridotta in una convenevole brevità, accio che la medesima fosse agevole ad essere appresa da tutti.” 20 Gelli, Opere, 175–6: “… tutti i letterati che sono di natura buoni, cercando di communicare, quei beni che ha dato loro Iddio, conforteranno ciascuno in quel modo che ricercherà lo stato e ’l potere di colui, a darsi a le virtù; e se vedranno un legnaiolo, lo inanimiranno almanco a le cose di matematica, se non ad altro … e così conforteranno uno speziale a studiare medicina: e ciascheduno finalmente a cercare di imparare quelle cose che penseranno dovergli essere in qualche parte utili e onorevoli.” 21 Francesco Venier, I discorsi sopra i tre libri dell’anima d’Aristotele (Venezia: Arrivabene, 1555), 1v: “Et questa opera io intendo di scrivere in lingua nostra volgare; acciò che quelli, che sono dotati dalla Natura di ottimo discorso, & d’acutissimo intelletto, & non posseggono né la lingua Latina, né la Greca, possano intendere questa scienza, che in fino a qui a loro si può dir che sia stata sepolta.” 22 Benedetto Varchi, Opere, Vol. 2 (Trieste: Llyod, 1859), 490: “ciascuno prudente uomo e giudizio debbe ingegnarsi con tutto il poter suo che gli idioti e volgari uomini siano meno che si possa, e ciò altramente non può farsi che con l’insegnare loro prima le virtù, poscia le scienze.”

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Figure 8.12: Angelico Buonriccio’s Paraphrasi sopra I tre libri dell’anima d’Aristotele (1565)

… we have sought to make our presentation brief, and in our sweet and graceful vulgar language, so that those who, even though they know Latin, are unable due to the lack of time to reread such a plethora of obscure and confused argumentations, may at least have this little work of ours, and in enjoyment reading it, may thereby easily satisfy their desires.23 23 Angelico Buonriccio, Paraphrasi sopra i tre libri dell’anima d’Aristotile (Venezia: Arrivabene, 1558), letter to the reader: “… questa nostra spositione l’habbiamo voluta fare brieve, & nella nostra dolce & leggiadra lingua vulgare, acciocché quelli, i quali sono poco intendenti delle latine

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Figure 8.13: Benedetto Dottori’s Trattato dei sogni (1575)

… this subject-matter is the most elevated and deepest that may be treated within the confines of natural sciences. And so far it may be said not to have been understood by those who have set themselves to examining it, so diverse and obscure have their utterances been, but it has been made lettere, overo se bene sono, non possono per la brevità del tempo rileggere una tanta moltitudine d’oscure & confuse spositioni, habbiano almeno questa nostra operetta, la quale con diletto trascorrendo, possano agevolmente sodisfare a’ loro desiderij.”

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Figure 8.14: Francesco Verino the Younger’s Trattato delle metheore (1573)

so clear that its secrets could not be more fully revealed … moved to pity thinking of the benefit that the scholars of humanities could draw therefrom, I have gathered it together and undertaken to publish it.24 24 Benedetto Dottori, Trattato de sogni secondo l’opinione d’Aristotele (Padova: Pasquati, 1575), dedication written by Antonino Compagna: “… questa materia è la più alta, & più profonda che trattarsi possa entro i termini della scientia naturale. Et si può dire che fin’horan non sia stata intesa, così diversamente, & oscuramente n’han parlato coloro, che s’han proposto d’essaminarla,

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My intention, most noble and judicious Reader, is to treat all those natural effects which the Greek Philosophers were wont to call Meteorological … My reason for writing such things is that every type of person desires to know about them: those for whom it is more a matter of honour and enjoyment to know the causes of honourable things … others for whom it is more useful … greatly wish to learn this doctrine, such as the fathers of families, so that they may foresee the abundance and lack of fodder, wines, oils, and other similar things that are required for the home. … The learned doctors make use of such noble and worthwhile knowledge not only for science but also in practical applications … so that they may predict what types of disease might occur … Those that travel by sea, whether to provision cities or to conduct naval warfare, these still make great use of such science, as it allows them to foresee whether they will be facing contrary or favourable winds … I shall give a brief treatment [of the natural effects] so that no one may be affronted by the length. … And it pleases me to discourse on these things no less in this Tuscan, or rather Florentine, language of ours than in Latin, to both benefit and please each person ….25

hora però è talmente fatta chiara, che cotai secreti non si poteano più manifestamente palesare … io mosso a pietà considerando quanto benef icio ne possano prendere i studiosi delle belle lettere, l’ho raccolta, & mi son messo a pubblicarla.” 25 Francesco Verino, Trattato delle Metheore (Firenze: Marescotti, 1578), letter to the reader: “L’intentione mia è nobilissimo, & giudiziosissimo Lettore di trattare di tutti quelli effetti naturali, i quali da’ Filosof i greci comunemente son chiamati Metheorologici … La cagione che mi muove a scrivere di cosifatte cose è, perché ogni sorte di persone desidera haverne qualche notizia: quelli ne’ quali può più l’honore, & il diletto di cose honorate hanno gran voglia di saperne la causa … gli altri ne quali può più l’utile … son molto disiderosi di apparare questa dottrina, come i padri di famiglia, perciocché con questa antiveggono l’abbondanza, & carestia de’ grandi, biade, vini, olii, & di simili altre cose necessarie alla casa. … I Medici dotti non meno per scienza, che per molta pratica approvati ancor essi vagliono di così gentile & utile cognizione … così preveggono che sorte di inferimità possono avvenire … Quelli che vanno per mare, o sia per provedere di Mercanzie le città, osia per conto di condurre gente per guerra Marittima ancor questi fanno un gran conto di così fatta scienza, potendo per essa prevedere se hanno a tirare venti contrarii, o pure prosperi … Io con brevità ne discorrerò [degli effetti naturali] acciocché nessuno dalla lunghezza [sia] infastidito. … Emmi piaciuto parlare di queste cose, non meno in questa nostra lingua Toscana, o per dir meglio Fiorentina, che io mi faccia ancora nella latina, per giovare, & dilettare insieme ognuno ….”

232 

The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

References a. Primary Sources Ballino, Giulio. La morale filosofia (Venezia: Valvassori, 1564). Brucioli, Antonio. Gli otto libri della republica (Venezia: Brucioli, 1547). Buonriccio, Angelico. Paraphrasi sopra i tre libri dell’anima d’Aristotile (Venezia: Arrivabene, 1558). Dolce, Ludovico. Somma della filosofia d’Aristotele, e prima della dialettica (Venezia: Sessa, 1565). Dottori, Benedetto. Trattato de sogni secondo l’opinione d’Aristotele (Padova: Pasquati, 1575). Figliucci, Felice. Della filosofia morale libri dieci (Roma: Valgrisi, 1551). Gelli, Giovan Battista. Opere (Torino: UTET, 1976). Landi, Giulio. Le attioni morali (Venezia: Giolito, 1584). Manenti, Giovanni. Col nome de Dio, Il segreto de Segreti, le Moralità, & la Phisionomia d’Aristotele (Venezia: Tacuino, 1538). Persico, Panfilo. Della filosofia morale & politica d’Aristotele (Venezia: Ciotti, 1617). Piccolomini, Alessandro. De la Institutione di tutta la vita de l’homo nato nobile e in città libera (Venezia: Scoto, 1545). Piccolomini, Alessandro. De la sfera del mondo (Venezia: Del Pozzo, 1540). Piccolomini, Alessandro. L’instrumento della filosofia (Roma: Valgrisi, 1551). Piccolomini, Alessandro. La prima parte dele theoriche overo speculationi dei pianeti (Venezia: Varisco, 1558). Piccolomini, Alessandro. Sopra le Mechaniche d’Aristotele (Roma: Zanetti, 1582). Scaino, Antonio. La politica di Aristotele ridotta in modo di Parafrasi (Roma: Case del Popolo Romano, 1578). Segni, Bernardo. Rettorica et poetica d’Aristotile (Venezia: Imperatore, 1551). Venier, Francesco. I discorsi sopra i tre libri dell’anima d’Aristotele (Venezia: Arrivabene, 1555). Verino, Francesco. Trattato delle Metheore (Firenze: Marescotti, 1578).

b. Secondary Literature Bianchi, Luca. “From Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples to Giulio Landi: Uses of the Dialogue in Renaissance Aristotelianism,” in Jill Kraye and Martin Stone (eds.), Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2000), 41–58. Kraye, Jill. “From Greek into Italian: Giulio Ballino’s Translation of the PseudoAristotelian On the Virtues and Vices,” Rivista di storia della filosofia, 2 (2019): 361–76.

Appendix 1

233

Panizza, Letizia. “Alessandro Piccolomini’s Mission: Philosophy for Men and Women in Their Mother Tongue,” in Luca Bianchi, Simon Gilson and Jill Kraye (eds.), Vernacular Aristotelianism in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute, 2016), 57–74.



Appendix 2

The research is based on the project Le biblioteche degli ordini regolari in Italia alla fine del secolo XVI – http://rici.vatlib.it. I have corrected the titles where possible, but otherwise maintained the original spelling.1 Alessandro Piccolomini Title

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Annotationi nel libro della Poetica d’Aristotele

Unknown

OFMCap, Ferrara

Vat. Lat. 11326, 202v

OSH, Brescia, S. Maria delle Grazie

Vat. Lat. 11290, 216r

OSBCel, Corropoli

Vat. Lat. 11305, 47r Vat. Lat. 11282, 270v

De la institutione de Altobellus de la vita de l’homo Magistris Marco Aurelio Iacomini Paulo da Brescia

CRL, Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara

Eugenio da Napoli

OM, Napoli, S. Luigi

Vat. Lat. 1563, 266r

Hippolitus a Ferrara

CRL, Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara

Vat. Lat. 11282, 311v

1 List of abbreviations. CASH =Clerici apostolici S Hieronymi; CbP = Congregatio eremitarum S Hieronymi beati Petri a Pisis; CO = Congregatio Oratorii; CRL = Canonici regulares congregationis SS. Salvatoris Lateranensis; CRM = Ordo clericorum regularium minorum; CRS = Ordo clericorum regularium a Somascha; CRSA = Canonici regulares S. Augustini; CRSP = Congregatio clericorum regularium S. Pauli; CRT = Ordo clericorum regularium; OCarm = Ordo fratrum B. Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo; OCarmDi = Ordo fratrum discalceatorum B. Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo; OCart = Ordo Cartusiensis; OESA = Ordo fratrum eremitarum S. Augustini; OFM = Ordo fratrum minorum; OFMAm = Ordo fratrum minorum, congregatio b. Amadei; OFMObs = Ordo fratrum minorum observantiae; OFMCap = Ordo fratrum minorum capuccinorum; OFMConv = Ordo fratrum minorum conventualium; OP = Ordo fratrum praedicatorum; OSB = Ordo S. Benedicti; OSBAN = Ordo SS. Barnabae et Ambrosii ad Nemus; OSBCam = Congregatio monachorum eremitarum Camaldulensium ordinis S. Benedicti; OSBCamMC = Ordo eremitarum Camaldulensium congregationis Montis Coronae; OSBCas = Congregatio Casinensis ordinis S. Benedicti; OSBCel = Congregatio caelestinorum ordinis S. Benedicti; OSBCist = Congregatio cisterciensis S. Bernardi in Italia; OSBOliv = Congregatio S. Mariae Montis Oliveti ordinis S. Benedicti; OSBVall = Congregatio Vallis Umbrosae ordinis S. Benedicti; OSBVirg = Congregatio Montis Virginis ordinis S. Benedicti; OSC = Ordo S. Crucis; OSCl = Ordo S Clarae; OSH = Ordo S. Hieronymi; OSM = Ordo fratrum servorum B. Mariae Virginis; OSS = Ordo S. Salvatoris; SI = Societas Iesu; TOR = Tertius ordo regularis S. Francisci.

Sgarbi, M., The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: The Philosopher and the People. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463721387_app2

236  Title

De la sfera del mondo

The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Unknown

OFMCap, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11316, 4vb

Unknown

OSBCel, Sulmona, S. Spirito

Vat. Lat. 11312, 3r

Unknown

OSBCas, Brescia, SS. Faustino e Giovita Vat. Lat. 11266, 664v

Attilio Caprioli da Ferrara

OSH, Vicenza, S. Maria delle Grazie

Vat. Lat. 11290, 220r

Abbas

CRL, Verona, S. Leonardo

Vat. Lat. 11274, 397r

Unknown

CRL, Biella, S. Sebastiano

Vat. Lat. 11277, 184v

Unknown

OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 86r

Innocenzo Martelletti da Mantova

CbP, Padova, S: Maria Maddalena

Vat. Lat. 11292, 202v

Unknown

CRT, Napoli, S. Paolo Maggiore

Vat. Lat. 11267, 177v

Unknown

OFMCap, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11316, 8ra

Giovanni da Pairana

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 135v

Stefano

OSBCas, Buggiano, S. Michele e S. Pietro Vat. Lat. 11266, 241r

Abbas

CRL, Verona, S. Leonardo

Vat. Lat. 11273, 397r

Unknown

OSBCas, Venezia, S. Nicola al Lido

Vat. Lat. 11269, 292v

Unknown

OSBCas, Ferrante Verrino

Vat. Lat. 11269, 54v

Laurentius a S. Severino

OSBCas, Buggiano, S. Michele e S. Pietro

Vat. Lat. 11266, 236r

Vitalis

OSBCas, Arezzo, SS. Flora e Lucilla

Vat. Lat. 11266, 260v

Benedictus de Florentia

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 143r Vat. Lat. 11296, 11v

Apollinare

OSHObs, Cremona, S. Sigismondo

Remigio Fumanelli

CbP, Monsummano Vicentino, S. Maria Vat. Lat. 11292, 185r

Masseo da Fiorenza

OFMObs

Vat. Lat. 11281, 157r

Unknown

OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 86r

Unknown

OSBVall, Coltibuono, S. Lorenzo

Vat. Lat. 11288, 107r

Bonifacio e Antonio Silli

TOR, Bologna, S. Maria della Carità

Vat. Lat. 11297, 2r

Giovanni da Pairana

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 136v

Unknown

OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 65r

Paolo da Janitroli

OFMObs, Oppido Mamertina, S. Maria della Concezione

Vat. Lat. 11296, 86r

Leonorus de Lonico

OFMObs, Padova, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11283, 4r

Agostino da Occimiano

OFMObs, Casale Monferrato, S. Antonio

Vat. Lat. 11302, 141r

Ludovico di Messina

OFMObs, Taormina, S. Maria del Gesù

Vat. Lat. 11293, 155v

Angiolo da Seminara

OFMObs, Seminara, S. Maria degli Angeli

Vat. Lat. 11296, 74r

Firmianus de Valvassoribus de Mediolani

OSBVall, Pavia, S. Lanfranco

Vat. Lat. 11288, 198ra

Simplicianus Senensis OESA, Siena, S. Agostino

Vat. Lat. 11310, 397r

Unknown

OFMCap, Parma, S. Maria Maddalena

Vat. Lat. 11326, 24v

Unknown

CRSP, Pavia, S. Maria Incoronata

Vat. Lat. 11300, 87r

237

Appendix 2

Title

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Giovanni Andrea Prigisano

OSBCas

Vat. Lat. 11269, 24r

Seraphinus a Ravenna CRL, Roma, Santa Maria della Pace Francisco de Pisis

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11273, 505r Vat. Lat. 11281, 319r

Marcantonio Lanciotti OFMConv, Firenze da Massa

Vat. Lat. 11291, 224v

Bernardino da la Torre OFMObs, Assisi, S. Damiano

Vat. Lat. 11315, 163r

Jacobus Ruginella de Carifio

OSBVirg, Castel Baronia, S. Giovanni

Vat. Lat. 11313, 59r

Unknown

OSB, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 43v Vat. Lat. 11289, 144vb

Unknown

CRL, Venezia, S. Antonio

Unknown

OCart, Belriguardo, Purificazione della Vat. Lat. 11276, 433r B.V. Maria

Danielis Quistelli

OFMObs, Bologna, S. Maria Annunziata

Vat. Lat. 11271, 28v

Franciscus ab Atteste

OFMObs, Padova, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11283, 13r

Onofrio da Bologna

CRL, Monteveglio, S. Maria

Vat. Lat. 11282, 108r

Sebastiano di Campo Rotondo

OFMObs, Bitetto, S. Maria Annunziata

Vat. Lat. 11309, 50v

Sisto da Verona

CRL, S. Catervo di Tolentino

Vat. Lat. 11273, 174r

Unknown

OCart, Padula, S. Lorenzo

Vat. Lat. 11276, 181v

Benedetto da Verona

CRL, S. Catervo di Tolentino

Vat. Lat. 11273, 172r

Unknown

CRT, Napoli, S. Paolo Maggiore

Vat. Lat. 11267, 183v

Unknown

OSBVall, Firenze, S. Trinita

Vat. Lat. 11288, 77v

Unknown

OFMCap, Ferrara

Vat. Lat. 11326, 202r

Adeodato da Bergamo

CRL, Pavia, S. Pietro in Ciel d’Oro

Vat. Lat. 11282, 402r

Hieronimus Caballus

OFMObs, Milano, S. Angelo

Vat. Lat. 11307, 12v

Unknown

OCart, Belriguardo, Purificazione della Vat. Lat. 11276, 433r B.V. Maria

Franciscus a Mutina

Modena, SS. Cecilia e Margherita

Vat. Lat. 11271, 157v

Unknown

OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 66r

Unknown

OFMObs, Messina, S. Marria del Gesù inferiore

Vat. Lat. 11293, 14v

Abbas

CRL, Verona, S. Leonardo

Vat. Lat. 11273, 397r

Leonardus a Mondolfo

CRL, Ravenna, S. Maria in Porto

Vat. Lat. 11273, 38v

Unknown

Venezia, S. Antonio

Vat. Lat. 11289, 144va

Unknown

OFMObs, Venezia, S. Giobbe

Vat. Lat. 11304, 93r

Riccardo da Bologna

CRL, Bologna, S. Giovanni in Monte

Vat. Lat. 11277, 214r

Unknown

OFMObs, Narni, S. Croce

Vat. Lat. 11315, 224r

Unknown

CRL, Modena, S. Girolamo

Vat. Lat. 11289, 239r

Unknown

CRSP, Pavia, S. Maria Incoronata

Vat. Lat. 11300, 87r

Unknown

OSBCas, Brescia, SS. Faustino e Giovita Vat. Lat. 11266, 664v

Unknown

OFMCap, Ferrara

Vat. Lat. 11326, 202v

238  Title

The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Unknown

OFMObs, Messina, S. Marria del Gesù inferiore

Vat. Lat. 11293, 14v

Isidoro da Cremona

CRL, Lodi, S. Romano

Vat. Lat. 11282, 19r

Gabriele da Bologna

OFMObs, Bologna, S. Maria Annunziata

Vat. Lat. 11271, 14r

Stephanus a Plebe Sacci

OFMObs, Isola della Scala, S. Maria Maddalena

Vat. Lat. 11283, 208r

Unknown

OFMCap, Siracusa

Vat. Lat. 214, 1r

Giovanni Battista Villegas

OM, Napoli, S. Luigi

Vat. Lat. 1563, 258r Vat. Lat. 11273, 437v

Albertus a Brixia

CRL, Verona, S. Leonardo

Unknown

OFMObs, Ficarra, S. Maria del Gesù

Vat. Lat. 11293, 97v

Giacomo da Montecorvino

OFMObs, Maiori, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11311, 33r

Unknown

OSBCas, Piacenza, S. Sisto

Vat. Lat. 11269, 305v

Chrisostomo di Binzini OFMObs, Lentini, S. Maria del Gesù

Vat. Lat. 11293, 252r

Lucius

CRL, Casorate Primo, S. Maria Bianca

Vat. Lat. 11277, 314r

Unknown

OSBOliv, Taranto, S. Maria della Giustizia

Vat. Lat. 11274, 442v

Josephus Cremonensis CRL, Pavia, S. Pietro in Ciel d’Oro

Vat. Lat. 11282, 370v

Unknown

OCart, Padula, S. Lorenzo

Vat. Lat. 11276, 181v

Attilio Spinoli della Pergola

OSBCam, Fabriano, S. Biagio

Vat. Lat. 11287, 52r

Unknown

OFMCap, Troyna

Vat. Lat. 11323, 79v

Ludovicus

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 316r

Unknown

OFMCap, Salerno

Vat. Lat. 11322, 132v

Andrea Bergomensis

CRL, Venezia, S. Maria della Carità

Vat. Lat. 11273, 256v

Bonaventura da Monte Leone

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 139r

Mariano da Cortona

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 277r

Marcello Mollo

OM, Napoli, S. Luigi

Vat. Lat. 1563, 247r

Unknown

CRSP, Milano, S. Alessandro in Zebedia Vat. Lat. 11300, 52r

Unknown

OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 21r Vat. Lat. 214, 2v

Unknown

OFMCap, Calscibetta

Lorenzo da Terranova

OFMObs, Rende, S. Maria della Grazia

Vat. Lat. 11317, 14r

Francesco da Lucca vecchio

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 239v

Leonardus Coqueau Aurelius

OESA, Firenze, S. Spirito

Vat. Lat. 11310, 322v

Arcangelo da Busseto

OFMObs, Busseto, S. Maria Degli Angeli

Vat. Lat. 11271, 359v Vat. Lat. 11325, 5r

Unknown

OFMCap, Napoli, SS. Concezione

Unknown

OCart, Vedana, S. Marco

Vat. Lat. 11276, 553vb

Ioannes Cochius

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 225v

Agostino da Miranda

OFMObs, Perugia, S. Francesco del Monte

Vat. Lat. 11315, 53v

239

Appendix 2

Title

Owner

Order – Location

Unknown

OFMConv, Prato

Vat. Lat. 11291, 226v

Unknown

OFMCap, Lucca, S. Michele Arcangelo

Vat. Lat. 11322, 45v

Antonio da Stroncone OFMObs, Perugia, S. Francesco del Monte

Inventory

Vat. Lat. 11315, 44r

Raphael a Bononia

OFMObs, Modena, SS. Cecilia e Margherita

Vat. Lat. 11271, 161r

Paolo da Terranova

OFMObs, Oppido Mamertina, S. Maria della Concezione

Vat. Lat. 11296, 102v

Unknown

OFMObs, Siena, S. Bernardino

Vat. Lat. 11308, 39v

Unknown

OFMCap, Monte San Savino, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11322, 93v

Unknown

OFMCap, Castrogiovanni

Vat. Lat. 214, 1r

Unknown

OFMObs, Bergamo, S. Maria delle Grazie

Vat. Lat. 11268, 208v

Unknown

OFMObs, Lugnano, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11315, 237r

Basilius a Placentia

CRL, Brescia, S. Salvatore

Vat. Lat. 11277, 295r

Unknown

OSM, Pisa, S. Antonio

Vat. Lat. 11321, 187r

Honoratus de Robertis

CRL, Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara

Vat. Lat. 11282, 319vb

Unknown

OCart, Vedana, S. Marco

Vat. Lat. 11276, 553vb

Unknown

OFMCap, Firenze, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11319, 118r

Unknown

OSM, Arezzo, S. Pier Piccolo

Vat. Lat. 11321, 248r

Unknown

OCart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido

Vat. Lat. 11276, 513vb

Antonius de Vallegani OFMObs, Venezia, S. Giobbe

Vat. Lat. 11304, 106r

Unknown

Vat. Lat. 214, 2v

OFMCap, Fracofonte

Unknown

Ocart, Firenze, S. Lorenzo del Galluzzo Vat. Lat. 11276, 459v

Battista da Fabriano

OSBCam, Padova, S. Maria delle Carceri

Vat. Lat. 11287, 138r Vat. Lat. 11282, 155r

Alessandro di Milano

CRL, Milano, S. Maria della Passione

Unknown

OSBCas, Modena, S. Pietro

Vat. Lat. 11269, 283v

Agostino da Fano

CRL, Benevento, S. Sofia

Vat. Lat. 11289, 274v

Unknown

OFMConv, Fermo, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11280, 117r

Faustino

OSBCam, Pesaro, S. Maria degli Angeli

Vat. Lat. 11287, 123r Vat. Lat. 11282, 472r

Gregorio da Piacenza

CRL, Piacenza, S. Agostino

Unknown

CRSP, Vercelli, S. Cristoforo

Vat. Lat. 11300, 139r

Leo de Rubeis

OFMObs, Milano, S. Angelo

Vat. Lat. 11307, 33r

Giovanni Battista Giglio

OM, Napoli, S. Luigi

Vat. Lat. 1563, 270r

Unknown

CbP, Roma, S. Onofrio

Vat. Lat. 11292, 74v

Benedictus a Quinquaginta

OFMObs, Milano, Santa Maria della Pace

Vat. Lat. 11307, 73v

Bonaventura da Bergamo

CRL, Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara

Vat. Lat. 11282, 283v

Unknown

OFMCap, Siena, S. Maria Immacolata in Montecelso

Vat. Lat. 11322, 3r

Franciscus Lunianensis

OFMObs, Lugnano, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11315, 245r

240  Title

The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Leonoro da Candiano

OFMObs, Gubbio, S. Girolamo

Vat. Lat. 11315, 171r

Francesco Romano

OM, Viterbo, Madonna del Riposo

Vat. Lat. 1563, 529r

Scipione de Muria

OSBCas

Vat. Lat. 11269, 112r

Unknown

CRL, S. Maria di Tremiti

Vat. Lat. 11273, 196r

Unknown

OSBCas, Verona, SS. Nazaro e Celso

Vat. Lat. 11269, 269r

Unknown

OSBCas, Venezia, S. Nicola al Lido

Vat. Lat. 11269, 301v

Unknown

CRL, Bologna, S. Salvatore

Vat. Lat. 11289, 17r

Bonaventura di Sciacca

OFMObs, Sciacca, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11293, 329v

Unknown

OSBCam, Camaldoli, Eremo

Vat. Lat. 22, 90va

Giacomo da Montecorvino

OFMObs, Maiori, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11311, 33r

De le stelle fisse libro uno

Unknown

OCart, Firenze, S. Lorenzo del Galluzzo Vat. Lat. 11276, 459v

Della grandezza della terra et acqua

Unknown

OSBVall, Passignano, S. Michele

Vat. Lat. 11288, 35r Vat. Lat. 11277, 296v

Della institutione morale

Basilius a Placentia

CRL, Brescia, S. Salvatore

Unknown

OSBCel

Vat. Lat. 11305, 3v

Lucius Cremensis

CRL, Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara

Vat. Lat. 11282, 299r

Onofrio da Bologna

CRL, Monteveglio, S. Maria

Vat. Lat. 11282, 107v

Unknown

OSBVall, Passignano, S. Michele

Vat. Lat. 11288, 35r

Unknown

OSBVall, Vallombrosa, S. Maria

Vat. Lat. 11288, 11v

Unknown

CRT, Napoli, S. Paolo Maggiore

Vat. Lat. 11267, 180v

Unknown

OSBVall, Firenze, S. Trinita

Vat. Lat. 11288, 75v

Ludovico da Bologna

CRL, Bologna, S. Giovanni in Monte

Vat. Lat. 11277, 247ar

Unknown

OFMCap, Monte San Savino, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11322, 93v

Amedeo de Obizis

OSH, Rimini, S. Maria delle Colonnella

Vat. Lat. 11290, 81r

Unknown

CRL, Urbino, S. Agata

Vat. Lat. 11289, 195v

Franciscus Lunianensis OFMObs, Lugnano, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11315, 245r

Onofrio da Bologna

CRL, Monteveglio, S. Maria

Vat. Lat. 11282, 108r

Mariano da Cortona

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 276v

Unknown

CRSP, Milano, S. Alessandro in Zebedia Vat. Lat. 11300, 52r

Unknown

CRSP, Mpavia, S. Maria Incoronata

Vat. Lat. 11300, 87r

Unknown

CRT, Napoli, S. Paolo Maggiore

Vat. Lat. 11267, 183v

Unknown

CRM, Napoli, S. Maria Maggiore

Vat. Lat. 11318, 14r

Unknown

OESA, Lecceto, Congregazione di S. Salvatore

Vat. Lat. 11310, 364v

Unknown

OFMCap, Arezzo, S. Stefano

Vat. Lat. 11322, 104r

Nicolò Cristiani

OM, Venezia, S. Bartolomeo

Vat. Lat. 1563, 579v

Unknown

OFMObs, Siena, S. Bernardino

Vat. Lat. 11308, 39v

Unknown

CRSP, Vercelli, S. Cristoforo

Vat. Lat. 11300, 139r

Benedictus de Castro Francho

OSBCas, Buggiano, S. Michele e S. Pietro

Vat. Lat. 11266, 237r

Unknown

OFMCap, Torano, S. Nicola di Bari

Vat. Lat. 11322, 238r

241

Appendix 2

Title

Filosofia

I tre libri della Retorica. Trad. A. Piccolomini

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory Vat. Lat. 11277, 461r

Costantino da Lucca

CRL, Lucca, S. Maria di Fregionaia

Unknown

CRL, Ferrara, S. Maria a Vado

Vat. Lat. 11289, 171r

Alessandro di Milano

CRL, Milano, S. Maria della Passione

Vat. Lat. 11282, 149v

Attilius Caprioli

OSH, Vicenza, S. Maria delle Grazie

Vat. Lat. 11290, 230v

Raphael a Brixia

CRL, Bologna, S. Salvatore

Vat. Lat. 11277, 267v

Vitale da Milano

CRL, Milano, S. Maria della Passione

Vat. Lat. 11282, 185r

Francesco da Bertinoro

OFMObs, Ravenna, S. Apollinare

Vat. Lat. 11271, 493v Vat. Lat. 11276, 509va

Unknown

OCart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido

Tommaso da Capua

OSBCel, Marsico Nuovo, S. Giacomo

Vat. Lat. 11312,76r

Unknown

OCart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido

Vat. Lat. 11276, 508va

Antonio de Reginopoli

OSBCam, Volterra, SS. Giusto e Clemente

Vat. Lat. 11287, 87r

Unknown

OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 90r

Faustinus a Brixia

CRL, Brescia, S. Salvatore

Vat. Lat. 11277, 286v

Attilio Spinoli della Pergola

OSBCam, Fabriano, S. Biagio

Vat. Lat. 11287, 52v

Unknown

OFMObs, Siena, S. Bernardino

Vat. Lat. 11308, 42v

Petrus Martelletti

OSH, Verona, S. Zenone

Vat. Lat. 11290, 316r

Unknown

CRL, Bologna, S. Salvatore

Vat. Lat. 11289, 17r

Unknown

CRM, Napoli, S. Maria Maggiore

Vat. Lat. 11318, 41v

Il libro della Poetica d’Aristotele. Trad. A. Piccolomini

Unknown

OCart, Vedana, S. Marco

Vat. Lat. 11276, 553vb

Instrumento della filosofia naturale

Bonaventura ab Abbiata

OFMObs, Abbiategrasso, Santa Maria Annunziata

Vat. Lat. 11307, 85v

Ottaviano Turriani

CbP, Padova, S. Maria Maddalena

Vat. Lat. 11292, 189v

Arcangelo da Busseto

OFMObs, Busseto, S. Maria Degli Angeli Vat. Lat. 11271, 359v

Onofrio da Bologna

CRL, Monteveglio, S. Maria

Vat. Lat. 11282, 107v

Stefano Maconcini

CbP, Venezia, S. Sebastiano

Vat. Lat. 11292, 115v

Unknown

CRM, Napoli, S. Maria Maggiore

Vat. Lat. 11318, 14r

Instrumentum philosofiae

Unknown

OFMCap, Roggiano, Spirito Santo

Vat. Lat. 11322, 270r

L’instrumento de la filosofia

Unknown

OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 88r

L’instrumento della filosofia

Bonaventura da Cerqueto

OFMObs, Cibottola, S. Bartolomeo

Vat. Lat. 11315, 143v

Unknown

CRL, Roma, S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura

Vat. Lat. 11289, 251v

Iosephus de Ostra

OFMObs, Venezia, S. Francesco della Vigna

Vat. Lat. 11304, 65v

Unknown

CRL, Treviso, S. Maria Maggiore

Vat. Lat. 11289, 130r

Unknown

OSBCas, Brescia, SS. Faustino e Giovita Vat. Lat. 11266, 665r

Unknown

OFMCap, Palermo

Vat. Lat. 11306, 6v

242  Title

La prima parte della filosofia naturale

The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Unknown

CRL, Venezia, S. Antonio

Vat. Lat. 11289, 144vb

Unknown

OSBCel

Vat. Lat. 11305, 16v

Bartholomeus de Venetijs

OFMObs, Venezia, S. Francesco della Vigna

Vat. Lat. 11304, 29r

Unknown

CRT

Vat. Lat. 11267, 3r

Andrea da Feliziano

OFMObs, Casale Monferrato, S. Antonio

Vat. Lat. 11302, 149r

Aluisius de Basilicapetri

OFMObs, Milano, S. Angelo

Vat. Lat. 11307, 6r

Francesco da Lucca vecchio

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 239v

Unknown

CRSP, Milano, S. Barnaba

Vat. Lat. 11300, 3r

Unknown

OM, Roma, SS. Trinità

Vat. Lat. 1563, 49r

Unknown

OCart, Padula, S. Lorenzo

Vat. Lat. 11276, 181v

Gabriele Lallicata

TOR, Agrigento, S. Maria della Consolazione

Vat. Lat. 11297, 101v

Unknown

OFMCap

Vat. Lat. 11306, 6v

Octavius Alexandrinus

CRL, Milano, S. Maria della Passione

Vat. Lat. 11282, 181r

Valeriano da Bologna

CRL, Bologna, S. Giovanni in Monte

Vat. Lat. 11277, 203r

Antonio da S. Fiore

OFMObs, S. Fiora, SS. Trinità

Vat. Lat. 11308, 124

Paolo da Stroncone

OFMObs, Perugia, S. Francesco del Monte

Vat. Lat. 11315, 48r

Bernardino Vicentino

OFMObs, Cologna Veneta, S: Maria delle Grazie

Vat. Lat. 11283, 353v

Innocente da Viadana OFMObs, Ravenna, S. Apollinare

Vat. Lat. 11271, 490v

Angelicus Venetus

OFMObs, Motta di Livenza, S: Maria dei Miracoli

Vat. Lat. 11304, 144v

Unknown

OFMObs, Ficarra, S. Maria del Gesù

Vat. Lat. 11293, 98r

Unknown

CRT

Vat. Lat. 11267, 3r

Mariano da Cortona

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 277r

Giovanni Battista Giglio

OM, Napoli, S. Luigi

Vat. Lat. 1563, 270v

Evangelista di Tivoli

OFMObs, Rocca di Papa, S. Maria ad Nives di Palazzola

Vat. Lat. 11314, 107r

Stephano da Sassolo

OSM, Milano

Vat. Lat. 11321, 60r

Tomaso di Scigliano

OFMObs, Scigliano, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11317, 26v

Claudius Sangervasius CRL, Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara Brixiani

Vat. Lat. 11282, 258v

Gregorius Strangia da Candida

OSBVirg, Nocera dei Pagani

Vat. Lat. 11313, 39v

Unknown

OSBCel

Vat. Lat. 11305, 3v

Unknown

OCart, Vedana, S. Marco

Vat. Lat. 11276, 553vb

Unknown

OCart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido

Vat. Lat. 11276, 506va

Agostino da Miranda

OFMObs, Perugia, S. Francesco del Monte

Vat. Lat. 11315, 53v

243

Appendix 2

Title

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Giovanni Battista da Bologna

OM, Bologna, S. Benedetto

Vat. Lat. 1563, 167r

Horatius a Montecatino

OESA, Montecatini, Santa Margherita

Vat. Lat. 11295, 225r

Unknown

CRL

Vat. Lat. 11289, 29r

Unknown

OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 20v

Unknown

OFMCap, Ferrara

Vat. Lat. 11326, 202r

Lorenzo dal Silico

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 248v

Manfredus Senesis

OESA, Siena, S. Agostino

Vat. Lat. 11310, 395r

Unknown

OFMCap, Forlì, S. Giovanni in Saliceto

Vat. Lat. 11326, 177r

Bernardino Gambara

CbP, Venezia, S. Sebastiano

Vat. Lat. 11292, 112r

Unknown

OFMCap, Parma, S. Maria Maddalena

Vat. Lat. 11326, 24v

Unknown

OFMCap, Messina

Vat. Lat. 11323, 7r

Filippo di Bologna

Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara

Vat. Lat. 11282, 292r

Unknown

OFMCap, Palermo

Vat. Lat. 11306, 6v

Claudius Sangervasius Brixiani

CRL, Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara

Vat. Lat. 11282, 258v

Unknown

CRT

Vat. Lat. 11267, 3r

Unknown

CRL, Biella, S. Sebastiano

Vat. Lat. 11277, 18r

Unknown

Ocart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido

Vat. Lat. 11276, 506va

Sisto di Palermo

OESA, Palermo, S. Agostino

Vat. Lat. 11295, 199r

Isidoro

OSBCam, Camaldoli, Eremo

Vat. Lat. 22, 95r

Antonio da Perugia

OFMObs, Perugia, S. Francesco del Monte

Vat. Lat. 11315, 62v

Seraphinus Ianuari

OFMObs, Borgomanero, Santa Maria delle Grazie

Vat. Lat. 11307, 97r

Unknown

OFMObs, Siena, S. Bernardino

Vat. Lat. 11308, 39v

Unknown

OFMCap, Monte San Savino, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11322, 93v

Unknown

OFMObs, Bergamo, S. Maria delle Grazie

Vat. Lat. 11268, 208v

Unknown

OFMObs, Roma, S. Pietro in Montorio

Vat. Lat. 11314, 42r

Unknown

CRL, Ravenna, S. Giovanni Evangelista

Vat. Lat. 11289, 120ra

Unknown

OSBCam, Camaldoli, Eremo

Vat. Lat. 22, 19r

Unknown

OSBCas, Modena, S. Pietro

Vat. Lat. 11269, 276r

La prima parte delle Seraphinus a Ravenna CRL, Roma, Santa Maria della Pace theoriche

Vat. Lat. 11273, 505r

Salvatore da Vitiana

OFMObs, Tuscia

Unknown

OFMCap, Parma, S. Maria Maddalena

Vat. Lat. 11326, 24v

Unknown

OSBVall, Vallombrosa, S. Maria

Vat. Lat. 11288, 30r

Vat. Lat. 11281, 300v

Unknown

OFMCap, Lentini

Vat. Lat. 214, 1r

Mariano da Cortona

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 276v

Ignatius Ebolitanus

OFMCap

Vat. Lat. 11322, 208v

Unknown

CRL, S. Maria di Tremiti

Vat. Lat. 11273, 189r

Deodatus de Venetijs

OFMObs, Venezia, S. Francesco della Vigna

Vat. Lat. 11304, 87r

244  Title

The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Augustino di Evoli

OFMObs, Napoli, Spitaletto

Vat. Lat. 11311, 75r

Leo de Rubeis

OFMObs, Milano, S. Angelo

Vat. Lat. 11307, 33r

Agostino da Miranda

OFMObs, Perugia, S. Francesco del Monte

Vat. Lat. 11315, 53v

Lorenzo da Terranova

OFMObs, Rende, S. Maria della Grazia

Vat. Lat. 11317, 14r

Onofrio da Bologna

CRL, Monteveglio, S. Maria

Vat. Lat. 111282, 108r Vat. Lat. 11310, 213r

Guilelmus a Volterra

OESA, Voleterra, S. Agostino

Unknown

OFMCap, Napoli, S. Efremo

Vat. Lat. 11325, 45v

Unknown

OCart, Padula, S. Lorenzo

Vat. Lat. 11276, 181v

Benedetto da Verona

CRL, S. Catervo di Tolentino

Vat. Lat. 11273, 170v

Unknown

CRSP, Milano, S. Barnaba

Vat. Lat. 11300, 2v

Unknown

CRSP, Mpavia, S. Maria Incoronata

Vat. Lat. 11300, 87r

Unknown

OCart, Firenze, S. Lorenzo del Galluzzo Vat. Lat. 11276, 459v

Francesco Pifferi

OSBCam, Siena, S. Maria della Rosa

Francesco Pifferi

OSBCam, Siena, S. Maria della Rosa

Vat. Lat. 11287, 98r

Unknown

OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 92v

Antonio Bertelli

OFMObs, Firenze, S. Salvatore

Vat. Lat. 11281, 122r

CRT

Vat. Lat. 11267, 3r (2 copies)

Iosephus de Ostra

OFMObs, Venezia, S. Francesco della Vigna

Vat. Lat. 11304, 65v

Unknown

OFMCap, Palermo

Vat. Lat. 11306, 6v

Unknown

Parma, S. Maria Maddalena

Vat. Lat. 11326, 24v

Unknown

OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova

Vat. Lat. 11320, 6r

Unknown

OFMCap, Palermo

Vat. Lat. 11306, 6v

Unknown

Ocart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido

Vat. Lat. 11276, 506va

Nella Politica d’Aristotele

Unknown

OESA, Lecceto, Congregazione di S. Salvatore

Vat. Lat. 11310

Parafrase nel primo libro della Retorica d’Aristotele

Octavius a Buxeto

OFMObs, Modena, SS. Cecilia e Margherita

Vat. Lat. 11271, 158r

Unknown

OFMObs, Siena, S. Bernardino

Vat. Lat. 11308, 39v

Unknown

OFMConv, Fermo, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11280, 115r

Unknown

CRT

Vat. Lat. 11267, 2v

Unknown

OSBCel

Vat. Lat. 11305, 3v

Unknown

OFMCap, Ferrara

Vat. Lat.11326, 200r

La seconda parte de Unknown la filosofia naturale

Vat. Lat. 11287, 98v

Unknown

CRL, Venezia, S. Salvatore

Vat. Lat. 11289, 100v

Unknown

Ocart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido

Vat. Lat. 11276, 511vb

Unknown

OFMCap, Arezzo, S. Stefano

Vat. Lat. 11322, 103v

Philosophia naturale Angelus a Vercelli

OFMObs, Novara, San Nazario

Vat. Lat. 11307, 109v

Philosophia naturales

Seraphinus a Ravenna CRL, Roma, Santa Maria della Pace

Vat. Lat. 11273, 505r

Phisica

Bartolomeo della Pieve a Santo Stefano

Vat. Lat. 11281, 113v

OFMObs, Tuscia

245

Appendix 2

Title

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Piena et larga parafrase nel secondo libro della Retorica d’Aristotele

Unknown

OFMObs, Siena, S. Bernardino

Vat. Lat. 11308, 39v

Sopra la filosofia

Sopra la Rettorica d’Aristotile

Unknown

CRT

Vat. Lat. 11267, 2v

Ambrogio da Padova

CbP, Verona, S. Maria della Vittoria

Vat. Lat. 11292, 236r

Romualdo

OSBCam, Monte Cronaro, S. Egidio

Vat. Lat. 11287, 112r

Unknown

OFMCap, Bologna, S. Croce

Vat. Lat. 11326, 14r

Unknown

CRT

Vat. Lat. 11267, 3v

Unknown

CRT, Napoli, S. Paolo Maggiore

Vat. Lat. 11267, 176r

Unknown

CRL, Ravenna, S. Giovanni Evangelista

Vat. Lat. 11289, 122va

Paulo da Brescia

CRL, Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara

Vat. Lat. 11282, 270r

Agostino di Negro da Genova

CRL, Pavia, S. Pietro in Ciel d’Oro

Vat. Lat. 11282, 400r

Simone Bartolozzi

OFMObs, Firenze, S. Salvatore

Vat. Lat. 11281, 295v

Ludovico Castelvetro Title

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Poetica d’Aristotele vulgarizzata et sposta

Unknown

OSBCel, Chieti, S. Maria della Civitella OSBCel CO, S. Maria in Vallicella OFMObs, Lugnano, S. Francesco

Vat. Lat. 11305, 40r

CRL, Verona, S. Leonardo

Vat. Lat. 11273, 411v

Unknown Unknown Franciscus Lunianensis Abbas

Vat. Lat. 11305, 25r Vat. Lat. 606, 247v Vat. Lat. 11315, 249v

246 

The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Bernardo Segni Title

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Retorica et poetica di Aristotele

Unknown Unknown Unknown

OSBVall, Roma, S. Prassede OSBVall, Vallombrosa, S. Maria OCart, Firenze, S. Lorenzo del Galluzzo CRSP, Pavia, S. Maria Incoronata OSBCam, Padova, S. Maria delle Carceri OSBCas, Brescia, SS. Faustino e Giovita OESA, Esantoglia, S. Agostino OSBCas, Brescia, SS. Faustino e Giovita OFMCap, Cosenza, Santissima Concezione OSBVall, Vallombrosa, S. Maria OFMObs, Revere, S. Luigi

Vat. Lat. 11288, 211r Vat. Lat. 11288, 26v Vat. Lat. 11276, 459v

Unknown Adriano Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Evangelista de Mantova Simon de Verona Angelicus Venetus Giulio da Bergamo Romualdo Unknown Unknown Trattato dei governi

Alessandro Unknown Unknown Baglioni, Lelio e Baglioni, Antonio Zanobi [***]zzi Venetus da Bolgona Unknown Unknown Unknown

OFMObs, Mantova, S. Francesco OFMObs, Motta di Livenza, S. Maria dei Miracoli CRL, Verona, S. Leonardo

Vat. Lat. 11300, 90v Vat. Lat. 11287, 145v Vat. Lat. 11266, 664v Vat. Lat. 11310, 300r Vat. Lat. 11266, 666v Vat. Lat. 11322, 230r Vat. Lat. 11288, 7r Vat. Lat. 11283, 351r Vat. Lat. 11283, 271r Vat. Lat. 11304, 144v Vat. Lat. 11273, 471v

OFMCap, Palermo OSBCam, Monte Cornaro, S. Egidio OCart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido OSBVall, Passignano, S. Michele

Vat. Lat. 11306, 5r Vat. Lat. 11287, 112r

OSM, Montecchio OFMCap, Cosenza, Santissima Concezione CRL, Venezia, S. Antonio

Vat. Lat. 11321, 104v Vat. Lat. 11322, 230r

OSM

OFMObs, Bologna, S. Maria Annunziata CRL, Mantova, S. Vito OFMCap, Firenze, SS. Concezione CRSP, Milano, S. Alessandro in Zebedia

Vat. Lat. 11276, 503ra Vat. Lat. 11288, 36v

Vat. Lat. 11289, 144va Vat. Lat. 11321, 516v

Vat. Lat. 11271, 78v Vat. Lat. 11282, 73r Vat. Lat. 11322, 93r Vat. Lat. 11300, 54v

247

Appendix 2

Title

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Ethica

Marsilio Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown

OSBVall, Coltibuono, S. Lorenzo OSBVall, Ripoli, S. Bartolomeo CRL, Milano, S. Celso OSBVall, Passignano, S. Michele OSBCel OSM, Pisa, S. Antonio CRSP, Pavia, S. Maria Incoronata OCart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido OSBVall, Ronta, S: Paolo OFMObs, Rimi, S. Maria delle Grazie e S. Bernardino CRL, Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara OSM, Milano

Vat. Lat. 11288, 113r Vat. Lat. 11288, 56r Vat. Lat. 11289, 262r Vat. Lat. 11288, 36v Vat. Lat. 11305, 5v Vat. Lat. 11321, 190v Vat. Lat. 11300, 95v Vat. Lat. 11276, 506rb Vat. Lat. 11288, 163r Vat. Lat. 11271, 478r

OFMObs, Tuscia

Vat. Lat. 11281, 308v

OFMObs, Bologna, S. Maria Annunziata OSBCas, Modena, S. Pietro CRL, Venezia, S. Antonio

Vat. Lat. 11271, 55r

Felice Tommaso Bolise da Rimi Filippo da Bologna Gabriello da Milano Vicentio di Firenze [***]izzi Venetus da Bologna Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown

Vat. Lat. 11282, 290r Vat. Lat. 11321, 56r

OSM, Pisa, S. Antonio OSBVall, Vallombrosa, S. Maria

Vat. Lat. 11269, 275v Vat. Lat. 11289, 145ra Vat. Lat. 11321, 194v Vat. Lat. 11288, 14r

Girolamo Manfredi Title

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Il perché

Pellegrino da Brescia Alessandro di Milano

OSH, Baone CRL, Milano, S. Maria della Passione CRL, Venezia, S. Salvatore OFMObs, Messina, S. Maria del Gesù inferiore OSBCas

Vat. Lat. 11290, 91r Vat. Lat. 11282, 153v

OESA, Fossombrone, S. Agostino OSBCas, San Benedetto Po, San Benedetto da Mantova TOR, Bologna, S. Maria della Carità CRL, Milano, S. Maria della Passione

Vat. Lat. 11310, 160r Vat. Lat. 11320, 17r

Unknown Unknown Giovanni Andrea Prigisano Pietro Florido Unknown Bonifacio e Antonio Silli Michel Angiolo da Milano

Vat. Lat. 11289, 92v Vat. Lat. 11293, 31r Vat. Lat. 11269, 22r

Vat. Lat. 11297, 5r Vat. Lat. 11282, 162v

248  Title

The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Francesco Guidi da Montefiore Gregorius Romanus Giovanni Donato de Rinaldo Girolamo di Lugo

Imola, S. Maria del Predello

Vat. Lat. 11286, 126r

CRL, Lodi, S. Bartolomeo OSBCas

Vat. Lat. 11282, 11r Vat. Lat. 11269, 243v

CRL, Ravenna, Santa Maria in Porto TOR, Imola, S. Maria del Pradello

Vat. Lat. 11273, 58v

Vat. Lat. 11286, 379v Vat. Lat. 11291, 195v Vat. Lat. 11273, 63r

Martius Cremonensis

OSBCas, Perugia, S. Margherita OFMConv, Tarano, S. Francesco CRL, Ravenna, Santa Maria in Porto CRL, Benevento, S. Modesto

Unknown

OCart, Lucca, Spirito Santo

Vat. Lat. 11276, 431vb Vat. Lat. 11273, 202v Vat. Lat. 11307, 49r Vat. Lat. 11289, 239r Vat. Lat. 11288, 135v Vat. Lat. 11289, 155v Vat. Lat. 11266, 673v

Francesco de Geriulis da Montefiore Florida Francisco Mannucci Riccardo da Pavia

Hippolytus a Placentia Franciscus Mategatia Unknown Calvanus de Romena Unknown Unknown

CRL, S. Maria di Tremiti OFMObs, Antegnate, S. Maria CRL, Modena, S. Girolamo OSBVall, Forcole, S. Michele CRL, Fornò, S. Maria delle Grazie OSBCas, Brescia, SS. Faustino e Giovita Stefano da Miranda OFMObs, Foligno, S. Bartolomeo Angelico da Terni OFMObs, Colfiorito, S. Bartolomeo di Borgliano Calisto di Gravina OFMObs, Lavello, S. Nicolò Ludovico Novarese CRL, Rimini, S. Lazari vel S. Marini Josephus Cremonensis CRL, Pavia, S. Pietro in Ciel d’Oro Cherubino d’Assise OFMObs, Montefalco, S. Leonardo Andreas Venetus OFMObs, Venezia, S. Francesco della Vigna Antonio della Licata OFMObs, Licata, S. Maria del Gesù Cherubino Gorno OSBAN, Pavia, S. Maria in Pertica Unknown CRL, Reggio Emilia, S. Maria delle Grazie Unknown TOR Unknown OSBCas, Venezia, S. Nicola al Lido

Vat. Lat. 11297, 23r

Vat. Lat. 11277, 94v

Vat. Lat. 11315, 38v Vat. Lat. 11315, 184r Vat. Lat. 11309 Vat. Lat. 11273, 104r Vat. Lat. 11282, 371r Vat. Lat. 11315, 229v Vat. Lat. 11304, 72v Vat. Lat. 11293, 320r Vat. Lat. 11294, 4v Vat. Lat. 11273, 3r Vat. Lat. 11297, 79v Vat. Lat. 11269, 296v

249

Appendix 2

Felice Figliucci Title

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Della filosofia morale

Agostino di Verona Theodosius Brixiensis Unknown Unknown

OSBCam, Faenza, S. Ippolito CRL, Brescia, S. Salvatore OFMCap, Troyna CRSP, Milano, S. Alessandro in Zebedia OCart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido CRSP, Pavia, S. Maria Incoronata OFMCap, S. Francesco CRL, Mantova, S. Vito CRL, Rimini, S. Lazari vel S. Marini

Vat. Lat. 11286, 188r Vat. Lat. 11282, 274vb Vat. Lat. 11323, 105r Vat. Lat. 11300, 59v

CRL, Ravenna, S. Maria in Porto OSBCam, Faenza, S. Ippolito OM, Napoli, S. Luigi OSh, Lendinara, S. Biagio OFMObs, Firenze, S. Salvatore OESA, Monte Pisano, Santa Maria della Selva OBSCas, Modena, S. Pietro CRL, Piacenza, S. Eufemia OSBCas, Modena, S. Pietro CRL, Verona, S. Leonardo OFMObs, Siena, S. Bernardino

Vat. Lat. 11273, 71v Vat. Lat. 11287, 101r Vat. Lat. 1563, 247r Vat. Lat. 11290, 121v Vat. Lat. 11281, 296v Vat. Lat. 11310, 219v

Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Giovanni Battista di Bressa Serafino da Savignano Agostino da Verona Marcello Mollo Andrea Brighente Simone Bartolozzi Alexius a Monte Pisano

De la politica

Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown

Vat. Lat. 11276, 506vb Vat. Lat. 11300, 97v Vat. Lat. 11316, 21ra Vat. Lat. 11282, 72r Vat. Lat. 11273, 124r

Vat. Lat. 11269, 276r Vat. Lat. 11289, 230v Vat. Lat. 11269, 276r Vat. Lat. 11273, 419r Vat. Lat. 11308, 50v

Niccolò Vito di Gozze Title

Owner

Order – Location

Inventory

Dello stato delle repubbliche secondo la mente di Aristotele

Claudios Sangervasius Brixiani

CRL, Padova, S. Giovanni da Verdara

Vat. Lat. 11282, 262r

Unknown [***]izzi Venetus da Bologna Georgio da Verona Giovanni Dominicus Simeoni a Mercuriano Desiderio Ferrari da Venezia Unknown

CRL, Mantova, S. Sebastiano OFMObs, Bologna, S. Maria Annunziata CRL, S. Catervo di Tolentino OSBVirg, Palam Campania, S. Croce CRL, Candiana, S. Michele Arcangelo OFMCamp, Parma, S. Maria Maddalena CRL, Mantova, S. Sebastiano

Vat. Lat. 11289, 110r Vat. Lat. 11271, 66v

Discorsi sopra le Metheore d’Aristotele

Governo della famiglia Unknown

Vat. Lat. 11273, 183r Vat. Lat. 11313, 46v Vat. Lat. 11289, 218v Vat. Lat. 11326, 33v Vat. Lat. 11289, 115r

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Galeazzo Florimonte Title

Owner

Ragionamenti sopra Agostino di Verona l’Ethica d’Aristotele Giuseppe da Ravenna Theodoro da Milano Ioannes Armij Unknown Unknown Angelo Romano Octavius a Buxeto Unknown Unknown Unknown

Order – Location

Inventory

OSBCam, Faenza, S. Ippolito CRL, Ravenna, S. Maria in Porto OSM, Milano Bologna, S. Maria Annunziata OFMCap, Forlì, S. Giovanni in Saliceto OFMCap, Parma, S. Maria Maddalena CRL, Napoli, S. Pietro ad Aram OFMObs, Modena, SS. Cecilia e Margherita CRL, Ferrara, S. Maria a Vado OFMCap, Ferrara OCart, Venezia, Sant’Andrea del Lido

Vat. Lat. 11286, 188r Vat. Lat. 11273, 41r Vat. Lat. 11321, 90r Vat. Lat. 11271, 35v Vat. Lat. 11326, 177r Vat. Lat. 11326, 36v Vat. Lat. 11282, 197r Vat. Lat. 11271, 158v Vat. Lat. 11289, 173v Vat. Lat. 11326, 201v Vat. Lat. 11276, 512vb

Acknowledgements This essay stems from a project on the vulgarization of Aristotelian works in Renaissance Italy funded by the European Research Council.1 Investigating this complex and multifarious process led me to question the more general historical context and the theoretical framework within which the production and fruition of Aristotelian philosophy in the vernacular took place, shifting my attention towards concomitant phenomena that caused or concurred with the successful vulgarization of scientific and philosophical works in the period between 1500 and 1650. Many questions arose during my study, including: What were the reasons for vulgarization? What were the intentions behind this process? Who were the vulgarizers? What drove them? What was the conception of knowledge at the time? Indeed, what was knowledge actually for? How was knowledge transmitted? And who were its recipients? My investigation has grown thanks to the continuously challenging questions and probing enquiries from my colleagues,2 who helped me look at the process of democratization of knowledge and its limits from a variety of perspectives. The limits of this book are the limits of my research and of my capacity to answer their questions in a satisfactory way. Such a short essay has not the space to deal in full with their pressing curiosity, but I hope I have provided some possible threads for research that may be further explored in the next future.

1 This work revises ideas and sources previously published elsewhere, in particular on the papers “Aristotle and the People” and “What was Meant by Vulgarizing in the Italian Renaissance?” I wish to thank the editors of Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme and Intellectual History Review for the permission of publishing some of the material contained in these articles. 2 I want to express my deepest gratitude to Eleonora Carinci, Matteo Cosci, Alessio Cotugno, Cecilia Muratori, Laura Refe and Cristiano Zanetti.

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Index [***]izzi Venetus da Bologna 247, 249 Aceti de’ Porti, Serafino 70 Achillini, Alessandro 53 Adeodato da Bergamo 237 Adriano 246 Agostino da Fano 239 Agostino da Miranda 238, 242, 244 Agostino da Occimiano 236 Agostino da Verona 249 Agostino di Negro da Genova 245 Agostino di Verona 249–250 Agrippa von Nettesheim, Cornelius 111, 113–114, 253 Alamanni, Luigi 52, 58 Alamanni, Tommaso 52 Alberigo, Giuseppe 58, 73, 256 Albert the Great 184 Albertano da Brescia 132 Alberti, Leon Battista120 Albertus a Brixia 238 Alderotti, Taddeo 120, 185–186, 189 Aleandro, Gerolamo 30, 65 Alessandro 246 Alessandro di Milano 239, 241, 247 Alexander of Aphrodisias 58, 201 Alexander the Great 109–110 Alexius a Monte Pisano 249 Alighieri, Dante 120 Allen, Grace 52, 73 Altobellus de Magistris 235 Altoviti, Bardo 53 Aluisius de Basilicapetri 242 Ambrogio da Padova 245 Ambrosini, Federica 88, 115, 256 Amedeo de Obizis 240 Amulio, Natalino 86–87, 114, 253 Andrea Bergomensis 238 Andrea Brighente 249 Andrea da Feliziano 242 Andrea da Grosseto 132 Andreas Venetus 248 Andreoli, Ilaria 61, 73, 256 Andreoni, Annalisa 97, 114, 256 Angelico da Terni 248 Angelicus Venetus 242, 246 Angelo di Capua 132 Angelo Romano 250 Angelus a Vercelli 244 Angiolo da Seminara 236 Antonelli, Giuseppe 132, 156, 264 Antoniano, Silvio 171, 174, 191, 253 Antonio Bertelli 244 Antonio da Perugia 243 Antonio da Rialto 30 Antonio da S. Fiore 242

Antonio da Stroncone 239 Antonio de Reginopoli 241 Antonius de Vallegani 239 Apollinare 236, 241–242 Aquinas, Thomas 203 Arcangelo da Busseto 238, 241 Aretino, Pietro 58, 66, 89, 126–127, 154, 253 Argelati, Filippo 51, 73, 256 Arico, Denisè 203, 206, 256 Aristotile, Nicolò d’ 59 Aristotle 14, 16, 26, 29, 47, 49, 51–53, 55–57, 59, 62–63, 69, 72–76, 84, 91, 94, 100, 102–103, 105–106, 109–112, 120, 124–126, 136, 139, 144–145, 152–153, 157–158, 162, 165–168, 170, 174–175, 181–182, 184–188, 190, 197, 200–203, 209, 212, 214, 217, 219, 224–225m 227, 251, 256–257, 262, 267–268, 271–272, 273, 277 Arrivabene, Andrea 59 Asola, Torresano d’ 59 Augustijn, Cornelis 29, 45, 256 Augustino di Evoli 244 Averroes 31, 203 Avesani, Rino 56, 73, 256 Baglioni, Lelio 246 Bagolino, Giovanni Battista 56 Baldo, Antonio 60 Ballino, Giulio 7, 217–218, 232, 253, 266, 277 Barbaro, Daniele 56, 73, 256 Barbaro, Ermolao 188, 192, 262 Barbaro, Francesco 188, 192 Barbieri, Edoardo 80, 86 Barni, Domenico 185 Bartholomeus de Venetijs 242 Bartman, Roger J. 84, 115, 257 Bartolomeo della Pieve a Santo Stefano 244 Bascarini, Nicolò de 59 Basilius a Placentia 239–240 Battaillon, Marcel 69, 73, 257 Battista da Fabriano 239 Bec, Christian 181, 184–185, 191, 247 Becichemo, Marino 64, 253 Beer, Jeanette M.A. 135, 257 Bellani, Giovanni di 185 Bellei, Meris 186, 191, 257 Bembo, Pietro 11, 17, 23, 45, 56, 64, 96–97, 113, 119, 122, 124, 127, 154, 158, 178–179, 253, 261, 273, 277 Ben Zanetti, Francesco 188, 191, 257 Benedetto da Verona 237, 244 Benedictus a Quinquaginta 239 Benedictus de Castro Francho 240 Benedictus de Florentia 236 Bernardi della Mirandola, Antonio 53 Bernardino da Feltre 110, 114, 253

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Bernardino da la Torre 237 Bernardino Gambara 243 Bernardino Vicentino 242 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo 182 Besomi, Ottavio 188, 191, 257 Betti, Gian Luigi 172, 191, 257 Betussi, Giuseppe 56, 76, 269 Bevilacqua, Marco 64 Bevilacqua, Nicolò 60 Beyers, Rita 135, 257 Bianchi, Luca 14, 18, 47–49, 52, 59, 73, 74, 75, 125, 151, 157, 161, 191–192, 217, 219, 232–232, 256–258, 262, 265, 269, 272 Bianchi, Marco 10, 18, 258 Bindoni, Agostino 59 Bindoni, Bernardino 58 Bindoni, Francesco 58 Bionda, Simone 53, 57–58, 73 Biringucci, Oreste Vannocci 100, 162 Bizzarini, Marco 89, 115, 258 Bizzarri, Pietro 89, 116, 263 Black, Robert 167, 192, 258 Blackwell, Constance 55, 57, 75–76, 267–268 Boccaccio, Giovanni 56, 96, 120, 122, 126–128 Boccalini, Traiano 91–92, 114, 253 Boillet, Élise 22, 45, 63, 258, 263 Bolise, Tommaso 247 Bonamico, Lazzaro 56, 73, 103, 256 Bonardo Bartolomeo 60 Bonaventura ab Abbiata 241 Bonaventura da Bergamo 239 Bonaventura da Cerqueto 241 Bonaventura da Monte Leone 238 Bonaventura di Sciacca 240 Bonelli, Giovanni Maria 59 Bonetti, Luca 60 Borsetto, Luciana 135, 154, 258 Boschetti, Paolo 186, 191, 257 Botzheim, Johann von 30 Brams, Jozef 135, 257 Breventano, Stefano 49 Briggs, Charles F. 132, 155, 258 Briguglia, Gianluca 120, 155, 258 Brucioli, Antonio 22, 32, 35, 44–45, 47–48, 51–53, 58, 64–68, 70, 72–75, 77–84, 86, 88–89, 109–110, 114, 116-118, 171, 173, 178, 181–184, 188–189, 209, 211, 232, 253, 256, 262–263, 267, 272–273, 278 Bruno, Cola 56, 76, 269 Buondelmonti, Luigi Zanobi 53 Buonriccio, Angelico 8, 228, 232, 253 Burdach, Konrad 10, 258 Burke, Peter 9–10, 18, 44–45, 258 Buschbell, Gottfried 68, 73, 258 Calisto di Gravina 248 Calori, Gaspare 137 Calvanus de Romena 248 Camerota, Michele 187, 192, 259

Camozi, Francesco 60 Campora, Jacopo 48, 185–187 Cantini, Gustavo 84, 115, 259 Capocorso, Ridolfino 201 Cappello, Carlo 53 Caprioli, Attilio 236, 241 Caravale, Giorgio 67, 74, 173, 192, 259 Carinci, Eleonora 179, 192, 251, 259 Carnelos, Laura 205–206, 259 Caroti, Stefano 179, 192, 259 Casali, Elide 200, 203, 206, 259 Cassiani, Chiara 105, 115, 260 Castelvetro, Lodovico 47, 51, 54, 70–71, 74–75, 94–95, 100, 115, 119, 135–139, 143–144, 150, 154–155, 157–158, 161–162, 168, 181, 191, 226, 245, 254, 260–261, 264, 271, 273 Cataldi, Paolo 188 Catarino Polito, Ambrogio 62, 66–67, 72, 74, 173, 191–192, 254, 259 Catena, Girolamo 119, 144, 145–147, 154, 254 Cattaneo, Angelo 180, 192, 260 Cavalcanti, Bartolomeo 53, 76, 184, 189, 270 Cavalli, Ambrogio 67 Cavalli, Giorgio de’ 60 Cavazza, Silvano 172, 192, 260 Cavazzuti, Giuseppe 71, 74, 260 Celani, Ruben 56, 260 Celenza, Christopher S. 120, 155, 260 Cellauro, Louis 184, 192, 260 Cerreta, Florindo 74, 260 Cerretani, Niccolò 53 Cervini, Marcello 54, 68 Cesano, Bartolomeo 59 Chartier, Roger 13, 18, 50, 74, 95, 115, 167, 192, 260 Cherchi, Paolo 69, 74, 260 Cherubino d’Assise 248 Chrisostomo di Binzini 238 Christ 7, 19, 22–23, 25–35, 40–41, 65–66, 80, 85–87, 90–91, 101, 183, 188, 199 Cicero 16, 22–24, 36, 64, 96, 124, 137–138, 145, 152 Citaredo, Vincenzo 201, 207, 275 Claudius Sangervasius Brixiani 242, 249 Clementi, Marziale 86 Coletti, Vittorio 29, 45, 97, 99, 115, 173, 192, 260 Colliva, Paolo 133, 155, 260 Colombella, Antonio 48 Colombo, Cristoforo 203 Colonna, Vittoria (niece) 70 Colonna, Vittoria 62, 70 Comba, Emilio 68, 74, 260 Compagni, Dino 132, 155, 262 Contamine, Geneviève 135, 260 Contarini, Gasparo 12, 17, 52, 62, 89, 116, 254, 264 Corbellini, Sabrina 108, 115, 260 Corbinelli, Antonio 185 Cornaro, Giovanni 56 Cornish, Alison 120, 155, 261

Index

Corsi, Giovanni 52 Cortese, Gregorio 69, 74, 261 Cortesi, Mariarosa 135, 155, 261 Corvisieri, Costantino 71, 74, 261 Costantino da Lucca 241 Cottier, François 31, 45, 261 Cotugno, Alessio 22–23, 29, 45, 49, 74, 94–95, 115, 124, 135–136, 143–144 Crasta, Francesca Maria 56, 74, 261 Cristofani, Francesca 183 Crivellati, Cesare 49 Curione, Celio Secondo 67 Curzio, Traiano 60 Da Ponte, Giulia 176–178, 194, 271 Dal Cappello, Baldassarre 86 Danielis Quistelli 237 Dati, Carlo Roberto 165, 192, 261 Davi, Maria Rosa 89, 116, 261 Davidico, Lorenzo 172, 191, 193, 254, 263 Davila, Fernando 182 De Biasio, Luigi 88, 116, 261 De Bujanda, Jesús Martínez 89, 116, 262 De Campos, Haroldo 134, 155, 262 De Gaetano, Armand L. 105, 109, 116, 262 De Gregori, Gregorio 58, 65, 72, 253 De Rosa, Gabriele 85, 116, 262 De Vivo, Filippo 169, 192, 262 Del Col, Andrea 65, 68, 74, 89, 116, 171–172, 175, 192, 262 Del Garbo, Francesco 162, 165 Del Lungo, Isidoro 132, 155, 262 Del Rosso, Paolo 48, 189 Del Soldato, Eva 52, 74, 105, 116, 262 Delfino, Federico 59 Della Barba, Pompeo 189 Della Casa, Giovanni 189, 194, 197, 206, 256 Della Porta, Giambattista 188, 201, 206, 269 Deodatus de Venetijs 243 Desiderio Ferrari da Venezia 249 Di Mare, Stefania 55, 74, 262 Diacceto, Iacopo da 53 Diaccetto, Francesco Cattani da 52, 74–75, 262, 266 Diller, Aubrey 188, 192, 262 Dionisotti, Carlo 13, 17, 52, 62–63, 74, 114, 136, 154–155, 253, 262 Dolce, Ludovico 56, 77, 182, 227, 232, 254, 271 Donà, Leonardo 168 Dottori, Anton Francesco dei 64 Dottori, Benedetto 8, 168, 229, 230, 232, 254 Douglas, Richard 89, 116, 262 Drusi, Riccardo 138–139, 155, 262 Eamon, William 111–112, 116, 263 Eco, Umberto 11, 18, 50, 70, 74, 263 Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. 9, 18, 95, 116, 166, 93, 263 Ellero, Maria Pia 168, 263 Emiliani-Giudici, Paolo 133, 155, 263

279 Erasmus, Desiderius 10, 16–17, 19–41, 44–46, 61–66, 68, 71–72, 75, 79–80, 83–89, 97, 124, 131, 171–174, 188, 197–198, 253–254, 256, 264, 267–268, 271, 274–275 Ercole II 68 Erculiani, Camilla 179, 191, 254 Ettore di Andrea 182 Eugenio da Napoli 235 Evangelista de Mantova 246 Evangelista di Tivoli 242 Fabrici d’Acquapendente, Girolamo 188, 191, 257 Farri, Domenico 60 Faustino 239 Faustinus a Brixia 241 Faustus Longianus, Sebastianus 119, 138–141, 143, 147–149, 155, 262, Favaro, Antonio 187, 193, 263 Felice 247 Fernão de Magalhães 203 Ferrai, Luigi Alberto 89, 263 Ferrini, Vincenzo 173, 191, 254 Ferro, Girolamo 186 Ficinus, Marsilius 16, 52 Figliucci, Felice 7, 47–48, 51, 54, 61, 168, 182, 184, 189, 214–215, 232, 249, 254 Filicaia, Piero 185 Filippo da Bologna 247 Fiorimbene, Panfilo 190 Firmianus de Valvassoribus de Mediolani 236 Firpo, Massimo 22, 45, 63, 69, 71–72, 74–75, 89, 116, 172–173, 191, 193, 254, 263 Fisher, Elizabeth 147, 155, 263 Flaminio, Marcantonio 62, 69–71 Florida 248 Florimonte, Galeazzo 7, 49, 73, 182, 213–214, 250, 254, 257 Folena, Gianfranco 132, 135, 155, 263 Fontanini da Mantova, Benedetto 69 Forner, Fabio 36, 44, 45, 264 Foscarini, Giacomo 186 Foscarini, Sebastiano 186 Fournel, Jean-Louis 63, 75, 121, 156, 264 Fracastoro, Girolamo 56, 74, 261 Fragnito, Gigliola 89, 116, 167–168, 170, 175, 193, 264–265 Franceschi, Francesco de’ 60 Francesco da Bertinoro 241 Francesco da Lucca vecchio 238, 242 Francesco de Geriulis da Montefiore 248 Francini, Antonio 52 Francis I 35, 80, 83, 88 Francisco de Pisis 235 Franciscus a Mutina 237 Franciscus ab Atteste 237 Franciscus Lunianensis 239–240, 245 Franciscus Mategatia 248 François, Wim 31, 45, 264

280 

The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Frangipane, Prospero 177 Fratarcangeli, Margherita 184, 193, 264 Frescobaldi, Fiammetta 179–181, 194, 270 Froben, Johannes 86 Frosini, Giovanna 132 Furey, Costance M. 71, 75, 264 Gabriele da Bologna 238, 242, 279 Gabriello da Milano 247 Gadaldino, Antonio 71 Gaeta, Franco 30, 45, 264 Gai, Lucia 133, 156, 264 Galilei, Galileo 7, 10, 18, 104, 187–188, 191–193, 203–206, 256–259, 263, 266 Gallineta, Lazzaro 48 Gambier, Yves 50, 76, 270 Gambino, Antonio 89 Garavelli, Enrico 137, 149, 156, 264 Garin, Eugenio 10, 18, 51, 75, 264 Gatta, Francesca 170, 193, 264 Gelli, Giovan Battista 33, 79, 105–110, 115–119, 122, 128, 129, 131, 138, 154, 169–171, 191, 227, 232, 254, 260–262, 269–270 Genua, Marcantonio 59, 61 Gherardi, Ubertino 185 Ghinassi, Ghino 122, 156, 264 Giacomo da Montecorvino 238, 240 Giamboni, Bono 133, 156, 264 Giannotti, Donato 12, 17, 53, 254 Giglio, Domenico 58, 279 Gigliucci, Roberto 71, 75, 264 Gilmore, Myron P. 36, 45, 264 Gilson, Simon 49, 52, 59, 73–75, 151, 157, 219, 233, 256–257, 262, 265, 269, 272 Ginzburg, Carlo 20, 38, 40, 45, 66, 68–70, 72, 75, 95, 109, 116, 171, 265 Giolito, Gabriele 59 Giolito, Giovanni 58 Giovanni Andrea Prigisano 237, 247 Giovanni Battista da Bologna 243 Giovanni Battista di Bressa 249 Giovanni Battista Giglio 242 Giovanni Battista Villegas 238 Giovanni da Pairana 236 Giovanni Dominicus Simeoni 249 Giovanni Donato de Rinaldo 248 Giovanni Gioacchino da Passano 88 Girardi, Maria Teresa 55, 75, 85, 89, 101, 114, 116, 255, 265 Girolamo di Lugo 248 Giulio da Bergamo 246 Giulio da Milano 67 Giunti, Lucantonio 53, 58 Giuseppe da Ravenna 250 Goineo, Giovan Battista 56 Gonzaga, Ercole 65, 70 Gonzaga, Galeazzo 57 Gotti, Aurelio 132, 156, 265 Grafton, Anthony 147, 155, 166, 193, 263, 265

Grau, Friedrich 64 Gregorio da Piacenza 239 Gregorius Romanus 248 Gregory, Tullio 102, 104–105, 116, 265 Grendler, Paul F. 121, 156, 167, 170, 193, 265 Gribaldi, Matteo 89 Griffante, Caterina 190, 193, 265 Gualteruzzi da Fano 133, 154, 254 Guarino, Angelico 64 Guidi, Francesco 248 Guilelmus a Volterra 244 Guthmüller, Bodo 131, 135–136, 138–1139, 155–156, 262, 265•266 Hall, Crystal 187, 193, 266 Hamesse, Jacqueline 135, 266 Hewson, Lance 134, 156, 266 Hieronimus Caballus 237 Hippolitus a Ferrara 235 Hippolytus a Placentia 248 Hobson, Anthony 187, 193, 266 Holbein, Hans 27 Honoratus de Robertis 239 Horatius a Montecatino 243 Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego 186–187, 193, 266 Iacomini, Marco Aurelio 235 Ignatius Ebolitanus 243 Imperatore, Bartolomeo 58 Innamorati, Giuliano 56, 75, 266 Innocente da Viadana 242 Ioannes Armij 250 Ioannes Cochius 238 Iosephus de Ostra 241, 244 Isidoro 243 Isidoro da Cremona 238 Jacobson Schutte, Anne 170, 193, 266 Jarava, Juan de 184 Jedin, Hubert 84, 117, 266 Josephus Cremonensis 238, 2248 Judde de Larivière, Claire 12, 13, 18, 266 Jules III 68 Kempis, Thomas à 40, 44, 254 Kraye, Jill 49, 52, 59, 74–75, 95, 115, 151, 157, 217, 219, 232–233, 256–257, 261–262, 265–266, 269, 272 Kristeller, Paul O. 51–52, 75, 266–267 Kusukawa, Sachiko 55, 57, 76, 268 Lallicata, Gabriele 242 Landi, Giulio 7, 216–217, 232, 254, 257 Landino, Cristoforo 120 Langer, Ullrich 57, 75, 267 Latini, Brunetto 184 Laurentius a S. Severino 236 Laureys, Marc 94, 115, 261 Lauro, Pietro 61

281

Index

Lefèvre d’Étaples, Jacques 38, 44, 217, 232, 254, 257 Leo de Rubeis 239, 244 Leonardo Da Vinci 187, 194, 271 Leonardus a Mondolfo 237 Leonardus Coqueau Aurelius 238 Leonoro da Candiano 240 Leonorus de Lonico 236 Lepri, Valentina 169, 193, 267 Leushuis, Reinier 64, 75, 79, 117, 267 Librandi, Rita 120, 156, 187, 193, 267 Lines, David A. 47–48, 57–58, 76, 94–95, 115, 136, 153, 155, 157–158, 258, 261, 267, 271, 273 Lippi Bigazzi, Vanna 133, 156, 267 Lisini, Alessandro 133, 157, 267 Lo Re, Salvatore 57, 59, 76, 1621,93, 267 Lombardo, Bartolomeo 55 Long, Pamela O. 111, 117, 267 Longueil, Christophe de 64 Lorenzini, Francesco 60 Lorenzo da Terranova 238–239, 244 Lorenzo dal Silico 243 Lotto, Lorenzo 82 Lucchi, Piero 170, 193–194, 268 Lucius 238 Lucius Cremensis 240 Ludovico da Bologna 240 Ludovico di Messina 236 Ludovico Novarese 248 Ludovicus 238 Luther, Martin 10, 36, 65, 171 Machiavelli, Nicolò 52 Maffei, Bernardino 54 Maggi, Vencenzo 55–56, 59, 74, 262 Manelli, Luca 48, 236 Manenti, Giovanni 187–188, 190, 212, 232, 254 Manfredi, Girolamo 48, 76, 182, 187, 190, 247, 267 Manfredus Senesis 243 Mannucci, Francisco 248 Mantova Benavides, Marco 189 Manuzio, Aldo 63 Manuzio, Paolo 56, 189 Marazzini, Claudio 97, 104, 117, 134, 157, 268 Marcantonio Lanciotti da Massa 237 Marcatto, Dario 71, 75, 263 Marchetti, Valerio 171, 175, 182, 188, 194, 268 Marescotti, Gaspare 53 Mariano da Cortona 238, 240, 242–243 Marsilio 247 Martelletti, Innocenzo 280 Martelletti, Petrus 241 Martin, Craig 169, 194, 268 Martinengo, Fortunato 56, 89, 115, 258 Martius Cremonensis 248 Marx, Barbara 184, 194, 268 Marytr Vermigli, Peter 62 Massa, Niccolò 168, 186, 189, 254

Masseo da Fiorenza 236 Mayer, Thomas F. 89, 117, 268 Mazzacurati, Giancarlo 122, 157, 268 McPhee, Sarah 182, 193, 268 Meda, Girolamo 60 Meda, Valerio 60 Medici, Cosimo de’ 224 Medici, Giuliano de’ 53 Medici, Lorenzo de’ 120–121 Mesnard, Paul 21, 45, 268 Miano, Simona 190, 194, 268 Michel Angiolo da Milano 247 Mikkeli, Heikki 55, 72, 76, 268 Minnich, Nelson H. 36, 45, 268 Mollo, Marcello 238, 249 Monfasani, John 36, 45, 268 Mongiat Farina, Caterina 122, 157, 268 Monte, Giovanni Battista 56, 76, 269 Montefusco, Antonio 13, 18, 48, 76, 269 Morlino, Luca 135, 157, 269 Most, Glenn W. 1 Motolese, Matteo 132, 156, 264 Muccillo, Maria 56, 76, 269 Murano, Giovanna 180, 192, 260 Muratori, Cecilia 201, 206, 251, 269 Musso, Cornelio 22, 79, 84–85, 88, 100–101, 114–117, 254–255, 259, 265–266, 269–270 Mutini, Claudio 56, 76, 269 Muzio, Girolamo 99, 114, 254 Navò Curtio 59 Nelli, Bartolomeo 182 Newman, Karen 136, 157, 269 Nicolò Cristiani 240 Norman, Corrie E. 85, 117, 269 Norton, Glyn P. 132, 135, 157, 269 Nosseni, Giovanni Maria 184 Ochino, Bernardino 62, 65 Octavius a Buxeto 244, 250 Octavius Alexandrinus 242 Odoni, Rinaldo 182, 184, 186 Ohly, Friedrich 19, 45, 269 Onofrio da Bologna 237, 240–241, 244 Orsini, Leone 55–56, 182 Ottaviano Turriani 241 Ovid 54 Paccagnella, Ivano 63, 75, 121, 156, 264 Pade, Marianne 102, 117, 269 Padoano, Giovanni 59 Pagano, Antonio 67 Panigarola, Francesco 96–97, 113, 254 Panizza, Letizia 219, 233, 269 Paolo da Janitroli 236 Paolo da Stroncone 242 Paolo da Terranova 239 Paris, Jean 134, 157, 269 Pasini, Maffeo 58–59

282 

The Democr atization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

Paul III 85 Paul IV 68 Paulo da Brescia 245 Pazzi, Alessandro de’ 52 Pellegrino da Brescia 247 Périon, Joachim 145 Perrone Compagni, Vittoria 105, 111, 117, 269, 270 Persico, Panfilo 168, 182, 210, 212, 232, 254 Petrucci, Armando 170, 194, 270 Peyronel Rambaldi, Susanna 70, 76, 270 Piaia, Gregorio 85, 117, 270 Piccolomini, Alessandro 7, 47–49, 51, 53–55, 57, 59–61, 70, 72–74, 76, 79, 91–96, 100, 106, 112, 114–115, 118–119, 122–123, 125–128, 131, 135–136, 143–144, 149–150, 153–155, 162–164, 168–169, 176, 178–182, 184–192, 194, 203, 217, 219–221, 223–224, 232–235, 241, 255, 259–261, 262, 268–269, 271, 273 Piccolomini, Carlo 53 Pierattini, Giovanna 179, 180, 194, 270 Pietrasanta, Plinio di 59 Pietrobon, Ester 69, 76, 270 Pifferi, Francesco 244 Pili da Fano, Giovanni 172, 191, 255 Pincio, Aurelio 58 Pini, Carlo 53 Pio, Alberto 19, 35–38, 40–44, 80, 90, 101 Plaisance, Michel 57, 76, 270 Plato 16, 61, 84, 124–125, 155, 189–190, 217 Plutarch 109, 178 Pole, Reginald 62, 70, 89, 117 Pollastrello dei Vitali, Girolamo 64 Pomponazzi, Pietro 25, 29, 52–54, 62, 103, 124, 129, Poppi, Angelico 85, 117, 270 Poppi, Antonino 22, 46, 270 Porphyry 201 Porro, Antonietta 135, 157, 270 Portinari, Pierfrancesco 53, 185 Pozzi, Mario 103, 109, 117, 270 Priscianese, Francesco 53 Prosperi, Adriano 69, 72, 75, 231, 265 Puliafito, Anna Laura 105, 117–118 Pym, Anthony 50, 76, 270 Rampazetto, Francesco 60 Raphael a Bononia 239 Raphael a Brixia 241 Rapucci, Neri 185 Refe, Laura 170, 176, 194 Refini, Eugenio 47, 76, 95, 100, 115, 136, 153, 155, 157–158, 261, 267, 271, 273 Remigio Fumanelli 236 Renata (duchess of Ferrara) 61, 67–69, 71, 81 Renda, Umberto 70, 77, 271 Reti, Ladislao 187, 194, 271 Reusch, Franz Heinrich 89, 118, 271 Riccardo da Bologna 237 Riccardo da Pavia 248

Ricci, Marcello 188, 278 Richardson, Brian 10, 18, 131, 271 Ridolfi, Roberto 53, 77, 271 Rizzi, Andrea 136, 157, 271 Roffeni, Giovanni Antonio 201–206 Roffinelli, Venturino 58 Romani, Werther 138, 157, 271 Romano, Francesco 240 Romei, Giovanni 56, 77, 271 Romualdo 245–246 Rosa, Piro 120, 156, 193, 267 Rosello, Lucio Paolo 64 Rossi, Paolo 111, 118, 271 Rossi, Vittorio 10, 18, 271 Rubiols, Girolamo 182 Rucellai, Giovanni 52 Rucellai, Giovanni 52, 278 Rucellai, Palla 52 Ruggeri, Bonifacio 68 Ruginella, Jacobus 237 Rummel, Erika 35, 46, 271 Rusconi, Giovanni Antonio 184, 192, 260 Rustici, Giuliano 186 Sabbadini, Remigio 132, 157, 271 Sabio, Antonio de 64 Sacré, Dirk 135, 257 Sadoleto, Jacopo 71, 89, 116, 262 Salicato, Altobello 60 Salvatore da Vitiana 243 Salzberg, Rosa 12–13, 18, 203, 206–207, 266, 271–272 Samuels, Richard 55, 57, 77, 272 Sansovino, Francesco 56, 260 Sanudo, Marin 12, 17, 255 Sarton, George 175, 194, 272 Sassi, Panfilo 54, 70, 103 Sauli, Caterina 88–89 Savino, Giancarlo 133, 156, 239–240, 243 Scaino, Antonio 7, 49, 168, 209, 210, 232, 255 Scamici, Niccolò 186 Scandella, Domenico 109 Scarpa, Emanuela 189, 194, 272 Schmitt, Charles B. 145, 157, 272 Scipione de Muria 240 Scoto, Geronimo 59 Scoto, Girolamo 58 Scoto, Ottaviano 58 Sebastiano da Potenza 172, 192, 261 Sebastiano di Campo Rotondo 237 Sefano Maconcini 241 Segni, Bernardo 47–48, 51, 53, 57–58, 73, 75–77, 106, 224–225, 232, 246, 255, 258, 267, 271 Segre, Cesare 135, 157, 272 Seidel Menchi, Silvana 36, 63–64, 69, 77, 79, 86, 88–89, 118, 272 Serafino da Savignano 249 Seraphinus a Ravenna 237 Seraphinus Ianuari 243

283

Index

Settis, Salvatore 148, 155, 263 Sgarbi, Marco 24, 46, 48, 55–56, 74–75, 109, 118, 134, 151–152, 157–158, 260–262, 265, 272–273 Sickel, Lothar 182, 194, 273 Siekiera, Annalisa 93, 118, 135–136, 158 Silli, Antonio 236, 247 Silli, Bonifacio 236, 247 Simon de Verona 246 Simoncelli, Paolo 20, 46, 56, 66, 69–71, 77, 80, 85, 118, 273 Simone Bartolozzi 245, 249 Simplicianus Senensis 236 Sisto da Verona 237 Sisto di Palermo 243 Soldà, Francesco 171 Soranzo, Vittore 71 Sozzini, Celso 56, 70 Sozzini, Mariano 56, 70 Speroni, Sperone 22–23, 29, 33, 45, 47–49, 51–52, 54–59, 62, 64, 67, 70, 72–74, 76, 79, 88, 101–106, 1114, 118–119, 122–125, 128, 131, 154–155, 173, 186–187, 189, 255, 261, 268, 274 Spilimbergo, Adriano 178 Spilimbergo, Giovan Francesco 178 Spina, Filippo 185 Spini, Giorgio 65, 68, 77, 273 Spinoli della Pergola, Attilio 238, 241 St Paul 20, 38–39, 41, 101, 183 Stampa, Federico 64 Stefano 236 Stefano da Miranda 248 Steiner, George 134, 158, 273 Stephano da Sassolo 242 Stephanus a Plebe Sacci 238 Strangia, Gregorius 242 Strozzi, Giovambattista 52, 184 Sturlese, Loris 29, 46, 120, 158, 273, 275 Tartaglia, Niccolò 169, 184–185, 187, 189, 191, 255 Tavoni, Mirko 120, 122, 158, 273 Teci, Pietro 185 Tesi, Riccardo 135, 158, 273 Tessicini, Dario 139, 158, 274 Theodoro da Milano 250 Theodosius Brixiensis 249 Theophrastus 201 Thode, Henry 10, 274 Thompson, Craig R. 31, 274 Tolomei, Claudio 169, 191, 255 Tomasin, Lorenzo 132, 156, 264 Tomaso di Scigliano 242 Tomitano, Bernardino 55, 57, 75, 79, 88–91, 100–101, 114, 116, 125, 154, 255–256, 261, 265 Tommaso da Capua 241 Tommola, Jorma 76, 270 Toscanella, Orazio 49, 119, 132,141–143, 150, 154, 186, 256 Tridapale, Antonio 109–110, 114, 189, 256 Trifone, Pietro 120–122, 158, 167

Trimbocco, Dionigi 54 Trovato, Paolo 121, 158, 166, 170, 195, 274 Tylus, Jane 136, 157, 269 Ugurgieri, Ciampolo 132, 156, 265 Usper, Ludovico 183 Valdés, Juan de 62, 65, 69, 74, 262 Valentini, Bonifacio 71 Valeriano da Bologna 242 Valeriano, Pierio 56 Valla, Lorenzo 16 Van Gulik, Egbertus 64 Varisco, Giovanni 60 Vasoli, Cesare 102, 118, 274 Vatteroni, Selene Maria 69, 77, 274 Vecce, Carlo 187, 194, 274 Vecellius, Titian 117 Veneziani, Paolo 170, 195, 274 Venier, Francesco 49, 73, 183,227, 256, 257 Venturi, Porzia 188 Vergerio, Pier Paolo 64–65, 197–198, 205–206, 256 Verino the Elder, Francesco 53 Verino the Younger, Francesco 169 182, 230–232, 256 Vespucci, Amerigo 203 Vianello, Valerio 55–58, 77, 121, 158, 274 Vicentio di Firenze 247 Vickers, Brian 111, 118 Vieri, Pietro 182 Vigevano, Tommaso da 71 Villani, Giovanni 132, 158, 274 Villata, Edoardo 187, 195, 275 Virgil 54, 141 Visconti, Pietro 175 Vitale da Milano 241 Vitale, Maurizio 122, 159, 275 Vitaletti, Guido 201, 207, 275 Vitalis 236 Vito di Gozze, Nicolò 49, 182, 249 Vives, Juan Luis 61, 69, 74, 181, 260 Vizzani, Pompeo 49 Volpini, Giovanni Antonio di 58 Wasik, Wiktor 205, 207, 275 Weaver, Elissa B. 180, 192, 260 Weiler, Anton G. 29, 46, 275 Williams, Steven J. 29, 46, 275 Winkler, Gerhard B. 31, 46, 275 Worth, Virginia 135, 159, 275 Zanetti, Bartolomeo 58–60 Zanetti, Daniele 60 Zanini, Simone 186 Zemon Davis, Natalie 17–18, 161, 165–166, 175, 195, 275 Ziletti, Giordano 60 Zorzi, Andrea 13, 18, 171, 275